Post war population growth in Missouri.

wausaubob

Colonel
Member of the Month
Joined
Apr 4, 2017
Location
Denver, CO
Although some people have said or written that 25% of the pre Civil War population of Missouri moved away during the Civil War, the results of the 1870 census throw cold water on that claim.
1600550037488.png


Many people may have left, but they may not have gone very far. Crossing over to Iowa or Illinois for a few years probably was sufficient respite from the war.
 
Although some people have said or written that 25% of the pre Civil War population of Missouri moved away during the Civil War, the results of the 1870 census throw cold water on that claim.
View attachment 375178

Many people may have left, but they may not have gone very far. Crossing over to Iowa or Illinois for a few years probably was sufficient respite from the war.
I will wildly speculate that has industrilization increased especially in St. Louis American worker's and immigrants moved to St.Louis.
Leftyhunter
 
Although some people have said or written that 25% of the pre Civil War population of Missouri moved away during the Civil War, the results of the 1870 census throw cold water on that claim.
View attachment 375178

Many people may have left, but they may not have gone very far. Crossing over to Iowa or Illinois for a few years probably was sufficient respite from the war.
Not sure how one concludes moving away for a few years is not moving away though.....when the war ends in 1865.....and the next census isn't until 1870 not seeing some shocker in that many moved back. And of those who didn't.....they left improved/cleared land that would indeed be snatched up by others.

It also maintained it's position as gateway to the west with the Mississippi and Missouri rivers giving easy access to immigrants or people moving westward.
 
Many of my ancestors from Missouri left that area with the army when General Prices army retreated to Texas after his campaign. My great great grandfather provided him fresh water and land for his army on Big Spring Farm Texas. So a lot of people from Missouri followed them. That I know of.
 
850,000 people either returned to Missouri, or were new immigrants, and it all happened in 5 years between 1865 and 1870? Maybe. But the other possibility is that the Republican marshals conducting the census in 1870 were more diligent in counting the new residents of Missouri in 1870 than the over worked marshals who conducted the 1860 census.
 
I think the point is that large numbers of Missourians left Missouri during the WBTS/CW. We don't know exactly how many were replaced by foreign immigrants and American migrants from other States. though migration from the east certainly occurred. The fact is many Missourians were ordered to leave their home Counties by the Provost Marshal and many were harassed by Federal troops and local officials appointed by the Lincoln administration and chose to leave on their own.
 
The population of the city of St. Louis nearly doubled in size during the Civil War decade. And peace settled on the northern counties in the early months of the war.
Were there some thinly populated counties in western Missouri or along the river in which some people became unhappy and left for Montana or Oregon or Texas? Probably.
But violence in Missouri was not particularly unique. Establishing law and order, and establishing that Indians had a right to survive and prosper too, was a long struggle throughout the west.
The number of 25% was something somebody made up. In some counties the number might have been 100%, but no one counted.
 
Last edited:
Thanks to one of our other members many moons ago, I learned that historian T.J. Stiles appears to be the person to have gotten this started and now appears to use it for shock value to start some of his Missouri talks. At least that is how he started a presentation I found on C-Span. It took me some time to learn where he got this number. I first thought he was using 1860 election returns to 1864, but these were skewed from the fact only those willing to take the oath and brave enough to leave their homes in 1864 voted. The comparison was very bad, and Kentucky's was even worse. I continued to search because Stiles specifically says census results and while I first thought he was in error as who would perform a census in the middle of a war and only a few years after the national census, I finally stumbled across a report submitted to the Missouri Congress in 1865 of an 1864 census. The numerical comparison Stiles gives is correct 1,149,139 to 816,631.... but he only tells part of the story.

The report containing the count was submitted by the then Secretary of State Francis Rodman, with a report containing the following statements ...

In my estimation the returns are not accurate and reliable enough, and do not furnish sufficient data for legislative action. Some of the sheriffs have undoubtedly done their duty as faithfully as could be expected, considering the small compensation they receive for their services; in too many cases, however, the sheriffs have entirely misunderstood the law and their duties, as is abundantly demonstrated by the character of some of the returns, which often came in a very imperfect and unfinished condition, rendering their return to the proper officers for completion necessary. I do not believe that the present census reaches within at least two hundred thousand of the actual population of the State.......

