The Battle of Hartville was fought January 11, 1863, in Wright County, Missouri, as part of John S. Marmaduke's first expedition into Missouri, during the American Civil War.
Marmaduke led a Confederate raid into Missouri in early January 1863. This movement was two-pronged. Col. Joseph C. Porter led one column, comprising his Missouri Cavalry Brigade, out of Pocahontas, Arkansas, to assault Union posts around Hartville, Missouri. When he neared Hartville on January 9, he sent a detachment forward to reconnoiter. It succeeded in capturing the small militia garrison. The same day, Porter moved toward Marshfield. On January 10, some of Porter's men raided other Union installations in the area before making contact with Marmaduke's column east of Marshfield. Marmaduke had received reports of Union troops approaching to surround him and prepared for a confrontation.
On January 10, Col. Samuel Merrill commanded an approaching Union relief column from Houston, Missouri. He and his command arrived in Hartville that morning, discovered that the small garrison had already surrendered, and set out toward Springfield. His force went into camp on Wood's Fork of the Gasconade River. Early on the morning of January 11 the approaching Confederates under Porter made contact with Merrill's scouts and skirmishing commenced.
3rd Iowa Cavalry (detachment)- Maj. George Duffield
3rd Missouri Cavalry (detachment) - Capt. Thomas G. Black
2nd Missouri Artillery, Battery L (section) - Lt. William Waldschmidt
1st Missouri Cavalry - Lt. Col. B.F. Gordon - Maj. George R. Kirtley (k)
Quantrill's Partisan Rangers - Lt. William H. Gregg
MacDonald's Missouri Regt. - Col. Emmett MacDonald (k)
Capt. Brown's Arkansas Battery - Capt. Louis T. Brown
Lt. Collins' Section of Bledsoe's Battery (later Collins' Battery) - Lt. Richard A. Collins
Based on Frederick Goman's order of battle, except where noted.
Marmaduke believed he was being pressed by several forces, so he diverted Porter and Shelby's columns along another road to Hartville. Meanwhile, observing this movement, Merrill marched his force directly to Hartville where it took a strong defensive position on covered, high ground west of the courthouse. Merrill's battle line extended 650 yards with no reserve. Shelby and Porter's brigades attempted to dislodge Merrill's force, but it was too strongly positioned. A mistaken observation probably by Lt. Dick Collins on the bluff east of town reported a wagon train moving toward the Lebanon Road. Porter placed his men in a column to pursue the supposedly retreating enemy.
Coming under fire from the 3rd Missouri and the 3rd Iowa who were hidden on the far left side of the Union line with Sharps Carbines firing four to five shots per minute. That advance became disordered and the battle move eastward as Shelby's men came forward to support Porter's beleaguered men. Over a four-hour period several Confederate assaults were made, each being repulsed in turn. Eventually Merrill withdrew most of his force, although a third of the men under Lt. Col Dunlap never received the order and remained on the field until nightfall.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
This page covers Battle of Hartville, Missouri (1863). A full Aubrey report for the area pulls together this battle alongside historic sites, land records, and everything else the record holds within a few miles:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Content adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Wikipedia source.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in the US, drawing on NRHP records, battlefield archives, census history and geological data to tell the full story of a place.