Border State Contest: Civil War Comes to Missouri in 1861: Trans-Mississippi Musings, #2

Chapter 1 – Little Dixie

"It’s the heart of Missouri, blooded of three,

Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee."

Albert Trombly [1]

Map of Missouri with Little Dixie highlighted [2]

(Link to larger image)

Prior to becoming the Nation’s 24th state on August 10, 1821, thousands of Southerners had immigrated to Missouri, most of them from Kentucky and Tennessee. They were drawn to the rich lands in the Missouri and Mississippi River valleys. The area they settled came to be known as Little Dixie because these immigrants brought their Southern way of life with them.

Many of the immigrants settling in Little Dixie brought their slaves with them. As reported by the Franklin Intelligencer newspaper in November 1817, the population of Missouri was increasing rapidly. [3]

Immigration to this territory, and particularly to this county, during the present season, exceeds almost belief. Those who have arrived in this quarter are principally from Kentucky and Tennessee. Immense numbers of wagons, carriages, carts, etc., with families have for some time past been arriving daily.

It was no sure thing, but Missouri finally was admitted to the Union on August 10, 1821 with a constitution that legalized slavery. This was directly as a result of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which prohibited slavery in the former Louisiana Territory north of the parallel 36°30′ north except within the boundaries of the proposed state of Missouri. [4]

Map of Missouri showing 1860 slave distribution percentage by county

(Link to larger image)

Slavery was important to the economy of Little Dixie. But the number of slaves in Missouri as a whole was never that great. Of all the other slave states, only Delaware had a lower ratio of slaves to whites than Missouri as reported in the 1860 Census. It’s interesting to note that Claiborne Fox Jackson’s home counties of Howard and Saline had the two highest percentages of slave to free population in the state. [5]

Hemp became a cash crop for many farmers in Little Dixie during the 1840s. Hemp’s primary use was in making rope. Hemp rope was used on boats and ships, and the United States Navy was a big user of hemp rope. Hemp was also used to make bags that were wrapped around bales of cotton. Hemp rope was used to tie this bales of cotton as well. [6]

Kentucky was the nation’s leading hemp producer. When Kentuckians immigrated to Missouri, they brought their hemp culture with them. The cultivation of hemp was very labor intensive. In Missouri, as in Kentucky, slaves provided most of the labor. Land on which hemp was grown had to be plowed deeply in the Fall and then again in the Spring. Slaves planted seeds in April and May. By August, plants were ready to be harvested. Slaves used scythes to cut down the plants. Much like grains, the cut hemp was gathered into shocks for drying. [7]

Most of the hemp in Missouri used a process called dew rotting to begin separating hemp fiber from its woody stalk. In October slaves separated the shocks to spread the hemp stalks in the fields. The fall rains and freezing conditions worked to loosen the fiber from the woody stalk. Usually the hemp could be gathered up by the end of December. Slaves then spent the winter in hemp breaking. They used a Manual Hemp Break (or Brake) machine to beat the stalks, thereby separating the fiber from the woody stalk. The final step was pressing the hemp fibers into bales weighing from 100 to 500 pounds. [8]

In 1850, the state of Missouri produced 16,000 tons of hemp which amounted to 46 percent of the country’s total production. Kentucky was first, producing almost 18,000 tons or 51 percent of the country’s total production. By 1860, Missouri had increased its production of hemp to over 19,000 tons, but this now only accounted for 26 percent of the country’s total production. Kentucky still produced over 50 percent of the country’s hemp with close to 40,000 tons. Little Dixie accounted for just over 76 percent of the state’s total hemp production. [9]

Tobacco was the other major cash crop in Little Dixie. Producing tobacco was also labor intensive, although not as intensive as hemp production. Of course, slaves provided the labor for Missouri tobacco farmers. Slaves prepared the fields in January and sowed seeds in March. Young plants were transplanted in May and June. Regular cultivation throughout the growing season was necessary. Slaves pruned the individual tobacco plants throughout the growing season until the mature plants were harvested in September. After the harvest, slaves did the work of bundling and drying the tobacco. After drying, slaves then stripped the leaves off the stems and packed the leaves for shipping. [10]

