The Jayhawkers and Copperheads of Kansas

A member of the History Department at the University of California, Los Angeles, Albert Castél has specialized in the Civil War. His article on the Fort Pillow Massacre appeared in this magazine in March, 1958, and his book A Frontier State at War: 1861-1865 was published by the Cornell University Press last year. The Jayhawkers and Copperheads of Kansas ALBERT CASTEL "i would not for my life go into any part of Kansas and advocate the rebel cause. . . . The mere suspicion that one is disloyal may result in his being shot."1 So wrote a New York Tribune correspondent following a trip through Kansas early in 1863. The correspondent did not exaggerate. The overwhelming majority of Kansans were Northern in origin, Republican in politics, and intensely antislavery in sentiment. Moreover, they had bitter memories of the Missouri border ruffian invasions of the 1850's and of the long struggle to make Kansas a free state. As a consequence probably nowhere else in the North did there exist so fanatical a devotion to the Union cause and so passionate a hatred of the South and slavery as in this recently admitted and sparsely settled frontier state. The patriotism of the Kansans led to their contributing more Federal troops, in proportion to population, than any other Northern state; these troops suffered a higherpercentage of casualties than those of any other Northern state.2 Their strong antislavery, anti-Southern feeling also resulted in a fierce and ofttimes vicious persecution of any group or person in Kansas suspected of disloyalty or Southern sympathies. Thus the citizens of Elwood, as well as those of many other Kansas communities, 1 Quoted in Freedom's Champion (Atchison), March 31, 1863. 2 The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1880-1901), Ser. Ill, VoL 5, p. 667; hereinafter cited as O.R., followed by the series number in Roman numerals, the volume number in Arabic, the part number (if any), and the page, as O.R., III, 5, p. 667. 283 284albert castel publicly flogged alleged "secessionists" and ordered them to leave the state.3 At Topeka, members of the local Union League moved to "take care" of all Copperheads following the Lawrence Massacre.4 In Jefferson County, failure to join the militia or to enthusiastically support all war measures was generally sufficient to cause a man to lose his property or even his life.5 And at Junction City and Fort Scott, soldiers sacked newspapers accused of publishing treasonable statements.8 Such repressive measures, moreover, could be committed with legal impunity : The state legislature had declared all "rebel sympathizers" to be outside the protection of the law.7 The brunt of suspicion and persecution fell on settlers of Southern antecedents, and in particular on members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. When the ministers of this church met in Atchison in September, 1861, for their annual conference, city authorities notified them to transact their business and be out of town without two hours. Theirpresence caused an "unusual commotion" among the townspeople, who kept them under surveillance throughout their stay in Atchison. As the war proceeded and this sort of hysteria increased, members of the church became afraid of being known as such, and finally stopped attending public services. Soldiers destroyed a Southern Methodist meetinghouse at Shawnee Mission, and mobs wrecked its churches elsewhere. Often members found it necessary to meet clandestinely in private houses. Eventually all but four of Southern Methodist preachers in Kansas fled the state for fear of their lives; and of these four, only one "continued to preach through the war period." By the end of the war the Methodist Church, South, was nearly extinct in the state.8 The most notorious instance of the persecution of so-called Copperheads occurred in Leavenworth, then the chief city of Kansas. In June, 1861, Daniel R. Anthony, fiery Republican pubh'sher of the misnamed Leavenworth Daily Conservative, shot and killed R. C. Saterlee, Democratic editor of the rival Herald, for printing supposedly unpatriotic remarks . Anthony was brought to trial but acquitted; his deed apparently received general public approbation. The only...