Civil War Soldier
Atchison and A. W. Doniphan would fall out over the politics proceeding the Civil War and on which direction Missouri should proceed. Atchison favored secession, while Doniphan was torn and would remain for the most part non-committal. Privately Doniphan favored the Union, but found it hard to go against his friends and associates.
During the secession crisis in Missouri at the beginning of the American Civil War, Atchison sided with Missouri's pro-Confederate governor, Claiborne Jackson. He accepted an appointment as a general in the Missouri State Guard. Atchison actively recruited State Guardsmen in northern Missouri and served with Missouri State Guard commander General Sterling Price in the summer campaign of 1861. In September 1861, Atchison led 3,500 State Guard recruits across the Missouri River to reinforce Price, and defeated Union troops that tried to block his force in the Battle of Liberty.
Atchison continued to serve through the end of 1861. In March 1862, Union forces in the Trans-Mississippi theater won a decisive victory at Pea Ridge in Arkansas and secured Union control of Missouri. Atchison then resigned from the army over reported strategy arguments with General Price and moved to Texas for the duration of the Civil War. After the war he retired to his farm near Gower, Missouri and was noted to deny many of his pro-slavery public statements made prior to the Civil War. In addition, his retirement cottage outside of Plattsburg, MO burned to the ground before his death in 1886. This included the complete loss of his library containing books, documents and letters which documented his role in the Mormon War, Indian affairs, pro-slavery activities, Civil War activities and other legslation covering his career as a lawyer, senator and soldier.
Read more about this topic: David Rice Atchison
Famous quotes containing the words civil war, civil, war and/or soldier:
“During the Civil War the area became a refuge for service- dodging Texans, and gangs of bushwhackers, as they were called, hid in its fastnesses. Conscript details of the Confederate Army hunted the fugitives and occasional skirmishes resulted.”
—Administration in the State of Texa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“If we love-and-serve an ideal we reach backward in time to its inception and forward to its consummation. To grow is sometimes to hurt; but who would return to smallness?”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 3, ch. 3 (1962)
““... War is for everyone, for children too.
I wasn’t going to tell you and I mustn’t.
The best way is to come uphill with me
And have our fire and laugh and be afraid.””
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“[Rutherford B. Hayes] was a patriotic citizen, a lover of the flag and of our free institutions, an industrious and conscientious civil officer, a soldier of dauntless courage, a loyal comrade and friend, a sympathetic and helpful neighbor, and the honored head of a happy Christian home. He has steadily grown in the public esteem, and the impartial historian will not fail to recognize the conscientiousness, the manliness, and the courage that so strongly characterized his whole public career.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)