Reaping the Whirlwind

1
Reaping the Whirlwind

• The Impact of the Civil War on Missouri

2
Missouri The worst place to be 1861-1865

• Compared to elsewhere
• War began earlier
• More vicious in character
• Greater impact on civilians
• Effects lasted longer
• Why was this so?

3
Prelude to Civil War Bleeding Kansas, 1856-1858

• Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854
• Missourians and Kansas settlement
• Missouri pukes and Border Ruffians
• Kansas Jayhawkers
• Free State Kansas, 1861
• Volcano waiting to re-erupt

• Missouri border ruffians

4
Missouri 1861 civil war within the Civil War

• Social and political makeup of Missouri
• Lyon vs. Price and the Missouri State Guard
• From Wilsons Creek to Lexington to Springfield
• Missouri secession, Oct. 1861

5
Missouris Rival Governments

• Confederate
• Claiborne Fox Jackson, 1861-1862
• Thomas C. Reynolds, 1862-1865
• Union
• Hamilton R. Gamble, 1861-1864
• Willard P. Hall, 1864-1865
• Thomas C. Fletcher, 1865-1869

• Few Missourians truly neutral
• But many hoped to avoid participation
• Circumstances forced everyone to take sides

6
A war more vicious than elsewhere

• Kansans revenge, 1861-1862
• Lane, Montgomery the Redlegs
• Target Missourians indiscriminately
• Gambles policy
• Let Missourians police Missouri
• Free troops from other states to fight elsewhere
• Confederate policy reclaim Missouri

• Kansas Redlegs

7
Politics Logistics guerrilla war

• Large scale operations required rivers or
  railways to supply the armies
• Union controlled these in Missouri 1861-1865
• Ran west-east, connecting state to Illinois

8
Politics Logistics guerrilla war

• Impact on Confederate policy
• No rivers or RR ran North South to assist CSA
  re-conquest of Missouri
• Confederates therefore relied on raids and
  guerrilla tactics
• Men forced to live off the civilian population

• Union anti-guerrilla operations
• Decentralized for same reason
• Also lived off civilians
• Both sides sought to take food from civilians
  supporting the other side

9
Guerrillas anti-guerrillas a cycle of violence
and its consequences

• Each side employed disguise ambush avoided
  show-downs
• Atrocities revenge
• Consequence of frustration target civilians
  supporting the enemy

• Quantrills men

10
Civilian response to guerrilla war

• Cant strike back at oppressors
• So identify enemy civilians in their
  neighborhood for retaliation
• Burn them out

11
The ravages of war

• Towns burned
• Osceola
• Bower Mills
• Galena
• Ozark
• Rockbridge
• Vera Cruz
• West Plains
• Lamar
• Salem
• Eminence
• Doniphan
• Forsythe

• Union soldiers letter
• Crops ungathered, houses deserted, barns
  stables falling to pieces, fences torn down and
  stock running loose and uncared for, are all
  around . . . I have been all over the country
  about here without meeting with a half dozen
  habital dwellings.

12
Union policy

• Fight guerrillas in the field with Missouri State
  Militia
• Control male population through Enrolled Missouri
  Militia

• Hold civilian southern sympathizers responsible
• Taxation confiscation of property
• Suppression of newspapers
• Arrests banishments

13
Renewed cycle of violence

• Sack of Lawrence, Kan., Aug. 21, 1863

• Order No. 11, Aug. 25, 1863

14
Profile of Missouri mid-war, 1863-1864

• Union controlled major cities and towns, which
  were garrisoned fortified
• Guerrillas roamed countryside

• Economy skewed
• Urban areas enjoyed wartime prosperity
• Countryside in chaos
• Impact worst in Ozarks
• Massive civilian dislocation
• No safe transportation
• Reverted from market to subsistence economy

15
300,000 civilian refugees

• Vastly exceeded numbers in other states
• Patterns of flight
• Out of state
• Urban areas/Union strongholds
• St. Louis
• Lexington
• Rolla
• Springfield
• Union authorities unprepared

16
Poor conditions in refugee camps

• Letter of Rev. Francis Springer, July 30, 1863
• Refugees come into camp nearly every day,
  chiefly women and children.
• Their wagons are usually loaded with bedclothes,
  wearing apparel, provisions, and a few cooking
  utensils
• Unwashed, half-clad shoeless boys and girls
  are all in pitiable abundance

17
Plight of African Americans

• Missouri slaves exempted from the 1863
  Emancipation Proclamation
• Not freed until Jan. 1865, by state legislature
• Most provisions for refugees limited to whites
• Tried to find jobs
• Pressed into working for the military
• Faced prejudice harsh conditions

• James E. Yeatman
• He is seized on the street, and ordered to go
  and help unload a steamboat, for which he will be
  paid, or sent to work in the trenches, or to
  labor for some quartermaster, or to chop wood for
  the government. He labors for months, and at
  last is only paid with promises, unless it may be
  perchance with kicks, cuffs, and curses.

18
Plight of African Americans

• Many African Americans enlisted to provide for
  families
• Five black Missouri regiments raised, 1863-1864
• Missouri black refugees enlisted in other states
  units as well

19
The impact of the war on civilians

• Topics needing study
• Number of civilian deaths?
• Number of widows and orphans?
• Number of property claims/lawsuits?

• Tentative conclusions
• Mo. only state with more civilian deaths than
  battle deaths among its citizens
• Property losses higher than any other state
• More refugees than any other state

20
Aftermath of war

• Radicals in power, 1865-1870
• Ex-Confederates disfranchised by Drake
  Constitution
• Political violence, 1866-67
• Return to conservatism, 1870
• Outlaw violence
• African Americans left out

• Yet Missouri not redeemed like other states
• Character of state shifted permanently
• Economic prosperity
• Immigration urban growth
• Abandon farms property assumed by outsiders
• Mo. became mid-western rather than Southern

21
Conclusion

• Missourians did not see large-scale battles, but
  they endured widespread violence
• Missouri civilians faced greater physical danger
  than those elsewhere
• Missouri civilians suffered greater property
  losses than those elsewhere
• Missouri truly was the worst place to be
  1861-1865.