Talk:Missouri in the American Civil War

Map Error

Bleeding Kansas is labeled red in the key, but on the map it's a gray color. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.149.203.252 (talk) 04:54, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Placement of templates

I think it fair to place both Template:Union states in the American Civil War and Template:Confederate states in the American Civil War on Missouri's page. It appears on both templates--and generally speaking (if not always), if an article is in a navigation template, the template should be in the article. That is the purpose of nav templates. If you think this makes it cluttered...well...tough.

I also think the Union template should go first. This isn't out of triumphalism, however; this is because of the simple fact that Missouri was under the control of its Union-aligned government for the vast majority of the war, and was thus in that sense a Union state--if only barely. Lockesdonkey (talk) 22:58, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Missouri in the Civil War: Additions Needed to Article

You have forgotten the most important reason why Missouri was a divided state during the Civil war. The event was called "The Burning of Osceola (Missouri)" and it took place September 22-23, 1861. This was exactly 2 years before the Assault on Lawrence Kansas and the reason that latter event occurred. Richard Sunderwith recently published a book called _The Burning of Osceola_ to honor the then upcoming 150th anniversary of this great tragedy. I contributed some material to the St. Clair County historical and genealogical society, some of which he found and used in his book. I also have the letter written to me in 1978 by my late grandmother, Jessie Lavinia Collins-Wallace-McCoy (1892-1989), in which she first began to describe to me the events her own grandmother, Nancy Ellen Dunlap-Guinn-Dark (1836-1912), lived through and described to her children and grandchildren before she died in 1912. Nancy Ellen Dunlap-Guinn-Dark was an eyewitness victim and survivor of this event. She became the only "doctor" in the immediate area for about a year after the event, though she had no formal training. She had been trained in herbalism, midwifery, nursing, and minor surgery and to assist surgery and veterinary care by her parents and a grandmother on the Poindexter side of the family in particular, as simply what was needed on remote farms and in small villages.

After reading this cryptic letter describing how Nancy's first husband had been shot during the Civil War while doing guard duty in Osceola, Missouri, I followed up with phone calls for more information and did research in the libraries on the Civil War looking for items about Osceola, Missouri. I then made two trips to the place doing family history and researching the general history of the place and in particular this event in the 1980's. I interviewed the then historian for St. Clair County, Mr. John Lapsley Mills (since then deceased) and he showed me clippings about the event and its 100th year commemorative, in the Osceola library. Osceola is the County seat for St. Clair County.

Here is the history as I have it. Osceola was originally a hot springs area used by the Native Americans and early white explorers and visitors. It was at the farthest navigable end of the Osage River, and that's navigable as in most of the year, most years. Some drought years riverboats never made it that far without getting stuck in the mud. It became first a trading post in the 1830's and then rapidly a small settlement related to the Cherokee being forced into Oklahoma. Its initial settlers included some white and mixed white-Native families who had relatives forced into Oklahoma through "The Trail of Tears." In the 1840's the town grew rapidly as one of the two main jumping off points for the Santa Fe Trail. The other jumping off point was Independence, Missouri in nearby Jackson County. Often people would start out at Independence, and then first go southerly to Osceola. Osecola was uniquely advantageously situated for this being on a navigable river and having abundant nearby forests for making wagons, wheels, barrels for food, water and goods, and also had a good arable farm and ranch lands in the same area for providing food for would-be western emigrants. It grew to be the third largest town in Missouri by 1850 and was still only slightly smaller than then third largest town, Independence, in 1860, according to census records and numerous accounts of western Missouri. By September, 1861, there were 2,500 buildings of many kinds in the town and close by, and about 2,900 residents.

The Kansans envied, and under Senator Jim Lane of Kansas, whose home town was Lawrence, Kansas, threatened to pillage and ransack Osceola, Missouri, and other towns like Independence. Lane particularly fixed himself on Osceola, however. In the few months before the CSA was even formed and Fort Sumter fired upon in South Carolina, Lane had already threatened the town at least four well known times. Thus the townspeople were concerned enough that they created several small civil defense committees to protect the major town assets they thought the Kansas would most likely want to seize. There were nearby pig iron and lead works for instance and the proceeds not yet shipped out were to be buried quickly. The holdings in the banks were to be taken out and hidden and the banks' buildings protected by small groups of armed men, the bankers and sons, and neighbors mostly.

