Kansas 14th Volunteer Cavalry (Union)

Lawrence Massacre

Quantrill's Raiders laid seige to Lawrence, Kansas, killing 164 civilians.READ MORE

Baxter Springs

On October 6, 1863, Fort Blair was attacked by William Quantrill and more than three hundred guerilla troops. Though greatly outnumbered, two companies of the Third Wisconsin Cavalry and a company of the Second Kansas Colored Infantry at the fort repulsed the attack. Quantrill turned north and attacked a military supply train under Gen. James Blunt, killing nearly all of Blunt's command, many while trying to surrender. The victims are buried in the national cemetery plot west of the present town of Baxter…READ MORE

Prairie D'Ane

By the spring of 1864, the Federal high command set forth a plan to bring pressure across the whole of the Southern Confederacy. Overall Union commander Ulysses S. Grant, thrust Federal armies into Virginia, north Georgia, Louisiana, and Arkansas. The Battle of Prairie D'Ane was part of two larger Federal operations-the Camden Expedition and the Red River Campaign.READ MORE

Poison Spring

Poison Spring State Park is a day use park complete with picnic furnishings, a trail and a diorama summarizing the Battle of Poison Spring. This site is dedicated to the battle fought there April 18, 1864, during the Camden expedition of the Red River Campaign. Confederate troops attacked Union soldiers returning from taking supplies from Camden, Arkansas.READ MORE

Jenkins' Ferry

At Jenkins Ferry on April 29 and 30, 1864, Union troops fought off an attack by the Confederates and, using an inflatable pontoon bridge, crossed the flooded Saline River and retreated to Little Rock. The land where this Civil War battle took place was settled by Thomas Jenkins, who started the ferry in 1815. It was run by his sons, William and John DeKalb, until the Civil War circa 1861.READ MORE

Byram's Ford

Maj. Gen. Sterling Price's Confederate Army of Missouri headed towards Kansas City, Missouri and Fort Leavenworth, hoping to capture Missouri for the South in the weeks prior to Abraham Lincoln's reelection in 1864. Union Maj. Gen. Samuel R. Curtis's Army of the Border, in and around Westport, was blocking Price's movement, while Maj. Gen. Alfred Pleasonton's provisional cavalry division was pressing Price's rearguard. On October 22nd, Maj. Gen. James G. Blunt's division held a defensive position on the we…READ MORE

Westport

The Battle of Westport, fought October 21-23, was the largest battle west of the Mississippi River and the decisive battle of Confederate Gen. Stirling Price's 1864 Missouri campaign. Directions guide the visitor to the first of twenty-five narrative markers on a 32-mile, self-guided automobile tour and a self-guided walking tour of Byram's Ford and the Big Blue Battlefield. Each marker provides directions to the next stop on the tour. A written brochure is available from the Battle of Westport Visitor Cen…READ MORE

Mine Creek

About six miles south of Trading Post, Kansas, where the Marais de Cygnes cavalry engagement had occurred earlier in the day, the Union brigades of Col. Frederick Benteen and Col. John Phillips, of Maj. Gen. Alfred Pleasonton's Provisional Cavalry Division, overtook a retreating Confederate cavalry column from Maj. Gen Sterling Price's Army of Missouri crossing Mine Creek. The rebels, stalled by their 500-wagon supply train crossing the rain-swollen ford, formed a line of about 7,000 men on the north side…READ MORE

Second Battle of Newtonia

Confederate Maj. Gen. Sterling Price's Army of Missouri was in full retreat following its defeats at Westport on the Big Blue River outside of Kansas City on October 23rd, and at Mine Creek in Kansas on October 25th. On October 28th, it stopped to rest about two miles south of Newtonia, Missouri where another battle had been fought two years prior. Soon, five brigades in the pursuing cavalry division of Brig. Gen. James G. Blunt's Union force arrived. Blunt's cavalrymen caught the Rebels by surprise and at…READ MORE