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CHAPTER IV

1864-Guerrilla Warfare Continued-Price's Raid

The early months of 1864 were quiet ones in Jasper county, most of the guerrillas being in winter quarters in Arkansas or in Indian Territory. At the beginning of 1864 the largest force of union troops in Jasper county was at Carthage which was held by Companies G and H, Sixth Missouri Militia Cavalry. These organizations were soon shifted to Springfield, however, and Carthage was occupied by Captain William J. Walker's company of the Seventh Provisional Enrolled Militia regiment. Company C of the same regiment was camped at Cave Springs at this time as it was in fact the greater part of the remainder of the war except when absent on some scout or expedition.

The Missouri State Militia Cavalry, although still carrying the name of militia, were by this time practically federal troops, subsisted and paid by the national government the same as any others. The provisional enrolled militia, on the contrary, were still state troops, being that portion of the enrolled militia that had volunteered for permanent duty in the field. The enlisted

men had not been paid for many months and the officers had never been paid at all. On account of this condition as many of the men who had homes where they could stay were furloughed at this time and the strength of the Carthage and Cave Springs companies, like all the rest, was cut to fifty men. Late in 1864

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the federal government took over the Seventh Provisional and it became the 15th Missouri Cavalry. In February General S. R Curtis, commanding the department of Kansas, made an inspection trip of posts in southern Kansas and western Missouri. In reference to his visit to Jasper county he wrote to General W. S. Rosecrans, commander of the department of Missouri, as follows:

"At Carthage I found Captain Walker with a company of provisional troops, who seems anxious to do his duty but who is a stranger in the neighborhood and finds it difficult to discriminate where all pretend to be friends·. I left a scout with Captain Walker, at his request, to give him a better knowledge of matters in that region, my scout having been raised in the neighborhood and well acquainted with the people."

In April the guerrilla bands from all over this state that had wintered in the south began to return to Missouri, many of them passing through Jasper county on their way. Some of them were small parties and others were large bands. Quantrill and Todd passed through in April and some time later Bill Anderson's band went through. Colonel S. D. Jackman was

reported as having passed near Carthage on the night of April 24 with 125 men. Jackman was travelling rapidly, avoiding roads and committing no hostile acts of any sort. Those whose "stamping grounds" were elsewhere did not linger here, their only desire being to get to the ground they had chosen for their summer operations.

Others that belonged to this region at once began to give the militia trouble.

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On April 28 General Sanborn reported that the brother of Kinch West had been killed and West's band scattered. This was in the course of a skirmish with a detachment of enrolled militia commanded by Captain T. J. Stemmons. Captain Stemmons has interestingly described the affair as follows:

"One of the guerrillas that bothered this country quite a bit was Kinch West who formerly had lived in Dade county but who now spent most of his time in the Indian nation, frequently going back to Dade county with a small band of followers and passing through Jasper county.

"Now the enrolled militia was not always in service during the war but frequently were allowed to go home and attend to their private work, being called back of course whenever a raid threatened. My brother and I owned a threshing machine and since the country was full of unthreshed grain left over from the harvest of the preceding year we were doing some work of

this nature.

"Southern farmers over in the vicinity of the Ozment place north of Carthage had some threshing that they were very anxious to get done and wanted us to come over and do it. We were willing to do the work but that neighborhood was not a safe one so far as we were concerned and we answered that we would come if they guaranteed protection. They replied to give

them a couple of weeks time and they thought that they could do so. In about the time mentioned they sent word to us to come ahead and that everything was

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all right. We knew of course that the protection they offered was from confederate bands. Neither they nor anyone else could guarantee protection from roving gangs of mere outlaws such as Kinch West and his crowd but we hoped to get through with our work without any trouble. "We threshed at the Ozment place among others and that evening after we finished work I went to the Cravens farm some distance away where I was staying.

Shortly afterward Kinch West and his gang rode up to the Ozment home. He took all the horses and mules connected with the threshing outfit and also a lot of supplies that the neighbors had brought in from Fort Scott and were unloading. These supplies did not belong to us but were the property of southern people.

West told the citizens who were present at the scene of the robbery to tell me that I only had two weeks or less in which to live for he was going to kill me within that time. Without offering to come to the Cravens farm where he could have found me he made off with his loot.

"As soon as I heard of the robbery I hurried to Cave Springs and borrowed thirteen men from Captain Stotts and set out on the bushwhacker's trail. I tracked him all day and finally came up with him somewhere out near Preston. The members of the gang did not stand and fight but took to their heels with us in pursuit.

We were soon pushing them very closely and there was considerable shooting. Kinch West's brother was riding one of my mules and during the chase was

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thrown off. He then ran on foot but was soon overtaken. He reached for his revolver-a heavy type of gun known as a dragoon-but before he could use it several bullets struck him and he fell dead. "It was now getting sundown and the bushwhackers were badly scattered. Not desiring to be caught by darkness in this guerrilla infested region I had the stolen stock and supplies, all of which had been abandoned by the gang, gathered up and we returned to Cave Springs, leaving the body of West's brother lying where it fell. We gave the southern farmers back their supplies as we passed. I later learned that Kinch West had been wounded in the arm during the chase and that he said that this was the closest call that he had ever had in his life. His whole crowd was dismounted by the heavy brush only about 200 yards beyond where his brother died and if it had been earlier so that we might have continued the pursuit we might have killed or captured the bigger part of them.

"West swore vengeance on me for his brother's death and told that I had captured the man alive and had then killed him and cut off his head and his arms. This was a lie, pure and simple. The circumstances were as I have said.

"A little later in the year West was reported to be about to come through this country again and I and six men were laying in wait for him about three miles north of Avilla on Dry Fork near where Les Carter now lives. My men were mostly asleep when I heard a clatter of approaching hoofs, so I hurriedly waked

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them up and got them ready, We lined a stake and rider fence along the road and they could not have seen us until they were about thirty feet from us. All the men were armed only with revolvers but in addition to my side arms I had a shotgun loaded in one barrel with three buckshot and a ball, and loaded in the other with twelve buckshot.

"Now when men are waked suddenly from their sleep they are apt to be a little bit jumpy and my men were no exception. As the guerrillas approached we could see that they outnumbered us several to one, and one of my fellows, losing control of himself, started to run. He had only gone about twenty feet when I stopped him and he returned immediately to his place. The enemy had seen this, however, and stopped a short distance up the road.

