Civil War Memory and Western Identity in Missouri
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University of Mississippi eGrove Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 1-1-2015 "Missouri! Bright Land of the West": Civil War Memory and Western Identity in Missouri Amy Fluker University of Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Fluker, Amy, ""Missouri! Bright Land of the West": Civil War Memory and Western Identity in Missouri" (2015). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1428. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/1428 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “MISSOURI! BRIGHT LAND OF THE WEST”: CIVIL WAR MEMORY AND WESTERN IDENTITY IN MISSOURI A Dissertation presented in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Arch Dalrymple III Department of History The University of Mississippi by AMY L. FLUKER August 2015 Copyright Amy L. Fluker 2015 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT This project argues that Missouri’s singular position as a border state not only between the North and South, but also between the East and West shaped the state’s Civil War experience as well as its memory of the conflict. During the Civil War, Missouri was a slaveholding border state on the western frontier and home to a diverse and divided population. Neither wholly Union nor Confederate, Missouri’s Civil War was bitterly divisive. In its aftermath, Missourians struggled to come to terms with what it had been about. They found no place within the national narratives of Civil War commemoration emerging in the East, namely the Lost Cause, the Cause Victorious, and the Emancipation Cause. Missourians’ sense of marginalization from these narratives resulted in a distinctive brand of Civil War memory in the state, which found expression in the paintings of famed Missourian George Caleb Bingham, the work of Civil War veterans’ organizations, and the operation of the state’s homes for Confederate and Union veterans. By allowing us to analyze Civil War memory at the personal, collective, and institutional level, these examples serve to demonstrate Missourians’ deep investment in Civil War memory. Most importantly, however, they reveal how Missouri’s Western identity shaped that memory. Ultimately, by remaining sensitive to this nuance, this project adds a new dimension to our understanding of Civil War memory. ii for my parents, Steven and Irene Fluker iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It has been said you never really love a place until you leave it. That certainly proved true in my case. It was not until I left Missouri to attend graduate school at the University of Mississippi that I began to better understand the state I left behind. It was not until I left Missouri that I began to call myself a Missourian and it was not until I lived in the Deep South that I began to think of Missouri as the West. Since then, as fellow Missourian Major General Benjamin M. Prentiss put it, “nothing has ever preserved me better, given me more strength, than the enthusiasm born within me when I talk about the people of Missouri.”1 This has been a labor of love and it would not have been possible without the generous support of numerous organizations, colleagues, and friends. I would like to thank the University of Mississippi Arch Dalrymple III Department of History, the University of Mississippi Center for Civil War Research, the University of Mississippi Graduate School, and the University of Mississippi Graduate Student Council for providing research assistance. I also owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the staff at the State Historical Society of Missouri and the Missouri State Archives, whose help was instrumental in the completion of this work. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the contributions made by Lee Ann Whites, Joan Stack, Jeremy Neely, and Wade Ankesheiln, who shared their research and leant their insight at critical stages in the process. I must also thank my committee, Dr. April Holm, Dr. Anne S. Twitty, Dr. Jodi Skipper, and my chair Dr. John R. Neff. Their expertise and guidance were extremely valuable in shaping the final direction of this paper. Dr. Neff, in particular, reviewed numerous drafts, provided 1 Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Encampment of the Department of Missouri, Grand Army of the Republic, Held at Macon, Missouri, April 17 and 18, 1895 (St. Louis: A Whipple, Printer, 1895), 90. iv instruction, and offered advice. His interest in and enthusiasm for this project inspired me to keep up my energy and focus. He has been the best advisor and mentor I could have asked for. Thanks are also due to my family and friends, particularly W. E. Barringer, Miller Boyd, III, Joel Gillaspie, Boyd Harris, and Katrina Sims, who went through this process beside me. My best friend, Tiffany Link, also deserves a special thank you for offering endless encouragement, sincere criticism, editing help, and, occasionally, much appreciated distractions. I am also grateful for the unfailing support of William Fluker, Emily Vonderahe, and Steven and Irene Fluker. Finally, I would like to honor Preston Gervase Berwanger and Mary Ann Louise Berwanger. Their faith has sustained and inspired me. v CONTENTS Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... ii Dedication ...................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ iv List of Illustrations ......................................................................................................................... vi INTRODUCTION “An Enchanting Region for War”: Missouri, the West, and Civil War Memory ............................1 CHAPTER 1 “Missouri! Bright Land of the West”: Crisis, Conflict, and Conciliation in Missouri ..................23 CHAPTER 2 “In all the Memories of the People”: George Caleb Bingham’s Order No. 11 .............................69 CHAPTER 3 A “Commonwealth of Compromise”: Marginalization and Reconciliation in Missouri’s Civil War Memory ................................................................................................................................114 CHAPTER 4 “Tender of Both Uniforms”: Missouri’s Homes for Civil War Veterans ....................................166 CONCLUSION You Say “Missour-uh,” I Say “Missour-ee”: Missouri’s Conflicted Relationship to the Civil War ......................................................................................................................................214 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................225 Vita ...............................................................................................................................................242 vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURE 1: Gen. Nathaniel Lyon...................................................................................................87 FIGURE 2: Order No. 11...............................................................................................................90 FIGURE 3: Bingham in his Kansas City studio ............................................................................96 FIGURE 4: Major Dean in Jail ...................................................................................................101 FIGURE 5: Missouri monument at Vicksburg ............................................................................164 FIGURE 6: Main building of the Confederate Home ..................................................................175 FIGURE 7: The Dunmoor mansion .............................................................................................179 FIGURE 8: Residents of the Federal Home ................................................................................183 FIGURE 9: Residents of the Confederate Home .........................................................................190 FIGURE 10: Federal Home cemetery..........................................................................................203 FIGURE 11: Monument to Confederate dead .............................................................................205 FIGURE 12: Surviving veterans, wives, and widows at the Federal Home ................................210 vii INTRODUCTION “An Enchanting Region for War”: Missouri, the West, and Civil War Memory “The turning points of national history are bound up in the culture and politics of so many local places.”1 -Adam Arenson (2011) Not unlike many Missourians, Mark Twain was a conflicted and contradictory personality. A self-proclaimed “border-ruffian from the state of Missouri,” who had briefly served in a Confederate militia, Twain professed a Southern heritage while composing, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, one of the most profound literary critiques of American racism. All the while, Twain also cultivated a popular persona as a witty, irreverent, rough-and-tumble Westerner.2 Twain was amused by the seeming obsession Southerners nurtured for the Civil War. In his characteristically humorous fashion, Twain observed: “In the South, the war