Nancy Ellen Dunlap-Guinn-Dark was from Tennessee and married to Champion Guinn, one of the town's four wagon-makers. She was the daughter of a Tennesseean who was against slavery and had moved most of his family to Iowa partly for that reason. He did not approve of her marriage for several reasons. One of those reasons was Champion Guinn saw nothing wrong with slave ownership, especially if a man didn't have sons old enough to help him in his business or farming. He had two slaves helping him make wagons. Nancy however, had a hired occasional female servant, not a slave. Both were among the two-thirds of the citizens who answered a local newspaper poll about three weeks before Senator Lane's attack on the town as "pro Union." They didn't want to see the town's economy suffer from war cutting off emigration and trade. The respondents knew that it was likely that slavery would end in Missouri, especially if the nation went to war, and they accepted that. Many persons and families who had initially arrived or otherwise held slaves had freed them already and even helped them set up farms and businesses in the area. Champion Guinn and his wife Nancy arrived in Osceola in 1857, at the invitation of a friend of Champion's, Micajah Dark, who had settled in the area about 1855. Champion Guinn's nearest neighbor who had also helped him get his wagon making business started was a Mr. McClaine, the founder and manager of the Osceola's largest bank, where more than half of the area's residents had their savings and business reserves, which were vital to sustaining them. Champion Guinn was, with McClaine and his oldest son and 6 other neighbors, one of the committees charged with protecting the banks, specifically McClaine's bank. A last minute volunteer was Champion Guinn's good friend, Micajah Dark, who had been recently made a widower and was spending the night at the Guinn residence, when Lane's assault on Osceola occurred. Champion Guinn was also a regionally known fiddle player and used to entertain his neighbors and friends in the evenings with impromptu performances. His wife was accorded to be a good cook, so they were a popular couple.

Senator Jim Lane was already rumored to be a madman, fanatical in his likes and dislikes and once fixated on an idea or act, would not let it go until he saw some form of completion. He had argued with Union officers in Missouri about Osceola and was told to leave Osceola alone. He had been made a brigadier general of the U.S. army by President Lincoln, as a result of political pressure despite a clear proscription in the Constitution prohibiting seated members of the U.S. Congress from holding other federal offices. Lane convinced himself that Osceola, newspaper poll notwithstanding, had become a hotbed of CSA sympathizers secretly funding the CSA and providing large amounts of supplies and volunteers. Nothing was farther from the truth as CSA officers themselves later testified. About two weeks before Lane's attack, a Captain of the CSA had indeed gone to Osceola to seek funding, supplies and volunteers. He left with no money, just enough food for his immediate men for a few days, and about a dozen teenage volunteers some regarded as the town trouble-makers--and good riddance. He wrote to his own commanding officer about how disappointed he was. A Captain Weidemeyer, who had been one of the few CSA volunteers early, and co-founder of one of the town banks, but not the largest bank, had returned to the area, not knowing of Lane's assault the very night of Lane's attack but was nearly 10 miles away when he saw the flames from the engulfed town lighting up the night-time sky and first sent scouts to investigate. By the time they arrived, Lane had long gone and the flames were dying down leaving an entire town in ashes and misery.

Senator Lane used his oratory to whip up over 1,200 fellow Kansans to follow him on his raid. He used his position as brigadier general to commander a couple of small units of the Union forces near Kansas City, on the pretext they were going after raiders into Kansas that had come from an area near but to the west of Osceola. Instead, he violated direct orders not to disturb Osceola, and descended with 1500 men and teenage boys on Osceola about midnight the night of September 22-23, 1861. The people had a little warning and the few committees were mobilized. The assets of the four banks were taken out and hidden. The pig iron and lead bars in storage at the foundries were also buried. They were not expecting 1,500 already mostly drunk raiders.