"I immediately challenged them and demanded who they were but they returned no answer and began to form a line. I then gave the command to fire, although revolvers were not very effective at that range, I had taken aim with my shotgun at the leader and fired first with the barrel containing the buck and ball, then following with the other barrel that contained

the twelve buckshot. I could not see that the first shot had any effect but at the second the bushwhacker reeled in his saddle, dropped a fine shotgun that he was carrying, and began to curse violently. His men, seeing him hit, became panic-stricken and stampeded. Their chieftain was evidently not wounded badly for

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he cursed them roundly and finally brought them to a stand some distance away. "Owing to the superior number of bandits I could not charge them for if I had it would have revealed how few we were, a thing that might have been unfortunate for us. On the other hand the enemy, not knowing our strength, was afraid to do any attacking himself. The leader called me every epithet that he could lay his tongue to, shouted out that 1 was always talking about bushwhackers when I was the worst bushwhacker myself that was in the country. 1 told him that regardless of who was the worst bushwhacker he and his men by the way they had run had shown that they were the worst cowards. There was some more conversation along this line that 1 do not remember. "1 finally gave my men orders to get ready to charge, using a tone of voice loud enough for the bushwhackers to hear, yet not so loud that they would think

that 1 was doing it just for their benefit. Hearing me they really believed a charge was coming and despite all their leader could do stampeded again, we hastening them on their way with a few parting shots. I have understood that this was Bill Anderson's gang which generally operated along the Missouri river but 1 was never able to learn for sure."

Not long after the incident related in the foregoing by Captain Stemmons an affair happened near Carthage which was described by George Walker who later learned the facts from citizens, as follows:

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"Gabe McDaniel and Ferd Ozment, both members of Livingston's old battalion, stopped one day for supper at the Snodgrass home northwest of Carthage just a short distance west of where the Knell fair ground is now located. While the two were in the house eating, a number of militia rode up and surrounded the house. McDaniel and Ozment knew that they were caught but they were brave men and did not hesitate. They dashed from the house, revolver in hand, firing as they came. Of course it was no use, both being shot down the moment they stepped outside the door. McDaniel fell dead and Ozment was so dangerously wounded that the militiamen thought his death was certain and paid no further attention to him. Someone, I think it was some member of the Snodgrass family, loaded him into a vehicle and took him to his mother's place northeast of town."

"I well remember the circumstances following Ozment's wounding," says Captain Stemmons. "He was a confederate soldier and it was my understanding that he was on his way home for a visit at the time he was shot. I went to the Ozment home and saw him after he had been taken there.

"When I reported the matter to Captain Stotts he told me that he did not want Ozment to get away and that I should keep a close watch on him. I answered that I thought there was no danger of his escaping, for in my opinion he was almost certain to die from the wound that he had received. I promised to keep an eye on him and did so. I saw him some time later and

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was amazed at the progress he was making toward recovery. When I informed Captain Stotts of this he instructed me to take young Ferd prisoner and send him in.

"I halted my men in the timber near the Ozment  home and sent two men in butternut, the usual garb of guerrillas, to the house to see what they could find out. They told the Ozments that they were bushwhackers and had learned that I was on my way to capture Ferd and that they had come to warn him to get away if he could.

"Mrs. Ozment told them that word had been received several hours previously and that Ferd had already gone. The men asked her where he was and she said that she did not know but that he was headed south and she supposed he was down on the river somewhere.

She had no suspicion that the two were other than they claimed, and when they left she asked them if they were hungry-for she was a kind hearted woman- and being informed that they were she gave them a quantity of cold biscuit and some other food.

We never did capture Ozment. I learned long afterwards that he had been warned by a traitor in my own company."

On May 4 Col. J. D. Allen at Mount Vernon wrote as follows in reference to the situation in Jasper county:

"I have received a communication from Captain Rohrer, stationed at Carthage, stating that he was pressed and was expecting an attack immediately, ask-

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ing for reinforcements. I immediately sent him 25 men from Company C, stationed at Cave Springs. Captain Rohrer states that his information is that there are about 80 to 125 and that he is being threatened hourly by: them. I think he will be able with the reinforcement sent him to whip them. There should be one more company sent to Carthage, as one company of

fifty men is not sufficient at that place. I have no company at this time to send them."

The expected attack was not delivered on Captain Rohrer but reports indicate that guerrilla bands continued to pass north through Jasper county. Colonel Allen made an extensive scout through Newton and Jasper counties a week or so later and on May 23 reported as follows regarding the Jasper county portion of his trip: "Major Burch and I at Neosho had concluded to take a scout into Arkansas but just on the eve of starting I received information that the rebels were robbing the citizens on Spring river some eight miles above Carthage and that they intended staying in that neighborhood for some days. I had information of some 40 or 50 being in that country. We turned our course for Carthage. On arriving there we learned that the large bunch had passed within two miles of Carthage and had sent word to Captain Rohrer to come out and fight them, but when they went they were gone; the captain,

not having men enough, did not follow very far. We then separated. Major Burch went in the direction of Sherwood and Fidelity and then returned to Neosho.

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I divided my force into three squads; sent one squad north to the Dry fork of Spring river, thence up that stream to Sarcoxie, thence to Cave Spring to camp; and I went up the river with the other squad to where the robbing was done and found the trail of about 25 or 30. Followed the trail north to the prairie where the home guard had a fight with them the night before

but no damage done. I found that they had returned to the river again. I ~amped for the night. The next day I searched the river bottom thoroughly for about ten miles; found where they had camped and followed their trail to where they dispersed, and then I searched the hills but made no further discoveries. We camped at Cave Spring. I directed Captain Stotts to send out an infantry scout."

A short time later a rumor of a menace to Neosho from the south caused Col. Allen to move a company which was stationed at Lamar to a point further south. The guerrillas immediately entered Lamar and burned it with the exception of one or two houses. Nathan Bray, one of the leading citizens of the place left the homeless residents sitting around the smoking ruins

and came to Carthage for aid. Captain Walker was now garrisoning the Jasper county town again and told Bray he could spare no men for a trip to Lamar.

Bray then went to Mt. Vernon from whence he wrote an angry letter to General Sanborn, and eventually a company of the Seventh Provisional was again stationed at Lamar. During the winter General Price, General Shelby and other confederate officers, in order to better con-

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trol the partisan bands and to prevent plundering and needless destruction, had made strong efforts to get as many of the guerrillas as possible to enter the regular confederate service. Many were loath to do this from various reasons and had never done so. On May 19, Shelby, who was then at Dover, Ark., wrote the following letter to Coffee, Pickler, Coleman and Lieut. Col. M. D. Babler who were under his command: "You will collect together all squads of men who may be operating in the section of the country in which you may be operating and cause them to enter the regular service; you must make every exertion in your power to bring these men into service. You will send details under good officers to arrest all bands of jayhawkers, whether southern or union, who may be committing outrages upon citizens. In all cases where the proof is sufficient against any person or persons who may be or have committed depredations upon the citizens you will cause them to be shot. All squads and unorganized bands must be broken up. You will subsist and forage your commands, giving proper vouchers for anything purchased."

The above order while written in Arkansas and referring definitely to Arkansas undoubtedly was meant to apply wherever the officers to whom it was addressed operated, for Shelby of course knew that at least part of them would soon be operating in Missouri, in fact, as has been said, Jackman was already reported to have gone north. Since Pickler's and Coffee's usual field of operations was in southwest Missouri it was

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plainly Shelby's intention to put the war in this section on as high a plane as possible. There is little evidence at hand to show what effect, if any, this order had on matters in Jasper county. What it does show is that the confederate generals were trying to carry on the guerrilla warfare in as regular a fashion as could be done.

