War to the Knife: Bleeding Kansas, 1854-1861Marching armies, cavalry raids, guerilla warfare, massacres, towns and farms in flames the American Civil War, 1861 1865? No Kansas, 1854 1861. Before there was Bull Run or Gettysburg, there was Black Jack and Osawatomie. Long before events at Fort Sumter ignited the War Between the States, men fought and died on the Prairies of Kansas over the incendiary issue of slavery. "War to the knife and knife to the hilt," cried the Atchison Squatter