Mexico in the Civil War

Mexico in the Civil War. Missouri's Civil War. , Mexico and Audrain County have some rich history, tied into the Civil War. This area was of vital strategic importance to both sides, politically and militarily, during the War. Politically, Southern sympathies ran deep in this area, the heart of a region known as "Little Dixie", due to the Southern origins of most of the region's residents. The local population provided support for the Missouri State Guard, and later for the Confederate Army, through the substantial numbers of recruits and other resources, which the area supplied to the Southern cause., Militarily, Mexico was important primarily because of the railroad. Railroads were vital methods of transportation for manpower and material during the War. The North Missouri Railroad ran from St. Charles to Mexico, and on up to Macon. There, it joined the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, the only rail line that crossed the entire breadth of the State. Both sides thus recognized the strategic benefits of controlling this part of northeast Missouri. , Early in the War, several Union Army units were sent across from Illinois to Missouri, to help secure the State for the Union. One of these was the 21st Illinois Infantry, commanded by Col. Ulysses S. Grant. Grant and his men camped here in Mexico, protecting the town and the rail line from pro-Confederate forces, from about July 20 to August 7, 1861. Grant made his headquarters in west Mexico in an area known as "the commons," west of Missouri Avenue (then Depot Street) approximately where Love Street intersects Missouri. Grant was stationed here when he learned that he would receive a Brigadier General's star. While here, he visited Graceland Mansion, which was built on this site in 1857., In the days after the Battle of Centralia (September 27, 1864), 52 Union soldiers, most killed at that battle and at the Massacre which preceded it, were laid to rest at what is called the Old Village Cemetery, at the corner of West Whitley and North Western Streets. An obelisk, and a brick wall containing old gravestones, is near the spot where these men were buried during the Civil War. The cemetery is located 8 blocks north of here, on Highway 15 (N. Western Street). The remains of these Union soldiers were removed and reinterred at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery, near St. Louis, in 1867. , , Mexico's Elmwood Cemetery, located about 8 blocks west of here on Route FF, is the final resting place for some 200 men who wore the Blue or Gray. Among them is Peter McCullough, "The Hanging Judge of Andersonville Prison", a Union prisoner who sentenced 6 Union soldiers to death for crimes against fellow prisoners, in that infamous camp. Other prominent veterans buried at Elmwood include two brothers, David and Walker Lillard, African-Americans who served in the 68th U.S. Colored Troops, and Lieut. Col. Basil F. Lazear, who had a role in the pursuit of William Quantrill during and after Quantrill's raid on Lawrence, Kansas., "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the Nation's wounds."- Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865., Summer of '62 , In July 1862, a Confederate recruiting officer, Colonel Joseph Porter of Lewis County, took a body of his recruits to Memphis, Missouri, then commenced driving them south to Confederate lines in Arkansas. Mexico's garrison of Union troops of the 3rd Iowa Cavalry, commanded by Lt. Col. Henry Caldwell, fought a brief engagement at Florida in Monroe County on July 22, 1862. Two days later, at Bott's Bluff on the south fork of Salt River (at the northern border of Audrain County), Caldwell skirmished with Porter again. Porter continued south after Bott's Bluff (also known as the Battle of Santa Fe), skirting Mexico a few miles to the west. Porter went into camp in northern Callaway County. Union cavalry in the area including the 3rd Iowa from Mexico and also elements of the 2nd Missouri Cavalry and the 9th Missouri State Militia Cavalry, consolidated as they went in search of Porter., On July 28, 1862, northeast of Fulton (just 20 miles south of here) Porter turned up on his pursuers at Moore's Mill. The Battle of Moore's Mill was a fierce engagement putting some 400 Confederates against 750 Union cavalry and artillery soldiers, and a stinging defeat that forced Porter back north. After returning in Mexico with his wounded, Caldwell and his men chased Porter to Kirksville, where a battle occurred on August 6, 1862., Maj. Gen. John Pope , Born in Kentucky and raised in Southern Illinois, John Pope graduated from West Point in 1842 and became a career soldier. As the Civil War began, Pope was appointed brigadier general in the Union Army in June 1861. Pope's fortunes rose quickly, aided by brilliant victories at New Madrid and Island No. 10, Missouri, in the Spring of 1862. His success led to an appointment to high command in the East, where he commanded the Union Army of Virginia in a devastating loss at the Second Battle of Manassas, August 28-30, 1862. Pope served the remainder of the Civil War in remote areas on the frontier., In 1861, Pope was ordered to Missouri following attacks on north Missouri railroads in mid-July (notably near Wentzville). He established headquarters of the Army's Department of North Missouri in Mexico, where he commanded from July 24 to August 7, 1861, approximately the period of time his subordinate Ulysses Grant served here. From Mexico on July 31, 1861, Pope issued his infamous "General Orders No. 3," by which he imposed on all counties in North Missouri an obligation to end the violence directed at the railroads. His order stipulated that if the counties were not successful, he would send troops to restore order and charge the counties for the cost to the federal government., Under pressure from his superiors, Pope rescinded General Orders No. 3 within a month, Nevertheless, this assault on local civil authority and civil rights remain a prominent footnote in the annals of Civil War history. , (aside:), In 1864, a detachment of the 1st Iowa Cavalry made its headquarters in Mexico, joining Missouri troops in the pursuit of "Bloody Bill" Anderson and, later, Sterling Price. Some men of the 1st Iowa Cavalry lost their lives 13 miles west of here at the Centralia Massacre, September 27, 1864