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Although the name “Red Legs” is commonly conflated with the term “jayhawkers” to describe Kansas guerilla units that fought for the Free-State side during the Bleeding Kansas era or the Union side in the Civil War, Red Legs originally referred to a specific paramilitary outfit that organized in Kansas at the height of ...

The name Kansas derives from the Algonquian term, Akansa, for the Quapaw people. These were a Dhegiha Siouan-speaking people who settled in Arkansas around the 13th century. The stem -kansa is named after the Kaw people, also known as the Kansa, a federally recognized Native American tribe.

Although not a direct cause of the Civil War, Bleeding Kansas represented a critical event in the coming of the Civil War.

Kansas fought on the side of the Union, although there was a big pro-slavery feeling. These divisions led to some conflicts. The conflicts included the Lawrence Massacre in August 1863. Later the state witnessed the defeat of Confederate General Sterling Price by Union General Alfred Pleasonton at Mine Creek.

The Confederacy included the states of Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia. Jefferson Davis was their President. Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri were called Border States. In 1865, the Union won the war.

Those divisions reach back as far as the early 1800s, as pro-slavery Missourians and abolitionist Kansans politically and physically clashed. Since that time, streetcars, sports stadium renovations and bistate tax initiatives have divided and occasionally brought together both Kansas City, Mo., and Kansas City, Kan.

During the Civil War, Kansas City served as the Union's District of the Border headquarters.