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Sectional Crisis and Civil War on the Western Border, 1860-1865, moderated by William Piston, Missouri State University, and featuring talks by:
Randy Mullis, Command and General Staff College; The Illusion of Security and the Fragility of Peace: Kansas and Missouri on the Eve of the Civil War
Jonathan Earle, University of Kansas; “If I Went West, I Think I Would Go To Kansas”: Abraham Lincoln, the Sunflower State, and the Election of 1860
Michael Fellman, a preeminent scholar of the American Civil War and an expert on the guerilla warfare that characterized the conflict in the Missouri-Kansas borderlands, considers how perfectly ordinary Americans could revise their moral and religious beliefs to justify such extraordinary violence with relative ease. Selectively picking texts from Holy Scripture, they assembled a war God perfectly suited to their actions out of Christian belief.
The Border Wars Conference, featuring sessions at both the Central Library and the Plaza Branch, offers an exploration of this most uncivil of wars while providing insight into the ways in which societies can be fragmented by ideology and ultimately rebuilt upon different lines.
On Saturday, November 5, 2011, at 2 pm, Gary Jenkins will be showing a short version of his video "Negroes to Hire" which explores the history of slavery in Missouri. It takes its name from an advertisement in the Library Tribune where Clay County slave masters let it be known that they had slaves who could be hired by others.
Historian Terry Beckenbaugh of the Military History Department at the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth discusses The First Year of the Civil War in Missouri.
Faced with a divided nation, Abraham Lincoln deemed the loyalty of the border slave states crucial to the preservation of the Union. But while most scholars contend that these states were secure by the end of 1861, award-winning historian William C. Harris argues in Lincoln and the Border States: Preserving the Union, that Confederate campaigns and guerrilla activities kept the region in constant turmoil, and that those states preoccupied Lincoln throughout the war.
Author and former Kansas City resident Justin Martin discusses his latest book, Genius of Place: The Life of Frederick Law Olmsted, a biography of the renowned landscape architect, early environmentalist, and abolitionist.
Frank B. Converse is considered by many to be the first great virtuoso of “America’s instrument” the five-string banjo.
Join Converse, portrayed by veteran Chautauqua performer Carl Anderton, for a discussion of his life and a demonstration of some Civil War-era banjo music. Converse worked tirelessly to dismiss the idea that the banjo was a simple instrument.
Terry Beckenbaugh of the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth discusses the first Civil War battle fought west of the Mississippi River, which took place in southwestern Missouri.
On August 10, 1861, Union General Nathaniel Lyon — who was encamped at Springfield with nearly 6,000 men — led a surprise attack on 12,000 secessionist troops camped at Wilson’s Creek. While the Confederates won the battle, they were left in no condition to pursue the retreating Federal forces, and Missouri remained under Union control.
The Plaza Branch concludes its annual Kansas City Architectures series, which in recognition of the sesquicentennial of the Civil War focused on antebellum homes this year.
Alana Smith, president of the Westport Historical Society, shares the history of the Harris-Kearney Home, the oldest remaining brick residence located in historic Westport. The home once looked out on the Santa Fe Trail and later served as a headquarters for the Union Army. It is now located at 4000 Baltimore after being moved from its original location in 1922.
