Anderson, William T.
Bloody Bill
1840-1864
In the history of armed human conflict, few men in 24 years of life have left a mark as indelible as Bloody Bill Anderson's. Reared in Huntsville, Missouri, his family moved to Kansas before the Civil War, and Anderson is believed to have enlisted in the Missouri State Guard in 1861. Little is known of his early history or his service before August, 1863; There is no reason to believe that brutality inhabited his character.

The demon in Anderson was vengeance. A bad policy - Union authorities in western Missouri jailed relatives of Southern partisans on charges of aiding and abetting - became infinitely worse on August 13, 1863. A Kansas City building housing female prisoners collapsed. Four young women died, including Anderson's 14 year old sister, Josephine. Mary Anderson, 16, was disfigured and crippled. Anderson no doubt believed, as some still believe, that this was a case of criminal negligence or worse. Four days later, Quantrill began his murderous raid on Lawrence, Kansas, urged on by those intent on avenging Kansas City. Anderson rode with him.

In 1864, Anderson was ready to assert himself as leader of the most violent wing of the Missouri partisans. He spent the Summer in central Missouri, spreading terror and making war without bounds. In September, 1864, Anderson's rampage culminated - and most would say his vengeance was fulfilled - in a small north Missouri town called Centralia.

Centralia made Bill Anderson the most hunted man in America. He lived another month. Trapped by a Union patrol in Orrick, Missouri, on October 27, 1864, he lead a last charge and fell. His body was hauled to Richmond, Missouri, and his remains lie there in Pioneer Cemetery.

Baker, Conrad
1817-1885
Born in Pennsylvania in 1817, and graduated from Gettysburg College, Conrad Baker moved west to Evansville, Indiana in 1841. He was appointed colonel of the 1st Indiana Cavalry upon the call to arms in 1861.

The 1st Indiana was mustered in late August, 1861, and moved immediately to St. Louis. The unit was then posted to Ironton, and in October fought in the battle of Fredericktown, Missouri. It was the charge of the 1st Indiana which broke the southern line at Fredericktown.

Baker was Governor of Indiana, 1867 - 1873, and thereafter Baker helped found the law firm of Baker & Daniels in Indianapolis, which is now one of Indiana's largest firms.

Bennett, Logan
1842-1933
Logan Bennett, one of the original founders of Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri, was interred in the national cemetery on October 18, 1933. Private Bennett was a member of Company K, 65th U. S. Missouri Colored Infantry, one of two regiments which after the war, gave generously of their funds which they received for their services, to establish a school for blacks in Missouri. The school was founded in 1868. Through the sacrificing of these soldiers, $5,510.50 was collected to begin Lincoln University. Bennett died on October 15, 1933, at the age of 91. Bennett Hall, a dormitory on campus, is named in his memory. (Biography courtesy of U.S. Veterans Administration)

Bibb, Reuben
1818-1864
Pvt. Reuben Bibb, of Labadie, Missouri, gained his freedom when he enrolled in the 65th Regiment, U.S. Colored Troops, and was mustered in at Washington, Missouri, on December 29, 1863. He was 45 years old when he enlisted.

Missouri’s 65th Regiment is one of the “hard-luck” stories of the War. Assigned to garrison duty at Morganza and Port Hudson, Louisiana, fully 3/4th of its complement of troops (749 enlisted men and 6 officers) died of disease before their terms of service expired. Bibb died at Morganza on December 12, 1864.

Bingham, George C.
1811-1879
George Caleb Bingham was born in 1811, in Virginia, and moved with his family to the Missouri frontier, near Boonville, in 1819. On his way to becoming Missouri's greatest artist, Bingham's life became entwined in Missouri's Civil War. [not complete]

Black, John Charles
1839-1915
Born in Holmes County, Mississippi, John Charles Black moved to Illinois at an early age, and 1861 found him a student at Wabash College in Indiana. He enlisted in an Indiana 90-day regiment and fought in one of the War's first battles, at Romney, Va. on June 13, 1861. Upon disbandment of this unit, Black returned to his home in Danville, IL, and organized the 37th Illinois Infantry. [not complete]

Blair, Jr., Francis P.
1821-1875
A Union politician and soldier. A member of the famous Blair family that had a role in national politics from Andrew Jackson through the Civil War. Blair threw his support to Lincoln in the 1860 presidential race. He rallied support for the candidate in Missouri, especially among the German community in St. Louis. He enlisted as a colonel at the onset of hostilities, and in November of 1862 received his promotion to Major General. Blair commanded a brigade in the Vicksburg campaign, and managed a corps during Sherman's advance to Atlanta. Blair spent his personal fortune on activities to keep Missouri in the Union during the crucial early days of the conflict. He ended the war financially ruined and assumed a number of appointed state positions in the postwar years.

