Harry Truman’s Family During the Civil War: The Impact of Historical Memory

Our own Historical Memory

Alonzo Hamby – In Man of the People

• “For the rest of their lives, they harbored an unquenchable hatred for Abraham Lincoln, blue uniforms, and Kansans.”

Missouri Families During the Civil War

Fellman Synopsis, p. 11• The Civil War in Missouri was a fairly simple affair. The Union remained

powerful enough militarily to maintain control of St. Louis, the railroads, and those towns and railheads they garrisoned, often with non-Missouri troops . . . . The Confederacy, which gained in popular appeal when Missouri was “invaded” and occupied by often brutal military forces, was too weak to mount a sustained and organized military effort in the state . . . . Tens of thousands of pro-southern families remained hundreds of miles behind Union lines, living next door to Unionists. Among these secessionists, enraged by the mere fact of Union occupation as well as by its excesses right on their doorsteps, were many young men of military age who had not gone south to join the regular Confederate army. A majority of Missourians were left confused and caught in the middle of a battle they wanted to avoid. They remained loyal to the Union yet deeply resentful of Federal force. They were to be whipsawed between the two organized poles of power; in the destruction of the ensuing guerilla war, the everyday translation of ideology became the question of which side would enable them best to survive.

Cole Younger and Jesse James

Truman’s Family During the Civil War

Solomon YoungTruman’s Sister, Grandmother Harriet and Uncle Harrison

Jayhawkers Jim Lane and Charles Jennison

Jim Crow Chiles

Young Family Losses (claim: $21,442)

• 15 mules and 13 horses• 400 hogs (cut out hams leaving the rest to rot)• 1,200 pounds of bacon• 65 tons of hay• 1,000 bushels of corn• 44 head of hogs• feather beds• 7 wagons• thousands of fence rails• 150 head of cattle• FAMILY SILVER (according to family stories, but NOT in claim)

Anderson Shipp Truman

Memories Still Raw to Some: Chris Edwards, local Musician

Key Questions For Students?