Little Blue Battlefield is Placed on Missouri’s List of Endangered Places
By Kelly Garbus

October 2005

JACKSON COUNTY, Mo. — Proposed highway construction and housing development has forced Little Blue Battlefield onto Missouri’s Top Ten Most Endangered Places.

The listing is sponsored by the Missouri Alliance for Historic Preservation, a non-profit organization that seeks to promote, support and coordinate historic preservation.

The Battle of the Little Blue, Oct. 21, 1864, was a prelude to the Battle of Westport, which occurred two days later. The running battle began along the Little Blue River east of Independence, Mo., when Confederate troops under the command of Gen. Sterling Price clashed with Union forces commanded by Maj. Gen. James G. Blunt.

Tim Cox, president of the 80-member Civil War Round Table of Western Missouri, said the battle was the last tactical maneuver by the Confederacy to gain control of Missouri and portions of the Trans Mississippi territory.

Price’s force, estimated between 12,000 to 15,000, overwhelmed about 3,000 Union troops who were forced to fall back, first to Independence and then to Westport, where Union reinforcements eventually triumphed. Cox said the defeat helped usher in closure to the war in the west.

Cox, on behalf of the round table, nominated the battlefield to the Top Ten list to help generate awareness and preserve portions of the battle site.

His application to the Missouri Alliance described the battlefield as encompassing about seven-and-a-half square miles in an area bounded by Old Blue Mills Road on the west and north, Missouri Highway 7 on the east and just south of U.S. 24 Highway on the southern border.

Historic features of the land include the 1856 Lawson Moore Home, which was vacated by a pro-Southern family during the war as a result of Order Number 11, which ordered residents in several counties to leave unless they proved their loyalty.

The home served as a hospital during the battle and today still has several visible bullet holes and shell marks. The grounds also include a couple of springs that may have been used by troops during the battle.

Other historic highlights within the battlefield area include the former Jabez Smith property, home to what may have been the largest slave settlement in the state. More than 200 slaves died there in the 1850s as a result of a cholera epidemic, Cox said.

There is also the Lewis-Gregg Cemetery, where Revolutionary War soldier Nathaniel Lewis is buried, and Blue Mill, a grist mill located on the Santa Fe Trail and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Cox said the land also includes rocky limestone bluffs and ledges that served as “high ground” during the battle.
Part of the challenge in preserving key portions of the battlefield is in dealing with several different jurisdictions. The battlefield encompasses city and county jurisdictions, and, to an extent, the federal government, which is helping to fund a major thoroughfare that will pass through the area.

The best that preservationists can hope for may be to target strategic areas within the site and get small parcels of land donated or set aside as easements, so monuments and kiosks can be erected to tell the story.

Cox hopes people will come forward with donations that would help in purchasing key parcels of ground. He also hopes to save the cemetery and maybe have a visitor’s center that tells about the battle, along with a driving tour and historical markers.

At the very least, he would like to gain permission to search lands prior to development and try to recover artifacts that could be displayed in a museum.

Vicki Nave, a member of the Independence Heritage Commission which promotes and educates people on the historical heritage of Independence, said many people in the community grew up with stories of the Civil War and kind of took it for granted. She said increasing development in the area has pushed the preservation issue to the forefront.

“It wasn't until the last decade that it became more important," she said. "Once it's gone, it's gone, you can't bring it back. It's hard to point to a piece of asphalt and say, 'This is where 20,000 men tried to kill each other.'"

The Civil War Round Table of Western Missouri is hosting meetings for battlefield neighbors and is part of an informal group of people interested in the site. For more information contact Tim Cox at (816) 478-8833 or littlebluebattlefield@comcast.net