Brown, Benjamin Gratz
Gratz
1826-1885
Colonel "Gratz" Brown was in command of Union forces at Ironton in August, 1861, when he was relieved by newly commissioned Brig. General Ulysses Grant. Grant noted in his Memoirs that Brown "was gladder to see me on that occasion than he ever has since," a reference, tongue-in-cheek, to the fact that eleven years after their Ironton meeting Brown was Horace Greeley's running mate on the Radical Republican ticket which challenged Grant's run for a second term as President.

Before the Civil War, Brown had the distinction of having fought the last duel on Missouri soil, against a man who would ultimately be Missouri's Confederate Governor-in-exile, Thomas Reynolds.

Brown's Civil War service for the Union was largely undistiguished, although he rose to the rank of Brig. General of Volunteers.

Brown died a resident of Kirkwood, Missouri, and is buried in Kirkwood's Oak Hill Cemetery.

Brown, John
1800-1859
The radical abolitionist was born in Connecticutt in 1800, and became infamous in 1859 when he and his band captured Harper's Ferry, Virginia. In December, 1858, he made his mark on Missouri.

Already famous for his role in the Osawatomie, Kansas massacre in 1856, Brown resumed his residency in Kansas in 1858 while Eastern supporters planned the Harpers Ferry raid. On December 20, from his camp near present day Fulton, Kansas, Brown and his band - many of the same men who were captured at Harpers Ferry - crossed into Missouri and attacked two homesteads in the extreme northwest corner of Vernon County, and murdered slaveholder David Cruise. Eleven slaves were liberated from the Cruise farm and the nearby farm of the Lawrence family.

Brown accompanied the freed Missouri slaves on a 3 month journey on the Underground Railroad route through Nebraska and Iowa, and by train to Chicago and Detroit, where his charges were ferried to Canada. The entire affair was a media event, and no doubt designed to be.

Brown's Vernon County raid was the "dry run" for Harpers Ferry, which Brown himself confirmed when he opened his statement upon receiving a sentence of death:

"I have, may it please the court, a few words to say.
In the first place, I deny everything but what I have all along admitted - the design on my part to free the slaves. I intended, certainly, to have made a clean thing of that matter, as I did last winter, when I went into Missouri and there took slaves without the snapping of a gun on either side, moved them through the country, and finally left them in Canada. I designed to have done the same thing again, on a larger scale. That was all I intended. I never did intend murder, or treason, or the destruction of property, or to excite or incite slaves to rebellion, or to make insurrection."

Neither the facts stated in reference to the Missouri raid, nor Brown's intentions, were accurate.

Campbell, Given
1835-1906
A lawyer educated at the University of Virginia, Given Campbell established a practice in St. Louis before the War. He enrolled in the Missouri Militia in 1861, and was among those captured at Camp Jackson on May 10, 1861. [not complete]

Cleburne, Patrick
Stonewall of the West
1828-1864
One of the South's greatest field commanders, Patrick Cleburne was an Irish immigrant who established himself in Helena, Arkansas, before the War. A prominent attorney and a veteran of the British Army, Cleburne formed a regiment at the outset of the War, the Yell Rifles, and served as its colonel.

Cleburne's first assignment brought him to Greenville, Missouri, where Confederates under William J. Hardee established a base camp on a line which extended the Cumberland Gap to Columbus defense line into the trans-Mississippi. Hardee retired to Arkansas in mid-August, 1861, as U.S. Grant began to apply pressure to Confederate troops in Missouri.

Cleburne went on to fight in nearly every battle in the western theater, achieving the rank of Major General. He died leading a charge at Franklin, Tennessee, November 20, 1864, and is buried in Helena.

Conn, Luther
1842-1922
From Kentucky, Luther Conn joined the Confederate service 1861. He served as a captain in Morgan's cavalry, was wounded at Murphreesboro and was captured during Morgan's Ohio raid. Exchanged in 1865, he returned to service in Virginia.

Conn served with the troops escorting Jefferson Davis on his exodus south following the fall of Richmond.

Settling in St. Louis after the War, Conn became a real estate developer. Upon U.S. Grant death, he acquired the property known as "White Haven" in St. Louis, making it his home for a number of years. It is the result of Conn's efforts that White Haven has been preserved and is now the U.S. Grant National Historic Site.

Conn is buried in St. Louis' Bellefontaine Cemetery. Curiously, he is one of two officers who accompanied Jeff Davis who lie there. [See Given Campbell]

Couzins, Phoebe Wilson
1842-1913
Phoebe Couzins served as a Civil War nurse with the Western Sanitary Commission, which her mother Adalaide had helped to found. Her father, John E.D. Couzins, was the Provost Marshall of the State of Missouri during most of the Civil War, and also served as the St. Louis Chief of Police dring the War years.

In 1869, Couzins enrolled in the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, and was Missouri's first female law school graduate - and the third in the nation. She became a leader of the woman's suffrage movement, and in her remarkable career achieved the following: Admitted to the bar in Arkansas and Utah, the first female member of the bar in each state; First woman to try a case in federal court; First woman to address a national political convention; and, in 1887, the first woman appointed to the positon of United States Marshall.

