Missouri in the Civil War

United States   U.S. Civil War    Missouri    Missouri Military    Missouri in the Civil War



Introduction
Missouri was a border state and sent many men to the armies on both sides. Nearly 110,000 men fought for the Union, while about 40,000 served the Confederacy. They fought both in Missouri and in other states. Many battles and skirmishes were fought within Missouri itself.

Missouri Military Units
Most units were numbered, however, some were named. See the table below for lists of the regiments, battalions, batteries, and unassigned companies.

The information in the lists of Missouri Military Units comes from the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors web site. That web site can also be searched by the name of a soldier.

Missouri Union Units by Number or by Name Union Units 1st-4th 5th-19th 20th-63rd A to G H to M N to Z Missouri Union Units by Type of Unit Union Units Infantry Cavalry Artillery Home Guard Militia Other Missouri Confederate Units by Number or by Name Confederate Units 1st-2nd <div style="padding-right: 5px; padding-left: 5px; float: left; padding-bottom: 5px; margin: 4px; width: 60px; padding-top: 5px; height: 40px; background-color: rgb(208,208,208); text-align: center">3rd-6th <div style="padding-right: 5px; padding-left: 5px; float: left; padding-bottom: 5px; margin: 4px; width: 60px; padding-top: 5px; height: 40px; background-color: rgb(208,208,208); text-align: center">7th-53rd <div style="padding-right: 5px; padding-left: 5px; float: left; padding-bottom: 5px; margin: 4px; width: 60px; padding-top: 5px; height: 40px; background-color: rgb(208,208,208); text-align: center">A-G <div style="padding-right: 5px; padding-left: 5px; float: left; padding-bottom: 5px; margin: 4px; width: 60px; padding-top: 5px; height: 40px; background-color: rgb(208,208,208); text-align: center">H-O <div style="padding-right: 5px; padding-left: 5px; float: left; padding-bottom: 5px; margin: 4px; width: 60px; padding-top: 5px; height: 40px; background-color: rgb(208,208,208); text-align: center">P-Z Missouri Confederate Units by Type of Unit <div style="padding-right: 5px; padding-left: 5px; float: left; padding-bottom: 5px; margin: 4px; width: 85px; color: black; padding-top: 5px; height: 40px; background-color: rgb(208,208,208); text-align: center">Confederate Units <div style="padding-right: 5px; padding-left: 5px; float: left; padding-bottom: 5px; margin: 4px; width: 60px; padding-top: 5px; height: 40px; background-color: rgb(208,208,208); text-align: center">Infantry <div style="padding-right: 5px; padding-left: 5px; float: left; padding-bottom: 5px; margin: 4px; width: 60px; padding-top: 5px; height: 40px; background-color: rgb(208,208,208); text-align: center">Cavalry <div style="padding-right: 5px; padding-left: 5px; float: left; padding-bottom: 5px; margin: 4px; width: 60px; padding-top: 5px; height: 40px; background-color: rgb(208,208,208); text-align: center">Artillery <div style="padding-right: 5px; padding-left: 5px; float: left; padding-bottom: 5px; margin: 4px; width: 60px; padding-top: 5px; height: 40px; background-color: rgb(208,208,208); text-align: center">State Guard <div style="padding-right: 5px; padding-left: 5px; float: left; padding-bottom: 5px; margin: 4px; width: 60px; padding-top: 5px; height: 40px; background-color: rgb(208,208,208); text-align: center">Other

Service Records
The Compiled Service Records ($) (Fold3.com) of Confederate soldiers who served in organizations from the state of Missouri are available online. In the future, these records will be made available at no charge through the National Archives web site. The compiled service records consist of an envelope containing card abstracts taken from muster rolls, returns, pay vouchers, and other records.

The service records are also available at no charge at National Archives research rooms. Service records may provide rank, unit, date of enlistment, length of service, age, place of birth, and date of death. For more information see Confederate Service Records.

St. Louis Public Library (SLPL)owns a copy of the NARA indexes and compiled military service records for Missouri Union and Confederate soldiers. SLPL also owns NARA's Index to Compiled Service Records of Volunteer Union Soldiers Who Served With the United States Colored Troops,and provides lists of Missouri men who served in Illinois regiments and Missouri men who served in Kansas regiments on its website.

Also see "Missouri Soldier's Database: War of 1812 - WWI" below.

