August 2025 Meeeting Summary

At our dinner meeting on August 20th, Round Table member Arnold W. Schofield gave a very interesting program titled: “A Brief History of Jennison’s Jayhawkers or the 7th Kansas Volunteer Cavalry.” The meeting was very well attended. Attendance was 71.

Charles R. Jennison was a member of the anti-slavery faction during Bleeding Kansas, a famous Jayhawker, and a member of the Kansas State Legislature in the 1870s. During the Civil War, Jennison served as a leader of Jayhawker militias and as colonel of the 7th Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, until being dishonorably discharged in 1865 for murder and robbery.

The 7th Kansas Volunteer Cavalry was organized at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas on October 28, 1861. It mustered in for three years under the command of Colonel Jennison. The 7th Kansas Cavalry mustered out of service at Fort Leavenworth on September 29, 1865.

Jennison was elected to the Kansas Legislature from Leavenworth County in 1865, reelected in 1867, and elected to the Kansas State Senate in 1872. Jennison died in Leavenworth, Kansas in 1884 at the age of 50.

For more information on Colonel Jennison’s 7th Kansas Cavalry, Arnold recommends reading the book: Jennison’s Jayhawkers: A Civil War Cavalry Regiment and Its Commander (1993) by Stephen Z. Starr. Starr wrote that “No other regiment in the Union Army had such a bad reputation and worked so hard to deserve it.”

Member Don Bates (above) told us a funny story about a Civil War Round Table dinner meeting that took place in 1979 at the Hotel Bellerive, located at 214 East Armour Boulevard in Kansas City MO. Don said the speaker’s program was a little on the dry side. After a while, people started noticing a large cockroach crawling across the upper part of the drapes located directly behind the speaker’s table. Don said people were paying more attention to the cockroach than they did to the speaker! He said you could see people’s heads move up and down as they followed the progress of the cockroach crawling across the drapes. Don couldn’t remember who the speaker was or what the program was about, but he still remembers the cockroach on the drapes.