On June 10 a force of guerrillas estimated at from 80 to 140 men passed Neosho headed north and a force of the Eighth Missouri Militia Cavalry under Captain Kelso pursued them as far as a point ten miles north of Carthage but could not catch them. A week later General Sanborn wrote to Rosecrans that it was impossible for him to keep order in the border counties with the force then at his command and that if he could not get more men he would either have to confine his activities to merely holding the garrisoned posts or else he would have to burn out the border counties so the guerrillas could find nothing to live on and retire from them altogether. A few days after this he again wrote asking that the enrolled militia of Jasper, Barton, Newton and other counties be called into service and rendezvous at the county seats. This step was necessary on account of the number of guerrillas operating in the counties and on account of the rumber of small parties of confederate soldiers making their way north. Sanborn was authorized to call the militia and soon did so.

On June 16 a detachment of Company C, Third Wisconsin Cavalry, had a skirmish near Preston. In

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reference to it First Sergeant R. W. Smith in command of the detachment reported as follows to his colonel at Fort Scott: "Agreeably to your order of the 13th instant I proceeded to Carthage, Mo., with 30 men of this company for the purpose of bringing out cattle for use of the government trains. I was delayed two days after my arrival at Carthage and on the 16th at daybreak started for Fort Scott. All was quiet on the road until after we had crossed the lower ford on Big North Fork near Preston, Mo., where 46 rebels came out a short distance from the timber and kept up a continual advance and firing upon us while we were so badly scattered as to afford no possible time to form line. I immediately ordered a retreat and formed line about 100 yards from where we were first attacked and across a ravine, where the rebels came to a halt but continued firing. After exchanging a few rounds the rebels withdrew and fell back into the timber, where I had previously discovered another body of men, and this attack being so close to the timber it was impossible to follow them without running into three times our number. I ordered two men to the right about one-half mile to an eminence on the prairie, where all around us was visible to them, and made a discovery of about 30 rebels on the opposite side of the point of timber from where we were attacked, but none of them from either side offered us an engagement on the prairie. The loss on our side was one killed-Eugene Hunt, a private. This was done before the men had all got together.

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Three of the enemy were wounded, one mortally. The cattle ran into the timber about 200 yards from the rebel camp, leaving no opportunity of recapturing them without great sacrifice. I was consequently obliged to leave them and slowly retreat to camp on Dry Wood tonight."

An incident that happened about this time was interestingly told in a letter written in 1911 by Mrs. Rhoda A. Hottel of Sarcoxie. The letter in part follows: "War time stories recently published bring vividly to my mind the personal experience, or a scrap of it at least, of my husband which I heard him often repeat before his death.

"The company that he soldiered with, Captain Green C. Stotts, was for a long time stationed at Cave Springs six miles northeast of Sarcoxie and it seemed was used largely for a home guard or for scouting over the country when the enemy was known to be in the vicinity, as this part of the state was on the line and at the mercy of marauding parties generally known as bushwhackers and the war here was carried on with no quarter to the enemy. "Ab Humbard, an old settler in this vicinity who had fled south and was in command of one of these

bushwhacking companies, made frequent raids in this vicinity and was a terror to the community. It was reported at headquarters that he and his gang were somewhere south of Knights, near Wild Cat grove, I think. It was necessary to send a dispatch to Carthage

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so the captain detailed R. L. Hottel to deliver the dispatch with an escort of three other soldiers. They were to deliver the dispatch that afternoon, remain in Carthage over night, and return to camp by the following noon. The men to accompany him were Polk Dunkle, Rich Guthrie and Billy Adams. Mr. Hottel asked the captain to give him a larger squad of men as it was

known that Humbard and his gang were somewhere close. The captain ordered him to take his three men and go on to Carthage and return the next morning and at about 11 a. m. he might expect Lieut. J. P. Boyd with another detachment to meet him at the narrows where two points of timber extended out in the edge of Haskins prairie about four miles west of Sarcoxie on or about on what is now known as the Tom Johnson farm, this then being considered the danger point.

"The trip was made to Carthage and back to near this point. The four soldiers and one citizen who was coming with them from Carthage were riding leisurely along with Rich Guthrie in front when they saw what they were sure was the expected guard coming under Boyd. It was the time and place for this guard .and they had every appearance of United States soldiers.

The discovery that it was a confederate force was not made until Guthrie rode into them and was compelled to surrender and the remainder ordered to halt. The latter knew that surrender meant sure and speedy death and the only way out was to run out if they could, so they wheeled their horses from the road, ran around a horse lot fence and into the timber nearby,

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firing back at their pursuers as they ran. The citizen ran with the others and was fired on also but made his escape and reached the camp at Cave Springs and reported all four of the boys killed. "While the citizen was making his escape one way the soldiers were being closed in on on all sides in the edge of the timber where the bullets rained around them like hail. After reaching down in the timber a ways Polk Dunkle was shot from his horse and wounded.

Hottel and Adams seemed to have been a little more fortunate in that they had gotten into heavier brush but Adams received a wound on the head which crazed him, and in the  commotion had lost his horse and was wandering around in the brush hunting some one to whom he could surrender. Mr. Hottel's horse had fallen down, pitching him over its head and causing him to lose a revolver and his hat, horse, saddle and bridle, but he always said that he never stopped to pick himself up but was running before he got straight.

"He ran onto Adams who took him to be a 'reb' and surrendered to him and begged him not to kill him. He finally got Adams to know who he was and he told him to stay with him and he would take him out safe, which Adams would first agree to do and then insist that both go back to where the bushwhackers were and surrender. Finally he had to overpower the poor crazed man and set <lown on him to prevent his going. While setting there holding the man down and trying to keep him still and hid as much as possible, he could hear Dunkle only a very short distance from where they

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were, begging the confederates not to kill him, but a few shots and groans followed and all was over. "There had been so much tiring that the woods were full of smoke, and fearing, it is supposed, that the small squad was only a decoy sent out to get their whole force down into the timber, the bushwhackers held a consultation only a short distance away and the

whole fifteen or twenty men galloped away, taking Rich Guthrie with them. My husband succeeded in reaching the camp the next morning about sunrise with Adams who had recovered partially from the wound that he had received. Knowing the enemy was in the country they were afraid of the roads so they reached camp by creeping through the brush.

"When the news reached camp of the skirmish the captain ordered out a scouting party to bring in the dead which was about all that was left to be done. Thomas D. Snow of Sarcoxie, one of the party sent out, ran onto the body of Rich Guthrie about three-quarters of a mile from where the fight occurred.

"The guard that was to have met Mr. Hottel's party and helped it through the danger point was never sent out."

