David Moore

David Moore (July 3, 1817 – July 19, 1893) was an American military officer who served in the Mexican–American War and the American Civil War. He attained the rank of brevet Brigadier General, United States Volunteers before leaving military service. Later he would serve as a member of the Missouri General Assembly. Early life David Moore was born in Columbiana County, Ohio, on July 3, 1817, to John and Sarah (Clark) Moore. His father John Moore, an Irish immigrant, served in the War of 1812 and moved to Ohio shortly thereafter. David had two siblings—a sister and a brother—plus several half-siblings from his widowed father's first marriage. At the age of thirteen Moore moved to Wayne County, Ohio, and became a carpenter's apprentice until he was eighteen. He continued in the trade until 1847 when he participated in the Mexican–American War as Captain of an Ohio unit known as the Wooster Guards, which became Company "E" of the 3rd Ohio Infantry Regiment. After returning from the war, he moved to Missouri in 1850 and took up farming as an occupation as well as small-town merchant. The Civil War At the outbreak of the war Moore was living in the small northeast Missouri village of Wrightsville. It was there his friend (and future Missouri State Treasurer) Colonel William Bishop, on orders from General Nathaniel Lyon, recruited him to organize a unit of Missouri Home Guards to protect the area from Confederate raiders. Dressed in his Mexican–American War uniform, David Moore rode into Alexandria, Missouri, on June 24, 1861, to take the oath of loyalty to the Union. Given the rank of captain, he had handbills printed the same day inviting "all who are willing to fight for their homes, their county, and the flag of our glorious Union" to enlist "bringing their arms and ammunition." A sufficient number of men had been recruited from the Clark County, Missouri, area within two weeks and on July 4, 1861, in Kahoka they were officially organized as the 1st Northeast Missouri Home Guards, Moore being elected the unit's colonel. After the swearing in and organization, Moore and about five hundred men moved from Kahoka to the strategically important river port of Athens, Missouri. Also in Clark county and not far from the confluence of the Des Moines and Mississippi Rivers, Moore established a training camp there as well as used it as a base of operations against area pro-Confederate bushwhackers and Missouri State Guard (MSG) under Colonel Martin E. Green.