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David Rice Atchison was a mid-19th century Democratic United States Senator from Missouri. He served as President pro tempore of the United States Senate for six years. Atchison served as a major general in the Missouri State Militia in 1838 during Missouri's Mormon War and as a Confederate brigadier general during the American Civil War under Major General Sterling Price in the Missouri Home Guard. He is best known for the claim that for 24 hours—Sunday, March 4, 1849 through noon on Monday—he may have been Acting President of the United States. This belief, however, is dismissed by nearly all historians, scholars, and biographers.
Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas, or the Border War was a series of violent civil confrontations in the Kansas Territory between 1854 and 1861. These emerged from a political and ideological conflict over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas. The conflict was characterized by years of electoral fraud, raids, assaults, and retributive murders carried out in Kansas and neighboring Missouri by pro-slavery "Border Ruffians" and anti-slavery "Free-Staters", John Brown in particular.
The Territory of Kansas was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 30, 1854, until January 29, 1861, when the eastern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the free state of Kansas.
In Kansas, Border Ruffians was the name applied to pro-slavery activists from the slave state of Missouri, who from 1854 to 1860 crossed the state border into Kansas Territory to force the acceptance of slavery there.
The Sacking of Lawrence occurred on May 21, 1856, when pro-slavery activists, led by Douglas County Sheriff Samuel J. Jones, attacked and ransacked Lawrence, Kansas, a town which had been founded by anti-slavery settlers from Massachusetts who were hoping to make Kansas a free state. The incident fuelled the irregular conflict in Kansas Territory that later became known as Bleeding Kansas.
The Pottawatomie massacre occurred during the night of May 24 and the morning of May 25, 1856. In reaction to the sacking of Lawrence, Kansas by pro-slavery forces, John Brown and a band of abolitionist settlers—some of them members of the Pottawatomie Rifles—killed five pro-slavery settlers north of Pottawatomie Creek in Franklin County, Kansas. This was one of the many violent episodes in Kansas preceding the American Civil War, which came to be known collectively as Bleeding Kansas. Bleeding Kansas involved conflicts between pro- and anti-slavery settlers over whether Kansas Territory would enter the Union as a slave state or free state.
The Thirty-fourth United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, consisting of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C., from March 4, 1855, to March 4, 1857, during the last two years of Franklin Pierce's presidency. The apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives was based on the Seventh Census of the United States in 1850. The Whig Party, one of the two major parties of the era, had largely collapsed, although many former Whigs ran as Republicans or as members of the "Opposition Party." The Senate had a Democratic majority, and the House was controlled by a coalition of Representatives led by Nathaniel P. Banks, a member of the American Party.
Clinton is an unincorporated community situated on a peninsula next to Clinton Lake in Douglas County, Kansas, United States.
Kansas has always been home to many forts and military posts.
Eggert House is located 1½ miles west of the abandoned Franklin townsite in Douglas County, Kansas. Franklin was east of Lawrence, Kansas. Originally the house was a log hut that the Johan H. Eggert family moved into in 1856. At the time pro-southern partisans raided the area, taking items from area settlers, including the Eggert family.
John Henry Kagey, also spelled John Henrie Kagi, was an American attorney, abolitionist and second in command to John Brown in Brown's failed raid on Harper's Ferry. He bore the title of "Secretary of War" in Brown's "provisional government." At age 24, Kagi was killed during the raid. He had also been active in fighting on the abolitionist side in 1856 in "Bleeding Kansas".
Samuel Walker was an American soldier, lawman and politician who settled in Lawrence, Kansas and served as an officer during Bleeding Kansas and the American Civil War.
Franklin was a small town established in 1854 in Douglas County, Kansas Territory. Established as a proslavery stronghold, the town played a key role in the "Bleeding Kansas" conflict that troubled the territory in the 1850s.
Franklin's Fort was a small fortification that had been erected in Franklin, Douglas County, Kansas by pro-slavery settlers. During the "Bleeding Kansas" period, the fort was the site of two minor battles between pro- and anti-slavery factions.
The Battle of Fort Titus was a battle that occurred during conflicts in the Kansas Territory between abolitionist and pro-slavery militias prior to the American Civil War. The era is known as Bleeding Kansas.
Camp Sacket, sometimes spelled Camp Sackett, was a field post southeast of Lecompton, Kansas, that moved a number of times for various reasons. It was established probably in May 1856 or possibly a bit earlier. It was named for Capt. Delos B. Sackett, who was stationed there during part of the post's existence. Sacket served in the American Civil War and was with the U.S. Army until 1881, when he retired as a brigadier general.
Fort Saunders, 4 miles (6.4 km) southeast of Clinton, Kansas, and 12 miles (19 km) southwest of Lawrence, Kansas, was owned by James D. Saunders, a militia captain. What little was left of Clinton disappeared during construction of the Clinton Lake in the 1960s; only an outbuilding that was converted into a museum remains.
New Georgia's Fort was located in Miami County, Kansas, southeast of Osawatomie. During the partisan warfare in Kansas Territory in 1856, a colony of Southerners, possibly all Georgians, established New Georgia. This colony was located on the Marias des Cygnes River. A blockhouse fort was constructed there and entrenchments were begun but the fort destroyed before the entrenchments could be completed. Northern settlers in the area claimed settlers at New Georgia harassed them. In reality, some settlers from both the North and South had groups who caused trouble with their neighbors.
Fort Titus was the fortress residence of pro-slavery advocate Henry T. Titus, built in Kansas in April 1856, during a period when forces aligned with Titus came into conflict with free-state settlers. The wider conflict, which emerged from a political and ideological debate over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas, became known as Bleeding Kansas.
Samuel Jefferson Jones was a pro-slavery settler who held the position of Douglas County sheriff in Kansas Territory from late 1855 until early 1857. He helped found the territorial capital of Lecompton and played a prominent role in the "Bleeding Kansas" conflict.
References
- ↑ W. H. T. Wakefield, "Early History of Kanwaka Township," unpublished address delivered in western Douglas County, July 4, 1876, pp. 1, 9 (from the Manuscript Div. of the Kansas Historical Society, Topeka, Kans.).
- ↑ John Lawrie, letter to Arthur Lawrie, April 16, 1857, in "Letters on the War in Kansas in 1856," Kansas Historical Quarterly, November 1941, Vol. 10, No. 4, p. 376, online in the Kansas Collection website, at http://www.kancoll.org/khq/1941/41_4_gibbens.htm
- ↑ John H. Gihon, M.D., Geary and Kansas (Philadelphia: Charles C. Rhodes, 1857), chapter XVI, on line at http://www.kancoll.org/books/gihon/g_chap16.htm .
- ↑ "John A. Wakefield," Lawrence Daily Journal-World, June 19, 1928, p. 4.