Missouri Civil War Articles

Francis Herron

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 02:32:59 GMT

Francis J. Herron was a banker in Dubuque, Iowa, before the Civil War. As a Captain, he fought in the Battle of Wilson’s Creek, on August 10, 1861, then soon returned to Iowa to help field the 9th Regiment, Iowa Volunteer Infantry. The 9th Iowa’s first assignment was to guard the railroad in Pacific, Missouri, and Herron and the regiment arrived on October 11, 1861.

Wilson’s Creek, near Springfield, is on the Wire Road, as were the Arkansas battles at Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove. At Pea Ridge in 1862, Herron was wounded and captured, and received the Medal of Honor and a promotion to Brigadier General for his actions there. On December 3, 1862, Herron commanded a division of the Union Army of the Frontier, camped just south of Springfield. Summoned to northwest Arkansas, Herron moved down the Wire Road and arrived with 3500 troops to save the Union Army at Prairie Grove. His march, 110 miles in less than three days, was the greatest forced march of the Civil War. His actions there brought Herron a promotion to Major General, and he was (at age 25) the youngest man to wear 2 stars since Lafayette.

Hildebrand, Sam

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 02:40:14 GMT

Son of one of the early settlers of St. Francois County, Hildebrand had his baptism in 1861, when federal sympathizers captured and lynched his brother Frank. Later, federal troops shot and killed a 13 year old brother, Henry, and burned the family home. Hildebrand traveled south and was allegedly commissioned a “major” by Jeff Thompson, and periodically returned to his haunts in St. Francois County. Hildebrand became a notorious killer during and after the War, and the story of his life is legendary in southeast Missouri. Throughout the War, he carried old “Kill-Devil,” his musket, and when it was recovered after his death it had 80 notches carved in its stock, it is said. In 1872, Hildebrand was involved in a gunfight in the town of Pinckneyville, Illinois, and was shot dead. His body was returned to St. Francois County, and he was buried in Hampton Cemetery, in Elvins, just southwest of Park Hills.

McNeil, John

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 00:15:11 GMT

A native of Nova Scotia, John McNeil settled in St. Louis in 1836 and became an insurance executive before the Civil War. McNeil is one of four Canadians who have achieved the rank of general in the U.S. Army. McNeil's Civil War years were spent entirely in Missouri. A mediocre battlefield commander, he played a part in a number of Missouri's most important engagements, including the Battles of Cape Girardeau and Westport. McNeil's place in history, however, is defined by his act of ordering the execution of 10 southern sympathizers in October, 1861, at Palmyra, Missouri. The Palmyra Massacre created a sensation in the world press, and sparked Missouri's descent into a war of retribution. McNeil died in 1891 and is buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis.

Hickok, James Butler

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 00:12:27 GMT

Born in Troy Grove, Illinois into an abolitionist family, James Hickok moved west in 1856 as the fight for Bloody Kansas began. In 1861, he joined Jim Lane's Kansans as a civilian scout, just in time to participate in the Battle of Wilson's Creek as a sharpshooter. Hickok served the Union throughout the War, as a scout, courier, teamster and spy, attached first to Fremont's command and then to the staff of Gen. Samuel R. Curtis. Before the Battle of Pea Ridge, Hickok and a small band infiltrated Confederate lines and brought Curtis intelligence regarding Confederate troop dispositions. He was also present when Zagonyi made his famous charge on Springfield in October, 1861, and was with Curtis at the Battle of Westport in 1864. Legend holds that Hickok's famous sobriquet, "Wild Bill," was bestowed in 1862 by a bystander who witnessed him stare down a mob in Independence, Missouri. Hickok at the time was escorting an army supply train out of Ft. Leavenworth. As the Civil War came to a close, Hickok ushered in the post-War West on July 21, 1865, in the square in Springfield, Missouri. There he gunned down ex-Confederate Dave Tutt in the first-ever western-style gunfight.

Bowen, John S.

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 00:08:20 GMT

Duke, Basil

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 00:05:51 GMT

Kentuckian by birth, Basil Wilson Duke was practicing law in Missouri when he became a leader of a pro-Southern faction in St. Louis known as the Minute Men. In 1861, he married Henrietta Morgan, a sister of John Hunt Morgan. During most of the Civil War he was Morgan's second in command, and succeeded Morgan upon the latter's death. He was author of a History of Morgan's Cavalry and a volume of Reminiscences. He served in the Kentucky House of Representatives and had a distinguished legal career. (Thanks to Kentucky Biography page)

Bibb, Reuben

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 04:05:05 GMT

Pvt. Reuben Bibb, of Labadie, Missouri, gained his freedom when he enrolled in the 65th Regiment, U.S. Colored Troops, and was mustered in at Washington, Missouri, on December 29, 1863. He was 45 years old when he enlisted. Missouri’s 65th Regiment is one of the “hard-luck” stories of the War. Assigned to garrison duty at Morganza and Port Hudson, Louisiana, fully 3/4th of its complement of troops (749 enlisted men and 6 officers) died of disease before their terms of service expired. Bibb died at Morganza on December 12, 1864.

