The Occupied Capital City

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.

AOWM – June 15