OTTAWA — This summer is the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War and Franklin County Historical Society’s Deb Barker said it started here. Because of the Bleeding Kansas battles among Missourians trying to make the territory a slave state and New England and Midwest emigrants trying to keep the territory a free state, the Civil War basically started several years before the rest of the states got involved. The guerrilla war between Kansas Unionists and Missouri Confederate forces – with Missouri Unionists caught in the middle — was unusually vicious and bloody and had little of the historical romance of the “war between brothers” often associated with the Civil War, she said. Fighting was often marked with murders, massacres, wholesale theft and scorched earth tactics, she said. Kansans have memories of bloody attacks by C onfederates and Quantrill’s raid on Lawrence. But because of her association with the Freedom’s Frontier Historical Area that includes Franklin County, Barker said she learned about Missourians’ perspective, including the infamous General Order 11 immediately after Quantrill’s raid on Lawrence. That ordered all people living in the four Missouri counties along the border, Jackson, Cass, Bates and Vernon counties except for selected areas, to leave, which was carried out with enthusiasm by embittered Kansans. The area was referred to the “burned district” and traces still remain, she said. Animosity about the order still lingers, she said.
Wednesday, June 29, 4 p.m.
