The Young-Corman Family Papers are the culmination of the marriage of James B. Young and Alice Corman. Young served in the 9th Kansas Cavalry with Isaac and Edward Corman, Alice’s brothers. The three men wrote Alice and the rest of their families throughout the Civil War. Young and the Corman brothers saw little military combat, but heavily patrolled the western frontier. Their letters reveal the political atmosphere of the time and difficulties faced by citizens who remained on the Kansas-Missouri border.

In September 1857, the Kansas Constitutional convention met in Lecompton, determined to make Kansas a slave state. The Lecompton Constitution included a provisional article that guaranteed a slaveholder’s right to retain ownership of their slaves currently living in the territory, but it also prohibited future importation of slaves to Kansas. Heated debates took place in the Senate over the admission of Kansas, under the proslavery. This collection contains speeches from Missouri Senator, Trusten Polk and Illinois Senator, Steven A. Douglas on the admission of Kansas to the Union under the Lecompton Constitution.

John W. Fisher’s diary documents his duties in the Missouri State Guard from mid October, 1861, through the first week of January, 1862. Fisher was born in Virginia, and lived in Westport, Missouri prior to the War. Fisher served as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Missouri State Guard. The diary cites Fisher’s movement through Missouri and Indian Territory. Fisher survived the war, ending his days in a Confederate Veterans home in Harrisonburg, Missouri, in 1910.