Address, read at the annual meeting of the “Military Order of the
Loyal Legion,” held at Fort Leavenworth, June 24th, 1887.
COMMANDER AND COMPANIONS: It is impossible, within the brief limits of
an after-dinner talk, to fairly respond to the toast assigned me.
“Kansas, in peace and in war,” is a vast theme. It is the meridian of
American progress and American heroism. “_Ad astra per aspera_”—to the
stars through difficulties and dangers, but always to the stars; upward,
onward, higher, highest, no matter what it cost of labor, sacrifice, or
danger—the record of Kansas, through every step and stage of her
marvelous history, has been an illustration of her motto.
The Kansas of peace you who have gathered here to-night know something
of. Its growth has been phenomenal in the history of American
Commonwealths. Four hundred miles long by two hundred miles wide, this
great heart of the American continent throbs with warm, ardent, and
aggressive life and enterprise, and has sent pulsing through every
artery of the Nation the inspiring blood of its splendid example, and
the quickening vigor of its magnificent energy. Attracting the best
brain and brawn of the civilized world, Kansas has fused all into a
homogeneous and cosmopolitan people, whose achievements have been a
wonder and a model for all the generations of men. In less than three
decades the men and women of Kansas have wiped a desert from the map of
America and replaced it with eighty-two thousand square miles of
cultivated fields, and fragrant meadows, and towering forests; have
dotted the whole of this vast territory with prosperous cities, towns
and villages; have sent a locomotive whistling through nearly every
county; have planted school houses and churches in every township; and
have accumulated greater and more equitably distributed wealth than is
possessed by any other equal number of people on the face of the globe.
Fairly but very briefly summarized, this is the record of Kansas in
peace.
In war, the history of the young State was no less eventful and
distinguished. The flash of the gun at Sumter was, to the people of the
country generally, like a thunderbolt out of a serene and cloudless sky.
But in Kansas its echoes fell upon the ears of a people ready for the
contest. The slave power had invaded this State with fire and sword.
Around the homes of the pioneers of Kansas, during seven long and tragic
years, the fierce tides of civil war had surged and roared. The conflict
had drawn hither a host of bright, enthusiastic, daring young men, and
had inured them to the hardships and dangers of camp and field. They had
illustrated, in their daily walk and life, the sublime virtues of
courage, patience, endurance, and self-sacrifice. They had measured the
desperate ambitions of slavery; they understood its intolerant and
destructive spirit; and when it finally assailed the life of the
Republic, they were neither surprised, dismayed, nor unprepared.
The call to arms was, therefore, responded to, by the people of Kansas,
with unparalleled unanimity and enthusiasm. Long before the President’s
official notification reached the Governor, military companies had been
organized in every city, town and hamlet in the State, and the first two
regiments sworn into the service of the United States were not
recruited—their companies were selected out of enough offered to form
half a dozen regiments.
From that day until the close of the Rebellion, the representatives of
the young State at Washington were kept busy importuning and begging the
War Department to accept and muster in the rapidly-forming military
organizations. The official records of the war show that, reducing the
troops furnished to a three-years standard, only one State in the Union
filled the quotas assigned it, and that State was Kansas. The General
Government called on Kansas, during the four years from 1861 to 1864,
for 12,931 men, and she furnished a total of 20,661—nearly double the
number called for. Reduced to a three-years standard, Kansas furnished
18,706 men, or 5,775 in excess of the number called for.
The quotas assigned all the States were based on their population. The
census of 1860 gave Kansas a population of 107,206, and of this number
only 59,178 were males, and only 28,097 between the ages of twenty and
fifty years. At an exciting election held in the fall of 1860, the total
vote of the State was less than 17,000. The young State, therefore,
contributed to the Union army nearly 4,000 more soldiers than it had
voters in 1860. Such a record of devotion to a cause is, I venture to
say, unexampled in the history of any other war that has ever occurred
in any age or country.
Under the call of April 15th, 1861, for 75,000 three-months men, no
quota was assigned to Kansas, but she furnished 650.
“Abra was ready ere I called her name,
And though I called another, Abra came.”
Under the second call, that of May 3d, 1861, for 500,000 three-years
men, the quota assigned to Kansas was 3,235, but she furnished 6,953.
Under the call of July 2d, 1862, for 300,000 three-years men, Kansas’
quota was 1,771, but she furnished 2,936. Under the calls of October
17th, 1863, and February 1st, 1864, for 500,000 three-years men, the
quota of Kansas was 3,523, but she furnished 5,874. Under the call of
March 14th, 1864, for 200,000 three-years men, Kansas’ quota was 1,409,
but she furnished 2,564. Under the calls of July 18th, and December
19th, 1864, the quota of Kansas was 1,222, and she furnished 1,234. The
only call to which Kansas did not respond was that of August 4th, 1862,
for 300,000 nine-months men. The volunteers of Kansas went in for three
years. The only enlistments for a briefer period were those of the
Second Kansas for three months, under the President’s first call for
troops, and the greater part of this regiment, immediately on its
muster-out, reënlisted for three years; a battalion of 441 men,
recruited in the autumn of 1864, for the hundred-days service; and 622
men, furnished in December, 1864, for one year. Of the 20,661 volunteers
furnished by Kansas during the Rebellion, all except 1,713 enlisted “for
three years, or during the war.”
