The second group were commonly referred to as the (St. Louis) Home Guard, and their creation was criticized as these regiments exceeded the requirement for Missouri volunteers under the Militia Act of 1792.
During the Price–Harney Truce, Governor Claiborne Jackson and Missouri State Guard commander Major General Sterling Price demanded that the 1st–5th U.S.R.C.
Columbia had value not only as a stronghold of pro-Union thought, but served as home to a garrison of Union troops and prison located in the library and main academic building at the University of Missouri.
Worried about Price's raid and concerned about the presence of bushwhackers in the surrounding areas of pro-Confederate Boone County, 90 men assembled a militia named the Fighting Tigers of Columbia.
During the Battle of Athens, Missouri, Iowa Home Guard companies on the other side of the Des Moines River protected the supply depots.