Charles G. Upton was born in Osceola, Missouri in 1852. He would go on to write a memoir about his life in Missouri prior to the start of the Civil War and how his family survived the horrific event. Upton mentions in his account the Burning of Osceola by General James Henry Lane and his Brother Thomas’s service in the Union Army. The Upton family would have to leave Missouri and settled in Illinois to escape Confederate soldiers. Upton would go on to marry Mary Ellen Woodcock in 1871 and the two resided in Leavenworth, Kansas. Upton died in 1941 and is buried in Leavenworth, Kansas.

Richard Henry Roberts was born on November 11, 1843 in Brookville, Indiana to Billingsley and Emily Roberts.1 In the spring of 1853, he moved to Cedar County, Missouri where he lived until 1864 when Guerrilla violence forced his family to relocate to Nebraska.2 He received letters from two of his cousins in the Union army, […]

Andrew Williams was a slave belonging to Henry Williams near Mt. Vernon, in Lawrence Co., Missouri. He fought with General Sterling Price in Arkansas in 1861, but was freed by the 6th Kansas Regiment in 1862. While in Lawrence, Kansas, Williams witnessed the infamous raid of the city by William Quantrill and his men on August 21, 1863. He worked for the 7th Kansas Cavalry until they went farther west from Topeka. After the war ended, Williams worked as a gardener for William Connelly from 1908 to 1910. It was Connelly who convinced Williams to write down his life experiences.

James Lane served as Indiana lieutenant governor from 1849 to 1853, and then was elected to Congress as a Democrat. He voted for the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and moved to the Kansas Territory in April 1855. Lane became active in territorial politics, repeatedly being elected president of free-state conventions. When Kansas entered the Union in 1861, Lane became a U. S. senator and acquaintance of President Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln appointed Lane a brigadier general of volunteers in 1861. Through various means, Lane managed to hold both his military appointment and his Senate seat simultaneously. This collection highlights Lane’s savvy political skills and the influence and power he held in the Federal government.