Phoebe Couzins died in poverty in 1913, and was buried in St. Louis' Bellefontaine Cemetery, her Marshall's badge pinned to her chest.

Dodge, Grenville M.
1831-1916
Iowan Grenville Dodge, chief architect of the Transcontinental Railroad after the Civil War, [not complete]

Duke, Basil
1838-1916
Kentuckian by birth, Basil Wilson Duke was practicing law in Missouri when he became a leader of a pro-Southern faction in St. Louis known as the Minute Men.

In 1861, he married Henrietta Morgan, a sister of John Hunt Morgan. During most of the Civil War he was Morgan's second in command, and succeeded Morgan upon the latter's death. He was author of a History of Morgan's Cavalry and a volume of Reminiscences. He served in the Kentucky House of Representatives and had a distinguished legal career.
(Thanks to Kentucky Biography page)

Earp, James Cooksey
1841-1926
The oldest of the Earp brothers was born in Kentucky, in 1841, before the family moved to Monmouth, Illinois. In 1861 he enlisted in the 17th Illinois Infantry, and soon found himself in Missouri.

Earp was with the 17th Illinois when it descended on Jeff Thompson's troops at Fredericktown on October 21, 1861. He was shot through the right shoulder at Fredericktown, losing most of the use of his arm. Earp was discharged from the army, and was disabled by his wound for the rest of his life.

James was a gambler, and saloon owner, in Tombstone when his brothers made their mark on history. One can only presume that he was not at the OK Corral because of the wound he received in Fredericktown. James died in Los Angeles in 1926, and is buried in the family plot in San Bernardino.

Emerson, John W.
1830-1899
John Wesley Emerson briefly served as Major and Colonel of the 47th Missouri Volunteer Regiment organized in his home town of Ironton, Missouri. His story and legacy reaches far beyond Ironton, however.

A graduate of the law school of the University of Michigan, Emerson settled in Ironton in 1857 and soon became the town's leading attorney. His first brush with history occurred in August, 1861, when newly commissioned Brigadier U.S. Grant chose Emerson's home to establish his headquarters. It was Emerson, who authored a series of articles on Grant's career for the magazine Midland Monthly near the end of his life, who claimed that while camped at his home Grant developed the plan to conquer the Mississippi.

After serving as a judge in Ironton, Emerson was appointed to the post of U.S. Marshall in St. Louis, and moved there in 1887. In St. Louis, he met the Meston brothers, who persuaded him to become the principal investor in an electrical manufacturing company they were forming. The Meston's start-up, St. Louis-based Emerson Electric Company, still bears his name.

Ewing, Jr., Thomas
1829-1896
General Thomas Ewing was both the brother (by Sherman's adoption) and brother-in-law of William T. Sherman. Before the War, Ewing moved to Kansas and became a prominent attorney active in pro-abolition politics. He was the first Chief Justice of the Kansas Supreme Court (1861-1862).

Ewing commanded the Department of Kansas in 1863, and in the wake of the Lawrence Massacre issued the infamous Order No. 11, which is said to be most drastic military action taken against American civilians before the Japanese internments of World War II.

Known more as an administrator than a field commander, Ewing nevertheless found himself in command of the garrison at Pilot Knob, Missouri, when Price approached that place during his famous 1864 raid. Ewing, by this time marked for death as a result of his Order No. 11, defended Fort Davidson against repeated assaults by vastly superior numbers. Escaping with the garrison, Ewing conducted one of the masterful retreats of the entire War. History, however, judges him by the events of 1863, and indeed his post-war political career was ruined by the stain of Order No. 11.

After the War, Ewing served as attorney for three of the Lincoln conspirators, including Dr. Mudd. He eventually practiced law in New York, where he died in 1896.

Fremont, John C.
Pathfinder of the West
1813-1890
Following a stint teaching mathematics in the Navy he joined the Army Topographical Engineers Corps in 1838. He earned a reputation as " The Pathfinder" for journeys across the Rocky Mountains. He became embroiled in controversy for his actions in California. Elected Governor by the Americans who revolted against the Mexican authorities Fremont refused to obey the U. S. military authorities who claimed control of the region during the Mexican War. Convicted of mutiny and disobedience he was allowed to resign to avoid dismissal from the service. He served in the Senate from California before being nominated by the Republican Party as their first presidential candidate in 1856.

When the war erupted he was appointed a major general of the Western Department stationed in St. Louis. He performed poorly in his new job. There were problems with dishonest contractors and with the powerful Blair family. On August 30, 1861 Fremont angered Lincoln by issuing his emancipation policy pertaining to slaves in Missouri. This action caused his dismissal from Missouri. Transferred to the Shennandoah valley he was defeated by Jackson at Cross Keys. He went home to New York and spent the remainder of the conflict awaiting orders.

Grant, Ulysses S.
Unconditional Surrender
1822-1885
U.S. Grant's life story cannot be fairly treated here. Space permits an abbreviated mention of his many Missouri ties. They begin at West Point in 1842, when Fred Dent of St. Louis became his roommate.

