A State Divided – Missouri Symphony for Orchestra, Symphony No. 3

A State Divided – a Missouri Symphony for Orchestra contributes to the historiography of Missouri through music inspired by the state’s entrance into the Civil War in 1862. The impetus for the Symphony was the 150th anniversary of the event in 2012.

Each movement represents a major chapter in the history of Missouri’s involvement in the Civil War.

I. Missouri Compromise – a slave state (1820)
Missouri was initially settled by slave-holding Southerners coming up the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Missouri entered the Union in 1821 as a slave state following the Missouri Compromise of 1820, in which it was agreed that no state north of Missouri’s southern border with Arkansas could enter the Union as a slave state. Maine entered the Union as a free state in the compromise to balance Missouri.

II. Skirmish at Island Mound – African-American regiment (October 27-29, 1862)
The Skirmish at Island Mound occurred from Oct. 27 to Oct. 29, 1862, in Bates County, Mo. This Union victory was notable as the first known engagement of an African-American regiment during the Civil War.

III. The Battle at Westport – the battle that saved Missouri (October 23, 1864)
The Battle at Westport was one of the Civil War’s largest battles west of the Mississippi and was fought in October, 1864 with some 30,000 soldiers participating. The Union victory dashed Confederate hopes of occupying Missouri, and the battle has been called “The Gettysburg of the West.”