Did you know the capital of Missouri moved to Marshall, Texas?

Friday, March 28

Hillary writes:  One of our duties as volunteers at Stones River is to greet people when they arrive, orient them to the park, and provide information about the battle.  In addition we ask whether or not any of their ancestors fought at Stones River.  An amazing number can cite names, rank, and company of their family members.

This week a three generation family (grandmother, mother, and daughter) from Arkansas and Missouri, arrived and informed me that several members of their family had been part of this battle.  During the course of my conversation with them, the grandmother who lives in Missouri, told me that during the Civil War Missouri Governor Jackson, very sympathetic to the confederate cause in 1861, asked the legislature to rush passage of a bill to place the military future of Missouri in his hands.  If passed, this bill would have aligned Missouri with the Confederate States of America.

On May 10, 1861, the General Assembly approved a resolution opposing Union General Nathaniel Lyon's intent to capture the arsenal at St. Louis, but that still allowed the state to remain loyal to the Union.  General Lyon, an adamant Union supporter announced that if Governor Jackson would not agree to continuing Missouri's neutral status, he would declare war on the Jackson forces.

On June 17, General Lyon and his troops routed the Jackson forces, resulting in a Jackson administration move to Carthage.  On July 5, the Jackson forces defeated a small Lyon Union troop.  Meanwhile Union supporters had installed Hamilton R. Gamble as Missouri's Union governor.  In response Confederate supporting governor Jackson called the Missouri legislature into session at Neosho, Missouri, in October, but was unable to muster a quorum.  Jackson then took his government on the road again, settling in Cassville.  Not until the Battle of Pea Ridge in 1862 did the Union troops secure southwest Missouri. 

In early November, 1861 15 or 16 senators and 35-40 representatives sympathetic to Governor Jackson and the Confederate cause did meet in Cassville with the ultimate result that the Missouri Confederate government went into exile in Marshall, Texas.

I would  never had known this piece of Civil War history without my conversation with the three generations of Confederate descendents, and that is the delightful part of doing this work.  She also recommended Caroline Bartels's Bitter Tears, the story of women Confederate sympathizers.  As I usually do, in talking with people who have family history, I asked about the effects of occupation.  She reported a story of a family that had just lost a son in the War when Union troops commandeered their house.  The family fed and sheltered the troops only to have everything destroyed when the troops left.  For southerners who experienced this kind of death and destruction, it is no wonder the Civil War has left such a sour taste in their mouths. 

War brings an unbelievable cost to all involved, directly or indirectly, but a huge ethical issue is raised by this commitment to break the will of the people by destroying everything they have.  We live with the ongoing effects of those decisions today, and we hear the stories regularly as we meet and chat with our visitors.