May 30, 1854
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed causing slave-holding Missourians to flood into Kansas. This led to the Missouri-Kansas Border War and eventually the Civil War.
May 2, 1878
The Neosho Times reported that some Washburn, MO boys were working for a farmer when they plowed up about $80 worth of gold and silver which the farmer had buried there at the beginning of the Civil War.
November 9, 1802
Elijah Lovejoy was born on this date. Lovejoy was a crusading newspaper publisher, who got his start in St. Louis, and he was abolitionist who was killed when a mob came to break up his press in Alton, Illinois.
November 6, 1861
U.S. Grant sailed 3000 troops down the Mississippi to defeat confederate forces at the Battle of Belmont, Missouri.
October 15, 1864
The battle of Glasgow began on this day. Four hundred Union soldiers and fifty Confederates lost their lives in this rebel victory.
September 27, 1864
The Battle of Pilot Knob was fought saving St. Louis and Jefferson City from Price’s Confederates. It truly was a turning point in the war’s western theater.
July 4, 1863
About ten thousand people gathered for an Independence celebration and to see a balloon ascension in St. Louis. Southern sympathizers in the crowd clashed with Union Soldiers and several people were shot, two died.
