YEAR: 1856

Bleeding Kansas

By the summer of 1856, the Kansas Territory had become a battlefield in miniature for the war over slavery's expansion. In May, pro-slavery forces sacked the free-state town of Lawrence, burning the hotel and press to the ground with the tacit blessing of federal authorities. Days later, John Brown and a small band of abolitionist fighters retaliated at Pottawatomie Creek, executing five pro-slavery settlers in the night, a brutal act born of the conviction that slavery could not be reasoned with, only fought. Through the summer, guerrilla warfare spread across the territory, free-state militias battling pro-slavery "border ruffians" from Missouri in raids and skirmishes at Black Jack and Osawatomie. This was not fringe extremism but the opening battle of the Civil War itself, fought seven years early.