Civil War
The role of the University of Missouri in the American military began in 1862, during the American Civil War. Missouri was a border state, and Columbia was a town that had many citizens of southern ancestry, so the university area fell under the eye of the federal government. During the war, a number of different Federal regiments were stationed in Columbia and billeted in University buildings. Academic Hall was used to house soldiers, and Union troops interned Confederate prisoners in the main library on the third floor of Academic Hall. Classes were suspended for 10 months because of the troop occupation and because of loss of staff due to the conflict. During the Union occupation of the library, 467 volumes were taken to construct fires. The Union troops caused other destruction on campus as well, and the Board of Curators, with Congressman James S. Rollins as their representative, sued for damages. The U.S. government settled the case in 1915, the award was used to build the Memorial Gateway.
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Famous quotes containing the words civil war, civil and/or war:
“Colonel Shaw
and his bell-cheeked Negro infantry
on St. Gaudens shaking Civil War relief,
propped by a plank splint against the garage’s earthquake.”
—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)
“Over thy wounds now do I prophesy
...
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men,
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The war shook down the Tsardom, an unspeakable abomination, and made an end of the new German Empire and the old Apostolic Austrian one. It ... gave votes and seats in Parliament to women.... But if society can be reformed only by the accidental results of horrible catastrophes ... what hope is there for mankind in them? The war was a horror and everybody is the worse for it.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)