Enrolled Missouri Militia - Impact

Impact

While these orders did raise a militia force for garrison duty and local policing that freed the Missouri State Militia for active pursuit of guerrillas and recruiters, the policies also forced those of Southern loyalties to choose sides. Thousands chose the brush, guerrilla bands, or to seek out recruiters to join the Southern army.

Confederate recruiters such as John A. Poindexter and Joseph C. Porter in northeast Missouri would immediately benefit from the order as their numbers were soon swelled by disaffected Southerners. For a time the Enrolled Militia enrollment appeared counterproductive, but within a month both Confederate forces had been beaten and scattered after defeats at Moore's Mill, the Battle of Kirksville, and at Compton's Ferry. The new Enrolled Militia regiments increased the Union presence throughout the state while the Missouri State Militia drove out the recruiters and their regiments. Despite this, approximately 5,000 Southerners did succeed in making their way from northern Missouri to the join Confederate army in Arkansas.

It was more difficult for the Union to reassert control in western Missouri south of the Missouri River. Upton Hays, John Hughes, Jerry Coffee, Jeremiah "Vard" Cockrell, and Jo Shelby were all busy recruiting Confederate regiments during this same period. They were aided by William Quantrill's guerrillas, who made common cause with them. At the First Battle of Independence Hays, Hughes, and Quantrill succeeded in capturing Independence and its garrison (a battalion of the 7th Missouri Cavalry.) Hays, Cockrell, and Coffee then defeated another force at the Battle of Lone Jack. The newly recruited Confederate regiments were able to withdraw intact to Arkansas.

With the departure of the recruiters, the major crisis in Missouri had passed. Guerrilla warfare and raids would continue but would never reach the peak that occurred in the Summer of 1862.