Lane, as expected first made his way to the banks. He captured the men defending McClaine's bank, killed a few others, and the men protecting the other banks were either killed or driven off. He was incensed that the assets had been removed and hidden and began interrogating those he captured and servants of others. One slave of one of the men owning another bank led the raiders to one small cache of assets, but Lane found no others and no one else would talk, even under torture. In his fury, Lane ordered the entire town searched and pillaged and then put to the torch. Sunderwith's book describes the horrendous details found in several eyewitness accounts made after the event. There were saloons and a distillery in town and all the alcohol was removed and drunk or destroyed. What they could not drink or carry, the men and boys tossed into the flaming houses and buildings or poured into the Osage River. Pigs were seen lapping up the booze at the water's edge at one point. They took everything of value from people's homes and businesses and burned the rest. The took their victims' wagons and horses, loading them with the goods stolen from the very same victims and rode off. They even dug up young fruit trees and piled them in some of the wagons, and whatever live stock they could catch and carry off. Most livestock they could not catch was shot or burned alive in the barns. They raped women and girls, shot one town doctor 15 times, and yet, he survived. Two boys seeing the flames from across the river and paddling a raft across to see what was going on were shot at, the 13 year old of the two brothers was wounded and his 8 year old brother paddled him back to safety. They weren't particular about getting out all the inhabitants of the houses before setting them alight and some older people, invalids and babies burned to death as their loved ones tried to rescue them, and some of the would-be rescuers also died. Men and women who tried to defend their homes were often shot in front of their horrified families. As for the 9 men defending McClaine's bank, after they were interrogated and would not disclose where they had hidden the bank's assets, Lane accused them of being CSA traitors and ordered them immediately court-martialed in a drum-head ceremony in which Lane himself was prosecutor, judge, and commanded and participated in the execution of the lot of them. In a telegram later, Lane bragged of personally having shot at least a couple of dozen CSA volunteers. His men were drunk and only 6 fell dead immediately. Champion Guinn and one other lived a few days and succumbed to their wounds. McClaine, somehow survived and took what remained of his family to Oklahoma, the Cherokee lands, as did a number of other survivors of the town's destruction. Micajah Dark was badly wounded but recovered, like the doctor who had been shot 15 times, about a year later. Nancy watched her home pillaged and burned and what the raiders took driven away in her and husband's own wagons. The wagon making business was burned also, and the slaves and tools taken by the raiders into Kansas never to be seen again. She was left a widow with two toddler daughters and nothing more than the clothes on their backs. Not even a spare blanket was left to them, and winter was right around the corner. Two days after the holocaust, of the 2,900 residents, only 150 remained in the immediate vicinity. More than 150 had been killed outright, and another estimated equal number died of gunshot wounds and burns in the next few weeks. Nancy dug her husband's grave with her own hands. She was taken in by the widower Micajah Dark and his family and later married the widower though he was more than twice her age. She told her children she took care of many gunshot wounds, burns, injuries from rape, and helped bury many people whom she had known personally. She never forgot the event and hated the Kansans from then on.

Another surviving family who lost everything, first went to Oklahoma and later settled in Arkansas was the Raley family. The founder of California Raley's supermarket chain was a child of this family. Ironically, the Raleys had once wanted to move west to supply the gold miners and got as far as Missouri at the time, but the little boy heard of the old family wish and that was allegedly what inspired him to go to California as a grown man and start a market near Sacramento which began the chain.

The newspaper of the town lost its building and most of its equipment but had an older smaller press stored away from its main building that survived and within a week was publishing a smaller version of the local paper in a tent. It reported soon afterward that as a result of the raid and destruction of the town by the Kansans that the area was now overwhelmingly sympathetic to the CSA and many area families had sons suddenly volunteering for the CSA. Micajah Dark's two older sons were among them. Micajah Dark himself took his own revenge. He rode with Quantrill to Lawrence, Kansas two years later, along with other men who had suffered in the Osceola assault by Lane and the Kansans. According to his wife, it was the only time he rode with Quantrill. Quantrill knowing of the experiences and hatred of the people of St. Clair and adjacent counties had deliberately courted them for the famous raid on Lawrence and too many eagerly answered his call. By that time, western Missouri had suffered another major blow, which forever ended the prosperity of many counties and moved the starting point of the Santa Fe trail firmly to Independence. When the people complained of the destruction of Osceola, an investigation was made by the U.S. Army. It concluded that Osceola had not been a town sympathetic to or supportive of the CSA and furthermore, had no military significance to either side, as it could not be defended. It also concluded that Lane had violated direct orders to attack and destroy the town. He had even ridden off in Senator Waldo Johnson's carriage and used the front gardens of Senator Johnson's own home, one of only four left standing in Osceola, to try to shell the county courthouse and thus destroy it. Another house left standing had been the Lewis house where the great-grandmother of the Senator, who wrote an eyewitness account had been staying. That house was used as field hospital for Lane's own wounded from the scant defense of the town, and burns from carelessly setting fires while drunk. When Lane's interrogations of those he captured largely failed, except for a portion of the assets of the Weidemeyer bank, he stole the four volumes of county records and tried to set fire to the building. It survived, and though more heavily damaged, then, survived a later CSA torching. The Lane family found and returned three of the four volumes of county records after the Civil War and Lane's suicide, but never found and returned the fourth volume. The U.S. Senate censured Lane for his actions, particularly stealing the carriage and personal property of another U.S. Senator and he was required to return the carriage and other personal belongings to Senator Benton. The other victims of his mad assault were not so lucky. NO repayment by the Kansans was ever required or forced by the Union army. The survivors of Lane's destruction of their homes and businesses were never repaid by Kansas nor the U.S.. The town has never regained its size to this day. As of the last census, 2010, it had only about 1,000 people.

