HOISINGTON — On Saturday morning, the Hoisington Public Library hosted a Humanities Kansas presentation on the Civil War in Kansas, led by Dr. Will Haynes, who holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Kansas.

Forty people attended the presentation and question-and-answer session following.

Kansas’s pre-state years were spent in turmoil.

“In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed in Congress, and Kansas was established as a territory,” he said. “The big question was whether it was going to come in as a free territory or a slave territory, with the idea that eventually it was going to become a state. People started flooding across the border and it touched off an era of about six years known as Bleeding Kansas, when hundreds of people died, some of whom were anti-slavery and others who were pro-slavery.”

Haynes noted that Kansas was a state in flux during the Civil War.

“The story of Kansas in the Civil War encompasses a time of various kinds of change, diversity, and economics,” he said.

In 1861, when Kansas first joined the Union, the “baby” state had only 107,000 residents, along the eastern border. By 1865, the population in Kansas had grown to 142,000, divided nearly equally between male and female residents, “which is a sign of prosperity and settlement,” he said. “This turned Kansas from a frontier region into a settled state.

“The state population included a relatively high percentage of African-Americans. There were immigrants, too, mostly from Europe.”

Great Bend resident Joe Boley, who is a member of the Barton County Historical Society, liked what he heard at the presentation. “I thought today’s presentation was very good. He brought up names of people from that era that some of us have read about in our history books,” Boley said. 

For example, James Lane, a hero of the Mexican-American War from Indiana, came to Kansas as an abolitionist in the fight against slavery, despite being an out-and-out racist who tried to get Black people banned from Kansas.

Politically ambitious, Lane would become one of the first two senators after Kansas became a state.

Anxious about how the election would go, Haynes said, Lane pulled a pistol out in case the vote went against him, saying if that happened he would blow his brains out. Instead, he finally got word that he had been elected.

“The Civil War in Kansas” is part of the Humanities Kansas’ Speakers Bureau and “21st Century Civics” a collection of resources that invite Kansas to participate in community discussions and learn more about the history of American democracy and the shared responsibilities of citizenship.

Dr. Haynes is the director of engagement and learning for the Watkins Museum of History in Lawrence. He is a U.S. military veteran, having served in the U.S. Army for several years. “I was in boot camp in the Army when the 9/11 attacks happened,” he said.

Diane Harmon, library assistant, introduced the speaker to the attendees. “Outside of his work at the Watkins Museum, Dr. Haynes is working on two Civil War history book projects,” she said.