census1864.jpg

Failure on the part of these officers to comply with the provisions of the statutes must be regarded as one of the reasons why the total population of our State, as reported, compares so unfavorably with the total population reported in 1860. But there is another reason fact connected with this census, which still more forcibly explains this seeming decrease in population.
Many returns made and filed in this office before the close of the war, demonstrate clearly that the sheriffs performed their duties and manufactured the enumerations and other statistics required by law in their offices and not in the townships of the county and in the tenaments of them. This they could easily do, as in most instances the sheriffs are well acquainted with all the families living in the county, being thus enabled to furnish a rough estimate of the population. I admit that it was very dangerous at that time to travel over the whole area of many counties, but no return at all would have answered better, because the value of all statistics consists in their uniformity and correctness, with out which they become a blind guide. It is, furthermore, clearly evident that thousands of our soldiers who were absent in the camp and in the field, and thousands of our citizens who enlisted in the rebel armies, and thousands of loyal citizens who left the State during the war, because of insecurity to life and limb, but who have returned since the blessings of peace once more smile upon us, and thousands of that class of citizens, which I may call “neutrals,” who left our State because they had not the courage to serve either heaven or the devil, but have also returned to be forgiven and to take charge again of their property, are not computed in this State census These three facts will account for the difference in total population, which in 1860 was quoted to be 1,149,139, and is now reported to be only 816,631. That our present laws pres ribing the mode of taking the census are very defective in many instances, the careful statistician will not fail to observe.

Appendix to the House Journal of the Adjourned Session of the 23rd General Assembly of the State of Missouri

(note - there are 117 counties in Missouri, and of these, 27 did not submit census results.)
Cut and paste would not work on list of counties not counted without messing them up, so I snap shotted that section

So yes the numbers were made up - but no - the numbers were not made up. There was a count, at least part of one, and in some cases the local sheriff, too afraid to leave his office, did make up some numbers. Or just refused to participate. The fact the state Congress actually felt a census could be effectively performed in the middle of a guerilla war, says more about the incredible disconnect from reality of Missouri's Congress, than on the performance of local sheriff's.

In my opinion, this is one more piece of evidence how an author can state a half truth as fact and because some want to believe it, it mysteriously becomes part of Missouri's revised history.
 
Regardless of the Civil War, most of the data, like this crude map, http://dsl.richmond.edu/historicalatlas/145/e/
support the view that Missouri was involved in the same westward expansion of agriculture that was taking place in Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska.
There was no realistic way the people in Missouri were going turn back this tidal wave of expansion.
 
Oh, where to begin?

I think I may be the person referred to that brought up the statement that Missouri lost 1/3 of it's population during the war. I first learned this via a You Tube video that author/historian T. J. Stiles made about in his book "Jesse James, Last Rebel of the Civil War." But after re-reading his book a year ago or so I came upon the same statement in his book, that I missed in my previous readings. On Page 156, Stiles says, "The population of Missouri fell by an estimated 300,000 people between 1861 and 1865. Roughly one out of every three citizens had been killed in battle, murdered at home, driven out by guerrilla threats, banished by authorities, or simply had fled to a more hopeful place." He backs this claim by footnote #20 where he gives credit to (quote), "Fellman, 242; Foner, 19; for Northern wartime expansion in general, see McPherson, 819-9. The state census of 1864 calculated a loss of 262,146, a number that certainly grew in the aftermath of Price's raid and subsequent Union countermeasures; James Fernando Ellis, "The Influences of Environment on the Settlement of Missouri (St, Louis: Webster Publishing, 1929), 144-5 (end quote).

The only book the Stiles mentions that I have in my library is Fellman's book, "Inside War," and on page 242 of that book, Fellman states, "When one considers the widespread depopulation of the war-ravaged countryside, which I would estimate as a loss of at least 300,000 by 1865, the population may nearly have doubled between 1865 and 1970." So now we know where Stiles got his 300,000 figure from. If one only looks at the increase in population from 1860 to 1870 we come up with an increase of approximately 45%, which is remarkable, but here is where mere statistics fail us. If one looks at the 1860 population of Missouri of 1,182,012 and subtract the war-time loss of the estimated 300,000 we have a state population of 882,012 at the war's end. In 1870 the population was 1,721,295, a gain of 839,283 persons from the estimated end-of-war 1865 population, a 71% gain. That is truly remarkable.

Where did the gain in population come from? According to Fellman, (pages 242-245), there was a baby boom after the war that accounted for 61% of the increase. But the most dramatic gain (71%), came from immigrants from the states of Illinois and Ohio, who made up 43% of the immigrants, with the states of Indiana, New York, and Pennsylvania making up the rest of the increase. By 1870, Missouri was a different state than it was in 1860. Northern born settlers had accounted for 38% of the population in 1860; by 1870 they made up nearly 58%. The number of foreign-born residents of the state had also increased by 1870, but as a percentage of the population, their numbers had decreased from 15% in 1860 to 13% in 1870; in St. Louis, a city where 60% of the population was foreign-born in 1860, they now made up 36% of the city's population by 1870. The driver of the population increase after the war was largely due to relatively cheap land, new railroads which opened up eastern markets, and an industrial boom primarily centered in St. Louis.