In 1860 the farmers of the State of Missouri produced the seventh highest number of pounds of tobacco in the country. And Little Dixie produced 78 percent of all the tobacco grown in Missouri. [11]

So Little Dixie was incredibly important to Missouri’s economy. But Missouri boasted another asset that attracted a different sort of settler. The city of St. Louis was truly the gateway to the western United States. If Little Dixie was the heart of pro-Southern support in Missouri, then St. Louis was the base for pro-Union supporters.

Chapter 2 – St. Louis

Slavery is a perfect pestilence to the State of Missouri.

Henry Boernstein

By 1860, St. Louis had become a major metropolitan area. Located near the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, it was an important staging area for settlers emigrating west. These two great rivers provided an effective means of transportation making St. Louis a great hub of commerce in the west. According to the 1860 census, St. Louis, with 160,773 residents, was the eighth largest city in the United States. [12]

St. Louis was also a major manufacturing center producing products worth more than $27.6 million. This amounted to over 66% of the manufactured product value produced in the entire state. Of all the slave states, Missouri only trailed Virginia in the value of manufactured goods produced in 1860. But overall the slave states produced only around 15% of the value of manufactured goods produced in the United States in 1860. [13]

In contrast to agricultural Little Dixie, St. Louis had a much more diverse economy. Therefore, St. Louis attracted a much more diverse people who chose the city as their home. Politically, the majority of St. Louis citizens opposed slavery. Some believed in its outright abolition. Others were willing to allow slavery as long as it remained within its present borders. But overall, St. Louis was the Missouri epicenter of political opposition to the institution of slavery in the State of Missouri.

Of particular note were the many German-Americans who emigrated from Europe to live in the liberal democracy of the United States of America. German-Americans settled throughout the state. Native Missourians generally referred to them as the Dutch. This is what they heard when German-Americans identified themselves as Deutsch, the German word for German. But the Dutch seemed particularly attracted to St. Louis. After the people who had been born in Missouri, German-Americans made up the next highest percentage of the residents of St. Louis at over 27%, with Irish-Americans next at over 16%. European-born individuals comprised almost 51% of the residents of St. Louis. [14]

Henry Boernstein

Most of these immigrants were against slavery and were vocal in their opposition. The 1854 comments of Henry Boernstein, editor of the influential Anzeiger des Westens newspaper in St. Louis, reflected the feelings of many German-Americans.

The tremendous majority of the citizens of our State are tired of the improper influence of the Slavocratic interest. They are not willing any longer to be tyrannized by a few thousand slaveholders ... We must oppose the extension of slavery over the Territories ... Slavery is a perfect pestilence to the State of Missouri. No one denies it, but ... the establishment of slave States on our western borders will make the abolition of slavery in our own State still more difficult, if not entirely impossible. We are for the abolition of slavery in Missouri, but only constitutionally ... we demand of the Northern States that they constitutionally fight the South for every foot of land that has not yet been conquered for slavery! [15]

The decade from 1850 to 1860 was witness to a prosperous Missouri. The state’s population grew over 73% to almost 1.2 million people. In what may have been the only downside of the decade for pro-slavery men, Missouri’s leaders had failed to extend the institution of slavery into the Territory of Kansas. But now events were leading to a strengthening of the storm that soon enveloped Missouri and the entire country. [16]

Chapter 3 – Claib Jackson

We came here to vote and will not go home without voting.

