{"id":929,"slug":"battle-of-island-mound-state-historic-site-missouri","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Island Mound is where Black soldiers first fought — October 29, 1862, two months before the Emancipation Proclamation took effect, on a Missouri prairie the guerrillas set on fire. The 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry — recruited by Senator Jim Lane ahead of Washington's permission, filled with men who'd escaped Missouri and Arkansas slavery — was operating from 'Fort Africa,' the seized farm of a rebel sympathizer, when a detachment was lured out of sight behind the low hill called Island Mound.","The guerrillas came out of the timber — 130 mounted men against a fraction of the Kansas force, shotguns and sabers against bayonets. The Black soldiers fought hand-to-hand on the burning slope and held; reinforcements drove the rebels off. Eight Kansans died; the guerrilla dead went uncounted. The New York Times' dispatch — 'a Negro regiment in action... come off victorious' — carried the news nationwide: the first time Black troops had fought in the war, and they'd won.","The battle's meaning outgrew the skirmish — proof in combat, before emancipation was even law, of what the USCT would become. The site preserves the Toothman farm ground as a state historic site — the mound, the ravine, the prairie where a regiment that technically didn't exist yet fought the war's first Black battle.","Island Mound is the archive's first-fight file — the October 1862 Missouri skirmish where the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteers fought the war's first Black-soldier combat, on the burning prairie two months before emancipation."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Island Mound is the archive's before-emancipation file — the Bates County fight where the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteers, recruited ahead of federal authorization, became the first Black unit in Civil War combat.","A skirmish that proved a principle keeps its mound — the file's suggestion being that Island Mound's hold is the precedence: the burning slope where men who'd escaped slavery fought as soldiers before the law said they could."]}],"name":"Battle of Island Mound State Historic Site","aliases":[],"type":"HISTORIC_SITE","type_label":"Historic Site","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","BATTLEFIELD","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD_HISTORY","AFRICAN_AMERICAN_HISTORY","CIVIL_WAR","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD"],"groups":["dark-history","historic-sites"],"desc":"NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad.","full_desc":"A historic site in Butler, Missouri, a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing, Battle of Island Mound State Historic Site is filed here for what the record attaches to it. NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad. HauntHunt files it with dark history, Underground Railroad history and the Underground Railroad. The dossier holds 2 documented facts — a documented spine with no haunting reports attached. The site is open to visitors.","address":"7 miles west of Butler MO on NW 1002 Rd.","city":"Butler","county":"Bates","state":"Missouri","postal":null,"region":"Midwest","lat":38.259362,"lon":-94.339531,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"ACTIVE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":"NPS public listing access field: Yes. This is a listing snapshot; current arrangements still require confirmation.","ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":"National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing","current_use":"Historic site","research_notes":"Government-registry discovery record, unique ID 25MO01, source row 459. Inclusion concerns slavery, freedom-seeking and resistance history; no haunting is inferred. City, coordinates and detailed history are not inferred from the name. The source Year Established field is not treated as year built/opened. ","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":62.1,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.35,"identity_confidence":0.85,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":1,"paranormal_claim_provenance":null,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[],"history":[{"description":"NPS includes this site in the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. The site's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. 'Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01' documents the entry. It's the sort of fact that gives the haunting reports their context.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01","url":"https://www.nps.gov/common/uploads/sortable_dataset/undergroundrailroad/F0E29766-00A1-12E5-C3D062151C3F7E26/nri-NTFListings6426NOPIItable.csv?t=1784017173223","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}},{"description":"Battle of Island Mound State Historic Site is documented on the National Park Service Network to Freedom for its role in the Underground Railroad. The site's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. The detail is preserved in 'NPS Network to Freedom listing'. The detail belongs to the verified spine of the entry.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"NPS Network to Freedom listing","url":"https://www.nps.gov/subjects/ugrr/index.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}}],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Historic site; verify hours and access with the managing agency before visiting; check nps.gov for current hours and alerts.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01","url":"https://www.nps.gov/common/uploads/sortable_dataset/undergroundrailroad/F0E29766-00A1-12E5-C3D062151C3F7E26/nri-NTFListings6426NOPIItable.csv?t=1784017173223","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1},{"name":"NPS Network to Freedom listing","url":"https://www.nps.gov/subjects/ugrr/index.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1},{"name":"Underground Railroad","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_Railroad","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[{"field_name":"short_description","existing_value":"NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad.","incoming_value":"The 1862 battlefield—where the USCT first fought.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"historic_designation","existing_value":"National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing","incoming_value":"NPS Network to Freedom","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"research_notes","existing_value":"Government-registry discovery record, unique ID 25MO01, source row 459. Inclusion concerns slavery, freedom-seeking and resistance history; no haunting is inferred. City, coordinates and detailed history are not inferred from the name. The source Year Established field is not treated as year built/opened. ","incoming_value":"UGRR enrichment wave 4; VERIFY task auto-queued.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."}],"wiki":{"title":"Battle of Island Mound State Historic Site","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Island_Mound_State_Historic_Site","desc":"Historic battlefield in Missouri, United States","extract":"The Battle of Island Mound State Historic Site is located in a rural area of Bates County, Missouri, in the western part of the state. The site was established to preserve the area of the American Civil War battle that took place in October 28–29, 1862 between Union forces and Confederate guerrillas. The battle was significant as the first time African-American troops on the Union side engaged enemy white troops in the Civil War. A correspondent of The New York Times reported on the battle; the headline noted the \"desperate bravery\" of the African Americans in achieving Union victory.","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2a/Battle_of_Island_Mound.jpg/330px-Battle_of_Island_Mound.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":93,"lat":38.235353,"lon":-94.439901},"counts":{"claims":0,"history":2,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":3}}