Battle of Liberty The Battle of Liberty ( also known as the Battle of Blue Mills Landing or the Battle of Blue Mills ) was a battle of the American Civil War that took place on 17 September 1861 , in Clay County , Missouri . Union forces unsuccessfully attempted to prevent pro - Confederate Missouri State Guard s from northern Missouri from crossing the Missouri River near the confluence with the Blue River to reinforce Sterling Price at Lexington . Background . After his victory at Wilson ' s Creek in August , Price began a campaign to gain control of Missouri . Union troops had been guarding the Hannibal and St . Joseph Railroad and its terminus in St . Joseph , Missouri . When these Union forces were pulled away to meet Price ' s army , Confederate sympathizers from northwestern Missouri seized St . Joseph and sacked the town . On 15 September , about 3 , 500 men of the Missouri State Guard plus a number of irregulars from St . Joseph set out for Lexington . In the evening , Price sent ex - Senator and now General David Rice Atchison from Lexington to help these men , mostly new recruits , cross the river near Liberty . Union troops of the 16th Illinois Infantry and the 39th Ohio Infantry were guarding the Platte River railroad bridge in Buchanan County , which had earlier been sabotaged in the Platte Bridge Railroad Tragedy . These troops started moving to Liberty . At the same time , Union Lt . Col . John Scott led a small force ( 500 men of the 3rd Iowa Infantry , about 70 Missouri Home Guards , and one 6 - pound smoothbore cannon ) from guarding the railroad at Cameron towards Liberty . Heavy rain and bad roads limited his progress to only seven miles that day . On 16 September , Scott camped in Centreville ( ten miles north of Liberty ) , where he heard artillery fire in the distance . The battle . Lt . Col . Scott broke camp at 2 : 00 A . M . on 17 September . He arrived in Liberty at 7 : 00 A . M . , and sent scouts out to find the enemy . Skirmishing began about 11 : 00 A . M . At noon , Scott marched five miles in the direction of the firing , and approached Blue Mills Landing on the Missouri River . General Atchison , who had lived in Liberty , deployed his men in the brush on either side of the Missouri River bottom land road leading to the landing . At about 3 : 00 P . M . , Scott ' s troops encountered the State Guard pickets and were attacked from both sides . Scott ' s artillerymen fired two rounds of canister , inflicting heavy damage . However , a fresh volley from the State Guards scattered or killed most of the gunners . Scott ordered his outnumbered force to fall back to the bluffs in Liberty , hauling off the gun by hand . Atchison attempted a flanking movement on the Federal right , which resulted in a sharp fight . The Union force continued to withdraw , firing as they retreated , taking with them nearly all their wounded , but abandoning their ammunition wagon and a caisson . The State Guard pursued for some distance , but Atchison did not press the attack . Just before nightfall , Scott ' s force retired to Liberty , entering the town about an hour after sunset . Atchison and the State Guards from northern Missouri crossed the river to reinforce Price in his successful attack on Lexington . After sunset the Union troops returned to retrieve their dead from the field . Union troops set up a hospital on the campus of William Jewell College in Liberty and buried their dead on the campus . Casualties . The fighting at Blue Mills Landing lasted for an hour and resulted in a total of 126 casualties . The Union forces suffered 56 casualties and the Missouri State Guard lost 70 . Among the latter was the Missouri State Guard ' s Theodore Duncan , who died on the same day that he had been promoted from captain to colonel . Ten of the sixteen Union field officers fell dead or wounded .