page_title: Missouri in the American Civil War
section_title: Commencement of hostilities
hierarchical_section_title: Missouri in the American Civil War / Commencement of hostilities
caption_attribution_description: Claiborne Fox Jackson, the Democratic governor of Missouri in 1861, Bryan Obear Collection, The State Historical Society of Missouri
context_page_description: During the American Civil War, Missouri was a hotly contested border state populated by both Union and Confederate sympathizers. It sent armies, generals, and supplies to both sides, was represented with a star on both flags, maintained dual governments, and endured a bloody neighbor-against-neighbor intrastate war within the larger national war.
  A slave state since statehood in 1821, Missouri's geographic position in the center of the country and at the rural edge of the American frontier ensured that it remained a divisive battleground for competing Northern and Southern ideologies in the years preceding the war. When the war began in 1861, it became clear that control of the Mississippi River and the burgeoning economic hub of St. Louis would make Missouri a strategic territory in the Trans-Mississippi Theater.
  By the end of the war in 1865, nearly 110,000 Missourians had served in the Union Army and at least 30,000 in the Confederate Army; many had also fought with bands of pro–Confederate partisans known as "bushwhackers".
context_section_description: In the election of 1860, Missouri's newly elected governor was Claiborne Fox Jackson, a career politician and an ardent supporter of the South. Jackson campaigned as a Douglas Democrat, favoring a conciliatory program on issues that divided the country. After Jackson's election, however, he immediately began working behind the scenes to promote Missouri's secession. In addition to planning to seize the federal arsenal at St. Louis, Jackson conspired with senior Missouri bankers to illegally divert money from the banks to arm state troops, a measure that the Missouri General Assembly had so far refused to take.
caption: Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson
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