The State Capital During the Civil War
As Missouri's seat of government during the Civil War, Jefferson City witnessed many exciting and dramatic scenes. During the early months of the war the opposing forces of secession and unionism engaged in a tense contest for dominance that culminated in the hasty evacuation of the elected pro-Southern government and its replacement by a military back provisional Unionist government. Once the Federals gained the upper hand defense of the strategically important city became a vital priority as the provisional government struggled to maintain a semblance of control in a deeply divided and war-torn state. As the Civil War moved into its later stages, the capital was menaced with the threat of attack by Confederate horsemen -- by Col. Joseph Shelby's raiders in late 1863 and by Gen. Sterling Price's army a year later.
As a true border state Missouri was a place of divided loyalties in the years leading up to the Civil War. Demographic and cultural ties lined Missouri to the South; economic connections and changes in population trends during the 1850s revealed that Missouri also had many links to the Northern states. Political affairs during this same period reflected the mixed feeling of most Missourians as they attempted to sort out their loyalties in an atmosphere of impending conflict, while on either extreme, hardening factions mobilized for an inevitable confrontation.
At the onset of the Civil War the government in Jefferson City was headed by Gov. Clairborne Fox Jackson, who was avowedly pro-Southern. The General Assembly after the 1860 elections, consisted in majority of men who were considered conditional Unionists (pro-Union but against coercing seceding states to remain in the Union), but at one end of the spectrum were a large number of pro-Southerners and on the other a small minority of unconditional Unionists. The most pressing question facing the state government was how to deal with the secession issue. The matter was referred to a specially elected State Convention that met first in Jefferson City, then St. Louis, from February 28 to March 22. The Convention came to the conclusion at the time that it was in Missouri's best interest to remain in the Union. The convention also resolved that the states desiring to secede in order to establish an independent southern Confederacy should in no way be prevented from doing so by the federal government. Events quickly proved that such a neutral position was impossible to maintain.
Until late spring, the legislature resisted Governor Jackson's call to reorganize the antiquated state militia into a more powerful state guard with enough military muscle to enforce an exodus from the Union, should a final break come with federal authorities. On May 10, an incident occurred that dramatically transformed public opinion and the posture of the legislature. On that day federal forces in St. Louis, suspecting a secessionist plot, captured a brigade of the state militia then encamped at Camp Jackson. A riot ensued that left 28 civilians dead at the hands of the Federals. The legislature was then in special session, and still wrangling over Jackson's military bill. The news of the capture of Camp Jackson instantly resolved the impasse and the military bill was passed in less than 15 minutes. The
governor then sent the legislature a message (in reality a false alarm) that a federal army was advancing on the capital. In an extraordinary all-night session the legislature gave Governor Jackson emergency powers to put the state on a war footing to resist any would-be invaders. Sterling Price, Mexican war hero and popular ex-governor, was appointed major general in command of the new State Guard.
After an uneasy month-long truce, a break came between Jackson's secession-leaning group and St. Louis Unionists led by Gen. Nathaniel Lyon and U.S. Congressman Frank Blair, Jr. Lyon declared war on Jackson's government on Jul 11 at the conclusion of a stormy meeting, held at the Planters House in S. Louis, between Jackson and Price and Lyon and Blair.
Jefferson City at the time had a large German-American population that was strongly pro-Union. Given this situation, Jackson decided to temporarily remove the government to Boonville. Boxing up official papers and the state seal, Jackson, along with most members of the state government who decided to cast their lot with the South, evacuated the capital on June 13. Two days later, four steam boats pulled up to Jefferson City's wharf and unloaded Lyon, Blair, and 2000 troops who immediately placed the city under military occupation. While Lyon continued toward Boonville in hot pursuit of Jackson, a detachment of three companies was left behind under command of Col. Henry Boernstein to begin the federal occupation of the capital that was to last for the duration of the Civil War.
Following Price's army, the members of the General Assembly that fled Jefferson City temporarily assembled in southwest Missouri, first at Neosho, then Cassville, where a group of legislators passed an Ordinance of Secession and voted to ally Missouri with the South as the 12th Confederate state. This was always to be a government in exile, headed by Jackson until his death in late 1862 and then by Lt. Gov. Thomas Reynolds. The seat of this government shifted from one place to another during the war and was finally located in Marshall, Texas, late in 1863.
With Missouri's elected government forced to flee by military force, a new Unionist government was needed to conduct the affairs of state. But no legal precedent existed for creating an entirely new government. The situation was remedied by reconvening the State Convention that had adjourned the preceding March after deciding that Missouri should remain in the Union. On July 30, the members of the State Convention declared the office of the executive branch and General Assembly to be vacated. The next day, the executive offices of the new provisional government were filled by appointment of the Convention, and Hamilton R. Gamble was selected to carry out the duties of provisional governor. The Convention intended that elections for the vacated seats of the General Assembly, and for the executive offices, be held by August of 1862. But the ever-growing problem with guerrilla warfare and increasing disaffection of large segments of the public with harsh federal military policies made the outcome of any election uncertain and the election for executive offices was put off until November 1864, near the war's end. Hamilton Gamble died on January 31, 1864, and Lt. Gov. Willard Hall served until he was succeeded by Gov. Thomas P. Fletcher on January 2, 1865.
