The Civil War in Cape Girardeau: A Roundtable Discussion

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (KBSI) – “It’s really nice nowadays to be able to research this and find out what happened here.” 

What happened in Cape Girardeau during the Civil War, to be exact, which was the focus of Bill Eddleman’s presentation at the Cape Girardeau Civil War Roundtable on Sunday. 

“I just like history, particularly history that a lot of people don’t know about,” Eddleman said. “Growing up in Cape, I didn’t hear much about what Cape Girardeau was like during the Civil War.” 

Eddleman said the primary goals of his presentation were to guide people in the right direction on the happenings in Cape during the war and get rid of some misconceptions about the forts and other aspects of the Civil War in Cape. 

“A lot of people think [the forts] were built to defend attack on the river, and they weren’t. The Union held the river pretty much from the beginning of the war, so the forts were built to protect against land attack, which is where the main threat was,” he said.

Craig Priday of Fredericktown is part of a reenactment group. He said the information he learned during the presentation will be useful to him and his team in making sure they portray history accurately. 

“We’re not just reenactors. We’re not just people on a costume-themed weekend. We are living historians, so we want to present history as authentically as possible out of respect for those that came before us,” he said.