"Battle of Island Mound" Topic

"The small skirmish that occurred on October 29, 1862, at Island Mound in Bates County, Missouri, was significant because it marked the first time during the American Civil War that a regiment of African American soldiers saw combat. The 1st Kansas Colored Volunteers who fought at Island Mound were in Kansas service prior to the Emancipation Proclamation's implementation on January 1, 1863, but not in U.S. service because the Lincoln administration was reluctant to enroll black troops and risk tipping Union slave states, including Missouri, toward the Confederacy.

The area along the Missouri-Kansas border south of modern-day Kansas City was infested with many guerrilla bands. These bushwhackers, mainly pro-Confederate guerrillas, made life miserable not only for the Union military, but also for civilians on both sides of the border. Clay County, Missouri, especially, was a hotbed of bushwhacker activity. Several guerrilla bands, numbering over 500 bushwhackers and led by Colonel Sidney Jackman, were headquartered on Hog Island in the Marais des Cygnes River, approximately nine miles from Butler, Missouri. The only way to handle these guerrilla bands was to send federal military forces into the area. In mid-1862, though, the federal government had far greater priorities for its limited manpower resources than the Missouri-Kansas border…"
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