Battle of Blackjack Memorial

Location:  3 miles East of Baldwin City, then 1/4 mile South.

Nearest Town:  Baldwin City

A small memorial park in southeast Douglas County marks the site of the first battle of the American Civil War, the Battle of Blackjack, which took place June 2, 1856.  History books may state that the first battle took place some five years hence at Ft. Sumpter, but the first battle in all of the United States between free state and pro-slavery military forces took place here.   Several men on each side were wounded, and the battle ended with the free state forces, led by John Brown, victorious.

The period of Kansas History prior to the Civil War came to be known as " Bleeding Kansas ".  This was a small-scale civil war fought between those who wanted to see the future state either Free or Slave.  It was a time when men could be  dragged from their homes and shot in cold blood because of their beliefs on the matter.  This really happened on several occasions and the blood was on the hands of fanatics on both sides of the issue.  Looking back today, one can only wonder at what it must have been like to live during such a time of turmoil and uncertainty.

It was in this  timber that the pro-slavery forces, led by      Captain Pate, of then territorial Governor Shannon's militia the "Shannon's Sharpshooters", surrendered to Free-State forces led by John Brown.  In a twist of irony, the government's forces were pro-slavery and Brown's men--the rebels--were free state.  The Federal Government's stance would change with the election of Abe Lincoln, but that event was still several years away.  Pate and his men were in pursuit of John Brown and his sons in connection with the Pottawatomie Creek Massacre.  The massacre, during which Brown and his sons hacked several pro-slavery men to death with swords and stole their horses, was supposed to have been done in response to the earlier raid by pro-slavery men on Lawrence which was a hot-bed of anti-slavery sentiment.  It was this steady and often bloody escalation of hostilities that would eventually end with the Civil War.  Soon, brother would take up arms against brother and father against son.  But for now--the late 1850's--war and rumors of war were only the distant sounds of musket fire on the Kansas prairie like the distant rumbles of thunder from an approaching storm.  Sooner than anyone could imagine the country would be caught up in this storm, the Civil War--America's bloodiest conflict.

Just across the road from the Blackjack Memorial is the Ivan Boyd Memorial Prairie Preserve.  This small remnant of the once vast prairie contains wagon ruts from the Santa Fe Trail, a trading route that ran from Kansas City to Santa Fe, Mexico in the 1800's.  In the photo (left and below), a wild flower now grows in the ruts made by the heavily laden trader's wagons headed west towards Santa Fe.

A modern sign marks the Santa Fe Trail ruts (photo, left) next to a stone marker still in place here from the 1825 survey which marked the route (photo, below).

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