After West Point, Grant's first post was Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis; He soon was introduced to Fred's sister, 18 year old Julia Dent. After a long engagement, they married in 1848. When his first stint in the regular Army ended, Grant lived on the Dent estate, farming two parcels, for most of his St. Louis years, 1854-1860. The Dent home, "Whitehaven," owned by Grant and his wife for a time during his presidency, is the only home he ever owned. Restored in the 1990's, it is now the Ulysses Grant National Historic Site.

Grant, in the wake of business failures, moved to Galena, Illinois, in 1860. In 1861 he was back in action, and the action was in Missouri. Colonel Grant, commanding the 21st Illinois, entered northeast Missouri in the first days of July, 1861. His mission: Defend the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad, which was then the western-most link in the nation's rail network. His activities until August were concentrated on Missouri's railroads, as he and the 21st Illinois moved south, stopping at Mexico, Jefferson City, and, finally, at the terminal point of the Iron Mountain Railroad, at Ironton, 80 miles south of St. Louis. There, camped by a spring which still flows, Grant received his commission as a brigadier general, and command of union forces in southeast Missouri. Grant faced regular Confederate troops at Greenville, and the wily "Swamp Fox", M. Jeff Thompson, who was everywhere.

The Battle of Belmont, November 7, 1861, was Grant's first, and had as its objective the Confederate gibralter at Columbus, Kentucky. His first effort failed, but in his fashion he followed with an "end-around." Columbus was abandoned when Grant captured Fort Donelson, east in the Tennessee-Cumberland valley. The rest, at they say, is history.

Green, Martin
1815-1863
Martin Green, a farmer and Lewis County administrator in northeast Missouri. His first command was a State Guard force that unsuccessfully attacked a small force of Home Guard troops at Athens led by Col. Davey Moore. Green's force subsequently united with Gen. Sterling Price's State Guard army at Lexington and participated in the siege there. Green led with distincition and eventually commanded the Second Missouri Brigade under Major Gen. John S. Bowen. He was killed by a sniper's minie ball at Vicksburg.

Hecker, Friedrich
1811-1881
A Heidelberg University-educated lawyer, Friedrich Hecker became involved early in republican politics in the German State of Baden, which was to be a hotbed of unrest as political turmoil erupted across Europe in the late 1840's. One of the sparks which ignited the 1848-49 revolt in Germany was a speech Hecker delivered in the city of Konstanz, April 12, 1848, in which he declared the State of Baden to be a republic. His fame reached such a level in Germany that the official song of the revolutionary forces was known as "the heckerlied." Military reverses followed, and Hecker and many others were forced to leave Baden for America. His arrival in New York, in October, 1848, saw a reception by a public throng purportedly surpassed to that point only by LaFayette's visit to America in the 1820's.

Hecker and many compatriots settled in southern Illinois, in the area of Belleville just east of St. Louis, where they were known as the "Latin Farmers." Hecker was among the first prominent citizens of Illinois to embrace the new Republican Party in the 1850's. As war approached in 1861, Hecker is said to have rowed across the Mississippi to St. Louis, where he enrolled as a private in one of the German military units organized by Frank Blair and Nathaniel Lyon to defend the St. Louis Arsenal, the 3rd Missouri Volunteer Infantry which was commanded by his Baden friend Franz Sigel. Hecker was present at the Camp Jackson affair on May 10, 1861.

When the 3rd Missouri's enlistments expired, Hecker was appointed colonel of the 24th Illinois, and operated for a time in southeast Missouri in conjunction with U.S. Grant's 21st Illinois, and then became colonel of the 81st Illinois. This was the so-called "Hecker Regiment," a German and Jewish regiment organized in Chicago. After suffering a wound in the Battle of Chancellorsville, and a disagreement with his superiors, Hecker resigned his commission and returned to his farm near Belleville late in 1863.

Friedrich Hecker died in 1881, and is buried in the city cemetery in Summerfield, Illinois, just outside the St. Louis suburb of Lebanon.

Hickok, James Butler
Wild Bill
1837-1876
Born in Troy Grove, Illinois into an abolitionist family, James Hickok moved west in 1856 as the fight for Bloody Kansas began. In 1861, he joined Jim Lane's Kansans as a civilian scout, just in time to participate in the Battle of Wilson's Creek as a sharpshooter.

Hickok served the Union throughout the War, as a scout, courier, teamster and spy, attached first to Fremont's command and then to the staff of Gen. Samuel R. Curtis. Before the Battle of Pea Ridge, Hickok and a small band infiltrated Confederate lines and brought Curtis intelligence regarding Confederate troop dispositions. He was also present when Zagonyi made his famous charge on Springfield in October, 1861, and was with Curtis at the Battle of Westport in 1864.

Legend holds that Hickok's famous sobriquet, "Wild Bill," was bestowed in 1862 by a bystander who witnessed him stare down a mob in Independence, Missouri. Hickok at the time was escorting an army supply train out of Ft. Leavenworth.

