Lore of the Week - Bleeding Kansas

Kansas has been in turmoil since 1855 when the decision to add it to the United States included permitting Kansas citizens to self-determine if it would permit slaves.  Pro slavery Missourians and Anti slavery factions from the North waged war on each other  earning the nickname "Bleeding Kansas" for the territory.  Admitted to the Union January 1861 as a free-state, it provided troops to the Union Army.   

During  the war, with slavery off the table, pro-Confederacy  and independent, sentiment began to creep into the Kansas citizenry so that by the Summer of 1867 small groups of Confederacy supporters and Union supporters would raid one another, continuing the reputation of Bleeding Kansas.   Union garrisons were able to quell the violence but 10 years later in the Summer of '77, after a series of corruption scandals the state government collapsed leaving the populous to divide the state into competing  regions; some loyal to the Confederacy, some to the USA, and even some seeking independence from both. The US government sent troops in enforce the rule of law and established a provisional government in Lawrence with mixed results.