Banquet at Leavenworth, Kansas,

June 24, 1887,

Given to Observe the First Anniversary of the Commandery.

Response to the Toast "Kansas in the War,"

By General John A. Martin.

It is impossible within the brief limits of an after - dinner talk to fairly respond to the toast assigned me. Kansas in peace and in war is a vast theme: it is the meridian of American progress and American heroism. "Ad astra per aspera," to the stars through difficulties and dangers, but always to the stars, upward, onward, higher, highest, no matter what it cost of labor, sacrifice, or danger. The record of Kansas through every step and stage of the marvelous history has been an illustration of her motto. The Kansas of peace you who are gathered here to-night know something of. Its growth has been phenomenal in the history of American commonwealths. Four hundred miles long by two hundred miles wide, the great heart of the American continent throbs with warm, ardent, and aggressive life and enterprise, and has sent pulsing through every artery of the nation the inspiring blood of its splendid example and the quickening vigor of its magnificent energy attracting the brain and brawn of the civilized world. Kansas has fused all into a homogeneous and cosmopolitan people, whose achievements have been a wonder and a model for the generations of man. In less than three decades the men and women of Kansas have wiped a desert from the map of America and replaced it with 82,000 square miles of cultivated field and fragrant meadows and towering forests; have dotted the whole of this vast territory with prosperous cities, towns, and villages; have sent a locomotive whistling through nearly every county; have planted school-houses and churches in every township; and have accumulated greater and more equitably distributed wealth than is possessed by any other equal number of people on the face of the globe. Fairly but very briefly summarized, this is the record of Kansas in peace. In war the history of the young State was no less eventful and distinguished. The flash of the gun at Sumter was to

the people of the country generally like a thunderbolt out of a serene and cloudless sky, but in Kansas its echoes fell upon the ears of a people ready for the contest. The slave power had invaded this State with fire and sword. Around the homes of the pioneers of Kansas, during seven long and tragic years, fierce tides of civil war had surged and roared. The conflict had drawn hither a host of bright, enthusiastic young men, and had inured them to the hardships and dangers of camp and field. They had illustrated in their daily walk and life the sublime virtues of courage, patience, endurance, and self-sacrifice. They had measured the desperate ambition of slavery; they understood its intolerant and destructive spirit, and when it finally assailed the life of the Republic, they were neither surprised, dismayed, nor unprepared. The call to arms was therefore responded to by the people of Kansas with unparalleled unanimity and enthusiasm. Long before the President's official notification reached the Governor, military companies had been organized in every city, town, and hamlet in the State, and the first two regiments sworn into the service of the United States were not recruited. Three companies were selected out of enough offered to form half a dozen regiments. From that day until the close of the Rebellion the representatives of the young State at Washington were kept busy importuning and begging the War Department to accept and muster in the rapidly forming military organizations. The official records of the war show that, reducing the troops furnished to a year's standard, only one State in the Union filled the quotas assigned it, and that State was Kansas. The general Government called on Kansas, during the four years from 1861 to 1864, for 12,931 men, and she furnished a total of 20,661, nearly double the number called for. Reduced to a three-years standard, Kansas furnished 18,706 men, or 5,775 in excess of the number called for. The quotas assigned all the States were based on their population. The census of 1860 gave. Kansas a population of 107,206, and of this number only 59,178 were males and only 28,097 between

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the ages of 20 and 50 years. At an exciting election held in the fall of 1860, the total vote of the State was less than 17,000. The young State therefore contributed to the Union Army nearly 4,000 more soldiers than it had votes in 1860. Such a record of devotion to a cause is, I venture to say, unexampled in the history of any other war that has ever occurred in any age or country. Under the call of April 15, 1861, for 75,000 threemonths men, no quota was assigned to Kansas, but she furnished 650.

"Abra was ready ere I called her name,

And although I called another, Abra came."

Under the second call, that of May 3, 1861, for 500,000 three-years men, the quota assigned to Kansas was 3,235, but she furnished 6,953.

Under the call of July 2, 1862, for 300,000 three-years men, Kansas' quota was 1,771, but she furnished 2,936.

Under the call of October 17, 1863, and February 1, 1864, for 500,000 three-years men, the quota of Kansas was 3,523, but she furnished 5,874.

Under the call of March 14, 1864, for 200,000 three-years men, Kansas' quota was 1,409, but she furnished 2,564.

Under the calls of July 18 and December 19, 1864, the quota of Kansas was 1,222 and she furnished 1,234.

The only call to which Kansas did not respond was that of August 4, 1862, for 300,000 nine-months men. The volunteers of Kansas went in for three years. The only enlistments for a briefer period were those of the Second Kansas for three months, under the President's first call for troops, and the greater part of this regiment, immediately on its muster out, re-enlisted for three years; a battalion of 441 men recruited in the autumn of 1864 for the hundred-days service, and 622 men furnished in December, 1864, for one year.

Of the 20,661 volunteers furnished by Kansas during the Rebellion, all except 1,713 enlisted for three years, or during the war. These cold official records illustrate more eloquently than

any language can describe the splendid enthusiasm with which the patriotic people of Kansas rallied around the flag; but, impressive and wonderful as they are, they do not tell the whole story. Kansas was called upon during the first year of the war to furnish only 3,235 men, and is credited on the quotas of that year with 7,603, but she actually furnished nine full regiments and one battery before the close of the year 1861.

During the second year of the war she was called upon for 1,771 three-years and 1,771 nine-months men, and she responded with four full regiments and a battery for three years; none for nine months.

During 1863 and 1864 her quotas aggregated 6,154, and she furnished five full regiments and a battery for three years; a battalion of nearly 500 men for a hundred days, and over 600 men for a year. Thus the young State furnished during the war nine regiments of infantry, nine of cavalry, three batteries and five companies, and 1,209 of these men, mainly of the First, Seventh, Eighth, and Tenth Regiments, re-enlisted in 1863 as veterans. Thus every call made upon Kansas was filled at once, and during the first two years of the war doubly filled by her eager, brave, and patriotic sons. With what dauntless courage and unselfish devotion the soldiers of Kansas followed the flag, and with what confident faith and sublime self-sacrifice they marched and fought, suffered and died, the unexampled losses they sustained in battle will conclusively prove. In January, 1867, the Provost-Marshal General of the Army, General J. B. Fry, made a report showing the proportion of soldiers killed in battle per 1,000 men from each State. Kansas headed the list with 61.01; Vermont ranked second, with 58.22; and Massachusetts, third, with 47.76.

General Fry, in commenting on this notable record, says: "Kansas shows the highest battle mortality of the table. The same singularly martial disposition which induced about half of the able-bodied men of the State to enter the Army without bounty may be supposed to have increased their exposure to the