A few weeks after Mrs. Hottel's letter was published, S. M. Brown, a former member of Captain Stott's company, wrote an interesting story of the sequel of the misadventure of Hottel's patrol. His letter follows:

"I was a member of the same company and regiment as Sergeant Hottel and was one of the men de-

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tailed to escort him on that dispatch bearing trip, but as I, with other members of the company had just come into camp that morning from a several days' trip and was tired and my horse worn down, Rich Guthrie asked permission to go in my place. We went to the orderly sergeant who was Stephen Hood and the change in the detail was made and the poor fellow went to his death.

"Now I want to begin where Mrs. Hottel says, 'They could only send out and bring in the dead.' I was one of the scouts that was sent out under Lieut. J. P. Boyd and we followed that gang all night. They came in from the north to Dr. Wilson's on Spring river. Their object was to kill the old doctor and they were only kept from it by his hiding in the garret of his house

and by the interference of Moses McKnight who happened to be at Dr. Wilson's that night. From the Wilson home they went to old Mr. Spark's and shot him down in the presence of his family. From there they went to the home of the brother of the captain of the gang and made his son get out of bed, and shot the boy through the forehead in the presence of his mother and other members of the family. Not satisfied with their work of bloodshed they then went to Mr. Bennie's, called him up and shot him through the stomach, the ball coming out of his back, but he did not die from the effects of the shot. He lived ten or twelve years after the war.

"Then they started south. We were three or four miles from them, our camp being between us and the

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gang, so we spurred our jaded horses to camp. Messengers had been there and told which way the gang had gone. "Hoping to head them off at Sarcoxie, we were put under gallop for that distance, and found on our arrival that they had just passed through, going west toward Wild Cat Grove. We could tell the direction they were taking by striking a match and looking at the horse tracks in the road. "It was now near four or five o'clock in the morning and we had been in the saddle since the afternoon before without a drop of water or a bite to eat for ourselves or horses, but as we went up that steep, rocky hill out onto the open prairie, let me tell you that the boys' blood was up. Up one hill and down another we went, until reaching the top we saw in the flat in front of us and about 300 yards distant, the gang we were seeking. Captain Stotts threw his men into line and ordered us to make the dash.

"Humbard's men got to the brush and took a position in thick post oak bushes at the corner of a rail fence. When we advanced on them it was the writer's misfortune to be right in advance, with John White, Davy Cagle and Huestin Beck, the fence on our south, the fence and the bushwhackers on our north. "When we came to the point of brush, Humbard

was standing with his horse just back of the brush, and having a horse that looked just like Sergeant Colley's and being dressed in federal uniform with an

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eagle buckle on his belt, we could not afford to fire without speaking, so White hailed him with 'Who's there?' Each had his pistol in his hand and it cocked. Humbard fired and called to his men to 'come out and give them hell.' Humbard's shot killed John White who fell across my horse right in front of me. Such a rain of bullets and shot as went over and around our

heads 1 had never heard before or since. We lost only one man. 1 don't know about their loss except as told us afterwards-that they had some wounded, and that two days after the battle they buried two men. "After the fight we gathered up seventeen horses and a lot of household goods that they had stolen. We also got a negro girl, ten or twelve years old, that they

had stolen from Dr. Wilson, and let me say that that girl could out yell anyone 1 ever heard in my life."

It was probably along about this time that Bud Shirley was killed at Sarcoxie. Mrs. Sarah Musgrave, then Mrs. Sarah Scott, who resided in the town mentioned, during the war, has told of the affair in published acounts as follows:

"I think it was near the close of the war that Bud Shirley was killed and Milt Norris was shot, at Mrs. Stewart's residence, not far from my home. I went over and helped take care of the dead body of Shirley afterwards. Shirley was from Carthage. I think his family lived on the north side of the square in Carthage.

At least 1 have been told since that that was where their home was. Norris was a Sarcoxie young man.

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Both were noted bushwhackers. A company of state militia, union men, was camped at Cave Springs, not far north of Sarcoxie. They had been hearing of these two men coming to Sarcoxie and were watching for them. While the two men were in Mrs. Stewart's house getting fed, the militia surrounded the house. Both men broke out and ran. Shirley was shot as he leaped over the fence and fell dead on the other side. Norris got a rifle ball scratch on his side as he went over the fence, but was not much hurt and escaped in the brush, where he could not be seen. "Norris came to Carthage post haste and told the Shirley family of Bud's death. Next day Shirley's mother and Myra Shirley, the 16-year-old sister of Shirley, appeared at Sarcoxie, the latter with a belt around her waist, from which swung two big revolvers, one on each side. She was not timid in making it known among those she saw that she meant to get revenge for her brother's death. As is well known in Carthage, Myra Shirley is the girl who afterwards acquired bandit fame as Belle Starr, and became famous in literature under that name. So even in her early youth she was showing the character which afterwards made her notorious.

"Next morning the militia returned and burned Mrs. Stewart's home, for harboring bushwhackers, and also burned Mrs. Walton's home, near by, as she had also assisted in entertaining the bushwhackers.

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"This burning was done by a lieutenant of Captain Stotts and I have always understood that Captain Stotts did not approve of it when he heard of it."

In early July Major Burch at Neosho reported that there had been a force of 100 guerrillas operating in Jasper and Newton counties but that he had been hard after them and believed he had driven them away. They were commanded by Lieut. J. R. Goode and "the notorious Stecker." Burch mentions having killed a Kansas guerrilla named Conrad during these operations. A few weeks later federal officers in this county began to have some anxiety about a force of confederates supposed to be under Major Pickrell that had come up from farther south and occupied Baxter Springs. Many of this force had homes in Jasper county and it was anticipated that they would come into the county.

Even while General Sanborn and Col. Allen were corresponding in reference to a proposed attack on this band at Baxter Springs the enemy struck. On July 21 a force of guerrillas supposed by the federals to have been commanded by Captain Rusk, Livingston's former aid, surprised a detachment of the enrolled militia herding horses east of Carthage just beyond where the old Dr. Carter home now stands. Lieut. Brice Henry, commander of the detachment, and five of his men were killed, and eleven others captured. These men all belonged to the company commanded by Captain T. J. Stemmons.

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Brigadier General Sanborn at Springfield made the following report on July 29: "The troops at Neosho and Carthage have killed four bushwhackers during the week. Brown's forces

and Pickrell's moved north to Baxter Springs and about 60 of their men came into the vicinity of Carthage and attacked about nineteen of the enrolled Missouri militia. The militia, being surprised, lost six men killed and eleven taken prisoner and afterwards released."

