Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/387

 CHAPTER XXVn GENERAL MOVEMENTS Position of the State — Number of Soldiers Furnished — Appointment of a Major-Gen- ERAL OF THE StaTE GuARDS — GENERAL S. WaTKINS GENERAL THOMPSON — SKIRMISHES IN August, 1861 — General Grant — Fortifications at Cape Girardeau — Martial Law — Thompson's Raid into Jefferson County — ^Situation in November, 1861 — Battle of Bel- mont — Early Months of 1862 — Capture op New Madrid and Island Ten — Skirmishes AND Raids op 1863 — Marmaduke's Invasion — Capture of General Jeff Thompson — Price's Raid Conditions After the War. The position of Missouri during the Civil war was unique. The state is situated on the border line between the North and South. In fact nearly all the territory of this state is north of the Ohio river, which was in gen- eral the dividing line between slave and free territory. Under ordinary circumstances, Missouri would have been a northern state ; on the other hand the great bulk of Ameri- can ijniuigrants were from the southern states, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee perhaps furnishing more settlers for ^Missouri in the earl.y period than all other states. These were southern in their sentiment. From this fact it was reasonable to expect Missouri to join with the South in secession. As we have pointed out in another chapter the thing which made Missouri take the position it did was doubtless the presence within the state of large numbers of foreign population. The American settlers who lived on farms were slave owners up to the time of the war. There were large numbers of slaves owned in this state, but the foreign population of the state, most of whom were gathered into towns, did not own slaves and their sympathies were very strongly in favor of the Union. The German population in Cape Girardeau, Cape Girardeau county, in Perry county, in Bol- linger county and in St. Louis were almost to a man, favorable to the North. It was this fact that probably decided the course of Mis- souri. When the convention was held to de- termine what Missouri's action should be, there was a strong element in the state favor- able to secession who desired that Missouri should join the seceded states, but their pro- posed action was bitterly opposed by the Geruuin element of her population, and as a compromise measure it was determined that the state should remain in the Union but should occupy the rather remarkable position of armed neutrality. It was determined that neither North nor South should invade the territory of the state and that Missouri should raise an army of its own for the purpose of protecting itself against the government of which it was a part and against its neighbor states that had seceded from the Union. It is quite evident that this position was 327