As the Civil War came to a close, Hickok ushered in the post-War West on July 21, 1865, in the square in Springfield, Missouri. There he gunned down ex-Confederate Dave Tutt in the first-ever western-style gunfight.

Husmann, George
1827-1902
Hermann, Missouri, was the new world home of George Husmann, who is acknowledged as the father of the Missouri wine industry. His fame extends well beyond the State of Missouri.

Husmann was born in 1827 in Meyenburg, Hanover, Germany, and emigrated to the United States with his family at age 9. As a young man, he was one of the first to cultivate grapes in Hermann. Then, with the coming of the Civil War, Husmann served for a time as Quartermaster of the 4th Missouri Infantry Regiment (union). Towards the end of the War, Husmann was elected a delegate to the so-called Drake Convention, called to re-write the Missouri Constitution. Husmann is credited with authoring Missouri’s Emancipation Proclamation, which was adopted by the Drake Convention on January 11, 1865, and was the first legislative act of a former slave-holding state that totally outlawed slavery.

Beginning in 1863, the French wine industry was devastated by an infestation of Phylloxera Vastatrix, a small insect that was, ironically, introduced to Europe through the importation of American vines in the years just before the Civil War. By the 1880’s, 40% of France’s vines had been destroyed, and the plague had spread throughout most of western Europe. George Husmann, by the late 1870’s a professor at the University of Missouri, discovered that certain Missouri grape species, having been developed from wild vines, had an immunity to the Phylloxera insect. Husmann, together with several other Missouri wine experts, were instrumental in the mass export of Missouri root stocks - 10 million of them - which were grafted to French vines, and the French wine industry was thus saved. Most of the vines now growing in France are descended from these Missouri vines.

Husmann moved to Napa Valley, California, in 1881, and became the pre-eminent expert on California viticulture. He died in 1902 in California.

Jackson, Claiborne Fox
1806-1862
Emigrating from Kentucky, Jackson and his father entered business earning enough money to retire. He served as a captain in the Black Hawk War then was elected to the state legislature where he served twelve years including one term as Speaker. Elected to the state senate in 1848-1849 he assumed strong proslavery positions. In 1860 Jackson was elected Governor. When the Civil War commenced he attempted to get the legislature to vote an article of secession, but failed to convince the lawmakers. In September 1861 Union forces in St. Louis forced him from the Governor's mansion in Jefferson City. Before Jackson fled he called for the creation of a 50,000-man army entitled the Missouri State Guard. Jackson created a pro-Confederate government in exile. In 1862 he died in Little Rock due to stomach cancer.
(Photo courtesy of University of Missouri Press)

James, Frank
1843-1915
He was buried in Hill Park Cemetery in Independence. [not complete]

James, Jesse Woodson
1847-1882
America's most famous outlaw was a product of Missouri's Civil War. He was born in rural Clay County, Missouri, in 1847, the son of a prominent Baptist preacher. At sixteen, he joined Quantrill's guerilla band. [not complete]

Lyon, Nathaniel
1818-1861
A graduate from the West Point class of 1841, Lyon served in the Seminole War, Mexican War and was posted in Kansas during the period of turmoil known as Bleeding Kansas. His Kansas experience shaped his political views on slavery and he became an ardent abolitionist. Called to St. Louis to protect the United States arsenal in he became allied with Francis Blair to keep Missouri in the Union. In May 1861 Lyon captured a pro-Southern militia encampment at Camp Jackson in St. Louis. The success in St. Louis coupled with Blair's political influence catapulted Lyon to Brigadier General.

Lyon devised a plan to end Southern resistance in Missouri. He captured the state capitol and pushed the pro-Southern Missourians into the southwest corner of the state. Lyon attacked a combined army of Missouri State Guard and Confederate troops at Wilsons Creek outside of Springfield, Missouri. The all morning fight ended with Lyon's death and a Union retreat. Lyon became the North's first military hero.

McNeil, John
The Butcher of Palmyra
1813-1891
A native of Nova Scotia, John McNeil settled in St. Louis in 1836 and became an insurance executive before the Civil War. McNeil is one of four Canadians who have achieved the rank of general in the U.S. Army.

McNeil's Civil War years were spent entirely in Missouri. A mediocre battlefield commander, he played a part in a number of Missouri's most important engagements, including the Battles of Cape Girardeau and Westport.

McNeil's place in history, however, is defined by his act of ordering the execution of 10 southern sympathizers in October, 1861, at Palmyra, Missouri. The Palmyra Massacre created a sensation in the world press, and sparked Missouri's descent into a war of retribution.

McNeil died in 1891 and is buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis.

Pope, John
1822-1892
Heir to a politically powerful family from Kaskaskia, Illinois, just south of St. Louis, John Pope graduated from the USMA in 1842 and served in the Mexican War. When the Civil War broke out, Pope was appointed the first union military commander in Northeast Missouri, an area of critical strategic importance in the Summer of 1861.

