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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History
Civil War
The department was formed following 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 W. Halleck.
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). The headquarters was first located in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and later moved to St. Louis and Chicago under successive commanders. The division would oversee all the famous incidents and battles of the Indian wars, including the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Components of it which evolved in various reorganizations ultimately included:
- Department of Dakota - Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, 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 (originally part of the Department of the Gulf) - Texas
Commanders
Civil War
- Henry W. 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 Curtis (1862-1863)
- John Schofield (1863)
- William Rosecrans (1864)
- Grenville M. Dodge (1864-1865)
Indian Wars (overall for the Division)
- William Tecumseh Sherman (1866-1869)
- Philip Sheridan (1869-1883, Sheridan also commanded the Department of the Missouri within the Division of Missouri just prior to his elevation)
- John Schofield (1883-1886)
- Alfred Terry (1886-1888)
- George Crook (1888-1890)
- Nelson A. Miles (1890-1891)
External links
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
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