Charles Bird, then living on Crane Creek, and who had held the position of county judge of Stone county for a number of years, was elected to the lower branch of the State Legislature as a Douglas Democrat.  Arriving at Jefferson City, the taint of secession infected him, and he wrote to his constituents that "secession was the popular side," advising some of them, also, of a corresponding change in his own views of national affairs.  His conduct exasperated his former friends, and they manifested their disapprobation of it by returning to the State Convention, called for the purpose of deliberating upon the question of secession, a Union delegate, Judge Hendricks, of Green county.  After the Convention adjourned, Judge Bird, up to this time remaining at Jefferson City, returned home a ruined politician and a disappointed man, and undertook the raising of a jayhawking and marauding company, yet under the guise of protection against jayhawkers, bushwhackers, and other men of the like ilk.

There was associated with him one Isaac Bledsoe.  By choice a minister and a Methodist, he sustained a character prior to the breaking out of the "great rebellion," in harmony to some extent with his profession.  An earnest adherent of the "Methodist Church South," he shared in the prejudices of his section, and when Missouri began to consider the question of secession, politics and the pulpit very soon became with him synonynous terms.  Itinerating through Stone county, he "took his texts from the Bible and preached from the newspapers," until he exhausted his piety and his purse -- the latter never long -- and took to bushwhacking.  While raising men, however, he would be occasionally smitten with the hortative fury of his earlier days, and then disseminate treason under the cloak of sanctity and the Sabbath.

At such times he spurned all secular methods, and the rebel in him rising with his fervor, his defection burst every restraint, and no doubt his sympathizing hearers reflected the sentiment-

"Heroes shall fall, who strode unharmed away,
Through the red heaps of many a doubtful day-
Hacked in his sermons, riddled in his prayers,
The 'butternut' slashing what the 'shot-gun' spares."

The band known at first as Bird's, was afterwards more generally mentioned as Bledsoe's, and during the autumn and winter of 1861, ceaselessly depredated upon the property of the Union men of Stone, Christian, Barry, and other counties in south-western Missouri.  So notorious, in fact, did it become, that Bledsoe's men were regarded as the central light in bushwhacking; the fruitful source of rapine and murder; the terror of Union men.  In August, 1861, they murdered, in cold blood, Jesse Galloway, Charles' cousin, and then captain of a home-guard company in Christian county.  Other citizens were also wantonly killed, and countless depredations committed by this band.  Always dressed in citizen's clothes, the characteristic "butternut" prevailing, they moved about in the true spirit of guerrilla warfare, meeting by agreement in some secluded spot when a deed of darkness was to be committed, and separating each to his home or hiding place when danger appeared imminent.  Cowardly as they were malicious, when found alone or a few together, they would insist on being orderly citizens, and unarmed, were generally "going for the doctor," or armed, were out "turkey shooting."  During the summer of 1862 a military commission sat continuously at Springfield, Missouri, and no marauder's name appears upon its minutes so often as Isaac Bledsoe's.

With these men to contend against mediately, and an approaching Southern horde farther off, Charles Galloway went earnestly to work.  Without waiting for authority, he raised a company from Stone county, and tendered their services to Gen. Lyon, then commanding at Springfield.  The company was ordered to the duty of home protection, and from that time until the battle of Wilson's Creek, remained in and near Stone county, a portion of the time held together, and again separating into small detachments for the better protection of families threatened by Bledsoe and his men.  Captain Galloway, now bold and defiant, had become especially obnoxious to the rebels, and a party of sixty-three were sent by Col. Mackintosh, commanding a Texan regiment in the vicinity, to entrap him.

"Joe Peevie" was employed as commander and guide.  For a number of years sheriff of Barry county, he was somewhat noted in his locality, and though of low instincts and a groveling disposition, had managed to maintain a quasi respectability.  He consorted with horse-thieves and cut-throats, and was a rabid secessionist.  Possessing some influence, his tirades against negro equality won converts, and he readily raised a jay-hawking company.  This was in the summer of 1861.  Ennis Dixon, another notorious character, had likewise organized a bushwhacking band, and the two seemed now striving to out-maraud Bledsoe.  The parson's sanctity, however, gave him the inside of the track, and he kept it.