As for Nancy Ellen Dunlap-Guinn-Dark, she was widowed a second time by Kansans and the Union Army. After the Civil War, the guerrilla bands who fought on the side of the south were deliberately not treated as regular army and afforded no protections. They were accused of being common traitors and murderers and hunted down and hung or shot. In October, 1874, word came to Micajah Dark's farm at Chalk Level that a group of Kansans and Union army men were coming for him. He and his wife and young children by his second marriage hastily removed and hid their most prized goods, including extra blankets and clothes and food, and Micajah and his daughter Martha, my ancestress, aged seven at the time, were desperately trying to remove a last balky horse from the barn when they heard the hoofbeats of the men coming close. Martha was told to hide herself quickly, near the house, so she could get her toddler brother who had been dosed with laudanum and wrapped in a blanket and hidden in the large oven inside, out of the house if it was set afire as her mother's first home had been. Martha watched as armed men surrounded her father and took him off his horse, and then beat him to the ground senseless. She told her daughter, Jessie, that she believed she cried out a little though she tried not to, and the men realized children were nearby and watching. They looked around hastily and then grabbed her father and slung him, still unconscious, over his own horse and rode away to the south toward the river. A short time later, the family received word that he had been shot and his body dumped in the Osage River where it was retrieved by persons who heard him being shot. His horse was never returned, stolen away to Kansas. Thus, about October 25, 1874, Micajah Dark was the last casualty of Lane's assault on Osceola.

Of the few slaves and more free black persons in Osceola, few had remained. Most, free and slave alike were rounded up by the Kansans, and regardless of whether they wanted to leave Missouri or not, were forced by the Kansans to accompany them to Kansas. Some did eventually make their way back to the area and found the town and even their own homes and businesses destroyed and, like, the others, who had survived, were dependent upon the charity of people in neighboring towns and villages, or family farther away. According to the accounts, the slaves and free black persons were banded together at the rear of the Kansans and all the wagons and livestock the Kansans had stolen, and forcibly marched on foot to Kansas, as far as Lawrence for the most part, while many Kansans, too drunk and tired to stand any longer after their night-long extravagances, were riding in the wagons.

When the citizens complained after the investigations yielded no justice for them, the Union army commander General Ewing, began mandating a number of orders, each more harsh than the last. The most famous of these was Number 11, after the fed-up Missourians took their revenge on Lawrence, Kansas, that ordered the forced removal of all the citizens and their entire families from the rural and village areas of all the westernmost counties of Missouri south of Kansas City. These people were to leave their homes and businesses and to designated towns or further east. All who resisted were to be shot and their houses burned and livestock killed. This was called "The Burnt Counties" Act. That was the response to complaints about Osceola and any other Kansan or Union army depradations. Osceola itself came to be a model for the similar destruction of other smaller towns in Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana and Mississippi.