The day of the skirmish Colonel John D. Allen at Mount Vernon made a report upon it. Evidently he had just received word of the affair and believed more men to be killed than really were. His report follows:

"One hundred and twenty-five rebels under command of Captain Rusk attacked Lieut. Henry, of Capt. Stemmon's company, within 300 yards of Carthage when he was out grazing his stock. They killed Lieut. Henry with eight of his men and several others are missing, no doubt killed. The rebels were too strong for the company at Carthage and they did not come

out of the fort. "I immediately sent thirty men from Cave Springs to reinforce Carthage, and on yesterday morning sent Captain Roberts with twenty men to Cave Springs and to scout the country. There is a force of rebels in that country there is no doubt. I have not men enough to guard against anything of a large force and hold the posts. Captain Sutherland will go to Carthage tomorrow evening. That will relieve that post considerably."

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J. B. Stemmons, brother of Capt. Stemmons, has told of this skirmish east of Carthage as follows: "One incident during the war made a great impression on me. That was the capture of some men by the rebels at a point just east of Carthage. These men were in command of my brother, Thomas J. Stemmons. They were in Carthage that day. Toward evening my brother told his men to start out for headquarters at the east edge of the county, but stop over east of the Carter place near town and let their horses graze until he should come up. He tarried behind to transact some business. Feed was scarce and the horses needed to graze, which was why this arrangement was made. "In being sent away, the men were told to set out

a guard while they stopped, so that they could not be surprised by an attacking party. However, the men felt so safe, while yet so close to Carthage where some federal soldiers were then stationed, that they did not put any men on guard. There were about 30 of our men, and suddenly they found themselves confronted by a superior force of rebels. In the firing which followed, five of our men were killed and a sixth was badly wounded.

"The killed were: Orange Clark, Bob Seymour, Peter Baker, Brice Henry and John Blake. The wounded man was Lee Blake, whose injury was a shot in the hip. As near as can be calculated now, the scene of this conflict was about a mile east of River street on the north side of the present Chestnut street road

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near where is now located the McWilliams brick residence, Some of the federals, about 20 of them, ran into nearby cellars or a small building of some kind. Some of the rebels rode up in front of this and demanded of the men inside to surrender. "The hiding men asked on what terms surrender was demanded and were told that surrender must be unconditional. They refused to give themselves up on such terms and reminded the rebels in front of them that they, the rebels, were themselves under direct aim of those hiding and would be dead men in a moment if the hiders should so choose. The rebels then agreed to treat the federals as prisoners of war and on this  condition the federals came outside and surrendered.

"Before starting away with their prisoners, the rebels shot all the dead men again, lest some of them might recover consciousness and survive. Now Lee Blake lay where he fell with his wounded hip and was pretending to be dead, so they would go off and leave him. While the dead men were being shot again, one rebel came to Lee Blake and suggested that it would

be useless to shoot him again as he was undoubtedly dead. But another rebel rode up and remarked that dead men tell no tales. That one pointed his rifle down towards Blake's head, fired away and rode on. The ball happened to pass through Blake's cheeks, knocked out some teeth but reached no vital point. Strange to say, Blake recovered after all that.

"The captured men were taken some distance southeast of town and robbed of any money they might

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have. Any good clothes or shoes which any of them wore were taken. Then that night the men were turned loose afoot, some of them barefooted, and they reached headquarters as best they could. The rebels were away with their prisoners so quickly, after the short action at the scene of the capture, that the federal troops at Carthage did not try to follow them."

Although the official reports indicate that federal authorities believed that it was Rusk's band that attacked Stemmon's men there are former southern sympathizers that deny it. They state that the band was composed entirely of citizens who had banded together for the purpose and that the men of Pickrell's command were not connected with it in any way. One

of the southern sympathizers mentioned makes the following statement regarding the occurrence:

"When it became known that Captain Stemmons and his men were to move down toward Carthage it was rumored they were going to requisition stock belonging to southern farmers and people became much worked up about it. They had lost so much that they did not want to lose any more. The word was passed around the country and when Captain Stemmons started west the citizens began to gather. I do not know where the rendezvous was but a prominent farmer who lived somewhere between Carthage and Sarcoxie was chosen captain. After the fight and after the prisoners had been released, the band dispersed, each man going to his own home. Captain Rusk had nothing to do with the affair whatever."

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On August 2 the guerrilla, Lieut. Goode, mentioned heretofore as operating in Jasper and Newton counties, was killed on Diamond Grove Prairie. Papers found on Goode at his death showed that he had been an officer of the Eleventh Missouri Infantry in the confederate army. He had been given a thirty-day furlough in January, 1864 and seems never to have returned

to the army but instead remained in this region, setting himself up as an independent guerrilla chief, Major Burch's report of his death follows:

"I have the honor to inform you of the death of the notorious guerrilla chief, Lieutenant Goode. He was killed on the second by Captain Ozias Ruark, Company L, Eighth Cavalry, Missouri State Militia. "I started my forage train on the first with twenty mounted men under command of Lieutenant Hunter, Company H, Eighth Cavalry, and twenty men on foot under command of Captain Ruark, on the Diamond Grove prairie after forage in Goode's range.

"When the train was loaded it proceeded with twenty mounted men, Lieut. Hunter in command, for this post, (Neosho) leaving the infantry concealed in the brush unknown to any person. The latter maneuvered around in the vicinity of a spring known as a favorite resort of Goode and his band and concealed themselves, "They had not remained long in ambush before Goode and two others came along. They mistrusted danger at hand and one remarked, 'There is some one

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in the thicket,' but the words were hardly spoken till the sharp report of a revolver was heard, and Goode rolled from his horse dead. The ball penetrated the left side of his lower lip and ranged upward. "You will find enclosed herein the papers found on the person of Lieutenant Goode with the list of names of the desperadoes under his command. The individuals

whose names you will find on the list are citizens of this county and whose families are here yet."

The names given on the list of members of Goode's band were as follows: J. R. Goode, Caloway Johnson, J. W. Scaggs, T. H. Hawkins, T. V. Parnell, E. M. Martin, James Ramsey, W. F Ray, John Harmon, Taylor Buskirk, Hiram Mayfield and Monroe Hewitt On the same paper containing the names Captain Ruark had written that most of the men named resided in the

southern part of Jasper and the northern part of Newton counties.

Typical of the kind of events that were happening more or less all the time during the war was the killing of William Rader this summer. Rader was a Jasper county resident and his family was well known in this vicinity.

In 1911 the Carthage Press published an interview with Timothy Connell, now deceased, who was a member of the party that killed Rader. Mr. Connell's account follows:

"Our regiment, the Seventh Provisional, had sent a man by the name of Bishop to Fort Scott with dis-

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patches and, as he did not return, about 200 men were sent out in search of him. In the vicinity of Golden Grove the large number of buzzards circling in the air showed us that there was a body of some kind near. The 200 cavalrymen were spread out in a long line and moved across the prairie. After we had gone a short distance a soldier by the name of Davis, who was just left of me, ran across Bishop's body. It had been riddled with bullets, and the head, which had been cut off, lay some distance from the trunk. It was not long until we had started south on the murderers' trail. "Meanwhile an old confederate sympathizer by the name of Robinson who lived in Jasper county had been murdered for his money. William Rader had been seized by a number of Robinson's friends and charged with the murder. When we arrived on the scene he was trying to explain to his accusers that he could not have killed Robinson because the wound was inflicted by a different calibre revolver than the one he carried.

