To the editor:

I would like to comment on the proposal to rename a portion of Missouri Street. I am all for game-day hype when the University of Missouri athletes come to compete in Lawrence. After all, border ruffians from Missouri helped the Georgia Militia sack Lawrence in 1956 while Quantrill’s Raiders from Missouri during the Civil War did the same.

Teaching young people to hate is something else again if the facts lead you to a different conclusion.

Missouri, like Kentucky, Tennessee, Maryland and Arkansas, was a border state that supplied both Union troops and Confederate troops during the Civil War. In the federal call-up from 1861 to 1864, Missouri supplied 108,773 Union soldiers, Kansas 20,097. During that period, Kansas can claim one major battlefield at Mine Creek and a few other minor skirmishes. Missouri battlefields include Belmont, Wilson Creek, Boonville, Lexington and Blackwater Creek. By both measures, Missouri’s sacrifice was five times greater than that of Kansas.

George Taylor,
Lawrence