While the American Civil War would answer the question of slavery once and for all, its bloody overture would take place five years earlier, when the territory of Kansas would go to war with itself to determine if it should be a free or slave state. It was a brutal guerrilla conflict that would claim dozens of lives. This is the story of Bleeding Kansas.

Sources

"Bleeding Kansas" by Nicole Etcheson

Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleeding_Kansas#/media/File:The_Tragic_Prelude_John_Brown.jpg

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