Territorial Kansas, according to traditional historians, was a battleground for pro and anti-slavery forces, both groups driven to violence because of the strength of their principles. G. Murlin Welch has searched the records of the territorial years in Southeastern Kansas where the Civil War actually began in 1856. Border Warfare in Southeastern Kansas, 1856-1859 gives the actual reasons for the conflict during the territorial years that spread until it engulfed the nation, reasons far removed from differences over the slavery question.