Back in the 1850s, years before the American Civil War, a violent struggle ensued over control of the new Kansas Territory.

It was a conflict waged between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers, and for anyone who lived through this turbulent period,

they'd one day look back on it as a dresser arousal for the greater war yet to come.

In the dusty town of Lawrence, a new day is dawning.

A man in a broad-brimmed hat ambles across the street towards the hotel when he pauses, sensing something wrong.

From beyond the rise, he hears a low rumble, the hoofbeats of horses.

Shading his eyes, squinting through the morning haze, he sees the silhouettes of dark riders

appear, brandishing torches and rifles.

Raiders!

The man shouts out to anyone with an ear shut. His cry echoes down the street as panic spreads.

Doors slam.

Children sob and scream.

The peaceful morning erupts into chaos as yet another bloody chapter unfolds in a grim story.

The story of Bleeding Kansas.

Thanks for tuning in. I'm Don Wildman, and this is American History Hit.

We do a lot of Civil War history on this series because we get a good response to it.

Americans seem hungry to understand the divisions of our past because perhaps we struggle with so much of it in our present.

But no matter how much tragic violence and political discord these days, take heart it can't match what was happening in the antebellum period, from the brutality of millions enslaved to riots

and beatings, even in the halls of Congress, all that before the war even started.

One of the most extreme examples of a nation on edge, or driving itself off a cliff, happened within the territory of Kansas.

Bleeding Kansas refers to a seven-year period from 1854 to 61, when the political issues of westward expansion finally exploded in outright violence, in the streets, in the fields, in people's homes, neighbors turning on neighbors,

armed bands roaming the countryside, towns burned to the ground. It was guerrilla warfare on the prairies.

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