African American Soldiers in the Civil War: A Kansas Story
February 26, 2025
Photo: William D. Matthews, commissioned officer of the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry. Image courtesy of the African American Midwest Documentary Project
Between 1854 and 1861, the Kansas-Missouri border was the site of fighting and bloodshed, as pro-slavery and free state forces clashed over whether Kansas would enter the union as a free state or a slave state. The period of Bleeding Kansas gave way to the state’s entry into the union as a free state in 1861 and foreshadowed a longer period of conflict, the Civil War.
Kansas’s fight for free statehood was a “spark that started the Civil War,” says Angela Bates a producer of the upcoming documentary Kansas Freedom Fighters: African American Jayhawkers in the Civil War Era, supported by an HK Humanities For All grant. A lesser-known story, and the subject of the Kansas Freedom Fighters documentary, is the role of African American soldiers in the Civil War.
The first African Americans to enlist were recruited in Kansas before it was legal for African Americans to serve in the Union Army. The regiment saw combat for the first time in Island Mound, Missouri, on October 29, 1862; however, it wasn’t until the Emancipation Proclamation was signed on January 1 of the following year that African American soldiers were authorized for federal service. The 1st Kansas Colored Infantry Regiment was officially mustered into the army on January 13, 1863.
"The men fought like tigers, each and every one of them," proclaimed Richard Hinton, adjutant of the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry.
The documentary will also reveal the war’s aftermath, spotlighting veterans who settled in Kansas, including in the African American-founded town of Nicodemus. Their white military gravestones can still be found in the cemeteries there, including those belonging to both of Angela Bates’ great-great grandfathers and that of Zachary Fletcher, who served as postmaster of Nicodemus.
Bates wants the film to convey that “Kansas had a major role in the war, and these African Americans who were part of these regiments had a pivotal role in the first battles of the Civil War.”
The grave of Perry Bates, Civil War veteran, in Nicodemus. Image courtesy of Angela Bates.
She hopes that audiences will connect these stories to their own lives and local histories: “If you go to one of your local cemeteries, you may find one or two [Civil War veterans] buried there.”
“I would like for people to remember those that fought in the war, because they were the ones that paved the way for us…. Their contributions to the legacy of freedom need to be remembered.”
The creation of the Kansas Freedom Fighters documentary is currently underway, with completion expected by the fall of 2025. A partnership between the African American Midwest Documentary Project and the Nicodemus Historical Society, the documentary is part of a documentary series that centers Black history in the Midwest.
Join the Movement of Ideas
- BRING Angela Bates’ “Children of the Promised Land” Speakers Bureau presentation to your community or see the presentation in Wellington on March 17 OR bring Will Haynes’ Speakers Bureau presentation “The Civil War in Kansas” to your community or see the presentation in Fredonia on March 16.
- WATCH a clip with the “Black Pioneers and Buffalo Soldiers” segment of the African American Midwest documentary.