Claiborne F. Jackson

Claiborne Fox Jackson was born on April 4, 1806 in Fleming County, Kentucky. Claib was the last of eight sons born in the Jackson family. His parents owned slaves and farmed about 250 acres of land. The farm was reasonably successful until the years following the War of 1812. By 1818 the prices for farm-raised commodities had fallen dramatically. Although the Jackson farm survived, it suffered through many lean years into the 1820s. Thus, the farm could not support all of these sons and their families. So some of the sons moved west. [17]

Claiborne Fox Jackson

Claib Jackson moved to Missouri with his brothers in 1826, settling in the town of Franklin in Howard County. By 1831 Jackson had moved to Saline County and married into the family of prominent Missouri physician and businessman John Sappington. Jackson took advantage of the Sappington family connections to rise in Missouri’s politics. Jackson represented first Saline County and then Howard County in the Missouri General Assembly. By 1844, Jackson’s political fortune was on the rise when he was elected Speaker of the Missouri House of Representatives. [18]

But during his political career, Claiborne Fox Jackson often found himself on the opposite side of issues from Thomas Hart Benton. Benton was Missouri’s elder statesman and had represented the state in the US Senate since statehood in 1821. Opposing Benton was not all bad for Jackson. For a number of years there had been growing opposition to Senator Benton in Missouri. Benton often took positions on issues opposed by politicians back in his home state. The leader of this opposition was the State’s other Senator, David Rice Atchison. [19]

Thomas Hart Benton

David Rice Atchison

The political divisiveness in Missouri came to a head after Mexico lost the war and ceded a large amount of territory to the United States in 1848. In 1846, Pennsylvania Congressman David Wilmot introduced the Wilmot Proviso, a bill banning slavery in any new territory that would be acquired from Mexico. Most in pro-slavery Missouri opposed this bill and the state’s political leadership were forceful in telling Senator Benton to oppose the Wilmot Proviso. Benton did not take kindly to this advice and resisted the pressure. Benton’s pride had placed him on the wrong side of the debate in Missouri as to whether slavery should be allowed in these new territories. Thus, Benton’s support in Missouri began to ebb.

David Wilmot

Claib Jackson allied himself with Senator David Rice Atchison in opposition to Senator Benton. In January 1849, now State Senator Jackson introduced what came to be known as the Jackson-Napton Resolutions. The resolutions stated that the United States Congress had no right to ban slavery in the territory acquired after the Mexican War. Anyone settling in the territories should be able to bring any of their property with them, including slaves. The resolutions also declared that the people residing in the territories, not the Federal government, should decide whether or not to allow slavery. [20]

Senator Benton opposed the Jackson-Napton Resolutions because they contravened the Missouri Compromise. But these resolutions were very popular and Missouri’s General Assembly quickly passed them. Jackson’s forceful support of the Jackson-Napton Resolutions solidified Jackson’s credentials as a Southern rights, pro-slavery Democrat. Fighting over the issues of slavery in the territories caused a split in the State’s Democratic Party that led to election losses in 1850. Indeed, the General Assembly elected the Whig, Henry S. Geyer, over the Democrat, Thomas Hart Benton as United States Senator. Many blamed Claib Jackson for all these electoral defeats, and Jackson saw his political fortunes begin to ebb. In 1853 Jackson ran as a Democrat for a seat in Congress from Missouri’s Third District and was defeated. His close association to the Jackson-Napton Resolutions and his attacks on Benton split the Democratic vote and helped bring about his defeat. In 1856, Jackson ran for a seat in the State’s General Assembly but was defeated. Jackson now found himself on the political sidelines. [21]

Jackson tried to stay active in politics. During the debate in the United States Senate on whether to establish the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas, Claib Jackson wrote to Senator David Rice Atchison. Jackson was dead set against organizing the territory unless slavery would be allowed. [22]

If we can’t all go there on the same string, with all our property of every kind, I say let the Indians have it forever. They are better neighbors than the abolitionists, by a damn sight.

After the formation of the Kansas Territory in 1854, Claib Jackson remained a staunch supporter of Senator Atchison’s campaign to ensure that Kansas would be a slave state. When the Territory of Kansas held its legislative elections on March 30, 1855, Claib Jackson was one of thousands of Missourians who crossed the border to vote. Sara Robinson, wife of future Kansas Governor Charles Robinson, remembered Jackson’s appearance in Lawrence the day before the election. [23]

Some of the party came in on the evening previous to the election, and on the morning of the thirtieth of March about one thousand men, under the command of Col. Samuel Young, of Boone county, and Claiborne F. Jackson, came into Lawrence. They came in about one hundred and ten wagons, and upon horseback, with music, and banners flying. They were armed with guns, pistols, rifles and bowie-knives. They brought two cannon loaded with musket balls.

