The Battle of Moore's Mill - Calwood, MO - American Civil War Monuments and Memorials on Waymarking.com

Text:
Here on the afternoon of July 28, 1862, some 400 recruits and guerrillas from North Missouri led by Colonel Joseph C. Porter, C.S.A., ambushed 730 Union troops under Colonel Odon Guitar of the Ninth Missouri Cavalry. After several hours of fierce fighting, the Confederates were forced by superior firepower to retreat northward along Auxvasse Creek leaving 52 dead and more than 100 wounded. Union losses were 13 killed and 55 wounded. This action prevented Porter and his men from crossing the Missouri River to join the Confederate forces in Arkansas. Many of the casualties are buried in a mass grave on the south side of the road about one mile west of Calwood.

History of the Battle:
"A battle which was significant in determining the possession of Missouri in the Civil War was fought July 28, 1862 in the eastern part of Callaway County. The battlefield was about one-half mile south of the village of Calwood known at that time as Moore's Mill.

"The battle was the result of the coming into Callaway County of Colonel Joseph C. Porter, a Confederate who came down from Audrain County with approximately one hundred twenty-five horsemen. He encamped at Brown's Spring, two miles northwest of the present village of McCredie and on the Auxvasse Creek. There he was joined by sixty-five members of the Black Foot Rangers from Boone and Randolph Counties. The same day, Captain Alvin Cobb arrived with seventy-five men, making a total of approximately two hundred sixty.

"Captain Odon Guitar, stationed at Federal Headquarters in Jefferson City, received word of the movement and immediately departed for Brown's Spring with one hundred thirty-five infantrymen. I Fulton, he picked up fifty additional troops and proceeded to Brown's Spring. Meanwhile, Colonel Porter had moved down the Auxvasse Creek below the village of Moore's Mill and had then come up to the road which ran south from that place. At Brown's Spring, Guitar was joined by Lt. Col. Shaffer with five hundred men and two pieces of artillery. This force, numbering now seven hundred forty, followed Porter and his troops down the Auxvasse Creek south of Calwood where a battle was joined at noon. It continued, with varying fortunes, until four 0'clock, at which time Porter has exhausted his ammunition and withdrew from the field. He was not followed by Guitar.

"Determining the number of dead and wounded is very difficult in view of the disparity between the reports of the two commandments. Ar nearly as can be judged, it would appear that probably between seventy-five and one hundred men were killed outright and probably three or four times that number recieved wounds of carious degrees from which many died.

"A large number of killed were buried beside the Fulton-Calwood Road only a few hundred yards west of Calwood.

"Colonel Porter returned to North Missouri after the battle, continued to serve the Confederate cause, and was killed January 11, 1863 at the battle of Hartville in Wright County. Colonel Guitar attained the rank of General, served throughout the war, and at its conclusion, returned to Columbia where he resumed the practice of law and lived until 1909.

"Down through the years, numerous bullets ans shell fragments, etc. have been found on the site of this battlefield

The diorama was presented to the Kingdom of Callaway Historical Society on the 100th anniversary of the battle, July, 1962." ~ Kingdom of Callaway Historical Society

University of Missouri has held digs, and other searches here is some of the results:
Mass Grave Found   150 years ago   Looking for the Mass Grave at Moores Mill   Wikipedia

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