Battle of Boonville - Background

Background

At the onset of the Civil War, Missouri, like many border states in the Union, was deeply divided over whether to support the United States under Abraham Lincoln, or join the nascent Confederacy under Jefferson Davis. Claiborne F. Jackson, the pro-Southern governor, wanted his state to secede, but Missouri's overall sentiment was initially neutral. An elected State convention did not pass a secession ordinance, as Jackson had hoped it might.

However, pro-secession elements did not let this setback dissuade them. They seized the small Federal armory in Liberty, Missouri, planning to subsequently confiscate a much more sizable stock of weapons located at the St. Louis Arsenal. This plot was temporarily thwarted by an energetic young officer, Captain Nathaniel Lyon. Lyon allied himself with Missouri Congressman Frank Blair and anti-slavery German immigrants in St. Louis to secure the arsenal for the Union. In the process, Lyon used a mixed force of U.S. Army Regulars and Federally enrolled Missouri Volunteers (mostly ethnic Germans) to capture the Missouri Volunteer Militia (MVM) which had assembled (purportedly for an innocuous annual drill) at Camp Jackson on the outskirts of St. Louis on May 10, 1861. When Lyon unwisely attempted to march his prisoners through the streets of St. Louis, a deadly riot erupted. The Missouri General Assembly, far more secessionist than the state's population at that time, convened an emergency session that night, and passed a series of emergency bills creating the Missouri State Guard, and granting Governor Jackson near-dictatorial powers to take any actions necessary to "repel invasion" (by Federal forces) and "suppress insurrection" (by Missourians enlisted in Federal forces). The new State Guard began organizing statewide in nine decentralized military districts, initially structured around the independent militia companies of the pre-Camp Jackson MVM. State Guard authorities also worked to manage the large numbers of volunteers who flooded into Jefferson City to protect the state capitol from Federal attack that Jackson's supporters believed were imminent.