Pope headed the union force which captured Island No. 10 near New Madrid, Missouri, on April 8, 1862, and this victory catapulted him to national prominence. Tranferred east, Pope assumed command of the Army of Virginia and promptly lost the battle of Second Bull Run (Second Manassas). His career plummeted, and he spent the remainder of the war commanding the Department of Minnesota.

Pope had a successful career in the post-war army, rising to the rank of Major General, and fought a persistent battle - most would say successfully - to clear his name. Upon his retirement he resided in St. Louis, and following his death in 1892 was laid to rest in Bellefontaine Cemetery there.

Powell, John Wesley
1834-1902
Powell was born in New York State and his family moved to Illinois in 1851. He attended Illinois College in Jacksonville, and later Oberlin College, where he studied botany and natural sciences. As war approached, he involved himself in a program of self-study, to learn military engineering. In 1861, he joined the 20th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and was soon in Missouri.

The 20th Illinois was stationed in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, in July, 1861. Powell, then a sargeant, designed and oversaw the construction of the ring of forts which protected the union garrison, evidence of which still exist. At Cape Girardeau, he organized Battery F, 2nd Illinois Light Artillery (composed mostly of Missouri recruits), and was promoted to Captain. While in command of the battery at Shiloh, Powell received a wound which resulted in the amputation of his right arm. He returned to service to fight at Vicksburg and Meridien, and rose to the rank of Major.

Powell achieved his greatest fame for the expedition he lead in 1869, down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. He is also considered the father of the U.S. Geological Survey, and served as its director for 23 years. Following his death in 1902, he was buried at Arlington.

Price, Sterling
Old Pap
1809-1867
Virginian born and known affectionately as "Old Pap" he served as a farmer, legislator and Congressman in his adopted state of Missouri. He served in the Mexican War and was elected Governor of Missouri in 1852. Price sided with the pro-Southern Missouri State Guard early in the war. Immensely popular he led the Missouri State Guard to victories at Wilsons Creek and Lexington in 1861

He was appointed a major general in the Confederate army in March of 1862. He suffered a series of setbacks at Pea Ridge, AR, Iuka, MS, Corinth, MS and Helena, AR. He defeated Gen. Steele during his Camden campaign early in 1864 before embarking on his ill-advised raid into Missouri in the fall of the same year. His disastrous raid ended in Texas where he was undergoing a court of inquiry into his actions on the recent invasion when the war ended. Rather than surrender he retreated into Mexico where he supported Emperor Maximillian and his forces. Displeased with his situation, and in poor health, he returned to Missouri an impoverished and broken man.

Proskauer, Adolph
-1900
Born in Mobile, Alabama, Adolph Proskauer joined the 12th Alabama Regiment and rose to the rank of Major. He was wounded at Antietem, Chancellorsville and Spottsvania, and retired from the service in December, 1864 on account of his wounds. His role at Gettysburg is treated in Robert Rosen’s new book, “The Jewish Confederates.”

Major Proskauer moved to St. Louis after the War, where he became a merchant and prominent member of the St. Louis Jewish community. He was President of the St. Louis Merchant's Exchange and one of the founders of St. Louis' Jewish Hospital. He died in 1900 and is buried in Mt. Sinai cemetery in St. Louis County.

Schofield, John M.
1831-1906
This future General-in-Chief of the Army was born in New York, moved as a child to Illinois, and graduated from West Point in 1853. In 1860, he took a leave of absence to teach physics at Washington University in St. Louis. His leave ended abruptly in May, 1861, when he offered his services as chief of staff to Gen. Nathaniel Lyon. Schofield was present in this capacity during St. Louis’ Camp Jackson incident on May 10, 1861. He then accompanied Lyon on the campaign that culminated in the Battle of Wilson’s Creek, August 11, 1861. In 1892, Congress would award Schofield a Medal of Honor for his actions at Wilson’s Creek.

Schofield was promoted to brigadier of volunteers in November, 1861. Much of his service in 1862 and 1863 was in Missouri, and by May, 1863 he rose to the position of Commander of the Department of Missouri. During his tenure in Missouri, he was criticized for heavy-handed policies directed to Southern civilian and partisans. Some blame his general orders for the issuance of the infamous “Order Number 11” in August, 1863.

Schofield is most famous as the general who was nearly trapped by Confederate forces in Tennessee, but escaped to deal a death blow to John Bell Hood’s army at Franklin, Tennessee, on November 30, 1864. After the War, he served as Secretary of War, superintendent of West Point, and in 1888 Schofield was promoted to Lt. General and Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Army. He died in 1906 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Scott, Dred
1795-1858
Born in Virginia, Scott first lived in Missouri in about 1830, when the Peter Blow family emigrated to St. Louis. He was sold by Blow to Dr. John Emerson, an Army surgeon, and began his trek to freedom when Emerson took him to Rock Island, Illinois, in 1833. Several years later, Scott married Harriett Robinson Scott at Fort Snelling, Minnesota Territory.