Hecker, Friedrich

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 03:56:22 GMT

A Heidelberg University-educated lawyer, Friedrich Hecker became involved early in republican politics in the German State of Baden, which was to be a hotbed of unrest as political turmoil erupted across Europe in the late 1840's. One of the sparks which ignited the 1848-49 revolt in Germany was a speech Hecker delivered in the city of Konstanz, April 12, 1848, in which he declared the State of Baden to be a republic. His fame reached such a level in Germany that the official song of the revolutionary forces was known as "the heckerlied." Military reverses followed, and Hecker and many others were forced to leave Baden for America. His arrival in New York, in October, 1848, saw a reception by a public throng purportedly surpassed to that point only by LaFayette's visit to America in the 1820's. Hecker and many compatriots settled in southern Illinois, in the area of Belleville just east of St. Louis, where they were known as the "Latin Farmers." Hecker was among the first prominent citizens of Illinois to embrace the new Republican Party in the 1850's. As war approached in 1861, Hecker is said to have rowed across the Mississippi to St. Louis, where he enrolled as a private in one of the German military units organized by Frank Blair and Nathaniel Lyon to defend the St. Louis Arsenal, the 3rd Missouri Volunteer Infantry which was commanded by his Baden friend Franz Sigel. Hecker was present at the Camp Jackson affair on May 10, 1861. When the 3rd Missouri's enlistments expired, Hecker was appointed colonel of the 24th Illinois, and operated for a time in southeast Missouri in conjunction with U.S. Grant's 21st Illinois, and then became colonel of the 81st Illinois. This was the so-called "Hecker Regiment," a German and Jewish regiment organized in Chicago. After suffering a wound in the Battle of Chancellorsville, and a disagreement with his superiors, Hecker resigned his commission and returned to his farm near Belleville late in 1863. Friedrich Hecker died in 1881, and is buried in the city cemetery in Summerfield, Illinois, just outside the St. Louis suburb of Lebanon.

Sherman, William Tecumseh

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 03:33:49 GMT

A career army officer, like U.S. Grant, it is difficult to assign a "home town" to William T. Sherman. St. Louis, where he lived on and off throughout his career, is the city which has the clearest claim to Sherman. As the war approached, Sherman took a position as president of a St. Louis steet railroad, and was present to witness the Camp Jackson affair in May, 1861. He served briefly at Benton Barracks in St. Louis after being relieved of his command in Kentucky when he was thought to have become insane. Restored to field command in early 1862, Sherman went on to achieve legendary success in the Civil War. After the war, Sherman moved to a home in St. Louis purchased for him by admirers, and from time to time during his post-war career maintained his headquarters there. He retired to St. Louis in 1883, and there in 1884, in the parlor of his home on North Garrison Avenue, penned his famous telegram: "If nominated I will not run; if elected I will not serve." The Sherman family moved to New York, where Sherman died in 1891. His body was returned to St. Louis and interred at Calvary Cemetery, where son Willy had been buried in 1863.

Fremont, Jesse Benton

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:03:47 GMT

The daughter of Missouri's Sen. Thomas Hart Benton married the adventurer John Charles Fremont in 1841.

Shelby, Joseph Orville

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 13:53:01 GMT

Born and raised in Kentucky, a Missourian by choice, JO Shelby possessed the dashing charm of J.E.B. Stuart and the fighting instincts of N.B. Forrest. With the exception only of Ulysses Grant, Shelby is the greatest natural military genius Missouri has produced - and Missouri is the State which produced John Pershing and Omar Bradley. Before the Civil War, Shelby was a hemp planter and businessman in Waverly, Missouri, and by some accounts the richest man in Missouri. He had an active role in the Missouri-Kansas Border Wars of the 1850's, raising a troop of horseman in Lafayette County and equipping them at his own expense. Joining the Missouri State Guard, he entered the War early and played an important role in the Battle of Carthage, July 5, 1861. In 1863, Shelby participated in the three great Missouri raids, including the greatest of all, which bears his name. The saying went that Missouri had five seasons, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and "Shelby's on a Raid." In 1864, he had a key role in Price's Expedition, and his command twice saved the Confederate invasion force, at Westport and at Mine Creek. Shelby's exploits during the War are legendary. Conservatively, he traveled - in the saddle at the head of cavalry - more than 5,000 miles in Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky and Kansas. Measured in miles, Shelby is without doubt the most well traveled cavalry commander in U.S. History. Still, his wartime operations almost pale in comparison to his Long Ride in 1865. You can read more about Shelby's Long Ride in the Features section of this site. Shelby died in 1897, and was buried in Forest Hill Cemetery, on the hillside where he made his last stand during the Battle of Westport. Jo Shelby's funeral procession is the largest, to the present day, Kansas City has ever seen.

