Missouri had seventeen governors, before electing a native-born Missourian. Thomas Clement Fletcher was elected Missouri's 18th governor in 1864 and re-elected in 1866.
The Fletcher family had emigrated from Maryland to Herculaneum, Missouri where Thomas was born January 22, 1827. In the mid-1850s Fletcher was admitted to the bar and became a land agent for the Pacific railroad.
Fletcher was a staunch supporter of Lincoln during the 1860 presidential campaign and a delegate to the Republican National Convention in Chicago. He became one of Lincoln's chief advisors concerning Missouri. In 1861, Fletcher was appointed provost marshal of Missouri and was colonel of the 31st and 47th Regiment, Missouri Volunteer Infantry. In December 1862, he was captured during the Confederate Victory at
Chickasaw Bayou and sent to
Libby Prison at Richmond, VA.
In 1864, Fletcher recruited the 47th Missouri Regiment of Missouri Infantry, U.S. Army and was later brevetted brigadier general.
Sources- Douglass, Robert Sidney. History of Southeast Missouri. Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1912.
- Johnson, Alfred Sidney ed. The Cyclopedic Review of Current History, Volume 9. Boston: Current History Company, 1900.
- Phisterer, Frederick. Statistical Record of the Armies of the United States: Campaigns of the Civil War, Supplementary Volume. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1883.
- Shoemaker, Floyd Calvin. Missouri Day by Day, Volume 1. Columbia, MO: State Historical Society of Missouri, 1942.