In 1846, Scott and his wife filed separate petitions in St. Louis Circuit Court, seeking their freedom according to a Missouri law which had long acknowledged that slaves taken to free territory were entitled to their freedom. They lost their first trial, on a technicality, in 1847; but the court granted a new trial. After some maneuvering in the appeals courts, the case again went to trial in 1850. The Scotts won.
However, the Missouri Supreme Court, speaking through a 2-1 majority, reversed the decision and reversed years of precedent in holding that the Scotts were not free as a result of years of residency in free territory.

The case which produced the infamous 1857 decision of the United States Supreme Court was commenced in federal court in St. Louis in 1854, and sought to use federal law to override the Missouri Supreme Court decision.

The Scotts were freed in 1857, two months after the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court; The widow of Dr. Emerson had married a Congressman from Massachusetts, and his wife's role in the case became a serious political liability.

See an excellent description of the Scott litigation on the Missouri Secretary of State's website, at http://www.sos.state.mo.us/archives
/resources/africanamerican/scott/scott.asp

Shelby, Joseph Orville
JO
1830-1897
Born and raised in Kentucky, a Missourian by choice, JO Shelby possessed the dashing charm of J.E.B. Stuart and the fighting instincts of N.B. Forrest. With the exception only of Ulysses Grant, Shelby is the greatest natural military genius Missouri has produced - and Missouri is the State which produced John Pershing and Omar Bradley.

Before the Civil War, Shelby was a hemp planter and businessman in Waverly, Missouri, and by some accounts the richest man in Missouri. He had an active role in the Missouri-Kansas Border Wars of the 1850's, raising a troop of horseman in Lafayette County and equipping them at his own expense. Joining the Missouri State Guard, he entered the War early and played an important role in the Battle of Carthage, July 5, 1861.

In 1863, Shelby participated in the three great Missouri raids, including the greatest of all, which bears his name. The saying went that Missouri had five seasons, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and "Shelby's on a Raid." In 1864, he had a key role in Price's Expedition, and his command twice saved the Confederate invasion force, at Westport and at Mine Creek.

Shelby's exploits during the War are legendary. Conservatively, he traveled - in the saddle at the head of cavalry - more than 5,000 miles in Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky and Kansas. Measured in miles, Shelby is without doubt the most well traveled cavalry commander in U.S. History. Still, his wartime operations almost pale in comparison to his Long Ride in 1865. You can read more about Shelby's Long Ride in the Features section of this site.

Shelby died in 1897, and was buried in Forest Hill Cemetery, on the hillside where he made his last stand during the Battle of Westport. Jo Shelby's funeral procession is the largest, to the present day, Kansas City has ever seen.

Sherman, William Tecumseh
Cump
1820-1891
A career army officer, like U.S. Grant, it is difficult to assign a "home town" to William T. Sherman. St. Louis, where he lived on and off throughout his career, is the city which has the clearest claim to Sherman.

As the war approached, Sherman took a position as president of a St. Louis steet railroad, and was present to witness the Camp Jackson affair in May, 1861. He served briefly at Benton Barracks in St. Louis after being relieved of his command in Kentucky when he was thought to have become insane. Restored to field command in early 1862, Sherman went on to achieve legendary success in the Civil War.

After the war, Sherman moved to a home in St. Louis purchased for him by admirers, and from time to time during his post-war career maintained his headquarters there. He retired to St. Louis in 1883, and there in 1884, in the parlor of his home on North Garrison Avenue, penned his famous telegram: "If nominated I will not run; if elected I will not serve."

The Sherman family moved to New York, where Sherman died in 1891. His body was returned to St. Louis and interred at Calvary Cemetery, where son Willy had been buried in 1863.

Sigel, Franz
1824-1902
Born in Sinsheim, Baden, Germany, Sigel graduated from the military academy at Karlsruhe in 1843 and became a key military leader during the 1848 revolutions. He emigrated to the United States in 1852, living first and New York, and then St. Louis. He was the superintendent of schools in St. Louis just before the Civil War erupted.

Appointed Colonel of the 3rd Missouri Volunteer Regiment, Sigel was present at the Camp Jackson affair in May, 1861, and then lead a column to southwest Missouri as part of the pincer movement designed to trap State Guard troops retreating from central Missouri. He commanded the union troops on July 5, 1861, in the first major land battle of the Civil War, at Carthage, Missouri. At Wilson's Creek, August, 1861, his command performed poorly, contibuting to the union defeat. In March, 1862, he participated in the Battle of Pea Ridge, and he performed ably there.

Transferred to the eastern theatre in 1862, Sigel was involved in a number of campaigns, without distinguishing himself, and then lost, ignominously, the Battle of New Market, Virginia, in May, 1864. He resigned his commission in 1865, when relieved of field command.

Sigel was a resident of New York City when he died in 1902.

Sweeny, Thomas W.
Fighting Tom
1820-1892
Fighting Tom Sweeny, a native of County Cork, Ireland, is one of the more colorful products of the U.S. Army.

