KANSAS. 



539 



Felix Houston in the chief command, and was 

 involved in a duel with him in consequence. 

 In 1838, he was appointed secretary of war, 

 and, the following year, engaged in a success- 

 ful expedition against the Cherokees. In 1840, 

 he retired to private life for a time, in Brazo- 

 ria county, Texas ; but in 1846, at the solicita- 

 tion of General Taylor, he assumed the com- 

 mand of a volunteer Texan regiment against 

 the Mexicans. At the siege of Monterey, he 

 served as inspector-general, and won himself 

 much distinction. In October, 1849, he re- 

 ceived from President Taylor the appointment 

 of paymaster of the army, with the rank of 

 major. In 1857, he conducted the expedition 

 against the Mormons, and commanded the dis- 



trict of Utah, with the brevet rank of briga- 

 dier-general, until 1860, when he was removed 

 to the command of the Pacific department, and 

 stationed at San Francisco. His sympathies 

 being upon the side of the Southern Confed- 

 eracy, he was making arrangements to deliver 

 the State of California to the Confederacy when 

 he was unexpectedly superseded in his com- 

 mand, by General E. V. Sumner, before his 

 plans were completed. Upon his return to the 

 East he was placed in an important command, 

 and, at the battle of Shiloh, was commander- 

 in-chief of the Confederate army of the West, 

 and, in the first day of that sanguinary fight, 

 when encouraging and urging forward his 

 troops, was mortally wounded. 



K 



KANSAS, a central State of the American 

 Union, admitted to the Union in 1861. Area, 

 80,000 square miles; population in 1860, 107,- 

 206. The local administration of the State in 

 1862 was involved in some trouble ; Gov. 

 Eobinson, elected in 1860, before the admis- 

 sion of the State into the Union, claiming to 

 hold over, on the ground that the term for 

 which he was elected had not expired, while, 

 at an election held under the State constitu- 

 tion, George A. Crawford was elected by 5,429 

 votes. The matter was finally settled by the 

 courts, which decided that Gov. Robinson's 

 claim was just. In the autumn of 1862 an 

 election for State officers, Legislature and 

 members of Congress, was held, and Thomas 

 Carney, the republican candidate, was elected 

 governor for two years from Jan. 1st, 1863, 

 receiving 4.545 majority. W. W. H. Law- 

 rence, also a republican, was elected secretary 

 of State for the same term. A. C. AY elder, 

 republican, was elected representative in Con- 

 gress, receiving 4,993 majority over the demo- 

 cratic candidate. The Legislature was about 

 four fifths republican. 



Having had long experience in border war- 

 fare, during her period of territorial pupil- 

 age, Kansas had a large military force, in 

 proportion to her population, ready to enter 

 the national service at the commencement of 

 the war. She had sent on the 1st of Dec., 

 1862. over 14.000 men into the field, a larger 

 percentage of the whole population than any 

 other State has contributed. 



In the spring of 1862 an expedition was 

 fitted out in the State to go south, through 

 the Indian Territory, to reduce the Indian 

 tribes which had joined the Confederacy to 

 subjection, and repossess the U. S. forts, Gib- 

 son, Arbuckle, Washita, and Cobb, of which 

 the Confederates had taken possession. The 

 expedition consisted of about 5,000 troops, of 

 which 2,000 were whites and 3,000 loyal In- 



dians. The expedition was unfortunate in its 

 commanders at first : Gen. Blunt having as- 

 signed the command to Col. Charles Donble- 

 day, of the Second Ohio cavalry ; but, from 

 some political influences, he was removed, and 

 Col. Wm. Weir, of Kansas, substituted. CoL 

 Weir's management was so inefficient and 

 ruinous that Col. Salmon, of the 9th Wisconsin 

 regiment, who commanded one of the bri- 

 gades, deemed it necessary to arrest him on 

 the charge of insanity. Under Col. Salmon's 

 management the expedition took possession of 

 the Indian Territory, arrested John Ross, the 

 principal Cherokee chief, as being of doubtful 

 sentiment toward the United States, and re- 

 ceived professions of loyalty from about two 

 thirds of the Cherokees and Creeks. The 

 Choctaws they found mostly on the side of the 

 Confederacy. Large numbers of the slaves of 

 the Indians enlisted in the army of the expedi- 

 tion as " Woolly-headed Indians." The expedi- 

 tion had subdued and held the country north 

 of the Arkansas river before the 25th of July, 

 and Gen. Blunt, on the 8th of August, tak- 

 ing command in person, routed the Confed- 

 erate force at Maysville, in the N. W. corner of 

 Arkansas, on the 22d of Oct.: on the 28th 

 and 29th of Nov. he again met and defeated, 

 with heavy loss, the Confederate forces under 

 Gen. Marmaduke, at Cane Hill, Ark. ; on the 

 7th of Dec. he defeated and scattered a great- 

 ly superior force (28,000) of the Confederates 

 under Gen. Hindman, at Prairie Grove, Ark., 

 his loss being about 1,000, and that of the 

 Confederates 1,500, the Confederates retreating 

 in the night, abandoning their dead and 

 wounded ; and on the 27th and 28th of Dec. 

 Gens. Herron and Blunt defeated two regi- 

 ments of Confederate cavalry at Dnpping 

 Spring, and captured Van Buren, a strong 

 fortress on the Arkansas river, taking one hun- 

 dred and twenty prisoners, and four steamboats 

 laden with stores. 



