Editing Missouri (section)

===American Civil War===
{{Main|Ordinance of Secession|Missouri in the American Civil War|Confederate government of Missouri}}
[[File:NPS CW at a Glance Western 1864.jpg|upright=1.2|thumb|[[Price's Raid]] in the [[Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War|Trans-Mississippi Theater]], 1864]]

After the secession of Southern states began in 1861, the Missouri legislature called for the election of a special convention on secession. This convention voted against secession, but also qualified their support of the Union. In the aftermath of [[Battle of Fort Sumter]] Pro-Southern Governor [[Claiborne F. Jackson]] ordered the mobilization of several hundred members of the state militia who had gathered in a camp in [[St. Louis]] for training. In secret, he also requested Confederate arms and artillery to help take the [[St. Louis Arsenal]]. Alarmed at this action, and discovering the Confederate aid, General [[Nathaniel Lyon]] struck first, encircling the camp and forcing the state troops to surrender. Lyon directed his soldiers, largely non-English-speaking German [[immigrants]], to march the prisoners through the streets, and this led to riot by pro-secession citizens. While it is disputed how it started, this riot led to violence and Union soldiers killed by St. Louis civilians. The event as a whole, is called the [[Camp Jackson Affair]].

These events sharpened the divisions within the state. Governor Jackson appointed [[Sterling Price]], president of the convention on secession, as head of the new [[Missouri State Guard]]. In the face of Union General Lyon's rapid advance through the state, Jackson and Price were forced to flee the capital of [[Jefferson City]] on June 14, 1861. In [[Neosho, Missouri]], Jackson called the state legislature into session to call for secession. However, the elected legislative body was split between pro-Union and pro-Confederate. As such, few of the pro-unionist attended the session called in Neosho, and the ordinance of secession was quickly adopted. The Confederacy recognized Missouri secession on October 30, 1861.

With the elected governor absent from the capital and the legislators largely dispersed, the state convention was reassembled with most of its members present, save twenty who fled south with Jackson's forces. The convention declared all offices vacant and installed [[Hamilton Gamble]] as the new governor of Missouri. President Lincoln's administration immediately recognized Gamble's government as the legal Missouri government. The federal government's decision enabled raising pro-Union militia forces for service within the state and volunteer regiments for the Union Army.

Fighting ensued between Union forces and a combined army of General Price's Missouri State Guard and Confederate troops from [[Arkansas]] and Texas under General [[Ben McCulloch]]. After winning victories at the [[battle of Wilson's Creek]] and the siege of [[Lexington, Missouri]] and suffering losses elsewhere, the Confederate forces retreated to Arkansas and later [[Marshall, Texas]], in the face of a largely reinforced Union Army.

Though regular Confederate troops staged some large-scale raids into Missouri, the fighting in the state for the next three years consisted chiefly of [[guerrilla warfare]]. "Citizen soldiers" or insurgents such as Captain [[William Quantrill]], [[Frank James|Frank]] and [[Jesse James]], the [[James-Younger gang|Younger brothers]], and [[William T. Anderson]] made use of quick, small-unit tactics. Pioneered by the Missouri Partisan Rangers, such insurgencies also arose in portions of the Confederacy occupied by the Union during the Civil War. Historians have portrayed stories of the James brothers' outlaw years as an American "Robin Hood" myth.<ref>{{cite journal | author = Steckmesser Kent L | year = 1966 | title = Robin Hood and the American Outlaw: A Note on History and Folklore | journal = Journal of American Folklore | volume = 79 | issue = 312| pages = 348–355 | jstor=538043| doi = 10.2307/538043 }}</ref> The vigilante activities of the [[Bald Knobbers]] of the Ozarks in the 1880s were an unofficial continuation of insurgent mentality long after the official end of the war, and they are a favorite theme in [[Branson, Missouri|Branson's self-image]].<ref>Mary Hartman and Elmo Ingenthron. ''Bald Knobbers: Vigilantes on the Ozarks Frontier'' (1988)</ref>