Financial Fraud and Guerrilla Violence in Missouri's Civil War, 1861-1865

This highly original work explores a previously unknown financial conspiracy at the start of the American Civil War. The book explains the reasons for the puzzling intensity of Missouri’s guerrilla conflict, and for the state’s anomalous experience in Reconstruction. In the broader history of the war, the book reveals for the first time the nature of military mobilization in the antebellum United States. "This highly original work explores the impact of a previously unknown financial conspiracy at the beginning of the American Civil War. In early 1861, pro-Confederate militia units formed throughout Missouri to defend the state's expected secession. To arm the volunteers, a group of senior state politicians and bankers secretly plotted to divert money from Missouri's banks and the state treasury. The scheme backfired and set off a chain of events that permanently altered the state's political economy. This episode contributes new data to several larger questions of Civil War history, including the causes of wartime guerrilla violence, postwar leadership persistence in the New South, changes to sectional boundaries, and how the hostile armies mobilized for war"--Jacket. Contents 5 List of Appendixes 6 Acknowledgments 9 Introduction 10 1. Financial Conspiracy 17 2. New Banks 32 3. New Bankers 49 4. Insider Lending 74 5. The Unionists Regain Control 92 6. Guerrillas 109 7. The Transformation of Regional Identity 131 8. War and the Administrative State 148 Appendixes 160 Notes 230 Bibliography 274 Index 304 Mark Geiger explores a financial conspiracy at the start of the American Civil War, the impact this had on the intensity of the guerilla campaigns in Missouri & the enduring ramifications for that state through the period of Reconstruction