Pension Records
, both approved and disapproved, are available online. . The records are also available at the Missouri State Archives.

Prisoners of War
A small number of Confederate prisoners of the Gratiot Street Prison in St. Louis are listed online at Civilwarstlouis.com. The list was compiled from prison ledgers. Gratiot Street Prison held civilian as well as military prisoners.

Service Records
The Compiled Service Records ($) (Fold3.com) of volunteer Union soldiers who served in organizations from the state of Missouri are available online. The compiled service records consist of an envelope containing card abstracts taken from muster rolls, returns, pay vouchers, and other records. In the future, these records will be made available at no charge through the National Archives web site.

Service records may provide rank, unit, date of enlistment, length of service, age, place of birth, and date of death. The service records are available at no charge at National Archives research rooms. For more information see Union Service Records.

St. Louis Public Library (SLPL) owns a copy of the NARA indexes and compiled military service records for Missouri Union and Confederate soldiers. SLPL also owns NARA's Index to Compiled Service Records of Volunteer Union Soldiers Who Served With the United States Colored Troops, and provides lists of Missouri men who served in Illinois regiments and Missouri men who served in Kansas regiments on its website.

Also see "Missouri Soldier's Database: War of 1812 - WWI" below.

Pension Records
Civil War Pension Index Cards - An of veterans who served in the US Army between 1861-1917 is available on FamilySearch. Each card gives the soldier’s name, application and certificate numbers, state of enlistment, and might include rank and death information. The majority of the records are of Civil War veterans, but the collection also includes records for veterans of the Spanish-American War, the Philippine Insurrection, the Indian Wars, and World War I. For more information see Union Pension Records.

African-American Service Records
St. Louis County Library has An Index to Descriptive Recruitment Lists of Volunteers for the United States Colored Troops for the State of Missouri, 1863–1865 (NARA Microfilm Publication M1894 – 6 rolls) available online. This index has 5,500+ entries and can be browsed either by recruits’ names or by slave owners’ names. The index provides the following information: • Recruit’s last name • Recruit’s first name • Age • Birth State • County of Birth • Slave Owner • County of Residence • State of Residence • Roll • Frame

The U.S. Congress allowed slave owners whose slaves were serving in the Military Service to request compensation for that slave. The claim was based on the slave's military service. Therefore The Index to Slave Compensation Claims found in the Compiled Service Records of U.S. Colored Troops, also provides information on the soldier. These records were placed in the soldier's military file.

Missouri Soldier's Database: War of 1812 - WWI
Similar to the Compiled Service Records cards created by the federal government to document the service of soldiers in the Civil War, the Missouri Adjutant General's Office created cards to document the service of Missourians in twelve wars and military engagements. The cards cover the War of 1812 to WWI including non-national Missouri conflicts such as the Mormon War, the Iowa "Honey" War, and the Heatherly War. The cards were eventually transferred from the Missouri Adjutant General's Office to the Missouri State Archives.

The original service cards were created from muster rolls and other records between 1910 and 1960. Some information came from files maintained by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, as well as published sources. The WWI service cards were created between 1930 and 1950 using service records from the Army and Navy.

The Missouri Soldier's Database: War of 1812 - WWI was created using these service cards that included over 576,000 Missourians who served in the twelve conflicts. A large number of the cards, 380,000 of the them, relate to the Missourians in the Civil War. Links to images of the service cards are available using the "view record" link for many of the records. Information on the original record that was used to create the card is often mentioned on the card.

Provost Marshal Papers

 * The Missouri State Archives includes in their collection a group of papers called the Provost Marshal Papers. These are records from the Union Army War Department. Many of the records pertain to Confederate citizens and sympathizers. Some of them specifically deal with the confiscation and destruction of property in Missouri by Confederate forces in 1864. These records span 1861-1866 and an index to the Missouri portion of the records is available online.


 * Copies of the records can be obtained by contacting the Missouri State Archives. St. Louis Public Library owns the portion of the NARA microfilm set, Selected Records of the War Department Relating to Confederate Prisoners of War, 1861-1865, that includes prisoners at Alton and Camp Douglas in Illinois, and Myrtle and Gratiot Street Prisons in St. Louis.


 * The Provost Marshal papers are also available online free at FamilySearch Historical Records and on . The papers are in alphabetical order, but not every page has the name of the person, so you may need to look at a few pages.