"At first sight of our uniforms, Rader by a sudden effort broke from his captors and plunged into the heavy underbrush with both soldiers and civilians in pursuit. Among the pursuers and a little ahead of me was a man whom we called the buckskin scout and who belonged to a family well known in Jasper county both then and now. I resolved to watch and follow him because he knew the country thoroughly and could catch Rader if anyone could. After some time the buckskin scout veered sharply to the left and started through the brush in a direction almost at right angles to the

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main chase. Six or seven men, including myself, followed him and kept close behind. "We came out of the brush at the place where the Joplin Seventh street road now crosses Turkey creek, and a few minutes later Rader ran up on the bank. The scout and several others opened fire and Rader fell forward on his hands and knees, fatally wounded. The scout went up to him and asked him where his men were, for Rader usually had a small gang of followers. "'They are down on Shoal creek,' answered the wounded man.

" 'You are a liar,' replied the scout, 'We know they are not on Shoal creek. Tell us where they are.'

"Before Rader could answer again, one of the pursuers who had gone in the other direction, broke through the brush and seeing Rader on his hands and knees, fired into his body, killing him instantly. "After the war there was a story current that the scout, when he saw Rader fall to his hands and knees when first shot, stepped up to him and emptied his revolver into the bushwhacker's body. This is not correct, is an injustice to the scout, and whenever I have heard it I have always denied it."

Mr. Connell later identified the "buckskin scout"  as Joel P. Hood, mentioned in this volume several times heretofore.

During the month of August there were a number of southern sympathizers killed in the county, most of those of whom a definite record remains losing their

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lives near Carthage. Company D, Seventh Provisional, Captain Thomas B. Sutherland commanding, seems to have been stationed at the post mentioned at this time and it is probable that it was in connection with its operations that the men mentioned were slain. Titus B.. Heusted who lived in a brick house on North Main street in Carthage was shot near the mill

two miles east of town; Dr. E. R. Griffith, a boarder at the Heusted home was killed in Carthage; John Martin was shot and killed at his home near the Kendrick place north of Carthage, and Thomas G. Walton who lived on Spring river just northwest of Carthage was also shot. It is said that still others were slain and that a number of houses were burned, the burning of

houses probably being on account of their owners having fed guerrillas.

Mrs. James Brummett, daughter of W. A. Shanks who at this time lived northeast of Carthage, has described the events connected with Walton's death as follows:

"Mr. Walton was called to the door and shot down by federals. It is supposed he was killed because suspected of sending news to confederates but we knew the Waltons and never thought the old man was guilty. Word was sent out to us by friends of the Waltons who lived near and I came in and helped in the preparations for the funeral. There was a big walnut door to the kitchen of the house. This was taken off and taken into Carthage by one of the Walton girls and there it

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was made into a coffin. She then brought it back out again and the body was placed in it. All this time there had not been a man around the house. The body was taken to Carthage for burial and soldiers of the Carthage garrison helped lower the casket into the grave which was dug in what is now Central park."

Speaking of Captain Sutherland's administration .at Carthage, D. L. Wheeler, who has been quoted in a previous chapter and who in the summer of 1864 was an eleven year old boy living on Center creek southwest of Carthage, says: "Some time during the summer of 1864 a new company of federals took post at Carthage and they were a different kind of union soldiers from any we had yet encountered. They were spoken of by the union sympathizers like my father, as a bad outfit and they were commanded, as I remember the talk about

them, by a Captain Sutherland. They killed a good many men and burned a lot of houses. It seemed to be their belief that everyone in the country was actively aiding the bushwhackers. On one occasion a party of them rode down toward our house but at the point where the road forked they turned off and went to Hatcher's. They killed Mr. Hatcher and then returned

to Carthage without coming to our house. "One day a lady who had been one of our neighbors on Turkey creek and who now lived in Carthage, appeared at our farm to warn my stepfather that the militia were intending to kill him also. They were go-

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ing to raise the black flag, she said, and shoot l:)very man and burn every house in our neighborhood and would not believe that there was anyone out there that was loyal to the north. Learning of their intentions she had immediately come to warn my stepfather and had walked the seven miles from Carthage as fast as she could. My stepfather at once went to Carthage

with her and reported himself at union headquarters, . insisting that he was not a southern sympathizer and had done nothing against the north. Clothing of any kind was hard to get in those days and he was wearing an old federal coat that he had obtained somewhere.

This seemed to make the soldier in charge at headquarters very angry and he subjected my stepfather to a storm of abuse that he could only take in silence, My understanding is that this man talking was not Captain Sutherland or any of his officers but was an enlisted man of the company. A number of other federals in the room at the time remained silent during the tirade. My stepfather was finally told to get his family and bring it to Carthage and he did so, moving us into an old abandoned printing shop that stood, as I remember it, south of the square. "After we had moved in, there came four soldiers to visit us, telling us that they did not belong to the company at Carthage but were from the organization stationed at Cave Springs. They had been at headquarters when my stepfather was being abused by the soldier there and had come to express their regret for the occurrence, one of them stating that he had left

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the room during the course of it because if he had stayed any longer and heard an old man like my stepfather being talked to like that he could not have kept from shooting the man doing it, and then he would have been killed in turn. All four of the soldiers denounced the members of the Carthage company, saying that most of them were a set of rascals and stating that they had once exchanged shots with their company. It was a great surprise to me to hear union soldiers talking about other union soldiers in this way."

One of the houses destroyed about this time was that of Judge Onstott southwest of Carthage south of Center creek. Judge Onstott's daughter, Mrs. Hazelwood, describes the occurrence as follows: "One day during the early part of 1864 we heard shooting during the forenoon north of our house on the hills beyond Center creek. My father was not at home

and in fact there were few men folks at any of the houses in the country at that time. We paid little attention to this firing but just as we finished our dinner, eight mounted and heavily armed men in civilian clothes, apparently bushwhackers, came galloping across our field from the direction of Center creek.

We left the table to watch them as they approached. When they came to the gate by the house they stopped and one of them dismounted and opened H. We noticed that one of the horses was wounded.

" 'Watch out. The militia are after us,' shouted one of the men as they rode through the gate and galloped up the road.

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" 'Militia nothing,' I remarked to mother, 'They are probably militia themselves,' and in truth you could not always tell in those days who men were by the clothes that they wore.

"A few minutes later, however, some thirty blueclad soldiers came riding hard on the bushwhackers'  trail. My mother told me to go out and tell them the direction the bushwhackers had taken and then perhaps they would go on without stopping. The militia rode up to the house and stopped, one of them dismounting and starting in.

" 'Don't stop here,' I told him, 'The men you are after have just gone up that road and if you keep going you can catch them.'