Turning to the area of Missouri which saw the most destruction from the war, the "Burnt District," an area of 2,200 square mile that was cleared of all rural and small town inhabitants due to Gen. Ewing's General order #11. The total population of this area was around 40,000 inhabitants pre-war, of which slightly over 30,000 rural people were forced to leave their farms and small towns with a ten day notice. The farms and small town they left were burned out and what they couldn't take with them were either burned or taken off to Kansas. The counties of the "Burnt District," consist of Jackson (where Kansas City is located), Cass, Bates and the northern townships of Vernon County. The northern border of Jackson County is on the Missouri River, and it's western border is on the state line with Kansas, the rest of the counties are located south of Jackson County in the order given. According to author Tom A Rafiner and his book "Cinder and Silence: A Chronicle of Missouri's Burnt District 1854-1870," after the end of the war, these counties opened up for repopulation with the majority of new "Heads of Households" being from Union states. For example, from Rafiners' book, pages 259-262, the Cass County Head-of-household count for 1860 was 1,526. In 1870 the birth-place for new head-of-households was 221 from Confederate States, 410 from Border States, 1,187 from Union States, and 200 from other sources, (foreign-born). For the entire "Burnt District," the 1870 growth in Heads-of Households increased by 80.5% from 1860, with Jackson County increasing by 77.3%, Cass County 81.3% and Bates county increasing by 88.6%. The birthplace of these Heads of Household were 1,491 from Ohio, 1,380 from Missouri, 893 from Kentucky, 724 from Pennsylvania, 691 from New York, 666 from Indiana, and 595 from Illinois.

Clearly, the increase in population of Missouri was dramatic, not only for the increase due to the native birth rate, and from Missourians moving back into the state, but from the huge increase in out-of-staters who moved into the state, and these were primarily from northern states. This immigration totally changed the state. Pre-war the state identified as being Southern; by 1870 it identified with other northern midwestern states in it's politics and economy.
 
Last edited:
I think the point is that large numbers of Missourians left Missouri during the WBTS/CW. We don't know exactly how many were replaced by foreign immigrants and American migrants from other States. though migration from the east certainly occurred. The fact is many Missourians were ordered to leave their home Counties by the Provost Marshal and many were harassed by Federal troops and local officials appointed by the Lincoln administration and chose to leave on their own.
One sees accounts of northerners moving to safer pastures as well during the war. Considering how popular house burning was, if one was victim it would make more sense to move to a safer area then try to rebuild in a war zone in a constant state of flux. Plus one could take your house being robbed and burned as perhaps a suggestion you should leave as your marked by one side or the other, or you may die next time........

One would imagine most driven out would return postwar. Those that didnt, the land would still be far more favorable then land further west.......even if buildings had been burned, there would be cleared fields and wells making it attractive for others to build on. Also more surrounding infrastructure in roads, neighbors, and towns then going west.
 
Last edited:
More as Booner wrote. The 300,000 number was just guesswork and many of the people that did leave moved back probably by the spring of 1865.
The Midwest was going through a rapid population growth as Missouri was part of that.
In most cities in the US, there was plenty of work during the war. Real wages fell behind in some industries, but no one who wanted to work was unemployed and I suspect St. Louis was growing throughout the decade, while violence wracked the counties along the river or on the western boundary.
The other notable thing, the black population of Missouri did not increase during the Civil War. I think a lot of them passed over into Illinois. Some may have stopped identifying as African/American, if they could pass.
 
Kansas population soared from 107,206 to 364,339 between 1860 to 1870, and between 1870 and 1880 the population explosion had reached further west - Colorado grew in those years from 39,864 to 194,327. California was always on a steady growth curve but its greatest percentile growth over a decade was behind it by the Civil War (likely due to the gold rush prior to the war). Missouri's population has not doubled in a single decade since 1830-1840.

I am confused by the context of the OP. The claim is made that Missouri lost 1/4 of its population during the war, but the title and other parts of the OP seem to be about the growth in the state between 1860 and 1870.

Not sure how one has anything to do with the other?
 
