| Date |
Excerpt |
| 1860 |
Claiborne F. Jackson was elected Governor of Missouri, hoping to keep Missouri armed but neutral. His Lt. Gov., Thomas C. Reynolds, was on the side of Secession. |
| 1861 |
When the War broke out, Gov. Jackson called for 50,000 volunteers to defend the State and set out for Southwest Missouri with most of the State officials accompanying him. At Jefferson City, a group that favored the Northern side called a convention that included no elected officials, declared all State affairs vacant, and appointed a provisional Government. |
| July, 1861 |
Missouri now had two governments; the one elected in 1860 was in flight; and the one in Jefferson City was ruling by bayonet power. |
| October 31, 1861 |
Gov. Jackson called a rump session of the Legislature at Neosho, Missouri, and the attending legislators voted to secede. |
| November 28, 1861 |
The Confederate Congress admitted Missouri into the Confederacy. |
| Winter, 1862 |
Gov. Jackson died of cancer in Arkansas and Thomas C. Reynolds inherited the phantom post of Governor of Missouri. He was considered brash and talented, with a strong sense of duty. |
| July 4, 1863 |
Vicksburg
fell, cutting the Trans-Mississippi Army off from the rest of the
Confederacy. The Governors of the four trans-River states met and
formed a civilian authority, a Committee of Public Safety, under the
control of Gov. Reynolds of Missouri. Gov. Reynolds was heading
back to Little Rock, Arkansas when Confederate forces attacked it, so
Reynolds tried to set up a State Capital at Shreveport, Louisiana, but
that city was flooded with non-combatants, so he turned to Marshall,
Texas and set up a State Capital and a Governor's Residence. He
set about managing his Government-in-Exile. He had a small staff, a
Secretary of State, an Adjutant General, a General Finance officer,
some others, and a few clerks. He sent others to recruit replacement Missourians into his exiled army and appointed Waldo P. Johnson to represent Missouri in the Confederate Senate. |
| October, 1964 |
When Gen. Sterling Price bumbled into his "Great Raid" into Missouri, Tom Reynolds went along as an aide-de-camp to Gen. Joseph O. Shelby. Reynolds hoped to be installed as Governor at Jefferson City, but the "Raid" was botched, and Gen. Price lost most of his command. |
| April 8, 1865 |
Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, but the Army of the Trans-Mississippi did not. |
| Early May, 1865 |
Commander Kirby Smith and the Governor held a meeting at Marshall, Texas, and without Reynolds' vote, the other three Governors recommended that Commander Smith surrender. |
| May 30, 1865 |
General Smith wrote the Union Commander that his Army had disbanded, except for the Missourians. |
| June 2, 1865 |
Joseph Shelby lined up the remnants of his Cavalry Division and with Gov. Reynolds, Gen. Sterling Price, and 500 Missourians, headed for Mexico. |
| 1868 |
After three years in Mexico, and after the fall of Emperor Maximilian and the emergence of Benito Juarez, Reynolds, as Shelby and Price had done before him, returned to the real Missouri, where he practiced Law and served in the State Legislature. After the Civil War, Marshall went back to being the seat of Government for Harmon County, Texas. |