They had fought skirmishes with the Confederate troops as the southerners approached the city. Now it was night and the Union soldiers were fortifying themselves for the attack they were sure would come the next morning. The Confederates, making a bold move into Missouri – a last-gasp thrust according to some – had been frustrated by mistakes and near misses for weeks and had just fought a bloody battle to the south. Now the state capital was within their grasp. The city, never before attacked by the Confederacy, was facing its greatest danger since the opening days of the war, when Union forces had taken over peacefully without a shot being fired or a casualty being reported.

AOWM – October 7

Only two men in Missouri history served in two national Senates. One of the men was George Graham Vest. The other,Waldo Porter Johnson, is not as well known. Both served in the United States Senate and in the days of the Civil War both were in the Confederate Senate at Richmond.

AOWM – September 16

The man from Washington was visiting with the president-elect on a secret mission. The country was falling apart. War was imminent. The president was powerless to keep it from happening in the final days of his administration. Would the president-elect approve a desperate maneuver that might forestall a civil war? That was the question put to Abraham Lincoln by a Missourian named Duff Green.

AOWM – August 15

This battle rates only a few words in the history books of Missouri and hardly any at all in overall Civil War histories. It was the northernmost skirmish west of the Mississippi during that war. However, some of the men who fought in the battle of Athens are remembered more for another battle they fought later, several hundred miles south.

AOWM – August 5

The smoke-belching sidewheeler which had been working its way upstream for the last two days nosed into the landing on the riverfront. It was Saturday and although the community appeared quiet on the surface, it was in confusion and turmoil. About three days earlier the city had been thrown into chaos when the governor and a general rushed back from St. Louis, then fled.
Uncertainty prevailed.It was mid-afternoon. Men began to file off the boat. They were wearing uniforms of federal soldiers. The capital city of Missouri was about to become an occupied town. Union forces seized the city without a shot being fired. They occupied the city for four years, all the while knowing the governor, the lieutenant governor, and hundreds of Confederate soldiers wanted to regain it. But the city, lost in the first few hours of the Civil War in Missouri ,was never regained.

AUDIO: AOWM June 15, 2005 (mp3)