There was protest against this harshness by Union officers beneath the commander, and a prediction that these actions would split the state and drive thousands of people from Missouri into the arms of the CSA and prolong the war by at least a year. General Halleck was one of those protesting to Ewing and predicting serious problems as a result. It was, in the words of more than one author since, a prediction that proved absolutely true. People from all over western Missouri flocked to the CSA or began supporting it. One particular pocket of strong resistance at Vicksburg, Mississippi were the Missouri State Guard volunteers who had first gone to serve under General Sterling Price. Their fortification at Vicksburg was called Missouri Hill, and most of the volunteers died there. One was the brother of another ancestor, who had come all the way from Nodaway County, to avenge his fellow Missourians, Corporal James Lindolph Walker, who was wounded on July 1, 1863, and died July 3 or 4, at the time of the surrender. His father William D. Walker was imprisoned and died at the Union army camp for prisoners at Alton, Illinois. He had been caught trying to bring shirts, socks and food, that his wife and daughter had prepared, to his sons and treated as a soldier and spy, so he was imprisoned and not paroled. James' younger brother, William M. Walker, was with him at Missouri Hill and as the sole surviving male of his family, paroled and later went to fight for the Union army, as part of the parole. William M. Walker (1844-1923), was thus, one of the few men to have both a Union and CSA marker on his grave in Missouri. One of those who saw the grimly determined year-long resistance of Vicksburg and the Missouri State Guard Volunteers who had died at Missouri Hill, was none other than General Halleck who had predicted this very situation and had futilely tried to persuade General Ewing to do better by Missouri. Under Halleck, in an ambulance wagon, was the soon to be brother-in-law of the late Cpl. James L. Walker, James Franklin Wallace, who before the war, and after again, was best friend to William M. Walker, and married his sister, Mariam Adaline Walker, a distant cousin of Jesse James. The fathers of the Walker and Wallace boys had been business partners in a general store in Nodaway County and the sons resumed the family business after the war until James Wallace who had been wounded in the war and contracted a life-long slowly fatal infection grew too ill to carry on. His brother-in-law then helped tend him until his death and the last sons of his friend were on their own. Martha Dark, Nancy's daughter, married George Edward Collins the son of another Union soldier from Missouri. Their oldest daughter, Jessie Lavinia Collins married the third son of James Franklin Wallace and Mariam Adaline Walker, William Thomas Wallace. The memories and scars of the war lingered in both families for many decades after the war and this was why I was able to discover this event and write about it.

References: _The Burning of Osceola_ by Richard Sunderwith, 2009, Osceola, Missouri _Bitter Ground: The Civil War in Missouri's Golden Valley; Benton, Henry and St. Clair Counties_ by Kathleen White Miles, 1971 Warsaw, Missouri _"We Rode with Quantrell"_ by Donald R. Hale, 1975, particularly pps 161-6 "Cole Younger"--the Youngers had moved from Lee's Summit to within one mile of the Darks during the first year of the Civil War and Micajah Dark rode to Lawrence in the company of the Youngers in Quantrell's revenge raid; after the War the Dark family also provided food and helped hide the James and Younger boys near Monegaw Springs (two caves there; one was between Monegaw Springs and Chalk Level). John Younger was killed at Osceola in March, 1874.; U.S. census records; St. Clair County records (death and opening of probate for Micajah Dark) Personal letters from and interviews with Jessie Lavinia Collins-Wallace-McCoy relating her mother and grandmother's eyewitness memories Notes from clippings of old newspaper articles and the 1883 History of St. Clair County from visit with John Lapsley Mills at Osceola Missouri in the early 1980's Notes from letter of Julian Walker also prisoner at Alton, Illinois to widow Mrs. Nancy P. Fortner Walker, regarding death of her husband and son, letter in possession of the late Grover Cleveland Wallace, brother of William T. Wallace, (Grover) of Rison, Arkansas U.S. archives records of service and pension application of James Franklin Wallace describing service, wounds, illness and family relationships Copies of county records from Nodaway County, Missouri showing relationships of Wallace and Walker families in that county. Mrs. Cecilia L. Fabos-Becker, San Jose, CA, 2013. ^^^^ — Preceding unsigned comment added by CeciliaFabosBecker (talk • contribs) 23:47, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

The Confederate battle flag had only eleven stars and did not include Missouri. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.78.205.102 (talk) 15:58, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

110,000 v. 146,000

It would appear that the long-standing consensus is 110,000 and 40,000. Editor Laneperk made this edit without edit summary and without citing a source. There have been enought other edits since that we are now playing the classic Bugs Bunny / Daffy Duck "Yes" "No" "Yes" "No" "Yes" "No" "No" "Yes" "No" "Yes" game. I have restored the sentence to the pre-Editor Laneperk version.

Editor @Spradlagg:: Using edit summaries and providing WP:RS for edits that change established data in articles is a good practice to adopt.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:23, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

The values for the Southern side are even more variable and harder to pin down. Missouri's SOS database gives a value of 30,000 in its abstract for the Confederate Army (which is the entity stated early the article.) Therefore, I've updated for that figure here. However, as author Christopher Phillips notes in his biography of Claiborne Fox Jackson (p. 278) thousands more in addition operated as guerrillas. Most of those in Confederate service had previously fought/been organized under the Missouri State Guard, an organization which at one time or another had roughly the same number of men (although fewer at peak.) However, in the peak days of the Guard, Missouri's Southern forces were not part of the Confederate Army. This is a very confusing thing to the average reader who will not be aware of the nuances of MSG vs. Confederate Army (or irregulars for that matter.)

