Missouri’s “Little Dixie”

I've only driven through MO a few times, coming in to Joplin & usually yanking I-40 to St Louis, or staying south central to Branson. I see a lot of Confederate flag Southern style culture in quite a few areas of the state - which is quite pretty (I enjoy driving there). I did run into some wineries & orchards up around Rolla, which I'm told is pronounced Rawl-uh not Roll-uh, and asked how they came to be. The lady said she didn't know but heard that the Italians who settled in the area said it looked the most like home & planted grapes.
 
I've only driven through MO a few times, coming in to Joplin & usually yanking I-40 to St Louis, or staying south central to Branson. I see a lot of Confederate flag Southern style culture in quite a few areas of the state - which is quite pretty (I enjoy driving there). I did run into some wineries & orchards up around Rolla, which I'm told is pronounced Rawl-uh not Roll-uh, and asked how they came to be. The lady said she didn't know but heard that the Italians who settled in the area said it looked the most like home & planted grapes.

Tisabira, that wine country would be centered around Hermann, Missouri. It's definately of German influence and is also called Missouri Rhineland (directly adjacent to Little Dixie)! It is very beautiful country as well. Hermann is situated on bluffs overlookng the Missouri River. They host a huge Oktobefest and Manifest every year.

Many German settlers came from Pennsylvania and from north Germany. In the mid 1800's a German traveler/adventurer (cannot remember the name) wrote a book about the area and described it as looking like the Rheinland. Hence we have towns along the Mississippi like Frohna, Altenburg, Wittenberg, Biehle and Friedenburg and farther west, along the Missouri River you have Hermann and Berger.

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I guess if the South can rise again in Little Dixie, why can't Germany remember a little glory in the Missouri Rhineland?!!

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It is a tourist area with many, many B&B's, wineries, breweries, restraints, festivals and outdoor activities.
 

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I wasn't up that far north in MO (I meant to say I was on I-44 instead of 40...40 runs E-W here). I was between Rolla & St James, lots of wineries & orchards...somewhere between Springfield & St. Louis. I went to Indiana while on furlough to do family research. The lady I was asking questions to wasn't very interested in answering them though so I didn't hang around too long. Mostly I stopped to buy tasty grapes!

I wish I'd had time to go the area you posted about, it looks really nice! I will probably be going to Germany for a visit in the next couple of years, I've had a couple of exchange students from there and more than a few ancestors in the region :smile:
 
My great grandpa laughed that his ancestors were "bushwhackers" , which he said proudly.

According to a distant cousin, my great-grandmother was imprisoned for being one of the women who gave aid to the bushwhackers. She lived in Post Oake, Johnson County and was jailed in St. Louis.

She later married and moved to North Texas, where according to my cousin, Jesse James once visited for lunch with the family.
 
Tisabira, that wine country would be centered around Hermann, Missouri. It's definately of German influence and is also called Missouri Rhineland (directly adjacent to Little Dixie)! It is very beautiful country as well. Hermann is situated on bluffs overlookng the Missouri River. They host a huge Oktobefest and Manifest every year.

Many German settlers came from Pennsylvania and from north Germany. In the mid 1800's a German traveler/adventurer (cannot remember the name) wrote a book about the area and described it as looking like the Rheinland. Hence we have towns along the Mississippi like Frohna, Altenburg, Wittenberg, Biehle and Friedenburg and farther west, along the Missouri River you have Hermann and Berger.

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I guess if the South can rise again in Little Dixie, why can't Germany remember a little glory in the Missouri Rhineland?!!

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It is a tourist area with many, many B&B's, wineries, breweries, restraints, festivals and outdoor activities.

I live just North of Der Hermann,on the good (North) side of the River it's part of the Missouri Rhineland which the Dutch eeerrr excuse me Germans are ever so quick to point out it is very touristy but the residents are good about protecting and preserving thier culture.

Little Dixie outside the odd urban type area could be transplanted to the upper south (Tn,ETC) and no difference would be noticed.The culture and customs almost mirror those regions. My maternal ancestors settle in Lafayettte County in the 1840's and raised hemp,until the unpleasantness forced the women and older men to decamp to Texas and settle first in the Denton area and later after the war in the San Antonio area and several branchs moved from there to various places in Texas.

The area is also known as the "Black Belt" for the soil and was settled heavily by Southerners and was the most heavily "Secesh" in the State during the war,and the home of many notable southern men .
 
I'm glad Borderruffian bumped this older thread up. I wasn't a member when it was first an active thread. I live in Boonville, county seat of Cooper County and a town twice occupied by Shelby. First, during his raid of October, 1863 and again the next year when he captured the town as the vanguard of Price's huge army. Boonville is also where the war started in Missouri. Cooper County is smack in the middle of the state on the south bank of the Missouri River. Howard County (directly across the river) was a big tobacco growing county and also a fairly big hemp producer. It had a fairly large slave population. Cooper County had a few large planters, but was much more a family farm sort of county, then and now. Most slave owners in this county had smaller numbers of slaves and most families in this area did not own slaves. Oddly, there were quite a number of slave owning unionists in this area--believing that the union would protect their legal right to own slaves. Claiborne Fox Jackson (Missouri's sesech governor) lived just north of Fayette in Howard County. His house still stands beside present day Highway 5 on the way to Glasgow. It's quite an interesting and EXTREMELY historic area with lots of preserved buildings. There were three settler's forts of the War of 1812 in this immediate area and there are many veterans of that conflict buried here. Boonville was also the home of Black Bob McCulloch, mentioned previously. His cousin, White Bob, later lived and died in southern Cooper County, near Pisgah. Yes, the quail hunting is good here, too.
 
