394 



KANSAS. 



KENT. 



K 



KANSAS, a central State of the American 

 Union, bounded N. by Nebraska Territory ; E. 

 by Missouri ; S. by the Indian Territory ; W. 

 by Colorado Territory. Population in 1860, 

 107,110. The Missouri Eiver washes it on the 

 N. E., and the Kansas and Osage tributaries 

 of the Missouri, and the Arkansas and its afflu- 

 ents, drain it. It was admitted into the Union 

 as a State in the congressional session of 

 1860-61. 



Kansas has been, from its first organization 

 as a territory, the scene of much suffering and 

 distress ; a border warfare ravaged it for nearly 

 five years, and it had not emerged from the 

 effects of the marauding forays, when, in the 

 summer and autumn of 1860, it was visited by 

 a terrible drought, which in the most populous 

 districts completely cut off the crops. The 

 famine which followed in the winter of 1860- 

 '61, was terrible. Thousands were reduced to 

 the verge of starvation, and a considerable 

 number actually perished. The liberality of the 

 other States, and their large contributions of 

 grain, clothing, &c., alleviated, to a consider- 

 able extent, the suffering. In the spring of 

 1861, at the first call for troops for the war, the 

 citizens of Kansas, inured, by their bitter expe- 

 riences in the past, to war, volunteered in 

 larg numbers, and the State, in proportion to 

 its population, furnished more soldiers than any 

 other State in the Union. 



The condition of Missouri, on her eastern 

 border, which the secessionists were struggling 

 to carry out of the Union, necessarily excited 

 much feeling among the citizens of Kansas, and 

 the recollection of the wrongs and indignities 

 which her people had suffered from the " bor- 

 der ruffians," as they were designated, most of 

 whom were inhabitants of Missouri, stimulated 

 some of those who had suffered most, to acts 

 of revenge, and a guerilla warfare, known in 

 that region as "jay -hawking," ensued through 

 most of the border counties, in which armed 

 bands of either party, Unionist or Secessionist, 

 visited the town, plundered the stores, laid the 

 prominent citizens adhering to the other under 

 contribution, or took them prisoners, and some- 

 times threatened them with instant death. In 

 the counties at some distance from the border 

 these outrages were less frequent, though occa- 

 sionally occurring. In the autumn of 1861, 

 preparations were made for organizing an army 

 corps, to go from Kansas through the Indian 

 Territory and S. W. Arkansas towards New Or- 

 leans, and it was proposed to place it under the 

 immediate command of Gen. James H. Lane, 

 then Senator from Kansas, and to give subor- 

 dinate command to Col. Jennison, a noted 

 Union guerilla leader, and some others of the 

 prominent actors in the previous struggles in 

 the State. Owing to some difficulties in regard 



to the chief command, arising from misappre- 

 hensions between Gen. Lane and Gen. David 

 Hunter, the former relinquished his leadership 

 in the present year and returned to the Senate, 

 and the expedition was finally abandoned. 



KENT, VICTORIA MAEIA LOUISA, DUCHESS OF, 

 the mother of the present queen of Great Brit- 

 ain, born in Saxe-Coburg, Aug. 17, 1786, died 

 at her palace of Frogmore, near Windsor, Eng- 

 land, March 16, 1861. 'She was the daughter 

 of Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and 

 sister of Leopold, the present king of Belgium. 

 She married at an early age Emil, Prince of 

 Leiningen, by whom she had one son, Prince 

 Karl, who afterwards became an eminent officer 

 in the Bavarian army, and died in Nov. 1856. 

 The Prince of Leiningen died in 1814, and after 

 four years of widowhood, the princess married 

 May 29th, 1818, Edward, Duke of Kent, 4th 

 son of George III., and on the llth July the 

 same year the ceremony of marriage was again 

 performed in England, and according to the 

 rites of the English Church. In Jan. 1820, the 

 Duke of Kent died, leaving the duchess again 

 a widow with one child, the Princess Victoria, 

 who, by the death of the Princess Charlotte 

 Augusta, daughter of George IV., and the want 

 of issue on the part of the Duke of Clarence, 

 afterwards William IV., became heir presump- 

 tive to the English throne. 



Looking forward to this as her probable des- 

 tiny, the Duchess of Kent spared no pains to 

 qualify her daughter to fulfil the high duties of 

 that station well. Her education, physical, 

 moral, and intellectual, was entirely conducted 

 under her own supervision, and the carefulness 

 of her training has been manifest in the admi- 

 rable manner in which. the present queen has 

 acquitted herself as daughter, wife, and moth- 

 er. At the time of her marriage with the Duke 

 of Kent, that nobleman, exalted as was his 

 station, was in very straitened circumstances, 

 and the early years of the present queen were 

 passed in comparative poverty. After her 

 daughter's accession to the throne, she did not 

 intermeddle at all with public affairs, but con- 

 fined herself to the exercise of a maternal 

 watchfulness over her welfare and that of her 

 family, and to the dispensation of charities to 

 the poor and unfortunate, which was the de- 

 light of her life. The funeral services were im- 

 posing, as the relations of the deceased duchess 

 to the sovereign demanded. The body lay in 

 state for ten days, and on the 26th was removed 

 to Windsor, where the funeral ceremonies were 

 performed in the Chapel Royal, and the body 

 was temporarily deposited in the royal vault, 

 till the completion of a mausoleum at Frog- 

 more. Most of the courts of Europe, with a 

 number of which the deceased was connected, 

 went into mourning for her death. 



