150 years ago today the war in Missouri was becoming more and more personal.  The state was still divided between pro-Union and pro-secessionist camps, and there were folks on both sides willing to take matters into their own hands.  On January 9^th, 1862 a party of Union cavalry ventured on an expedition in response to the request of pro-Union citizens for protection against secessionist guerrillas.  The commander of the soldiers was Daniel Read Anthony, lieutenant colonel of the 1^st Kansas Cavalry.

Daniel Read Anthony was born August 22^nd, 1824 in Western Massachusetts as the younger brother to the outspoken suffragette Susan B. Anthony.  Anthony would part ways with his now famous sister in the 1850’s, when he left to start a new life in Kansas.  He went to Kansas as an activist and to get involved in the Bleeding Kansas conflict as a firm supporter of the anti-slavery faction.  One of his contributions to the movement was to start an anti-slavery newspaper in Leavenworth, thus starting a career in the printing industry which was to be only interrupted by the Civil War.

Anthony was commissioned as lieutenant colonel of the 1^st (soon to be 7^th) Kansas Cavalry in September of 1861, and proceeded to apply his anti-slavery fervor by going off the war.  He operated in Missouri for the first several months of his service, which closely resembled Kansas in the 1850’s.  Pro and anti-slavery advocates had turned into pro-Union and pro-secessionists in a conflict which tended to focus small guerrilla type warfare rather than the grand battles of the Eastern Theater.  150 years ago today, men of his command were engaged in just such a conflict, as he noted in an official report written several days later.

Anthony first mentioned the Union citizens coming to him for help on January 5^th, which prompted several more days of patrols looking for the secessionist guerrillas they had complained about.  He sent one company towards the town of Columbus, whose citizens told his men that there were no secessionists nearby.  With such divided loyalty in the state, it’s hard to judge whether they were honestly mistaken or were trying to get the Union soldiers to let their guard down for when they were to be ambushed on their return.  These events would be repeated many times over the next few years in the Trans-Mississippi Theater.

Anthony and his regiment would not stay in Missouri permanently.  Before resigning his commission to return to his adopted home of Leavenworth, Anthony commanded his soldiers several other states of the Confederate interior.  Upon his return to civilian life, he was as divisive a figure as ever.  He was once reprimanded by a local Union commander after he took action against suspected Confederate sympathizers, complaining that the military was not taking enough action against them.

After the Civil War Anthony was a prominent Republican newspaperman.  His passion so angered his political rivals that he was assaulted several times in the 1870’s and 1880’s, including one incident where he received a near mortal gunshot wound.  Anthony lived out the rest of his life in Kansas until his death in November of 1904.  He was buried in Mount Muncie Cemetery in Leavenworth.