Battle of Crooked River

Battle of Crooked River
Part of the 1838 Mormon War
A painting of the Battle of Crooked River, October 24th 1838
Date 24 October 1838 Location Crooked River, Missouri Result Latter Day Saint victory
Belligerents
Latter Day Saint (Mormon) forces	Missouri state militia
Commanders and leaders
David W. Patten†	David R. Atchison Samuel Bogart
Strength
Unknown	1 company
Casualties and losses
3	1

Coordinates: 39°29′50.45″N 94°7′36.96″W / 39.4973472°N 94.1269333°W / 39.4973472; -94.1269333

The Battle of Crooked River was a skirmish between Latter Day Saints forces and a Missouri state militia unit from southeast of Elmira, Missouri in Ray County under the command of Samuel Bogart. The battle was one of the principal points of conflict in the 1838 Missouri Mormon War. Afterward the governor issued Missouri Executive Order 44, sometimes called the "Extermination Order," which led to the expulsion of the Mormons from Missouri.

During 1838 there was an escalation in tensions between the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and their neighbors in northwestern Missouri. Ray County was located immediately south of the Mormon-dominated Caldwell County. The two counties were separated by a no-man's land 24 miles long and 6 miles wide, known as "Bunkham's Strip" or "Buncombe Strip." This unincorporated strip was attached to Ray County for administrative and military purposes.

The citizens of Ray County and their neighbors to the west in Clay County, first began to have concerns about the Mormons to the north when a group of "dissenters" from the church was expelled from Caldwell County. These dissenters, including David Whitmer, William Wines Phelps, John Whitmer and Oliver Cowdery, had been the leaders of the Latter Day Saint church in Missouri. They relocated their families to Richmond and Liberty, the county seats of Ray and Clay, respectively, and claimed that their lives had been threatened and their property had been stolen by the Mormons.

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