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.

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.