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“The Thermopylae of the West,” so named in a definitive study published in 1914, was fought on September 26-27, 1864. The battle ended with a ferocious and unsuccessful Confederate assault on Fort Davidson. (See Fort Davidson SHS)

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The final full year of combat in Missouri mirrored the previous two twelve-month cycles. From January through August small skirmishes and guerilla activity unsettled the state. It appeared that Missouri would be spared any major conflicts, but in late summer Confederate General...

The early months of 1863 were characterized by small engagements throughout the state. One such action was Colonel John S. Marmaduke’s first raid in to the southern portion of the state. These mounted raids were designed to strike Federal outposts, recruit and acquire new...

In January General Samuel Curtis formed the Army of the Southwest in Rolla, and launched a winter campaign to push Gen. Price’s command from southwest Missouri. By mid-February the Federals forced the Southerners into the Boston Mountains of Arkansas. The Confederates...

The 1850’s were a turbulent period of political and social struggle in our nation’s history, but along the Missouri-Kansas border a bloody struggle ensued over the question of slavery in Kansas. Between 1854 and 1859 pro and antislavery forces ambushed and raided each...

Not surprisingly, most battles or engagements of the war’s first year occurred in the border states of West Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri. In fact, except for several actions in the northern portion of Virginia, all of the principal battles of 1861 occurred in these three...

In 1848-1849, revolutions rocked the European continent. A peaceful effort, initially, by left-leaning intellectuals to democratize the Austro-Hungarian Empire, brutal repressive reaction lead first to war, and then to emigration by the losers. It has been estimated that in the...

It doesn’t get better than this. In North St. Louis, near by Interstate 70, two adjacent cemeteries hold the “mother load” of Civil War burials. Bellefontaine and Calvary Cemeteries (4947 and 5239 West Florissant Avenue, respectively) together comprise about a square mile. There...

The legend, and the true life story, of the American “Robin Hood”, Jesse James, were forged in an era when Missouri’s Civil War had become the most brutal form of warfare visited on the continent. The James boys, Frank and Jesse, and Cole Younger and his brothers, carried their...