Last week, we learned about the first skirmish of the Civil War in Adair County at the Westenhaver home north of Kirksville. There, Corporal Hervey Dix from Iowa became Adair County’s first casualty of that war.
Hervey Dix was not a native of Missouri, but during his duties as a corporal in the early part of the Civil War, he became the first casualty of that war in Adair County, Mo. He was buried in Kirksville, and after the war, he was honored by having a post of the Grand Army of the Republic in Adair County named for him.