Divided loyalties audio tour panel 11

The hardships of battle were compounded by a labor shortage. Most of the troops who fought in Missouri, as elsewhere in the war, were average citizens rather than professional soldiers, and when these men were called into battle, local farms and businesses suffered.

• The muster roll shown on this panel tells us that women also served in the military as cooks and nurses in the military hospitals. Women were not allowed to serve in the military forces, although a few did disguise themselves as men in order to participate.

• The group of Missouri State Archives documents featured on this panel allows us to follow one soldier, John Vieh, from the time of his enlistment in the US Reserve Corps in St. Louis through his service in the Enrolled Missouri Militia. Vieh was killed during the final days of Price's campaign in Missouri while serving on an escort detail aboard the steamer Isabella.

• Famous Missourians felt the call to service as strongly as average citizens did. Among others, Missouri's most well known painter, George Caleb Bingham, served as a captain in the U.S. Volunteer Reserve Corps and later became state treasurer of the provisional government. Samuel Clemens (pen name Mark Twain) joined the Confederate militia for two weeks at the beginning of the war before going west to California in search of gold.