In evaluating numbers from reliable sources difficulty comes not only from the lack of records but the number of men who served in two or more organizations during the war. Often early MSG and later CSA units were reformed with different designations in the same MSG or CSA service...but with many of the same men. James McGhee has done some excellent documentation and estimating of MSG (with co-authors) and Missouri CSA units, but his estimates seem a little high at times too when looking at the frequent reorganizations. The article very much needs some consensus values. Red Harvest (talk) 06:17, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Red Harvest makes an excellent point. There is a brand-new organization calling itself the Missouri Civil War Museum That gives a total of 40,000 Confederate soldiers, but it provides no sourcing whatsoever. I think if it wants to challenge the official Secretary of State numbers, and asked provide some evidence or shown awareness of the issue. Rjensen (talk) 15:29, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

I am looking for a solution that incorporates the various facets of service of both Union and Southern aligned forces, likely with a range of estimates using reliable sources for each. Part of the problem is the implication of the current phrasing: "troops to the Union" and "troops for the Confederate Army." Union forces consisted of federal Missouri volunteers, early Home Guard, a special "U.S. reserve", a special federal militia (MSM), and several other forms of state militia. On the Southern side there is the original militia (e.g. Camp Jackson), then becoming the Missouri State Guard which fought on its own hook during the pivotal period in 1861, guerrillas, and men/regiments enrolled in actual Confederate service. Red Harvest (talk) 20:23, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

You make a very good point. It is a difficult problem have this that Wikipedia's job to solve it – we should be reporting what the experts have been doing. One approach would be to have these categories: US Army, Missouri-pro Union state forces; unofficial pro-Union forces/ and same for CSA. I do not think that guerrilla forces should be included with the men in uniform; I would list them separately if possible. And of course the same men are in different units and categories at different times. Rjensen (talk) 20:43, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

I would like to turn your attention to the Missouri Sons of Confederate Veterans website which list each individual soldier. It places the total at 50,000. Also, look at the list Missouri Confederate Units page. There seems to be more than 30,000 Confederates from that alone. Another factor that's often overlooked is that many Missourians enrolled in non-Missouri units. Spradlagg (talk) 03:14, 3 March 2015 (UTC)Spradlagg — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spradlagg (talk • contribs) 22:34, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Missouri Civil War Museum Is problematic

I'm glad there is now a new Missouri Civil War Museum. The problem is that their website is anonymous and does not provide any sources or explanation for the numbers they came up with-- especially the 40,000 Confederates. There many ways accounting and they don't tell how they did it. They do not list the names of the experts they are relying upon, nor do they provide any footnotes. That makes the Museum site distinctly inferior to the Missouri Secretary of State which has the official responsibility for counting veterans. Rjensen (talk) 20:49, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Missouri Civil War Page

This article has constantly put the number of Missouri Confederates at 40,000. I was simply trying to restore it to what it had said before. I do not want to be blocked. However, some editors have seemed intent on starting a war on that page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spradlagg (talk • contribs) 21:21, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

The above was copied from my talk page. The Civil War Encyclopedia by Heidler and Heidler has the number at "perhaps 40,000" (which includes the Missouri State Guard). They also, however, list "more than 160,000" for the Union. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 21:31, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

The number 30,000 is too low. Records for the Confederates are very incomplete. Look at the Missouri Sons of Confederate veterans website. They place the number at over 50,000. I'm not saying that's completely accurate, but they even list the individual soldiers in the units.- Spradlagg — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spradlagg (talk • contribs) 22:23, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

SCV sites are not reliable sources. They sometimes contain links or references to reliable sources and can be useful in that way. Red Harvest (talk) 03:58, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

I would make the case that it is more reliable than Jason Kander's site. The SCV's job is to find these Confederate soldiers. They have complete roster listings of every soldier in those units on the Missouri Division's website . Even if they have a bias, they are dedicated to accuracy with respect those soldiers. 30,000 is a wildly low number and it doesn't even take into account the number who served in the Missouri State Guard or the partisan guerrillas which were effectively Confederate troops themselves. What we have is conflicting sources. We can simply take the sentence out or put a disclaimer that Confederate records are all over the place. This page has put the number at 110,000 and 40,000 for years. This number is also stated on Kander's site at [1] Spradlagg (talk) 05:48, 3 March 2015 (UTC)Spradlagg

The Missouri SOS database site is not partisan. It represents the accounting for what the state has records of, including from post war accounts from what I've seen inspecting the cards. It states specifically "30,000 fought with the Confederacy." This would not likely include guerrillas (who are not soldiers.) They do contain some of the MSG records but I doubt this is in the total, again because of duplication and because the MSG was not specifically Confederate service. As such the 30,000 value appears to represent a good "minimum." The question is how far to extend the range with reliable sources.

