Missouri's Civil War began along the Nation's Western Border, in the 1850's, in the conflict known as "Bloody Kansas." The only State north of the Mason-Dixon line where Slavery was permitted by law, it was inevitable that War in Missouri would be especially brutal. And so it was. Missouri witnessed the greatest number of battles and engagements - more than 1,000 - of any place except Virginia and Tennessee.

Missouri was pre-War home to Dred Scott, William T. Sherman and U. S. Grant. When War came, Missouri's battlegrounds taught the lessons of war to General Grant, and to Southern partisans such as Jesse James and Mark Twain.

Missouri was the scene of the Northern-most battle of the Civil War, the first Ironclads, the first battle of an African American regiment, the largest cavalry operation in American military history, and of unparalleled guerilla war.

Missouri's Civil War heritage lives on today, at Wilson's Creek National Battlefield, near Springfield, at the Ulysses Grant National Historic Site in St. Louis, at Missouri's Battlefield Parks, at its Museums, and in a thousand other places.