University Missourian. [volume] (Columbia, Mo.) 1908-1916, 1912-11-17

The visitor to Columbia on a GER
tain day in April fifty-one years ago
must have noticed the unusual quiet
which pervaded the city. Although
il was the busy season Of the year
business seemed to have been forgot
ten for the time, and murmur of
suppressed excitement went up from
the little groups of citizens gathered
on the streets or in the shops. All
seemed to be engaged in an earnest
discussion of some question of grave
importance.
The reason was this The papers
which had come to Columbia that
morning had made the startling a
nouncement that Fort Sumpter had
been fired upon. The rebellion had
actually begun. Grave as the situa-
ticn might have seemed to them at
the time, yet none realized its full
import. They could not know that
the first cannon which doomed at
Fort Sumpter had launched war.
one of the most terrible in human
annals. The war cloud had been
gathering for years, but there had
always been hope that actual blood
sncd might be avoided through COM
premise now compromise was no
longer possible.
State Between Two Fires.
In the war which followed. Mis-
souri,, as one of the border states, be-
came a sort of battle ground for the
two contending forces. Even as Mis-
souri, was the center of the nation
geographically, so Boone County oc-
cupied a central position in the state.
and as such was field over which
swept the furies of the war. Its
nearness to the state capital and to
the Missouri River put it on the main
highway between the North and the
South.
Before the war Columbia had come
to be recognized as the center for
learning in the state, while the cOun-
try around it had developed into an
important agricultural region. The
four years of warfare however, not
only impoverished its citizens but laid
waste much of the surrounding cOun-
try. While no really decisive battles
were fought on Boone County soil,
the county contributed her part toward
! filling the ranks of both the great
armies elsewhere, and at home was
scourged by a fierce and bloody guer-
rilla warfare. At the opening of the
war many of the Boone County citi-
zens were slave owners and cOnse-
Guently Southern sympathizers. but
the anti-slavery sentiment was also
strong and this brought about an un-
usually bitter party hatred. Partly
because of this division in opinion and
partly because of it's central location
the county became the prey of rowing
bands of bushwhackers who recog-
nized no authority, but who plumber
ed. robbed and murdered with i'm
punity.
The first body of regular troops to
enter the county, was the Federal
forces under Blair and Lyon, who in
May, 1861, came up the river from
jefferson City, moved across the
southern part of the county, crossed
the river again at Rocheport, and oc-
cupied Boonville. This was also the
first battle in the state.
Tents on the Campus.
In September six or seven hundred
infantry and one hundred cavalry un-
der command of Colonel w. H. Worth
| ington marched unheralded into Col
umbia from Jefferson City and pitch
ed their tents on the University cam
pus. Later in the day they occupied
the University building itself and at
the request of citizens gave a dress
parade on Broadway in the evening.
The next day they left as quietly as
they had come.
About month later a body of Con-
federate cavalry under command OF
Colonel Sweeney of Renick marched
through Columbia and encamped at
the fair grounds north of town.
During the evening of Sweeney's
visit an incident occurred which
shows the spirit of the times. While
crowd of Columbia citizens was
standing in front of the Columbia
Statesman office, some of them in con-