As for the SCV in general it is very partisan and too often plays fast and loose with history. It is in their interest to claim greater numbers. Now as to the page in question, I do not know how they arrived at their numbers and whether or not they eliminated duplications (which are many in my experience.) I am familiar with some of the work of Jim Martin and do not doubt his compilation or credibility, but I don't know that the SCV number accurately represents unique individuals or even if it is limited to Confederate soldiers (vs. guerrillas/partisans and MSG.) Red Harvest (talk) 06:30, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Click on the link to SOS Kander's site I provided at the bottom of my last post. It states there are some 40,000 Confederates and only half of those are accounted for. This contradicts his other page. The Missouri Civil War page should be changed back to what it has been for all these years, which said "about 40,000", because of this. I would be happy to do this and provide the link to that source. Spradlagg (talk) 13:15, 3 March 2015 (UTC)Spradlagg

Suggestions for editing the numerical data for Union and Confederate soldiers

I propose that we may get rid of the sentence that has been the subject of the most recent editing war on this page, or that we add a new one that doesn't mention the specific numbers. The Confederate data seems to be all over the place in terms of numbers. You can find numbers that range from 30,000-50,000 and beyond. Likewise there are other numbers for the Union side. It would not hurt the credibility or accuracy of the page to do this. In fact, the Civil War articles for other states makes no mention of specific troop numbers either.Spradlagg (talk) 00:48, 3 March 2015 (UTC)Spradlagg

Disagree. Because the number has been bouncing around for a year and we are now sharpening our pencils and definitions, now is definitely not the time to wipe it out. This is the opportunity to define the issue and develop consensus on how to handle it. Besides, relative contributions of men and resources is a natural inclusion for such a divided state. However, the issue is complex enough that it needs to be properly framed so as not to misinform. The best solution I see at this time is compiling some reliable sources here in talk, then determining how to incorporate them. Red Harvest (talk) 06:44, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Sources in addition to those already listed in the article:

• Christopher Phillips in Missouri's Confederate on p. 278 states "as many as thirty thousand Missourians fought in uniform for the Confederacy" and "thousands more fought for the guerrillas."
• Peterson, McGhee, Lindberg, and Daleen in Sterling Price's Lieutenants (revised & expanded edition) p. 2 note 3 provides a more detailed estimate. Some key points are "Perhaps as many as 35,000" served in the MSG. "Most of them ultimately joined the Confederate Army, along with about 20,000 other Missourians. This Confederate number includes some 3,000 partisans whose allegiance to the Confederacy is somewhat questionable." It then goes on to discuss Union forces, estimating about 14,000 in the MSM, another 52,056 in the EMM but service of the latter is somewhat dubious. It concludes, "If one were to guess, in order to eliminate double and triple counting, probably 70,000 Missourians actually served in the Union Army, with about 40,000 more serving in some capacity with the various militia and home guard organizations (voluntarily or via conscription). So, in all, some 165,000 of Missouri's total manpower was mobilized into the war." By difference this works out to 165,000 - 70,000 - 40,000 = 55,000 and then one must subtract another 3,000 for guerrillas, arriving at 52,000. Might be useful for setting the upper estimate.
• McGhee's Guide to Missouri Confederate Units, 1861-1865 does not provide a number. However, it does provide a unit count of "20 artillery batteries; 26 regiments, 7 battalions, and 3 squadrons of cavalry' and 12 regiments and 1 battalion of infantry." Keep in mind that these tended to be understrength and not receiving new recruits (instead consolidating, disbanding to join other units, etc.) It's an accounting nightmare. Red Harvest (talk) 08:30, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Red Harvest. The very existence of the controversy suggests people are paying attention to the problem. Our job is not to solve the problem but to present the solutions offered by reliable sources. Red Harvest has shown the way forward. Rjensen (talk) 10:25, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Fine, but you will never get an accurate number for the Confederate side. Records are too fragmented. It will either be overestimated or grossly underestimated.Spradlagg (talk) 13:26, 3 March 2015 (UTC)Spradlagg

yes--and we tell the readers that. Rjensen (talk) 13:40, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Ok, that seems fairSpradlagg (talk) 15:22, 3 March 2015 (UTC)Spradlagg

