The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 66, July 1962 - April, 1963 Page: 197
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Missouri's Confederate Capital in Marshall, Texas
flatly refused, and Jackson promptly issued a call for 50,000 vol-
unteers to defend the state. On June 15 newly-promoted Briga-
dier General Lyon occupied Jefferson City, and most of the
state officials there, including Governor Jackson, withdrew with
General Price to southwest Missouri where contact could be made
with the Confederates in Arkansas. On June 20o the state conven-
tion, which had last adjourned in March, met in Jefferson City
under a new president and on July 31 issued a statement to the
people of Missouri declaring the offices of the governor, lieuten-
ant governor, secretary of state, and of all members of the general
assembly vacant, elected a new provisional government, and called
for a new election of members for the general assembly. From that
day on, there were two governments of Missouri, the older one
growing ever more shadowy as the war went on.
A series of skirmishes then took place between the state troops
and Lyon's men, beginning with the state defeat at Boonville on
June 17, 1861, and culminating in the full scale battle of Wilson's
Creek in early August, a Union defeat in which Missouri troops
fought along side Confederates from Arkansas, Louisiana, and
Texas for the first time. The Confederate authorities at Rich-
mond, discouraged by attempts of the state authorities to estab-
lish a neutrality, had been indifferent to the entreaties of Mis-
sourians for active military aid. A request by Lieutenant Gover-
nor Reynolds to Jefferson Davis for armed aid had been coldly
turned down. Confederate General Ben McCulloch, the old
Texas Ranger commanding in Arkansas, had orders not to invade
any state still in the Union but to confine himself to the defense
of the Indian Territory. Late in July, Sterling Price persuaded
McCulloch to cross the Missouri-Arkansas border and on August
10, 1861, the Confederates allied with the Missouri State Guard
to defeat Lyon at Wilson's Creek near Springfield, Missouri.
Lyon was killed, and the retreat of his army was hasty. A joint pur-
suit was not undertaken, however, as McCulloch insisted that his
orders forbade his advance into Missouri and that he was critically
short of ammunition. McCulloch's correspondence at that time
shows that he considered the Missourians good fighting material
but badly organized and poorly disciplined. The bad discipline
which he blamed on their politician officers may have influenced197
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 66, July 1962 - April, 1963, periodical, 1963; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101196/m1/215/?rotate=180: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.