LITTLE ROCK, ARK., April 17, 1863.

Lieutenant-General HOLMES,
Commanding District of Arkansas:

SIR:  I left Dardanelle, Ark., on the 5th instant, and returned on yesterday, the 16th, having gone as far into the enemy’s country as Cassville, Barry County, Missouri, in the southwestern part of said State.  I have to report to you the following facts in reference to the enemy:

At Fayetteville, Ark., they have a post of 1,500 Arkansas militia, and are fortifying the place.  At Newtonia, Mo., in 5 miles of the Granby lead mines, they yet have a post of 400 Missouri militia, with dirt and stone fortifications, covering about four or five acres.  At Cassville, Mo., on the main road leading from Fayetteville, Ark., to Springfield, Mo., and just half way between the latter and former places, they have a post varying from 50 to 100 militia.  The distance from Fayetteville to Springfield is 110 miles.  Since my former scout to that country, all the regular Federals have been removed from the southwest border of Missouri, along the borders of Missouri and Arkansas, in an easterly direction, and are distributed as follows:  At Carrollton, Ark., about 65 miles east of Fayetteville, on the 9th instant, I saw a body of Federal cavalry, part of Totten’s brigade, and I put this number at about 1,000.  They have murdered every Southern man that could be found, old age and extreme youth sharing at their hands the same merciless fate.  Old Samuel Cox and his son (fourteen years old), Saul Gatewood, Heal Parker, and Captain Duvall, of Missouri, were a part of those they murdered in Carroll.  I will call to mind other names and report them to you.  They burned on Osage, in Carroll County, fifteen Southern houses and all of the outhouses, none of those thus made homeless being permitted to take with them any clothing or subsistence.  They seem to have hoisted the black flag, for no Southern man, however old and infirm, or however little he may have assisted our cause, is permitted to escape them alive.

General, I have not the language to describe in truthful colors the ravages these Hessians are committing in the northwest of this State.  Their guide and principal leader up there is an Arkansian, formerly a Baptist preacher in Carroll County, of the name of Crysop.

The infantry and a battery of five guns, numbering about 1,000 men, left the cavalry at Carrollton, they moving in a northeast direction and toward Forsyth, Mo., on White River, and 43 miles from Springfield, Mo., on the river road from the latter place to Yellville, Ark.

No troops at Huntsville, Berryville, or Bentonville, Ark.  The Pin Indians have moved out to the Nation.  An occasional scout visits these places, murdering and stealing.

General Schofield is at Rolla.

General Herron is at Springfield, very sick and not expected to live.  But few troops are at Springfield.

The main Federal force is now concentrating at Hartville, in Wright County, Missouri, and will be under command of Blunt.  They report 10,000 men, and I do not believe they miss it far.  They are thus concentrating to check Marmaduke, whom they fear as honest men do the devil.  On the border, both in Arkansas and Missouri, they are murdering every Southern man going north or coming south.  West of Cassville, in Barry County, a first lieutenant (Robert H. Christian) of the Missouri militia committed one of the most diabolical, cold-blooded murders that I heard of during my trip.  Four old citizens of that county had gone to the brush, fearing that by remaining at home they would be murdered.  Their names were Asa Chilcutt (who was recruiting for the C. S. Army), Elias Price, Thomas Dilworth, and Lee Chilcutt.  Asa Chilcutt was taken very sick, and sent for Dr. Harris, a Southern man.  The doctor came as requested, and, while there, this man Christian and 17 other militia came suddenly upon their camp.  Lee Chilcutt made his escape.  The others were captured, and disposed of as follows:  Asa Chilcutt, the sick man, was shot to death while lying on his pallet unable to move.  He was shot some six or seven times by this leading murderer, Christian.  They marched the others 150 yards to a ridge, and, not heeding their age or prayers for mercy, which were heard by the citizens living near by, they shot and killed the doctor and the others, all of them being shot two or three times through the head and as many more times through the body.  They (the Federals) then left them, and, passing a house near by, told the lady that they "had killed four old bucks out there, and if they had any friends they had better bury them."  This man Christian also tried to hire two ladies, with sugar, coffee, &c., to poison Southern men lying in the brush.  Christian proposed furnishing the poison and also the subsistence, and would pay them well if they accepted his proposition.  The names of the ladies are Rhoda Laton and Mrs. Simms, and every word of all the above can be proven in every particular.

