General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: ...and then a man rode through the lines bearing a white flag. [View all]Divernan
(15,480 posts)Years ago I visited a small, nearly abandoned cemetery at an old church in the small (population 267), nearly abandoned town of Geneseo, Kansas. Many of the 19th century tombstones/family plots had dramatic memento mori tombstone inscriptions and sculptures - I was focused on them, but then realized that there were civil war dead with tombstones listing regiments from both the Union and the Confederacy - settlers from both parts of the country having settled in Kansas. Tragic that these young men in a small farming/ranching community grew up together, were divided by war, but then ended up buried next to each other. For those of you who grew up in such small, rural towns, you know that they have a very strong sense of community. When disaster strikes an individual or family, the whole community rallies around.
The first Kansas regiment was called on June 3, 1861, and the seventeenth, the last raised during the Civil War, July 28, 1864. The entire quota assigned to the Kansas was 16,654, and the number raised was 20,097, leaving a surplus of 3,443 to the credit of Kansas. About 1,000 Kansans joined Confederate forces, since a number of people from the nation's south had settled in Kansas. There are no statistics on those serving the Confederacy, since some joined guerrilla units. Statistics indicated that losses of Kansas regiments killed in battle and from disease are greater per thousand than those of any other State. This led to a 19th Century nickname for Kansans: the Spartan State.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_in_the_American_Civil_War