very small affair indeed. But it had immense results. Lyon had
seized the best strategic point of rail and river junction on the
Mississippi by holding St. Louis. He had also secured supremacy
in arms, munitions, and morale. By turning the Governor out of
Jefferson City, the State capital, he had deprived the
Confederates of the prestige and convenience of an acknowledged
headquarters. Now, by defeating him at Boonville and driving his
forces south in headlong flight he had practically made the whole
Missouri River a Federal line of communication as well as a
barrier between would-be Confederates to the north and south of
it. More than this, the possession of Boonville struck a fatal
blow at Confederate recruiting and organization throughout the
whole of that strategic area; for Boonville was the center to
which pro-Southern Missourians were flocking. The tide of battle
was to go against the Federals at Wilson's Creek in the southwest
of the State, and even at Lexington on the Missouri, as we shall
presently see; but this was only the breaking of the last
Confederate waves. As a State, Missouri was lost to the South
already.

In Kentucky, the next border State, opinions were likewise
divided; and Kentuckians fought each other with help from both
sides. Anderson, of Fort Sumter fame, was appointed to the
Kentucky command in May. But here the crisis did not occur for
months, while a border campaign was already being fought in West
Virginia.

West Virginia, which became a separate State during the war, was
strongly Federal, like eastern Tennessee. These Federal parts of
two Confederate States formed a wedge dangerous to the whole