I have given you the above narrative of Christian’s acts at the request of the public living in that section.  They look to you as the avenger of their wrongs.

I have the honor to be, general, your most obedient servant,

JOSEPH G. PEEVY,
Capt. Co. B, Hunter’s Regt. Mo. Infty., on Detached Service

SOURCE:  OR, Series I, Volume 22 (Part II), Pages 823-825.

NOTES

Goodspeed's 1888 History of Barry County (reprint), page 76, mentions the Chilcutt killings:  ". . . . Asa Chillcut was killed by Federal troops about eight miles from Cassville. . . . Asa Chillcut killed Johnson in 1861, at a time when the Southern troops held the town.  Before the circuit courts were re-established, Chillcut himself was killed. . . ."  It also mentions another killing by Christian on the same page:  "J. N. Pharis was killed by Capt. Christian's men on Sugar Creek."

Another account of these killings was offerred by Thomas Sallee of Exeter, Missouri, in a 1931 interview:  "One of the most noted guerrillas in the country at that time was a fellow by the name of Christian who claimed to be a Union man or Home Guard.  He had a number of followers.  His gang killed Ace Chilcutt, Tom Dillworth, Dock Harris and Elias Price who were hiding in the hills west of where Exeter now is.  The men were all shot in the right eye and the top of their heads blown off.  Their brains were taken out and put in their hats which were set beside their bodies.  Tom Sallee's father helped haul the men in and bury them.  They were all buried in one large grave in the old Packwood cemetery."  (See the page on Lt. Christian linked below for more details on the Sallee interview.)

In the 1860 Census for Barry County, household 1039-1024, Asa Chilcutt was shown in Flat Creek Township, age 44, born North Carolina.  He was married to Dinah and had three children at home, ages 15 to 21.  The next household belonged to A. W. Crisman and included a William T. Johnson, age 37, born Tennessee.  Whether this was the Johnson killed by Chilcutt is unknown.

According to Goodspeed's, Joseph G. Peevy, the Confederate officer reporting this incident, became sheriff of Barry County in September, 1856 (p. 51), and received a dram shop license at Keetsville in February, 1860 (p. 141).  He was with the Confederate troops who occupied Cassville in 1862 (p. 77).  Goodspeed's spells the name "Peevey."

In the 1860 Census for Barry County, household 1042-1027, J. G. Peevy was shown in Flat Creek Township, age 28, born Tennesee.  He was married to Mary and had five children, ages 1 to 9.  He was listed as sheriff of Barry County and lived three households away from Chilcutt.

Peevy's Confederate view of Lt. Christian was mirrored by the Union's view of him.  In 1863, Lt. Col. A. W. Bishop of the First Arkansas Cavalry (Union) described Peevy as the leader of a gang of "marauders of the worst description" at Keetsville and claimed that "no atrocities were too inhuman for them to commit."  Loyalty on the Frontier Or Sketches of the Union Men of the South-West with Incidents and Adventures in Rebellion on the Border (St. Louis, R. P. Studley and Co., 1863), page 6.

John Thompson was reported to be Peevy's brother-in-law and probably rode with him early in the war.  Thompson murdered Hiram Christian at Springfield in May, 1867, which may have been a hired revenge killing growing out of Civil War enmities in Texas.  He escaped to Texas after the Christian murder, but was there implicated in another murder and hanged in Sherman in 1869.  Before he died, he confessed, "While the war was going on, I was with a very wicked company, and I did many things along with my comrades that I ought not have done."  Missouri Weekly Patriot, Springfield, August 26, 1869.

At the time of the Civil War killings reported by Peevy, Robert H. Christian was 1st Lieutenant in either Company I of the 76th Enrolled Missouri Militia (12/1862 through 3/1863) or Company C of the 7th Provisional Enrolled Missouri Militia (4/1863 to 9/1863).  He was one of the most notorious figures of the Civil War in Southwest Missouri, often accused of atrocities, and himself came to a grizzly end when he was scalped and killed at the second Battle of Newtonia on October 28, 1864.  For more information, see these biographical notes.

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