Fort Titus

39.0114°N 95.3940°W / 39.0114; -95.3940

Fort Titus
south of Lecompton, Kansas
Typepartisan fort
Site information
Controlled byHenry T. Titus
Site history
Builtca. April 1856
In useca. April 1856 - August 16, 1856
Materialslogs, wood
Garrison information
Garrisonabout 18 men

Fort Titus was the fortress residence of pro-slavery advocate Henry T. Titus, built in Kansas in April 1856, during a period when forces aligned with Titus came into conflict with free-state settlers. The wider conflict, which emerged from a political and ideological debate over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas, became known as Bleeding Kansas.

Construction

Fort Titus was built about April 1856 to be the fortress home of Henry T. Titus, a colonel in the militia of the southern-oriented government of Kansas Territory. It was said Titus squatted on the claim of a free-state settler while he was away and built his cabin on this land. Fort Titus was a fortified log cabin with gun loopholes built into its walls to allow it to be defended from the inside.[1] This fort had at least one window and it had a small log addition on the north side that served as a kitchen.[2]

Battle of Fort Titus

In August 1856 Camp Sacket, a U.S. Army post, was about a mile away from Fort Titus. Fort Saunders, some distance south of Fort Titus, was destroyed by free-state partisans on August 15, 1856. At 2 a.m. on August 16 southern partisans, including Henry T. Titus, attacked the fortress home of Judge Wakefield, but they were unable to take it. Later that day free-state men attacked and destroy the fortress home of Titus in the Battle of Fort Titus. About 400 free-staters under the command of Samuel Walker attacked Fort Titus. Titus had a force of at least twenty-one men, including thirteen German stonemasons from nearby Lecompton, Kansas, with him.[3] The attack was launched before a brass cannon had arrived on the site. This attempt was unsuccessful and the leader of this first attack was killed. Apparently some of the men from this attack placed themselves between Lecompton and the Army troops, so no messages could be sent between Wilson Shannon, the governor, and the troops.[4][5]

Once the cannon arrived the battle ended quickly, since the fort's walls were no match for the cannon balls, which passed entirely through the fort. This cannon, named Old Sacramento, had changed hands between the northern and southern partisans three times prior to this battle. The cannon balls were made from type from a Lawrence newspaper. The battle probably lasted no more than thirty minutes. The Camp Sacket commander, Maj. John Sedgwick, moved toward Fort Titus to stop the battle, but it was over before troops arrived.[6]

Destruction

As soon as the battle was finished, the prisoners were taken to Lawrence and Fort Titus was burned, never to be rebuilt.[7]

References
  1. "Brutality of Col. Titus," The Kansas Tribune (Topeka), July 28, 1856, p. 2.
  2. John H. Gihon, M.D., Geary and Kansas (Philadelphia: Charles C. Rhodes, 1857), chapter XIV, online on the Kansas Collection website, www.kancoll.org .
  3. Sara Walter, "Battle of Fort Titus," Bald Eagle (Lecompton), Winter 1981, pp. 1-2.
  4. Martha B. Caldwell, "The Stubbs," Kansas Historical Quarterly, May 1937, Vol. 6, No. 2, p. 125.
  5. John Lawrie, letter to Arthur Lawrie, April 16, 1857, in "Letters on the War in Kansas in 1856," Kansas Historical Quarterly, November 1941, Vol. 10, No. 4, p. 376, online in the Kansas Collection website, at http://www.kancoll.org/khq/1941/41_4_gibbens.htm
  6. Charles S. Gleed, "Samuel Walker's Annals of Kansas," The Kansas City Journal, Sept. 7, 1879, p. 4 (from the Kansas Historical Society, Topeka).
  7. Homer E. Socolofsky, Kansas Governors (Lawrence, Kans.: University Press of Kansas, 1990), p. 46.
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