These cold official records illustrate, more eloquently than any
language can describe, the splendid enthusiasm with which the patriotic
people of Kansas “rallied around the flag.” But impressive and wonderful
as they are, they do not tell the whole story. Kansas was called upon,
during the first year of the war, to furnish only 3,235 men, and is
credited, on the quotas of that year, with 7,603, but she actually
furnished nine full regiments and one battery before the close of the
year 1861. During the second year of the war she was called upon for
1,771 three-years and 1,771 nine-months men, and she responded with four
full regiments and a battery for three years—none for nine months.
During 1863 and 1864, her quotas aggregated 6,154, and she furnished
five full regiments and a battery for three years, a battalion of nearly
500 men for one hundred days, and over 600 men for a year. Thus the
young State furnished, during the war, nine regiments of infantry, nine
of cavalry, three batteries, and five companies; and 1,209 of these
men—mainly of the First, Seventh, Eighth and Tenth regiments—reënlisted,
in 1863, as veterans. Thus every call made upon Kansas was filled at
once, and, during the first two years of the war, doubly filled, by her
eager, brave and patriotic sons.
With what dauntless courage and unselfish devotion the soldiers of
Kansas followed the flag; with what confident faith and sublime
self-sacrifice they marched and fought, and suffered and died, the
unexampled losses they sustained in battle will conclusively prove. In
January, 1867, the Provost Marshal General of the army, Gen. J. B. Fry,
made a report showing the proportion of soldiers killed in battle, per
thousand men, from each loyal State. Kansas headed the list with 61.01;
Vermont ranked second, with 58.22; and Massachusetts third, 47.76.
General Fry, in commenting on this notable record, says:
“Kansas shows the highest battle mortality of the table.... The same
singularly martial disposition which induced about half of the
able-bodied men of the State to enter the army without bounty, may
be supposed to have increased their exposure to the casualties of
battle after they were in the service.”
In all that I have said concerning the record of Kansas during the war,
I have simply quoted the official figures. But these are a eulogy far
above and far beyond the compass of words. They establish three
remarkable facts: First, that Kansas was the only State in the Union
that filled, and more than filled, the quotas assigned her; second, that
she furnished more soldiers, in proportion to population, than any other
State; and, third, that the proportion of her soldiers killed in battle
was larger than that of any other State.
But not alone in the number of soldiers furnished and their casualties
in battle, was Kansas a notable figure during the civil war. With
Missouri on her eastern border, the Indian Territory south, and westward
the vast plains, swarming with savages, the young State was almost
surrounded by foes, and the position of her people was one of extreme
exposure and peril. Her volunteer regiments were soon ordered to distant
points. The First and Seventh were in the Army of the Tennessee; the
Eighth was serving in the Army of the Cumberland; the Tenth was with the
Army of the Gulf; the Fifth was with the Army of the Southwest; and
nearly all the others were attached to the Army of the Frontier. Thus it
happened that the borders of Kansas were frequently left exposed to the
fury of her enemies, and were repeatedly invaded by swarms of
guerrillas. More than a dozen cities and towns of Kansas were sacked and
burned by the cowardly, brutal miscreants who followed Quantrell,
Anderson, Todd, and other border chiefs. And at last, in October, 1864,
the strong army of the Confederate General Price moved northward to
invade the State, expecting to capture Fort Leavenworth, and drive from
this region of country all the loyal people.
But Kansas was prepared even for such an emergency as this. The
isolation and perils of her position were fully comprehended by her
people, and in every city, town and neighborhood within her borders,
companies of well-armed and fairly-drilled militia had been organized.
The flower of the young State’s youth and manhood was in the volunteer
service, but the boys and the old men, and those whose physical
conditions or personal duties prevented them from enlisting for
continuous service, were ready for this emergency. The Governor’s call
to the militia for active service was responded to, at once, by
twenty-four well-organized regiments, numbering fully 16,000 men, and
for twenty days this force did duty in the field. It invaded Missouri;
it confronted, with sturdy firmness, the veteran legions of Price;
several regiments participated in severe engagements, in which they
sustained heavy losses; all were honorably mentioned by the Commanding
General of the United States forces; and their numbers, enthusiasm and
valor contributed largely to the utter discomfiture of the Confederate
army, and its hasty retreat.
“States are not great
Except as men may make them.
Men are not great except they do and dare.
But States, like men,
Have destinies that take them—
That bear them on, not knowing why or where.
* * * * *
“All merit lies
In daring the unequal.
All glory comes from daring to begin.
Fame loves the State
That, reckless of the sequel,
Fights long and well, though it may lose or win.
“Than in our State
No illustration apter
Is seen or found of faith, and hope, and will.
Take up her story;
Every leaf and chapter
Contains a record that conveys a thrill.”[4]
* * * * *
Footnote 4:
From Eugene F. Ware’s poem, “John Brown.”