Battle of Lone Jack
Missouri
On the morning of August sixteenth, eighteen sixty-two, this quiet Missouri crossroads exploded. About two thousand Confederate forces under commanders including Colonel Vard Cockrell and Colonel Upton Hays struck a detachment of Federal cavalry commanded by Major Emory Foster before dawn. The Federals had made camp here at the small settlement of Lone Jack, confident they held the ground.
They did not. After hours of brutal close-quarters fighting, Foster's men were forced to retreat, leaving the Confederates in control of the field. Foster himself was wounded.
The Battle of Lone Jack was one of the more significant guerrilla engagements of the Missouri border war, a conflict far messier than the set-piece battles back East. A cemetery and small museum near this spot preserve the memory of the men who fell on both sides.
