APRIL 25, 1861:
Missouri, a Border State, initially
elected to stay out of the Civil War by remaining in the Union, but staying
neutral---not giving men or supplies to either side and pledging to fight
troops from either side who entered the State. Although secession was narrowly
voted down, Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson was
ardently pro-Confederate, and planned to take the State out of the Union,
regardless.
On this day, with the State on the verge of secession, Unionists carried out
a daring operation. St. Louis held one of the largest Federal arsenals west of
the Appalachians, and the Union needed those guns to equip troops who would
soon be flooding into Cairo, Illinois. Federal infiltrators seized more than
10,000 muskets and other stores and vanished with them before St. Louis
secessionists became aware of the raid.
Missouri could not maintain its
neutrality for long, and ultimately sent men, armies, generals, and supplies to
both opposing sides, had its star on both flags, had separate governments
representing each side, and endured a neighbor-against-neighbor intrastate war
within the larger national war.
By the end of the Civil War, the State had
supplied nearly 110,000 troops to the Union and about 40,000 troops to the
Confederacy.
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