The Missouri Border Ruffians
Kansas and Missouri were a microcosm of the larger Civil War, sparked in large part by the festering hostilities between the two states; families were divided, and the skirmishes across both states amounted to a war-before-the-war. Missouri was particularly unsettled regarding the central issue of slavery. The Blue Lodge, the Social Band, Sons of the South, and the Self-Defensives were secret brotherhoods that organized and led many of the Missouri pro-slavery forces in raids on communities in both Kansas and Missouri.
The divided state of Missouri suffered the third largest number of engagements during the war at 1,162. Only Virginia and Tennessee had more. Forty-thousand Missourians joined the Confederate ranks, while nearly three times that number joined the Union Army. When it was over, Missouri lost 27,000 of its valiant sons.
Kansas contributed 20,097 men to the Union Army, a remarkable record since the population included less than 30,000 men of military age. Kansas suffered the highest mortality rate of any of the Union states. Of the black troops in the Union army, 2,080 were credited to Kansas, though the 1860 census listed fewer than 300 blacks of military age in the state; most of them came from Arkansas and Missouri.