On 19 June 1861 a hastily assembled Union Home Guard made up almost entirely of recent German Lutheran immigrant farmers was attacked and overcome near Cole Camp, Missouri, by a Missouri State Militia force, allowing the deposed Confederate-supporting Governor Claiborne Jackson to escape pursuing Union forces. The rag-tag Home Guard had no regular officers or forces to lead or support them. About 900 men had assembled on 13 June on a nearby farm, but half of the men had been sent home for lack of weapons or ammunition. Confused by Confederates carrying a Union flag, the Home Guard force held its fire until too late. Some 35 Home Guard men were killed, several of them members of Lutheran congregations in the area.
For more information on this early Civil War engagement in Missouri, click here and here.
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