An election governed by strict test oath requirements to establish loyalty to the Union cause was held in November 1862 to fill the vacant seats of the General Assembly. The twenty-second General Assembly met in two sessions; from December 29, 1862, to March 23, 1863, and from November 10, 1863 to February 16, 1864. The State Convention met a total of five times during the war, convening for the last time on June 15, 1863. Both the Convention and the General Assembly grappled with the two most pressing political issues of the war years, the question of how and when to emancipate Missouri's slaves and legislation regarding the imposition of loyalty oaths to determine who could vote, hold office, and practice certain professions. In the early years, conservative slave holders dominated the political process, but as the war progressed Radicals played an even more dominant role and were swept into control of the state government in the November 1864 elections. They wrote the "Drake" Constitution of 1865, which provided for immediate emancipation of slaves and created a harsh "Iron-Clad Oath" that excluded former Confederates and sympathizers to their cause from several professions and the franchise -- a situation that lasted for the next five years until the oath provisions were repealed by popular vote in 1870.
The Union army, Missouri Home Guard, and Enrolled Militia units that defended the state capital during the four years of the Civil War never yielded the capital city back to the expelled former officials and their armies, who had hastily departed Jefferson City in mid-June 1861 to cast their lots with the Confederacy. There were, however, many anxious moments throughout the war for the protectors of the state capital. The need to fortify Jefferson City strongly became urgent following the defeat and death of General Lyon at Wilson's Creek on August 10, 1861. Emboldened by that victory, in late September, Gen. Sterling Price, at the head of the State Guard, advanced into the Missouri heartland and forced the surrender of the Union garrison at Lexington. Price was motivated by an intense desire to reclaim Missouri for the South, and his presence in the Missouri River valley was always a matter of grave concern for the federals charged with keeping Missouri in the Union column. Future commander-in-chief of the Union army, Ulysses S. Grant spent a week in Jefferson City before being reassigned to Cape Girardeau in late August of 1861. He immediately saw that the city could not be fortified, as he was ordered to do, until the inexperienced troops assigned to him had some semblance of training, but he hardly had the time to see to this need. It was Gen. John Charles Fremont, arriving in Jefferson City in late September 1861 at the head of a 15,000-man army, who inaugurated the first major round of fortification building in the capital city. Price was still in Lexington six days after his great victory in the "Battle of Hemp Bales" and still causing anxiety for federal commanders who feared that he might turn on the capital. To counter this, Fremont established Camp Lillie and soon had his men busily at work erecting a ring of fortifications around the city manned by thousands of troops and five artillery batteries. The state house was completely ringed by emplacements of cannon. Price wisely turned south on September 30, electing to postpone his confrontation with the defenses of Jefferson City until another day.
The next threat to the capital city came in the fall of 1863. Needing a diversion, General Price sent his best cavalry leader, Col. Joseph O. Shelby, out of Arkansas on a daring raid into Missouri. Shelby had stated that one of his aims was to fly the flag of the Confederacy from the Capitol dome. His raiders got as close as Tipton, 35 miles away, while alarmed soldiers frantically refurbished the defenses around Jefferson City and awaited attack by the legendary Confederate cavalryman. Upon receiving word of this activity, Shelby bypassed the capital and headed instead for Boonville and a much friendlier reception.
The greatest military peril that Jefferson City was exposed to during the Civil War came in the the fall of 1864 as a result of the famous raid of Sterling Price. In late September, Price crossed from Arkansas into Missouri at the head of an army of 12,000 soldiers. His principal mission was to capture St. Louis, but historians suggest that Price also had a political objective of capturing enough territory to hold elections and install a Confederate governor and legislature.
Price's raiders suffered their first setback at Pilot Knob on September 27, where they left a thousand or more men dead or wounded on the field surrounding Fort Davidson and its small band of determined federal defenders. Following the Pilot Knob disaster, Price concluded that St. Louis was too heavily defended. He turned his army in the direction of Jefferson City. While Price advanced slowly toward the capital city from the east, Union defenders were hurriedly converging on Jefferson City from all directions; Generals Sanborn from Springfield, McNeil from Rolla, Fisk from St. Joseph, and Brown from Warrensburg. Seven thousand troops had gathered in the city and another 7,000 were on the way including those of Gen. Alfred Pleasonton, who was to assume overall command of the federal pursuit of Price.
In the meantime, hundreds of soldiers and civilians were busily at work repairing old fortifications and erecting new ones. As Price's troops neared the city, a reception had been prepared for them consisting of five stout earthen forts connected by rifle pits that ringed the city, discouraging attack from any direction.
On October 6, federal outposts at crossings on the Osage River were forced back by advance elements of Price's army under Shelby (who was now a general). The next day, after a brisk skirmish the Confederates pushed their forces across the Moreau River to a point only five miles from the capital. By midday, the Confederates had gained the heights on the southern and eastern outskirts of the city and could clearly see the Stars and Stripes waving above the capitol
dome.
The impending battle never materialized. Price could see that his objective was strongly defended and that an assault on the breastworks protecting the capital would most likely prove more costly in human life than had Pilot Knob. He therefore abandoned his second objective of seizing the capital and ordered his troops to take up a westward march the next day. With the departure of Price's raiders on October 8, in the direction of the fateful battlefields of Westport, all military threats to Jefferson City ended, and the state capital enjoyed a relative peace during the waning months of the Civil War. - text of marker