For nearly 150 years, Missourians have built monuments and memorials to tell the stories of battles fought and hardships suffered during the Border War years leading up to the Civil War and the war itself.
Some monuments bear witness to violent confrontations that occurred in Missouri towns and along the Missouri/Kansas border between 1854 and 1861. Others document Civil War battles and honor the soldiers, North and South, who fought them. Nearly all of them attest to a community of bitterly divided loyalties, offering gratitude for the sacrifice and heroism of soldiers and ordinary citizens during the tumultuous, brutal years surrounding the Civil War in western Missouri.
