Download Battle of Moore`s Mill - Kingdom of Callaway Civil War Heritage

Moore’s Mill: Callaway’s Biggest Battle
While a provisional government supported by Union troops sat in Jefferson City, Missouri’s Southern forces under Gen. Sterling
Price won key battles at Wilson’s Creek and Lexington in Summer–Fall 1861. But they fell back to the southwestern corner of the state
as Missouri was flooded by Union troops growing to 60,000 or more. In October 1861, the state’s legislature in exile and the elected
governor, Claiborne Fox Jackson, declared Missouri seceded from the Union. Thereafter, Missouri had dual representation in both the
Confederate and U.S. Congresses.
With this development, many Missouri State Guard soldiers enlisted in the Confederate Army. Many of these were fated to fight
elsewhere in the South and never return home. Back in Callaway, young men faced the Union-mandated requirement (after July 22,
1862) of joining the provisional government’s Enrolled Missouri Militia (E.M.M.). Or, they could enlist in the Union army, go into the
“brush” as Southern guerrillas or “bushwhackers,” or enroll in the Confederate Army and quite possibly spend most of the war in
combat far from home.
The Confederate high command sent many Missouri officers home to recruit for the Confederate Army. The forces they raised were
often treated not as soldiers but as unlawful guerrillas to be killed on the spot. One of these recruiters was Col. Joseph C. Porter, whose
partisans, or 1st N.E. Missouri Cavalry Regiment as he styled them, fought Union troops all across northern Missouri in Summer 1862.
Nearly 300 horsemen under his command initiated Callaway’s major engagement during the war, the Battle of Moore’s Mill (now
Calwood) about seven miles northeast of Fulton. Hearing of Porter’s movement into the county, Union Col. Odon Guitar led about 100
of his 9th Missouri State Militia Cavalry Regiment north from Jefferson City, joined by a section of artillery and a battalion of the 3rd
Iowa Cavalry (including a few young Fulton Unionists) then occupying Fulton. On July 27, 1862, Guitar’s force narrowly missed
Porter’s force camped at Brown’s Spring on the Auxvasse south of Concord.
The next day, while Porter and his men advanced east and then south along the Auxvasse and set an ambush near Moore’s Mill,
Guitar rendezvoused with a larger force, including elements of the 2nd Missouri Cavalry (“Merrill’s Horse”), under Lt. Col. W.F.
Shaffer, riding out from Boone County. Taking command of the combined 733 soldiers, Guitar sent Schaffer’s force scouting out
along the east bank of the Auxvasse, following Porter, and took his own group toward Moore’s Mill.
A little less than a mile south of the current junction of State Road Z and JJ, Porter’s dismounted cavalrymen sprang their trap,
ambushing Guitar’s approximately equal force. Guitar quickly brought his artillery to bear, but its effectiveness was limited in the
heavy timber, which also likely reduced the casualties in a very heavy seesaw battle. Among Porter’s fighters was a company of 75
guerrillas under fearsome Capt. Alvin Cobb (with a piratelike hook for a hand).
There was a considerable delay before Shaffer realized Guitar was engaged and brought his own men into the fight. The weight of
numbers took their toll. After four hours of fighting, Porter’s soldiers fled into the brush, leaving their dead and many wounded on the
field; local families would take care of some of these for days afterward. Guitar’s men were physically exhausted from fighting in
summer’s heat and did not immediately pursue Porter.
Guitar claimed Union casualties of 13 killed and 55 wounded, while setting Confederate losses at 52 dead and more than 100
wounded. It is probable that Porter’s casualties were considerably fewer than that. Some of these men are buried in an unmarked mass
grave. A Missouri Historical Marker on Route JJ south of Calwood is very near where the forces initially clashed.