Captain Galloway, having been advised of the meditated attack, called to his aid a few home guards, and thus feebly reinforced took position in the vicinity of Clark's Mills, on Flat Creek.  About this time he had been personally threatened by William McKenney, a notorious rebel, living on Rock House Creek, nine miles northeast of Cassville, and knew that a determined effort would be made to take him.  The imminence of his danger had only permitted him to gather forty-five men, and with these he prepared for a fight in the most approved bushwhacking method.  Peevie, accompanied by "Wild Bill Price," well known in the Southwest, was cautious, yet he attacked with spirit, and Captain Galloway's reinforcement fled.  His men reduced now to thirty, but animated by their intrepid leader, fought bravely.  For half an hour the woods resounded with musketry, Galloway's men taking every advantage of trees, logs and thickets, and only firing when they could "draw a bead."  The deadliness of their aim soon had its effect; "Wild Bill Price" vindicated his soubriquet, and the redoubtable Peevie turned his back on Clark's Mills, reflecting possibly upon the vanity of human hope.  A horse had been shot under him, fifteen of his men killed, and a number wounded.  Captain Galloway's loss was but one killed and three slightly wounded.  Not knowing but that this attack came from the advance of the rebel army, ascertained to be near by, he fell back and moved hastily to Springfield.

Reporting in person to General Lyon, he was at once employed as a scout, and directed to find out accurately the position of General Price and his forces, then supposed to be marching towards Wilson's Creek.  Starting southward, in company with Dr. Philip M. Slaughter, of Stone county, and avoiding the highway, they discovered near the house of John I. Smith, on the Cassville road, thirty-five miles below Springfield, the rebel advance under General Rains.  Hastily dispatching Dr. Slaughter to General Lyon, Galloway struck again into the woods in the direction of Flat Creek.  Stealthily moving about here and there, now on the flank of the enemy, and now in their rear, he soon acquired very valuable information as to their disposition and numbers, and made all haste to General Lyon.  He met him two miles west of Springfield advancing upon the enemy.  During the eventful 10th of August he was eight miles south of Wilson's Creek, having been sent in that direction after the Dug Spring skirmish, and was making his way back to General Lyon when the battle began.  As soon as he learned the day was irretrievably lost, and the death of General Lyon, from whom the Southwest expected so much, certain, he sorrowfully turned his steps towards Stone county.  There again he gathered a company, and when Fremont came to Springfield, tendered its services to him, and was frequently employed on scouting expeditions under the superintendence of Colonel John M. Richardson, now of the Fourteenth Cavalry, Missouri State Militia, then chief of scouts.

As we have elsewhere had occasion to state, the removal of Fremont, and the retirement of the grand army first assembled under him, left Southwestern Missouri in a most pitiable condition.  The policy of the government was only manifest in the failing fortune of its cause, and the numerous arrests of loyal citizens, or their hurried departure from home.  The men who had repeatedly rallied under Galloway became disheartened, and some of them, no doubt, compromised their patriotism for the sake of domestic security.  The company disbanded, and Captain Galloway was shortly afterwards arrested by a party of one hundred and fifty men, sent into Stone county to " break him up."  With twenty others he was taken to Keitsville, placed in a corn-crib, held there two days and a night, allowed one meal for every twenty-four hours, and was then taken before Judge Bird, heretofore mentioned, for examination.  When asked if he was willing to join the Southern army, and replying that he was not, he was rudely told to stand aside -- a direction which he construed to mean hanging.  Some of his old friends, however, men who were under oblizations to him for favors shown before the war, interceded in his behalf, and he was permitted to go home.

He remained there until fourteen days before the battle of Pea Ridge, when he was again employed as a scout, and a few days later was mainly instrumental in saving a large train, then in great danger of being cut off before it could reach the army.  After the battle of Pea Ridge, he returned home, and there remained, endeavoring to restore his shattered possessions, until the summer of 1862, when he was tendered a captaincy in the First Arkansas Cavalry.  Accepting the proffered appointment, he speedily raised a full company, and on the 7th of August was mustered into service.  In the latter part of the month he signalized himself by a daring foray, with one hundred men, into Carroll county, Arkansas, dealing a severe blow to rebel influence in that section, and relieving many Union families.

SOURCE:  A. W. Bishop, Loyalty on the Frontier or Sketches of Union Men of the South-West with Incidents and Adventures in Rebellion on the Border (1863), pages 75-80.

NOTE
The Joseph Peevy mentioned above was a significant Confederate figure in the Civil War in Barry County.  For more information about him, see this report and the note at the bottom of the page.

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