This daguerreotype shows one of the cannons brought by a company to Topeka, Kansas Territory, in 1856. During 1856, the pro-slavery people of Missouri virtually cut off free-state emigration to Kansas Territory by the way of the Missouri River. Numerous emigrant parties were intercepted and turned back. This circumstance led to an organized emigration to Kansas Territory overland through Iowa. Parties came in organized companies and were generally armed. These arms were furnished largely through organized movements in the Eastern states from which the emigrants came. In a number of instances, cannons were brought by these emigrant parties. It is also possible that this cannon is the famous "Old Sacramento", the cannon that was captured by Alexander Doniphan in the Mexican American War. It was brought back to Missouri and taken from the Liberty Arsenal by pro-slavery men and brought into Kansas Territory, where it was then captured by Free State men at the Second Battle of Franklin on August 12, 1856.

Date: 1856