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successful. Kansas entered the Union
as a free state on January 29, 1861,
becoming the 34th state. Less than
three months later, however, the Civil
War broke out. The slavery issue,
which had split “Bleeding Kansas” into
warring factions, was now tearing
apart the nation as a whole.
Most of the fighting in Kansas was
guerrilla warfare
. Deadly raids across
the Kansas-Missouri border continued
to occur. Once again, the town of
Lawrence was a target. On August 21,
1863, confederate guerrillas led by
William Clark Quantrill burned the
town down and killed almost 200 peo-
ple.
The most significant military battle
to occur in Kansas was the Battle of
Mine Creek. Fought in October 1864,
this was one of the largest cavalry bat-
tles of the war. It was a decisive loss
for the Confederates and one of the
last major battles fought west of the
Mississippi River.
The decades after the Civil War
were boom years for Kansas. In 1860,
Kansas’s population was just over
100,000. By 1880, the population had
reached one million. Most of the set-
20
Lower Plains: Kansas, Nebraska
This drawing, published in a
magazine in 1863, shows the
attack on Lawrence by Quantrill’s
Confederate raiders during the
Civil War. Quantrill planned the
attack in retaliation for Union
attacks on pro-slavery towns in
neighboring Missouri. More
than 180 civilians—most of
Lawrence’s adult male popula-
tion—were massacred during the
raid, and much of the town was
burned.