The Battle of Kirksville took place during the American Civil War and was fought in the town of Kirksville, Missouri, on August 6, 1862. The Union victory helped consolidate Federal control over northeastern Missouri.
Confederate Col. Joseph C. Porter had been recruiting in the Macon area, to the south of Kirksville. He had assembled a brigade of between 1,500 and 2,500 ill-trained and poorly equipped troops, but his irregulars had harried and recruited as far north as Memphis, Missouri. Confederate sympathies in the Kirksville area were high (though Union sentiment was stronger than in surrounding counties), due to the Southern heritage of most of the residents. Porter had been urged to come to Kirksville by Confederate Captain Tice Cain, an Adair County farmer who claimed to be holding Kirksville with 500 fresh recruits. (In one of the battle's mysteries, Cain disappeared and was never heard from again, according to a descendant.)
Union Colonel John McNeil of the 2nd Missouri Cavalry Regiment and his troops, totalling about 1,000, had been pursuing Porter for more than a week. Before noon on August 6, McNeil attacked Porter in the town of Kirksville, where the Confederates had concealed themselves in homes and stores and among the crops in the nearby fields, especially in the county courthouse and the commercial buildings on the square. Their presence was discovered by a Union detachment that volunteered to ride around the square in order to draw fire and cause the Confederates to reveal themselves — an act of courage which cost two Union soldiers their lives. McNeil deployed his artillery before moving in a broad line towards the town square. The subsequent cannon fire demoralized the defenders, some of whom retreated behind a rail fence, west of the square.
The Union troops then advanced in two wings, with Lt. Col. William F. Shaffer of the 2nd Missouri in command of the Union right wing and Major Henry Clay Caldwell of the 3rd Iowa Cavalry Regiment in charge of the left. As the two wings met, they succeeded in driving the Confederates from the courthouse. Porter's remaining forces yielded ground and joined the others behind the rail fence. From this position, the Confederates poured heavy fire into McNeil's men, but were ultimately overwhelmed. The battle began at 11 a.m. and was over by 2 p.m.
The Federals then secured the town, capturing numerous prisoners, and driving away the remaining Confederates. Three days later, another Union force arrived and finished the work begun at Kirksville, virtually destroying Porter's command.
According to a letter by resident J. Martin, written a week after the battle, Confederate dead numbered about 200; Union 30. McNeill's official tally was 150 Confederates killed (300-400 wounded) against 6 Union deaths (32 wounded). Two civilian casualties were noted: James Dye, a sixty-year-old farmer with two sons in the Union army, was held overnight by Porter during his approach to the town, then told to be on his way, but shot as he left. The other was Mrs. Elizabeth Cutts (also given as "Kutz" and "Coots"). Most Kirksville residents had heeded Porter's warning to depart, but Cutts was shot when two Confederate soldiers attempted to enter the cellar where she was hiding, and she was hit by a Union bullet meant for them as she ran out.
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.
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