"The man paid no attention to me but strode up to the house and entered. A moment later he reappeared. " 'They have been here all right,' he shouted to his companions, 'These people fed them and the dishes are still on the table.'

"We denied the accusation vigorously, explaining that we ourselves had just finished dinner and that the bushwhackers had not even come in. I told the soldier that if they had stopped we would have had to have fed them just like we would have had to have fed the militia if they stopped and demanded food but in this case the bushwhackers had not eaten there. If

they had we would not deny it. "All the soldiers had now dismounted and the one who had first entered the house went into the kitchen,

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flung the feather bed off of a bed that stood in that room, then took the straw-tick, ripped it open and dumped the straw on the floor. All of us pleaded and argued with him, begging that he not set fire to the house and leave us, without shelter. He cursed savagely and replied that we had fed bushwhackers and that the place must be burned. Going to the stove he took

a shovel-full of blazing coals and threw them onto the straw, then piled chairs on the flames which were shooting up. We began to carry out what little household goods we had left and the militia stood by watching until the roof of the house was ablaze and it was evident that we could not extinguish the fire, then they rode leisurely up the road in the same direction

the bushwhackers had taken. "Meanwhile the guerrillas had gone on east toward the home of my father's cousin, Mrs. Betsy Hammer, who lived east of us and closer to the Carthage-Fidelity road. My sister Sarah had been to our aunt's house and met the bushwhackers on her way back. They told her that they needed her horse to replace the one they had wounded and made her get off. They then went on, leading the animal, and she came on home on foot. At Aunt Betsy Hammer's the bushwhackers went in and demanded dinner, which my aunt served to them.

They ate hurriedly, then doubled back to the southwest, stopping at Dave Goade's house and stealing a horse which was in a lot there. From here they went west until they were a short distance south of our house and stopped in a hollow to change saddles from the

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wounded horse and another one to the new horses they had just acquired. "The militia had by this time reached the Hammer home and ascertained that the bushwhackers had eaten dinner there and just gone. For some reason the soldiers did not burn my aunt's home but kept on after the guerrillas, finding they had been at the Goade house only a few minutes before. Proceeding to the hollow they found the men they were pursuing and charged them, the bushwhackers scattering in every direction.

Back at our house-or rather at the still blazing ruins of our house-we could hear the popping of revolvers but could not see anything of the fight. "Soon the militia came riding back by where we I were and the captain told us that he had found that the bushwhackers had not eaten dinner at our place after all and said that he was sorry that his men had burned

the house. This did not bring our house back into existence however and I told the captain so. One of the men shouted out to us that they had caught the bushwhackers anyhow and killed one man and one horse. I answered that that was a fine record for thirty men to fight eight and only kill one. The soldiers did not like this and rode away, sourly enough. We did not

think they had killed anybody and remained by our goods that night and the next day went over to Aunt Betsy Hammer's home to stay.

"A day or two later we came back to the ruined house for something and my mother, sniffing the

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breeze which was blowing from the direction of the hollow, said that we had better go over and see if the militia had really killed someone. We told her that very likely there was a dead horse there as the militia had said but that we did not think they had killed a man. My mother insisted that there must be a man lying there dead, so eventually we all went over. The

soldiers had told the truth.. The corpse of a bushwhacker, scarcely more than a boy, was sprawled on the ground beside the carcass of a slain horse. I could not do much myself on account of a great boil on my back but the rest of them, including my mother and Aunt Betsy Hammer, obtained a sheet and rolled the body in it, then scratched and hollowed out a shallow grave and buried it. I suppose that the boy's body is still there to this day.

"After staying at the Hammer house for a short time we got in touch with my father who had been moving a neighbor to Cooper county and all of us went to Pettis county and stayed there until the close of the war."

On September 2 an attempted advance by southern forces on Mount Vernon resulted in great activity and some skirmishing in eastern Jasper county and western Lawrence county. Colonel Allen's report of the affair, dated September 4, says:

"I have this morning received information that there were about 400 rebels that made an attempt to take Mount Vernon last Friday. Captain Stotts who

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was at Cave Springs with twenty-five men of his own command and a portion of Captain Stemmons' company discovered the rebels in force and dispatched a message to me immediately, I sent Captain Morris with sixty men to reinforce Captain Stotts. The rebels went around Stotts' camp and made direct for Mount Vernon. Captain Morris met them about five miles west of Mount Vernon where an engagement ensued. The rebels having five or six to one, Captain Morris had to fall back; dispatched to me immediately. I collected all the militia that was available; went to his relief: met him coming in. We then went back to the place where he left the rebels but on arriving there I was informed by citizens that they had gone southwest. I started in that direction and soon discovered about fifty men on the prairie in line. I formed line and ordered a charge which was obeyed promptly but after running about three miles I got close enough to see that I was chasing Captain Stotts. By this time it was getting dark. Early next morning I started 200 men under Captain Morris, all the available cavalry force I could raise. They went in five miles of Carthage on the south side of Spring river then turned north, crossed the river, came up White Oak without making any discovery, but the captain got reliable information that there were about 400 rebels and he thought it prudent to return to Mount Vernon, for I had but few men left. The captain learned that they were about Carthage. * * * * There is plenty of rebel forage in Jasper county that ought to be used by the federals if possible."

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Major Milton J. Burch who had garrisoned Carthage a considerable period in 1863 was at this period stationed at Neosho. It seems probable that he considered Sutherland's methods of handling affairs in the neighborhood of the Jasper county seat to be too severe and he had a disagreement of some sort with him about Joshua Hickey, a citizen. The letters written

by Burch and Sutherland have not been preserved but one written by General Sanborn to Burch under date of September 17 seems to uphold Sutherland and carry an implied rebuke to Major Burch. The letter follows:

"Your communication in regard to Joshua Hickey was duly received and referred to Captain Sutherland, commanding at Carthage. It was made fully to appear by the report of Captain Sutherland and the affidavits of at least fifteen witnesses that this man's house and lands have been a home and harbor for bushwhackers for more than a year in the past. There cannot be any doubt of this. The government has no indemnity or security to offer to such men, their families, persons or property. By harboring bushwhackers they foment strife and disorder and become guilty before the fact of the murders and robberies of their neighbors. You will afford no protection to Joshua Hickey and will order him to leave this district without delay. Impress upon the minds of all people in your vicinity that they must take an active part in the support of the government and the maintenance of its supremacy, or the government

will have no protection or security to afford them when their day of calamity comes. While you

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make every effort to aid and protect the loyal citizens, you will use equal efforts to punish the disloyal enemies of the government and the general enemies of mankind."

