In my interest in Missouri's guerrilla war I have studied the population makeup in many parts of the state, and I can confidently conclude that there was not one single county of the 115 (116 just after the war with the creation of Worth County at the Iowa border) that was completely for the North or one that was completely for the South. Not one. The sad part about the terrible way war was waged in Missouri was that the population was thorougly mixed and "neighbor versus neighbor" and even "brother versus brother" was the reality here. War feelings and different loyalties truly splintered the population, even in towns and cities.

The 1860 census is a good guide, but if you assess a person's loyalty stand just from their place of birth you will make many errors.

Yes, there were many counties that were predominantly southern or northern, and even groups of them. We had earlier exchanges in this forum about the nebulous "Little Dixie" region (named after the war) in northeast MO. I say "nebulous" because to this day there is great disagreement about which northeast counties belong or don't belong to "Little Dixie." We can also generalize that the counties along the south bank of the Missouri River in the east part of the state (Franklin, Gasconade, and Osage Counties) were predominantly northern in sympathy, but I must add that there were a few diehard Rebels from those counties, too. I notice that some folks make assumptions about that part of Missouri that lies in the northern Ozarks being either mostly northern or southern, and this simply doesn't hold up in close scrutiny.

Even in places that are predominantly of one side or the other, the exception people kept quiet for their own protection. Voting was a problem in all communities, since all voting was public (US adobted the Australian secret ballot some time after the war). As a result, lots of Missourians simply didn't vote rather than reveal their true political beliefs and possibly expose themselves to discrimination or violence.

Many, many Missourians simply moved away from Missouri or at least left their neighborhood voluntarily or were forced out of their communities, as in General Orders Number 11 for Jackson, Cass, Bates, and the north half of Vernon County in September 1863. The deadly aspect of both sides living near each other produced the "cycle of violence" phenomenon where one violent act by someone of one side led to a violent reaction from those of the other side. Some of these acts kept cycling in the same neighborhoods off and on for months. Over time, this phenomenon resulted in the near depopulation of large portions of south Missouri, particularly.

I will quote Ewing Cockrell, the author of the 1918 Johnson County history:

"When the Civil War broke out all shades of opinion on union and secession could be found in Johnson County. Lincoln well expressed it when he said of the political situation at that time in Missouri 'It was a perplexing compound of union and slavery, even for those who were for the union, to say nothing of those who were against it.' There were 'those who were for the union, with but not without slavery; those for it without, but not with; those for it with or without, but preferred it without. Among these, again, was a sub-division of those who were for the gradual but not for immediate, and those who were for immediate, but not gradual, extinctino of slavery.'"

I hope that answers your question. It is an appropriate question to ask, even now.

Bruce Nichols