 * Another set called, Union Provost Marshals' File of Papers Relating to Two or More Civilians, is on 94 . The documents relate to civilians, or 'citizens,' who came in contact with the Army. "They include correspondence, provost court papers, lists of prisoners, orders, passes, paroles, oaths of allegiance, transportation permits, and claims for compensation for property used or destroyed by military forces"--Intro. The series has the following as explained in the introduction:


 * (1) An incomplete place and subject index, on the first roll, to some the numbered documents
 * (2) "Documents numbered and in numerical order from 1 to 22737, those on rolls 2-72 being arranged chronologically by year and month from March 1861 to December 1866, and those on rolls 73-83 arranged partly in chronological order"
 * (3) "Unnumbered documents, on roll 83, arranged chronologically by month from January to October 1867"
 * (4) "Lists of civilian prisoners confined by the Middle Department, 8th Army Corps, at Baltimore, Md., bearing various numbers between 7893 and 21616, on rolls 84-86, arranged chronologically by year and month from January 1864 to December 1865"
 * (5) "Papers relating to civilians confined in military prisons, 1862- 65, on rolls 87-94, arranged alphabetically by the location of the prison, from Alton, Illinois, to Wheeling, West Virginia"
 * (6) "Documents relating to the confiscation and destruction of property in Missouri by Confederate forces in 1864, on roll 94, the first part being arranged alphabetically in three subseries by the name of the claimant, and the second part unarranged"

Other Sources
The following source information is from Bob Ferguson's web site, Finding Confederates in Missouri.

Missouri Digital Heritage: Civil War Resources

History Books

 * Jay Monaghan, Civil War on the Western Border, 1854-1865 (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1955). This highly readable book provides a clear and entertaining account of the Kansas-Missouri strife, before and during the war. Politics, social life, as well as battle actions are thoroughly covered. This may be your best introduction to big picture of the war in Missouri.


 * Albert Castel, General Sterling Price and the Civil War in the West (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968). An interesting account of Price who is the most important military leader in Missouri Civil War.


 * Michael Fellman,Inside War, The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri During the American Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). This book must be read by anyone searching for Missouri Confederates, but it is sometimes a difficult book. The author (a professor in Canada) has obviously completed a thorough research into this most difficult area. I, however, found that he also brings an attitude to the book. For Fellman, brutalities committed by Union forces are understandable; equal brutalize committed by pro-Southern bushwackers are always to be condemned. The continual repetition of these points become quite tiresome. However, the reader is given a very vivid description the almost unbelievable horror that innocent folks (as well as the combatants) had to endure during and after the war.


 * Carolyn M. Bartels, The Civil War in Missouri, Day by Day, 1861-1865 (Shawnee Mission, KS: Two Trails Publishing, 1992). This book consists of a chronologically ordered sequence of events in Missouri. The sources are many but not documented, however it does have a useful index.

Books to Get Your Search Started

 * Carolyn M. Bartels, comp., The Forgotten Men, Missouri State Guard (Shawnee Mission, KS: Two Trails Publishing, 1995). These are the soldiers and officers of the Missouri State Guard (or Home Guards) organized by Sterling Price. Her sources are National Archive records, and sources are referenced. The body of the text is organized as an alphabetical list of soldiers' surnames and a separate index lists other names found in the text. There is also a casualty list index by name and place. With over 7000 individuals, there is a very good chance that anyone will find at least one Confederate ancestor. ; Other libraries with the book (WorldCat)


 * Carolyn M. Bartels, Missouri Amnesty (self published but available from Two Trails Publishing, undated). Upon the close of the Civil War, suspected pro-Southerners were required to sign an oath of allegiance to obtain a Presidential pardon. Some signed the oath, and some, including one of my ancestors and his son-in-law, refused to sign the oath and were denied the right to vote. Many were forced from their land; my ancestors living in a pro-Southern community did not suffer this disgrace. Bartels again uses National Archive records and she includes many copies of original documents.. Other libraries (WorldCat).


 * Joanne C. Eakin and Donald R. Hale, Branded as Rebels (self published but available from Two Trails Publishing, 1993). The subtitle is "A list of Bushwackers, Guerrillas, Partisan Rangers, Confederates and Southern Sympathizers from Missouri during the War Years." I highly recommend it as a source of your more mysterious Confederate ancestors. Most entries are references to sources which range from National Archives records to contemporary newspaper articles. It is interspersed with photographs and inserts on historical events. . Other libraries (WorldCat).