The decrease in the counted number of people was due to the difficulty of counting under war time conditions. Many of the people who did leave, only left temporarily. And regardless, people from the Midwest, second sons, and US veterans who had save $80.00, were going to come looking for land.
The effect of the war was swamped by the fact that the state was going to become part of the Midwest. Especially after slavery was abolished in January of 1865, the main question had been answered, the Missouri compromise had been made irrelevant.
 
More as Booner wrote. The 300,000 number was just guesswork and many of the people that did leave moved back probably by the spring of 1865.
The Midwest was going through a rapid population growth as Missouri was part of that.
In most cities in the US, there was plenty of work during the war. Real wages fell behind in some industries, but no one who wanted to work was unemployed and I suspect St. Louis was growing throughout the decade, while violence wracked the counties along the river or on the western boundary.
The other notable thing, the black population of Missouri did not increase during the Civil War. I think a lot of them passed over into Illinois. Some may have stopped identifying as African/American, if they could pass.

I think the migration to Missouri started a little later than the spring of 1865 as the war seemed to have lasted a little longer out here. The "Burnt District" was still a wasteland in 1866. It wasn't until the state started a immigration campaign that it began to fill.
And this is just a guess on my part, but I suspect that if you had left the state at sometime, and you supported the Union, you were more likely to return; if you could pay your delinquent taxes. Perhaps you would sell off part of your land to come up with the money to pay taxes on the rest of your property. The post-war Drake constitution was very hard on those who had supported the South, and I think the probability of a southerner not returning to the state was rather high. Many didn't have much to return to, and were already settled where ever they were. If they were a professional person, the post-war Drake Constitution denied them of their ability to practice their profession. Many of the more wealthy southern-leaning Missourians had taken out personal loans to buy state-backed bonds to fund the Missouri State Guard in 1861, with the idea that the state would reimburse them and they could pay off their loans. With the collapse of the Jackson-backed state government later that year, the bonds became worthless, and with no hope of being reimbursed by the state, many of the bondholders were forced into bankruptcy. And with the ending of slavery, slave-based agricultural practices came to a halt. Tobacco and hemp production gave way to grain and animal production. My guess, but perhaps the average size of a farm in 1870 decreased from those of 1860 to reflect the change in agricultural practices.

Regarding the Black population; from a height of 117,995 slaves in the 1830's, or 17.8% of the states' population, their percentage of the greater state's population had been falling. In 1860 they were 9.8 % of the population. By 1870, their population was relatively unchanged from 1860 (118,503 down to 118,071) but their percentage of the greater state population had fallen to 6.8%, which points out the vast number of white immigrants that had moved to the state. The counties with the highest black population had been in west central Missouri, along the Missouri River, in an area called "Little Dixie," where tobacco and hemp was grown, and in the cotton growing area of the bootheel. While I don't doubt that some slaves were able to gain their freedom by going to Illinois, I would think that by far, more slaves living in the western area of the state gained their freedom by going to Kansas via Jay hawking raids, or by joining the Union army.
 
Last edited:
Regarding the Black population; from a height of 117,995 slaves in the 1830's, or 17.8% of the states' population, their percentage of the greater state's population had been falling. In 1860 they were 9.8 % of the population. By 1870, their population was relatively unchanged from 1860 (118,503 down to 118,071) but their percentage of the greater state population had fallen to 6.8%, which points out the vast number of white immigrants that had moved to the state. The counties with the highest black population had been in west central Missouri, along the Missouri River, in an area called "Little Dixie," where tobacco and hemp was grown, and in the cotton growing area of the bootheel. While I don't doubt that some slaves were able to gain their freedom by going to Illinois, I would think that by far, more slaves living in the western area of the state gained their freedom by going to Kansas via Jay hawking raids, or by joining the Union army.

In my family, each of the War caused migration scenarios are represented. Some Southern people never left, others returned to their farms after temporary displacement, and still others sold out and/or just left for western States/Territories. After their Union Army service Booner and my GG GrandPas (brothers who married sisters) migrated from Indiana to Missouri and established farms, no doubt displacing Southerners who had fled. One of my G Grandpas immigrated to Missouri in 1868 with his parents from German/Austrian Sudetenland. Another G Grandpa migrated to Missouri from Ohio after his Union Army service. Other branches migrated into Missouri from Kentucky and Tennessee, respectively. As for slaves, the nine owned by one of my GG Grandpas were freed and joined the exodus from northwest Missouri and up into southeastern Nebraska near Nebraska City. I am able to keep tabs on some slave descendants, because we reportedly share some DNA. One of our distant relatives is assisting them in researching their ancestry.
 
Back
Top