After emigrating to New York in 1832, Sweeny joined a New York militia regiment which was called into service in the Mexican War. Wounded in the assault on Churubusco, August 20, 1847, he lost his right arm. After recuperating, he was commissioned a Second Lt. in the regular army, and by May, 1861, was a Captain in the 2nd U.S. Infantry.

Called to St. Louis in support of 2nd Infantry troops stationed there under Capt. Nathaniel Lyon, Sweeny commanded the regulars during the Camp Jackson affair on May 10, 1861, and soon thereafter was commissioned a Brigadier General of Volunteers. He took command of the force sent by Lyon to southwest Missouri, fought at Carthage on July 5, 1861, and fought and was wounded at Wilson's Creek in August.

After thus serving in the vanguard of the union's first aggressive acts in the western theater, Sweeny commanded troops at Fort Donelson and Shiloh in '62, and was wounded again at Shiloh. His career reached a zenith in May, 1864, when he was given command of a Division in the Army's XVI Corps during the Atlanta campaign. However, within two months he was cashiered after a fist-fight with another Division commander.

Fighting Tom Sweeny achieved a measure of immortality soon after the Civil War closed. Active in a group known as the "Fenian Brotherhood," which supported Irish independence from Britain, Sweeny was the principal architect of a Fenian scheme to invade Canada and trade Canadian territory for Irish independence. An invasion actually got underway in June, 1866, but failed to achieve success.

Sweeny died in 1892, and is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

Thompson, M. Jeff
The Swamp Fox
1826-1876
Virginian by birth, Thompson emigrated to Missouri in 1847 and settled in St. Joseph. By 1860, he was St. Joseph's mayor; It was Thompson, on April 3, 1860, who handed the mail to the first rider in ceremonies inaugurating the Pony Express.

Thompson joined the Missouri State Guard at its inception, and by the end of 1861 had reached legendary status as the "Swamp Fox," operating an independent command in southeast Missouri. Never actually commissioned an officer of the CSA, Thompson operated almost exclusively in Missouri throughout the war. Captured in August, 1863 in Arkansas, he spent time in St. Louis' Gratiot Street prison, and at Fort Delaware and Johnson Island prisons, before being exchanged in 1864. He then joined Price's 1864 expedition, and was given command of Shelby's Iron Brigade as Shelby was promoted to division command. He was one of the last southern commanders to surrender, on May 11, 1865 in Jacksonport, Arkansas.

Thompson resided in New Orleans after the War, and died in 1876. He is buried in Mt. Moriah Cemetery in his home town of St. Joseph.

Twain, Mark
The Civil War exploits of Missouri's most famous literary figure are described under his given name, "Samuel Clemens."

Waite, Stand
1806-1871
Stand Watie was born at Rome, Georgia, in 1805. He was a younger brother of Elias Boudinot and a nephew of Major Ridge and with them was one of the signers of the removal treaty, or Treaty of New Echota, in 1835. He was marked for assassination at the same time that the Ridges and Boudinot were killed but was warned and escaped. From that time on (June 22, 1839), he was regarded as the leader of the Ridge, or as it came to be known, the Treaty Patty of the Cherokee Nation. He was strongly in favor of the secession movement before the Cherokee Nation entered into an alliance with the Confederate States. He entered the Confederate Army a colonel, in 1861, and was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General in 1864, making him the only Indian to achieve the rank of General. His unit fought with Gen. Sterling Price's Missouri State Guard troops at the battle of Elkhorn Tavern, also known as Pea Ridge, in March 1862. He was known as the last Confederate General to surrender. He died Sept. 2, 1871.

Zagonyi, Charles
1822- ?
Zagonyi was a cavalry captain in during the 1848-49 Hungarian revolution. He came to the United States in 1851 by way of Turkey and England. In the years leading up to the Civil War, he held a variety of jobs: farm hand, housepainter, tailor, and instructor at the Boston riding academy of fellow Hungarian emigre János Kalapsza. Joining Frémont's Western Department, he organized and commanded Frémont's Body Guard, an elite unit of cavalrymen. At Springfield, Missouri, on October 25, 1861, Zagonyi led his troopers against a Confederate force that outnumbered them by about ten to one and defeated them. This daring act brought him enduring fame. He is the overt hero of Jessie Benton Frémont's Story of the Guard, published in 1863.*

The Guard was a flamboyant unit, outfitted by Zagonyi in velvet uniforms, it is said. Although it may be that the odds against The Guard at Springfield were not nearly so great as legend holds, Zagonyi’s Charge, or as it is sometimes called, “Zagonyi’s Death Ride,” was probably the first great cavalry charge of the Civil War. Interestingly, Zagonyi’s Charge at Springfield occurred seven years to the day after the Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War, although Tennyson’s poem that immortalized it was not written until 1864.

After his moment of fame, Zagonyi followed Fremont to the Mountain Department, where he rose to the rank of colonel. He resigned his commission in 1862, and his life thereafter is lost to history. He remains a hero in Hungary.

*description courtesy of NOTABLE HUNGARIANS AND THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS IN THE CIVIL WAR, by Stephen Beszedits, in the Iowa in the Civil War website