It should be noted that the map in the OP is shaded to show slave population in MO in 1860.

That area produced the most secessionists, and although found through out the state, most other areas were very pro Union.
Missouri was a bit strange in it's Unionist vs Secessionist make up,with Seccesionist in the MRV and North of the of the River and Unionist in the southern expanse with the acceration of the planters in portions of Southest Moinareas like Kennet Co. Fowever after the intial Union advance on Jeff City and further advance inti Greene County plus the closing of the River from StLouis to KC the southerners were cut off from Prices Msg and alot of the fire went of themuntil fremont and Halleck took over the Dept.
 
Our daughter went to Missouri State for a semester and then her allergies forced her to come home. I started reading about the Civil War in Missouri when she decided to go there. Walking around the MSU campus and downtown Springfield, realizing it was a two-time battlefield, really began to perk up my CW interest. The small towns along the way with little markers or statues about local CW events; all that can't be beat.

From all my reading now about the area and the visit to Wilson's Creek, I'm coming to the conclusion that Missouri was one of the most interesting and little-known areas of the war. Wish I'd been able to spend more time there poking around, like at Lone Jack, Westport and Carthage, etc. Someday maybe I'll get back there.
 
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Missouri was a bit strange in it's Unionist vs Secessionist make up,with Seccesionist in the MRV and North of the of the River and Unionist in the southern expanse with the acceration of the planters in portions of Southest Moinareas like Kennet Co. Fowever after the intial Union advance on Jeff City and further advance inti Greene County plus the closing of the River from StLouis to KC the southerners were cut off from Prices Msg and alot of the fire went of themuntil fremont and Halleck took over the Dept.


The mountain Feds of the Ozarks were in good numbers. I would like to find out how many men from my area, Stone and Taney Co. we're in the ranks of the 7th division of the MSG.
 
The mountain Feds of the Ozarks were in good numbers. I would like to find out how many men from my area, Stone and Taney Co. we're in the ranks of the 7th division of the MSG.
Tracking down solid information on MSG units early in the war is diffuicult to near impossible with any certainity morning reports were used that evening to roll cartridges and there was no general HQ,
 
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Our daughter went to Missouri State for a semester and then her allergies forced her to come home. I started reading about the Civil War in Missouri when she decided to go there. Walking around the MSU campus and downtown Springfield, realizing it was a two-time battlefield, really began to perk up my CW interest. The small towns along the way with little markers or statues about local CW events; all that can't be beat.

From all my reading now about the area and the visit to Wilson's Creek, I'm coming to the conclusion that Missouri was one of the most interesting and little-known areas of the war. Wish I'd been able to spend more time there poking around, like at Lone Jack, Westport and Carthage, etc. Someday maybe I'll get back there.
What allegiance would that be? I' guessing since you list Fargo it's Nor' Dakots.If she had Union allligence then she was in the right place southwest Mo was arguably the most staunchly unionist parts of the state owing to it's population coming largely from the Appilachens and Cumberlands.
 
This a rather uncanny thread bump for me. As it happens I started researching my wife's family and as part of that effort had recently discovered several of her relatives to have been very early settlers in Saline County. While looking for stuff on some of the places I stumbled on a web site about "Little Dixie" - something I'd not know about until today. It had information about her relatives and even a photo.

Now I just decided to have a look over here to see what's up and guess what's at the very top of the list ? A thread entitled Little Dixie ! And reading back through it there's a link provided by @7th Mississippi Infantry to the very site !! Almost scary.
 
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early settlers in Saline County.

Perhaps they lived in Arrow Rock. The town was laid out in 1829. It's on the south side of the MO river in Saline Co. Lewis and Clark camped opposite of Arrow Rock. Boone's Lick is also across the river from Arrow Rock. Cooper's Fort (1812-ish) was also opposite Arrow Rock. When Wm. Becknell made his first trip to Santa Fe, (from (then called) Franklin, Mo to Santa Fe), he crossed the river at Arrow Rock. George Caleb Bingham lived and painted there in the 1840's. Dr. John Sappington, a resident of Arrow Rock, became rich from the sale of his quinine pills to combat malaria. Clairborne Fox Jackson, was MO's pro-southern civil war Governor and married (in succession,) all three of Dr. Sappington's daughters. A grandson of Dr. Sappington, and resident of Arrow Rock, John Sappington Marmaduke became a CSA Mj. Gen and later, a govenor of MO. After the war, with river traffic on the decline and no railroad in the general vicinity, the town fell in population and importance. The whole town was made a National Historic Site in 1963, and is well worth a visit.
web site--->https://www.mostateparks.com/park/arrow-rock-state-historic-site
 
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