As the nation moved toward Civil War in the tumultuous decade of the 1850s, Kansas Territory became a smoldering ember in a mounting conflict over slavery in America. Would the 34th state enter the Union in recognition of slavery or would it be a free state?

The election of Abraham Lincoln on Nov. 7, 1860, was one more smoldering ember pushing the nation toward the ultimate flashpoint. Six weeks later, South Carolina provided the oxygen to spark the flame when it withdrew from the Union in an act of secession on Dec. 20, 1860.

Although sympathetic to the Southern cause, President James Buchanan signed the bill to admit Kansas to the Union on Jan. 29, 1861. “The air was still thick with rumors of ‘rebel plots’ to assassinate Mr. Lincoln,” when President Buchanan escorted Lincoln by carriage to his inaugural ceremony the morning of Monday, March 4, 1861.

Though six Southern states left the Union to form the Confederate States of America, President Buchanan honored the nation’s peaceful transfer of power and dutifully sat through Abraham Lincoln’s oath of office and inaugural address.

Though the country was ill-prepared for war, the fire of national division erupted into an inferno of war with the bombardment of Fort Sumter on April 4, 1861. In Washington, D.C., President Lincoln and his administration were sitting ducks. Very few troops were in place for defense of the nation.

Kansas Senators Lane and Pomeroy arrived in Washington on April 13, 1861, as the battle for Fort Sumter thundered across Charleston Harbor. Virginia seceded on April 17. The next morning a rebel flag could be seen from the capitol flying in Alexandria, Va., just across the Potomac River. Virginians were actively preparing to invade Washington D.C.

In the absence of Union forces, Lane offered a defense force of “Kansas men” to protect the president. The Kansas men had arrived in Washington with the Kansas senators to seek positions in Lincoln’s new government. Lincoln accepted Lane’s offer, opening the White House to his “Frontier Guard” of 60 frontiersmen who had seen service in bloody Kansas Territory. Even Lane’s fellow senator, Samuel Pomeroy, took up arms as a private in the Frontier Guard.

In his book “The 116,” James P. Muehlberger chronicles the epic account of “Abraham Lincoln’s Lost Guard.”

The Frontier Guard was bivouacked in the East Room of White House. The president came downstairs to receive the men who had vowed to stand together to defend his life until they were dead or taken prisoner. Lane was presented with a new saber by Lincoln’s White House Chief of Security Major David Hunter, formerly stationed at Fort Leavenworth.

With sword in hand, Gen. Lane ordered his men to collect in martial formation for the president. As the firelight flickered from the East Room’s two fireplaces, Lincoln looked upon the faces of the men who were prepared to give their lives in defense of their president. They were tough, confident veterans of the bleeding Kansas war that had already been raging for more than six years.

Muehlberger wrote, “...they were outmanned and knew the need for readiness to fend off an expected fierce attack by the Confederates. Lane and his men fully expected that they would be attacked and that some, perhaps all, might die.”

That night John Hay, assistant secretary to the president, began his Civil War diary.

“The White House is turned into barracks. Jim Lane marshaled his Kansas Warriors today ... into the East Room ... It is a splendid company of Western Jayhawkers.”

From Hays’ perspective, “Kansas had supreme possession of the White House.”

Sentries were positioned. From high above, sharpshooters were placed upon the roof of the White House and the five-story Winder Building. Lane wanted the Confederates across the river to know “that experienced, cold eyes would be looking down the barrels at them.”

Lane continued to raise fighters that swelled to over 116 men hailing from a variety of northern states supplementing his original corps of Kansas men. He then spread rumors that 500 bold Kansas frontiersmen were defending the White House. His men took every opportunity to be seen around the grounds. At night, they boldly marched over a nearby wooden bridge, stomping the wooden planks as if an entire army was regularly preparing to invade Virginia.

The specter of John Brown towered over the White House. Everyone knew of Brown’s raid on the arsenal at Harper’s Ferry and his willingness to die for the cause of freedom. Union spies reported that Virginia rebels were in “dread of James Lane and his John Brown horde.”

Captain Job B. Stockton of Leavenworth stunned the opposing forces when he took a Frontier Guard detachment into Virginia and captured the first rebel flag of the war.

By April 27, 1861, thousands of northern troops had arrived in Washington. President Lincoln and the nation had been saved from early destruction by Lane’s bold leadership. “The 116” is a book that every Kansan should read, for little is recorded of their heroic service to the country in America’s history books. For that matter, the whole nation should know the story of the saviors from Kansas whose Jayhawk reputation carried them to Washington from their frontier homes on The Way West.