Roan's Tan Yard was a Civil War engagement fought in Missouri, 1862. It was a Union victory.
Rumors and sightings of a Confederate force in the Howard County area had circulated for more than a week, but the Union troops could not locate them. On January 7, 1862, information came to hand that Col. J.A. Poindexter and his Confederate force were camped on Silver Creek. Detachments from various Union units came together and headed towards the Confederate camp which was about 14 miles northwest of Fayette. After finding the camp, the force attacked, routing the enemy and sending those that were not killed, wounded, or captured fleeing for safety. Afterwards, the Union force destroyed the camp to prevent its further use. The Confederates could no longer use their Randolph County base for recruiting and raiding.
On January 8, 1862, Union and Confederate-aligned forces clashed near a small site in Randolph County, Missouri, in an engagement that became known as either the Battle of Roan's Tan Yard or the Battle of Silver Creek. This came after a year of shifting fortunes in Missouri, during which Sterling Price and his Missouri State Guard, sympathetic to the Confederate cause, had been pushed back into the southwestern corner of the state by late 1861. Seeking to regain momentum, Price gave the go-ahead in December for guardsmen to conduct recruiting drives and raids in the state's central region, setting their sights especially on the North Missouri Railroad as a prime target.
The following month, Union Major W. M. G. Torrence discovered where a Missouri State Guard encampment had been established in Randolph County. He moved against it on January 8 with troops drawn from four cavalry regiments. Colonel John A. Poindexter, who held command of the camp, could offer only a feeble defense, and Union forces quickly swept through the position. Torrence's men seized a substantial haul of supplies before burning the deserted camp to the ground.
Coming on the heels of another setback for the Missouri State Guard at the Battle of Mount Zion Church in December, this defeat at Roan's Tan Yard contributed to a broader decline in Confederate-sympathizing activity across central Missouri.
Missouri found itself torn between opposing loyalties once the Civil War broke out in early 1861. The state held slaves but never joined the secessionist cause officially, even though Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson favored breaking away from the Union. Jackson and his secessionist supporters tried to seize the St. Louis Arsenal, but Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon of the Union Army stopped them on May 10. Jackson responded by creating a pro-secession militia called the Missouri State Guard, placing Sterling Price at its head.
During June, Lyon pursued Jackson and Price southwest, forcing them into that corner of the state. There, Price gained reinforcements when Brigadier General Benjamin McCulloch arrived with his Confederate States Army command. Lyon launched an assault on the joined forces of Price and McCulloch on August 10, but the engagement, known as the Battle of Wilson's Creek, cost Lyon his life and sent his troops fleeing in disarray.
Building on this success, Price marched the Missouri State Guard northward toward the Missouri River, a campaign that ended with his forces seizing Lexington in September. By mid-October, however, Union forces had gathered to oppose him, compelling Price to withdraw once more into the southwestern reaches of Missouri. Then, on November 3 at Neosho, Jackson joined with legislators sympathetic to secession, men who had earlier been driven from the state capital by Lyon, to cast votes affirming Missouri's entry into the Confederate States of America as an exiled government. This came after legislators opposed to secession had already voted separately to keep Missouri within the United States.
Once the fighting ended, the encampment lay in ruins, and this loss effectively halted any further recruiting efforts by the Missouri State Guard within Randolph County. This blow, combined with an earlier defeat suffered at Mount Zion Church the preceding December, contributed to a broader decline in Confederate sympathizing efforts across central Missouri. The number of men lost during the fight remains a matter of dispute among sources. Torrence claimed that somewhere between 80 and 100 State Guard troops were either killed or wounded, with an additional 28 taken prisoner. Meanwhile, both the National Park Service and historian Frances H. Kennedy place Poindexter's overall losses at 80. On the Union side, figures typically range between four and 11 casualties, though at least one account suggests the true number may have reached as high as 27. Today, the battlefield remains in private hands and carries no on-site markers or memorials, though visitors can learn about the engagement through exhibits at a museum located in nearby Huntsville. According to a 2011 assessment conducted by the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission, roughly 1,329.25 acres (537.93 hectares) of the battlefield could qualify for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. That same assessment found that the surrounding landscape has changed little since the time the battle took place.
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