JUNE 14, 1865:
It can be argued that the Civil War had its
birth in the Kansas-Missouri Border War of 1854-1861. During the Civil War
Missouri was a terrifying slaughterfield. 1,162 recorded engagements took place
within its borders between May of 1861 and April of 1865. How many unrecorded
incidents took place is completely unknown, but the State was notorious not
only for the violence of its battles but for the savagery of the men fighting
them, savagery which rivaled the exploits of Attila The Hun and Genghis Khan.
“Missouri” became a code word for the complete breakdown not only of civil
order but of simple humanity.
Given
that its residents were hanged, burned, drowned, exiled, tortured, raped,
mutilated, shot, and stabbed with a routine casualness that was terrifying all
in itself, it would be unrealistic to think that the war simply ended when Lee
gave his Farewell Address. No. In point
of fact, the killing continued, not in any organized way, but in a one-on-one
personal fashion born of a hunger for revenge, Missouri quickly became known as
“The Outlaw State” because so many notorious gunslingers hailed from the State,
and because the existence of law and order continued to be largely a matter of momentary
impulse.
Despite
the “end” of the war, fighting between Federal patrols and former Confederates
still in gray continued, as did raids on towns and attacks on individuals.
In
1864, a Radical Republican Legislature and Administration had been elected, and
from Jefferson City, the Radical Republicans tried to impose order on the State
by force. A new Constitution, outlawing slavery and granting suffrage to blacks
was passed, thoroughly ignoring white popular sentiment. Former Confederates
and ex-slaveholders were barred from property ownership (and voting) and a
reconstituted State Militia (like Kentucky’s, with many Freedmen) was empowered
to keep order. And like Kentucky, enforced order bred violence. Unlike most
places, however, those who resisted State coercion --- mostly former
Confederates-turned-outlaws like the James-Younger Gang --- became folk heroes.
Opposing
them was a masked group of vigilantes called the Bald Knobbers (from a mountain
in the Ozarks), a group of Unionists. As time passed, the Anti-Bald Knobbers
(ex-Confederates) became their most dire foes. The two groups became multigenerational, and
continued fighting each other, with documented incidents reported as late as
1890 (and anecdotal reports into the 1920s). If these are true, then the Civil
War in Missouri lasted a full 70 years.