Brown, John

Mon, 22 Jan 2007 13:59:02 GMT

The radical abolitionist was born in Connecticutt in 1800, and became infamous in 1859 when he and his band captured Harper's Ferry, Virginia. In December, 1858, he made his mark on Missouri. Already famous for his role in the Osawatomie, Kansas massacre in 1856, Brown resumed his residency in Kansas in 1858 while Eastern supporters planned the Harpers Ferry raid. On December 20, from his camp near present day Fulton, Kansas, Brown and his band - many of the same men who were captured at Harpers Ferry - crossed into Missouri and attacked two homesteads in the extreme northwest corner of Vernon County, and murdered slaveholder David Cruise. Eleven slaves were liberated from the Cruise farm and the nearby farm of the Lawrence family. Brown accompanied the freed Missouri slaves on a 3 month journey on the Underground Railroad route through Nebraska and Iowa, and by train to Chicago and Detroit, where his charges were ferried to Canada. The entire affair was a media event, and no doubt designed to be. Brown's Vernon County raid was the "dry run" for Harpers Ferry, which Brown himself confirmed when he opened his statement upon receiving a sentence of death: "I have, may it please the court, a few words to say. In the first place, I deny everything but what I have all along admitted - the design on my part to free the slaves. I intended, certainly, to have made a clean thing of that matter, as I did last winter, when I went into Missouri and there took slaves without the snapping of a gun on either side, moved them through the country, and finally left them in Canada. I designed to have done the same thing again, on a larger scale. That was all I intended. I never did intend murder, or treason, or the destruction of property, or to excite or incite slaves to rebellion, or to make insurrection." Neither the facts stated in reference to the Missouri raid, nor Brown's intentions, were accurate.

Powell, John Wesley

Tue, 12 Dec 2006 15:32:05 GMT

Powell was born in New York State and his family moved to Illinois in 1851. He attended Illinois College in Jacksonville, and later Oberlin College, where he studied botany and natural sciences. As war approached, he involved himself in a program of self-study, to learn military engineering. In 1861, he joined the 20th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and was soon in Missouri. The 20th Illinois was stationed in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, in July, 1861. Powell, then a sargeant, designed and oversaw the construction of the ring of forts which protected the union garrison, evidence of which still exist. At Cape Girardeau, he organized Battery F, 2nd Illinois Light Artillery (composed mostly of Missouri recruits), and was promoted to Captain. While in command of the battery at Shiloh, Powell received a wound which resulted in the amputation of his right arm. He returned to service to fight at Vicksburg and Meridien, and rose to the rank of Major. Powell achieved his greatest fame for the expedition he lead in 1869, down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. He is also considered the father of the U.S. Geological Survey, and served as its director for 23 years. Following his death in 1902, he was buried at Arlington.

Blair, Jr., Francis P.

Tue, 12 Dec 2006 04:28:04 GMT

A Union politician and soldier. A member of the famous Blair family that had a role in national politics from Andrew Jackson through the Civil War. Blair threw his support to Lincoln in the 1860 presidential race. He rallied support for the candidate in Missouri, especially among the German community in St. Louis. He enlisted as a colonel at the onset of hostilities, and in November of 1862 received his promotion to Major General. Blair commanded a brigade in the Vicksburg campaign, and managed a corps during Sherman's advance to Atlanta. Blair spent his personal fortune on activities to keep Missouri in the Union during the crucial early days of the conflict. He ended the war financially ruined and assumed a number of appointed state positions in the postwar years.

Grant, Ulysses S.

Tue, 12 Dec 2006 04:10:58 GMT

U.S. Grant's life story cannot be fairly treated here. Space permits an abbreviated mention of his many Missouri ties. They begin at West Point in 1842, when Fred Dent of St. Louis became his roommate. After West Point, Grant's first post was Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis; He soon was introduced to Fred's sister, 18 year old Julia Dent. After a long engagement, they married in 1848. When his first stint in the regular Army ended, Grant lived on the Dent estate, farming two parcels, for most of his St. Louis years, 1854-1860. The Dent home, "Whitehaven," owned by Grant and his wife for a time during his presidency, is the only home he ever owned. Restored in the 1990's, it is now the Ulysses Grant National Historic Site. Grant, in the wake of business failures, moved to Galena, Illinois, in 1860. In 1861 he was back in action, and the action was in Missouri. Colonel Grant, commanding the 21st Illinois, entered northeast Missouri in the first days of July, 1861. His mission: Defend the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad, which was then the western-most link in the nation's rail network. His activities until August were concentrated on Missouri's railroads, as he and the 21st Illinois moved south, stopping at Mexico, Jefferson City, and, finally, at the terminal point of the Iron Mountain Railroad, at Ironton, 80 miles south of St. Louis. There, camped by a spring which still flows, Grant received his commission as a brigadier general, and command of union forces in southeast Missouri. Grant faced regular Confederate troops at Greenville, and the wily "Swamp Fox", M. Jeff Thompson, who was everywhere. The Battle of Belmont, November 7, 1861, was Grant's first, and had as its objective the Confederate gibralter at Columbus, Kentucky. His first effort failed, but in his fashion he followed with an "end-around." Columbus was abandoned when Grant captured Fort Donelson, east in the Tennessee-Cumberland valley. The rest, at they say, is history.

