Department of the Missouri
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Department of the Missouri was a division of the United States Army that functioned through the American Civil War and the Indian Wars afterwards.
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[edit] Civil War
The division followed the reorganization and breakup the Department of the West on November 9, 1861, after Abraham Lincoln fired John C. Frémont when he would not rescind his order emancipating the slaves of Missouri and imposing martial law on the state. David Hunter served briefly as the last commander Department of the West.
It included Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, and Kentucky west of the Cumberland River and later Kansas. Its first general was Henry Wager Halleck.
[edit] Indian Wars
In 1865 at the end of the war it was renamed the Division of Missouri (however widespread usage continued to call it the Department of the Missouri). It was headquartered in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The Division of Missouri was restored in 1866 as the Indian Wars began and it was to oversee all the famous incidents and battles of the war including Custer's Last Stand. Components of it which evolved in various reorganizations ultimately included:
- Department of Dakota - Minnesota, Montana, Northakoa and parts of Idaho and South Dakota and the Yellowstone portion of Wyoming).
- Department of the Missouri - Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Indian Territory and Territory of Oklahoma
- Department of the Platte - Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming (except Yellowstone), Territory of Utah
- Department of Texas - Texas
[edit] Commanders
[edit] Civil War
- Henry Wager Halleck (1861-1862) - It briefly combined in 1862 for the Department of the Mississippi with Halleck in overall command John McAllister Schofield in charge of the District of the Missouri
- Samuel Ryan Curtis (1862-1863)
- John McAllister Schofield (1863)
- William Starke Rosecrans (1864)
- Grenville Mellen Dodge (1864-1865)
[edit] Indian Wars (overall for the Division)
- William Tecumseh Sherman (1866-1869)
- Philip Henry Sheridan (1869-1883)
- John McAllister Schofield (1883-1886)
- Alfred Howe Terry (1886-1888)
- George Crook (1888-1890)
- Nelson Appleton Miles (1890-1891)
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- The Civil War Day by Day: An Almanac, 1861-1865, by E.B. Long With Barbara Long 1985 De Capo Press, ISBN 0-306-80255-4, page 138