However, I was wondering about the discrepancy in the SOS's website. The link provided in the article says 30,000. The link I provided in the above section says 40,000 and that they only have records for half of that. Spradlagg (talk) 00:14, 4 March 2015 (UTC)Spradlagg

It is a good catch, didn't see the link before. The second version of the same page throws doubt on their methodology for arriving at a number. If they have records for 20,000 then they are relying on someone's estimate for either the 30,000 or 40,000 figure. Keep in mind that Missouri ended up back in control of former Confederates a decade or so following the war, so the state's attempts to document Confederate service appear genuine.

The heart of the problem is that in most cases, no basis is given for the numbers in most reliable sources. Sterling Price's Lieutenants comes closest. It's numbers for the MSG are based on actual calculations and projections to fill in missing rolls (which is the vast majority.) The organizational structure is known however, and the lifetime of the MSG was short enough that the muster out is used to determine company size. In Appendix F the authors arrive at a calculation of 33,984 for the MSG and then approximate it to 40,000 because the original basis was muster out rosters that did not include battle losses and disease. Unfortunately, this 40,000 stated at the end is at odds with the 35,000 figure given for the MSG early in the book... Red Harvest (talk) 02:01, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

So, what would be something that we could do to put this dilemma to rest? We could take out the numerical data, at least for Confederate figures, and replace it with a statement saying estimations have not been able to accurately be determined or something to that effect. I've noticed that Kentucky, another very divided border state, doesn't include numerical estimations of troops either. We could also put a broad estimate of 30,000-50,000 and mention both those that directly joined the Confederate army and those that joined the Missouri State Guard. There just seems to be too many conflicting pieces of data that I would think the first option might be the best.Spradlagg (talk) 03:00, 4 March 2015 (UTC)Spradlagg

There is no rush. In my opinion the best thing to do is look for more literature sources first rather than trying to jump to a final number. Sometimes sources pop up as previews or in Google books, and sometimes pdf's of articles/journals. Web pages can provide quick cites, but they are often are of poor or unknown quality, or lack sufficient attribution to get any measure of their reliability. With what I've found so far I'm inclined to use the 30,000 - 52,000 estimate with cites for both ends. The MSG size deserves recognition. The harder part is actually the Union side of things because while there is overall better documentation of individual totals, there were far more kinds of organizations, especially short lived ones. Correction for this duplication seems to be reflected in the 110,000 figure that was compiled somewhere (there are some overly precise figures reported.) However, I do not know how it was arrived at. The old govt. report about the various Missouri Civil War militia organizations is available, but it is not a brief read at around 270 pages.

Putting this in a concise form that the reader can easily understand is the more difficult task. Missouri's situation with open warfare between state/later Confederate and Federal/pro-Union organizations is probably the most complex of the war. Red Harvest (talk) 04:22, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

That's true. This is by no means an easy task. Spradlagg (talk) 04:39, 4 March 2015 (UTC)Spradlagg

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Additional Detail on the Camp Jackson Affair

Howdy,

Been making the rounds to correct a wide spread ommison of an important peice of context regarding the above. Namely, that Govenor Claiborne had been in secret correspondence with the Confederacy in the immediate aftermath of Sumter, and had been given a secret shipment of arms and artillery specifically to take the St. Louis Arsenal. These weapons were delivered to Camp Jackson on May 9th, and once discovered where the reason Lyon ordered the camps arrest.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Jackson_affair#cite_note-3

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Jackson_affair#cite_note-FOOTNOTEParrish1998100-4

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Jackson_affair#CITEREFParrish1998 Elizabeth Gurely Flyn (talk) 18:26, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, that is important context indeed. Grey Wanderer (talk) 18:56, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

How does one go about proposing a merger of pages? There is an existing Missouri Secession page that is very poorly cited and I spent a good bit of time correcting it before finding this one.

I think it should be integrated into thud much better page. Elizabeth Gurely Flyn (talk) 20:03, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Battle of Pilot Knob

I would like to see the Battle of Pilot Knob from 1864 included on this page. AnnaZZZ (talk) 20:17, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

@AnnaZZZ: That battle is the same battle as the Battle of Fort Davidson, which is in the article. Mojoworker (talk) 20:52, 8 May 2024 (UTC)