Black, John Charles

Born in Holmes County, Mississippi, John Charles Black moved to Illinois at an early age, and 1861 found him a student at Wabash College in Indiana. He enlisted in an Indiana 90-day regiment and fought in one of the War's first battles, at Romney, Va. on June 13, 1861. Upon disbandment of this unit, Black returned to his home in Danville, IL, and organized the 37th Illinois Infantry.

Cleburne, Patrick

One of the South's greatest field commanders, Patrick Cleburne was an Irish immigrant who established himself in Helena, Arkansas, before the War. A prominent attorney and a veteran of the British Army, Cleburne formed a regiment at the outset of the War, the Yell Rifles, and served as its colonel. Cleburne's first assignment brought him to Greenville, Missouri, where Confederates under William J. Hardee established a base camp on a line which extended the Cumberland Gap to Columbus defense line into the trans-Mississippi. Hardee retired to Arkansas in mid-August, 1861, as U.S. Grant began to apply pressure to Confederate troops in Missouri. Cleburne went on to fight in nearly every battle in the western theater, achieving the rank of Major General. He died leading a charge at Franklin, Tennessee, November 20, 1864, and is buried in Helena.

Quantrill, William Clarke

Thompson, M. Jeff

Virginian by birth, Thompson emigrated to Missouri in 1847 and settled in St. Joseph. By 1860, he was St. Joseph's mayor; It was Thompson, on April 3, 1860, who handed the mail to the first rider in ceremonies inaugurating the Pony Express. Thompson joined the Missouri State Guard at its inception, and by the end of 1861 had reached legendary status as the "Swamp Fox," operating an independent command in southeast Missouri. Never actually commissioned an officer of the CSA, Thompson operated almost exclusively in Missouri throughout the war. Captured in August, 1863 in Arkansas, he spent time in St. Louis' Gratiot Street prison, and at Fort Delaware and Johnson Island prisons, before being exchanged in 1864. He then joined Price's 1864 expedition, and was given command of Shelby's Iron Brigade as Shelby was promoted to division command. He was one of the last southern commanders to surrender, on May 11, 1865 in Jacksonport, Arkansas. Thompson resided in New Orleans after the War, and died in 1876. He is buried in Mt. Moriah Cemetery in his home town of St. Joseph.

Clark, Jr., John Bullock

James, Jesse Woodson

America's most famous outlaw was a product of Missouri's Civil War. He was born in rural Clay County, Missouri, in 1847, the son of a prominent Baptist preacher. At sixteen, he joined Quantrill's guerilla band.

Bennett, Logan

Logan Bennett, one of the original founders of Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri, was interred in the national cemetery on October 18, 1933. Private Bennett was a member of Company K, 65th U. S. Missouri Colored Infantry, one of two regiments which after the war, gave generously of their funds which they received for their services, to establish a school for blacks in Missouri. The school was founded in 1868. Through the sacrificing of these soldiers, $5,510.50 was collected to begin Lincoln University. Bennett died on October 15, 1933, at the age of 91. Bennett Hall, a dormitory on campus, is named in his memory. (Biography courtesy of U.S. Veterans Administration)

Shirley, Myra Belle

Conn, Luther

From Kentucky, Luther Conn joined the Confederate service 1861. He served as a captain in Morgan's cavalry, was wounded at Murphreesboro and was captured during Morgan's Ohio raid. Exchanged in 1865, he returned to service in Virginia. Conn served with the troops escorting Jefferson Davis on his exodus south following the fall of Richmond. Settling in St. Louis after the War, Conn became a real estate developer. Upon U.S. Grant death, he acquired the property known as "White Haven" in St. Louis, making it his home for a number of years. It is the result of Conn's efforts that White Haven has been preserved and is now the U.S. Grant National Historic Site. Conn is buried in St. Louis' Bellefontaine Cemetery. Curiously, he is one of two officers who accompanied Jeff Davis who lie there. [See Given Campbell]

Campbell, Given

A lawyer educated at the University of Virginia, Given Campbell established a practice in St. Louis before the War. He enrolled in the Missouri Militia in 1861, and was among those captured at Camp Jackson on May 10, 1861.