Claiborne Fox Jackson
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Claiborne Fox Jackson
Claiborne Fox Jackson (1806 - 1862) was the governor of Missouri from 1860 to 1861. An ardent secessionist, Jackson hoped that Missouri would join the Confederacy. In May, 1861, he ordered the state militia to assemble outside St. Louis for six days of training. Although Jackson's order was legal according to the Missouri state constitution, his motives were not. Jackson called out pro-secession militia units and appointed secessionists to command the various State Guard divisions. He hoped to have the State Guard march on the Saint Louis Arsenal and capture the nearly 60,000 muskets, 40 artillery pieces, 90,000 pounds of powder and arms-producing machinery stockpiled there. Even before the State Guard was assembled on May 6, Jackson had requested arms and ammunition from the Confederate Government. The first shipments, 2 artillery pieces, arrived in St. Louis on May 8, in boxes marked "marble". Jackson's plans were foiled when Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon, the Arsenal's commander, captured the State Guard's camp.
When President Lincoln called on the states to provide troops to put down the "Rebellion", Governor Jackson, an ardent secessionist, declared that Missouri would not support the Federal war effort. Jackson angrily responded, "Sir: Your dispatch of the 15th instant, making a call on Missouri for four regiments of men for immediate service, as been received. There can be, I apprehend, no doubt that the men are intended to form a part of the President's army to make war upon the people of the seceded states. Your requisition, in my judgment, is illegal, unconstitutional, and revolutionary in its object, inhuman, and diabolical and cannot be complied with. Not one man will the State of Missouri furnish to carry on any unholy crusade."
Jackson would later take to the field with Major General Sterling Price. In July, 1861, the pro-Union Missouri State Convention declared the governor's office vacated and appointed Hamilton Gamble as provisional governor in Jackson's place. Jackson helped to organize the Missouri State Guard prior to the battle of Wilson's Creek and also led a session of the Missouri General Assembly that passed an ordnance of secession. The session, and therefore the vote, was not legal, as it did not have a majority of members present. The results of the vote were accepted by the Confederate Government though, and Jackson would serve as the governor of the Missouri government in exile until his death on December 6, 1862.
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| Preceded by: Robert Marcellus Stewart | Governor of Missouri 1861 | Succeeded by: Hamilton Rowan Gamble |