Sara Robinson

Sara Robinson listened to a speech given on March 29 by Claib Jackson telling the Missourians that they needed voters to go to the polls in Tecumseh, Bloomington, and Hickory Point. The next morning a number of the Missourians went to Bloomington with Jackson. Sara Robinson remembered Claiborne F. Jackson was one of the leaders of the Missourians in Bloomington on Election Day. [24]

Early on the morning of the day of election, fire or six hundred Missourians, armed with rifles, guns, pistols and bowie-knives, with flags flying, went to Bloomington, in wagons, and upon horseback. Samuel J. Jones, of Westport, Claiborne F. Jackson, with his volunteers from the camp at Lawrence, and a Mr. Steely, of Independence, were the leaders of this motley gang. The day here was one continual scene of outrage and violence. Scarcely were the polls open, before Jones marched up to the window, at the head of the crowd, and demanded that they be allowed to vote without being sworn as to their residence. Little bands of fifteen or twenty men were formed by Jackson. He gave to them the guns from the wagons, which some of them loaded. Jackson had previously declared, amid repeated cheers, that they came there to vote [and] if they had been there only five minutes they had a right to vote [and] that they would not go home without voting.

After the votes were counted in the 1855 Kansas elections, a pro-slavery territorial legislature had been overwhelmingly elected. But free-state leaders in Kansas and across the country used the voter fraud to sway public opinion. After a struggle lasting another four years, the free-state men of Kansas finally gained control of the territorial legislature. The legislature repealed the territory’s pro-slavery laws enacted by the pro-slavery legislature. Ultimately, free-state men drafted a State Constitution that banned slavery and Kansas was admitted as a free state in January 1861.

Jackson’s political career had been a series of ups and downs. But now it was 1860 and Jackson’s political fortunes were on the rise. Claiborne Fox Jackson was nominated by the Democratic Party to be their candidate for Governor of the State of Missouri. [25]

Chapter 4 – Frank Blair

It is rank cowardice to abdicate a power conferred on Congress by the Constitution.

Frank Blair

Francis Preston Blair, Jr. was born on February 19, 1821 in Lexington, Kentucky. He was the son of Francis Preston Blair, a key supporter of Andrew Jackson. In 1830, Jackson persuaded Preston Blair to become the editor of the Washington Globe. As editor, the elder Blair would be the main spokesperson for the President and his Democratic Party. So the family left Kentucky for the nation’s capital, Washington City. [26]

Frank Blair

It’s likely Frank Blair became interested in politics from the time he spent with his father at the Globe. In his early 20s, Blair spent his time at the Globe writing editorials. Then in 1842, Blair moved to St. Louis, Missouri to begin the practice of law with his brother, Montgomery. Montgomery Blair was a leader in St. Louis politics, having been appointed the United States Attorney for Missouri. [27]

In 1846, Frank Blair was in Taos, New Mexico when he received word that the United States was at war with Mexico. Since Taos was in Mexico, Blair traveled east along the Santa Fe Trail to Bent’s Fort, an outpost on the trail within the borders of the United States. Here Frank Blair waited for a US Army expedition that was leaving Fort Leavenworth. The military force under the command of Brigadier General Stephen Watts Kearny moved into New Mexico as an occupation force. In the early days, Blair served as a scout for Kearney’s forces. By August, Kearny had occupied Santa Fe and annexed New Mexico for the United States. Kearny appointed George Bent as the new Territorial Governor with Frank Blair as one of his top aides. Brigadier General Kearny pressed on to California. A volunteer force under the command of Brigadier General Sterling Price was on its way to reinforce Santa Fe. In June 1847 Frank Blair returned to St. Louis, Missouri. [28]

After the war, Frank Blair’s career prospered, and