Some time in September the son of Captain Henry Fisher was slain by guerrillas several miles west of Bower Mills. In company with Miles Overton of Company G, 76th Enrolled Militia, he was returning from the funeral of Overton's son and suddenly the two rode onto the head of a large force of southerners. Young Fisher fell dead at the first fire and Overton was taken

prisoner. Seeing that he too was to be killed, Overton seized hold of one of his captors and swung him around for a shield several times to prevent the others from shooting, then gave him a powerful swing into the crowd and made a break for life and liberty. One bullet went through his left arm and another severely wounded him in the thigh but he managed to hide himself in a thicket, then crawled 150 yards to the home of Mrs. Jane Blake and was guided and helped to a place of concealment in the brush by Miss Mary Jane Fishburn who was stopping at the Blake home. He lay in this refuge for ten days without attention and was finally rescued by other members of his company. Carthage was practically completely destroyed by guerrillas on September 22. The court house had already been burned and out of the ruins the federals had constructed a sort of fort. On the northeast corner of the square was the residence which had be~n occupied by a Mr. Johnson; just south of it was a drug store

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belonging to Ben C. Johnson; next was a small saddlery shop which had been kept by Franklin and Vermillion; then came the Franklin House, kept by a Dr. Love and south of it was a store and residence owned by Robert McFarland; next was the store of J. B. and J. Dale.

On the southeast corner of the square was a good brick store house owned by one of the Chenaults and formerly occupied by Jesse L. Cravens. It is said that at this time it was loop-holed and prepared for defense, having been occupied by a detachment of the troops which had held the town. Going west was a brick storehouse owned by E. Pennington and in which a saloon had been kept. Beyond that was a two story frame store building which had been started by J. B. and J. Dale but never completely finished. West of this was a

blacksmith and wagon shop which had been kept by Mitchell and Stinson, and on the southwest corner there was a log house which had been used as a saloon. On the west side of the square, beginning at the southwest corner was the L. Chrisman saloon, and just north of it was the Bulgin carpenter shop. North of that on the ground on which the Regan building was

erected after the war, stood the residence owned by Norris C. Hood who was at that time in Fort Scott. North of the Hood house was a small frame building which had been used by J. C. Cannon for a store and a hotel. On the northwest corner of the square, where the Bank of Carthage now stands, was the Masonic hall, the lower floor of which was used as a grocery and dry goods store. Across the street north of this was a residence formerly occupied by a Mr. Fitzgerald.

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The north side of the square was principally occupied by the Shirley house, a hotel owned by John Shirley. Shirley owned most of the block but there was also a blacksmith shop and a livery stable on this side. Toward the east end of the north side was the residence formerly occupied by W. P. Johnson and Archibald McCoy.

Just east of the southeast corner of the square was a large blacksmith shop. which had been owned and run by Judge John R. Chenault, and Judge Chenault's home was built on his farm at a point where the C. B. Platt home on Grand avenue now stands, while the Chenault slave cabins were close by. The Carthage Female Academy, incorporated by an act of the legislature in 1855 and built at a cost of $3,000 some time later, stood south of the square on the site of the present High school. It was of brick and was a fine structure for the time. The bell used by this academy was used for years after the war in the Central school built on the same ground and is now on exhibition within the west entrance of the Carthage High school. Other buildings in town were the old print shop formerly occupied by Christopher Dawson and the Southwest News, a one story brick jail, and a number of residence houses other

than those mentioned, mostly frame or log but some of brick.

Many of the buildings mentioned were undoubtedly unoccupied at the time the town was burned, so many of the residents either having been killed, joined one of the armies or fled the country.

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General Sterling Price with a force of 12,000 confederate cavalry had just started on his long heralded Missouri expedition that southern sympathizers hoped would regain the state for the south and everything was in confusion as the federals in a fever of excitement began to concentrate their scattered forces to meet and drive him back. Price entered Missouri on

September 19 near Doniphan in the southeast part of the state.

Carthage was supposed to have been garrisoned by troops from the Seventh Provisional Regiment of Enrolled Militia, but it seems not to have been actually occupied at this time. On September 20 General Sanborn who had headquarters at Springfield wrote the following sharp letter to Capt. L. J. Mitchell of the regiment mentioned:

On the 12th instant, orders were sent you to proceed at once with your command to Carthage, relieve Captain Sutherland and assume command of that post. You will report at once to these headquarters whether such orders were received by you and, if so, the date of their reception and reasons for not having complied with them. If now at Humansville as  represented, you will without the least possible delay send forward one commissioned officer and forty men of your command with orders to proceed at once by forced marches to Carthage and occupy the post. You will follow without delay with the balance of your command. Captain Sutherland has arrived here and Carthage thus is without protection."

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At the same time he sent these orders to Captain Mitchell, General Sanborn sent the following order to Colonel John B. Allen who commanded the Seventh Provisional regiment and who was in camp at Mount Vernon. "Upon receipt of this order you will detail from your command one officer and twenty-five men for a scouting party, Direct them to proceed to Carthage

and scout about the vicinity until the arrival of Captain Mitchell when they will return at once. For some unknown reason Captain Mitchell has not reported at Carthage as ordered to do and Captain Sutherland has come in under orders delivered to him by mistake, so that post is left without any force. If your detachment finds Captain Mitchell there they will of course return at once."

On September 23, Major Burch reported to General Sanborn as follows:

"I have the honor to inform you that Carthage was burned yesterday by the guerrillas, and the troops sent to hold Carthage had a fight with the guerrillas there and drove them; particulars not known. I received my information from women who came from near Carthage."

On September 24 Colonel Chas. W. Blair at Fort Scott wrote to General Curtis: "Carthage was burned or partly so. Two of my scouts were on a hill in sight and saw some houses

: burning and about fifteen men running around in town.

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They supposed it to be a small force of our local bushwhackers"

These are the most complete records of the burning of Carthage on file in the war department and Burch's information about a fight at the Jasper county seat that day was probably erroneous. On the same date the above was written, Colonel J. D. Allen wrote to General Sanborn as follows: "It is reliably reported here that there were 200 rebels in Carthage yesterday; that they camped on Jones creek on the night of the 22nd and that they were traveling north. Captains Mitchell and Stotts are on a scout today in the direction of Jones creek and

Carthage. They probably have eighty men with them. I have not heard from them since they started. It seems to me that the twenty men in Lamar will be in great danger of being cut off if they are not relieved soon."

D. L. Wheeler was still in Carthage at the time of the burning of the town and although he was only a small boy it made a strong impression on him and he gives an interesting account of it. "One morning some time after daybreak my fourteen- year-old sister and I were at home alone and my sister was getting breakfast-making biscuits, I remember. My stepfather was not in town, having gone north looking for a safer place for us to go, and mother was not at home. I do not know where she was, probably at a neighbor's. Happening to look out of the window I saw a band of mounted men approaching from

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the south. The federal soldiers had gone some time previously and I knew these horsemen by their ordinary civilian clothing to be bushwhackers or guerrillas. They had formed line in evident anticipation of a fight and were moving fairly rapidly, each man with raised revolver in his right hand. Some were at a fast walk and others were at a trot but I believe that they increased their gait after they had gone by. As they passed our house the line swerved apart so that part of the men passed on one side of the building and some I on the other, then moved on toward the square where the old federal defences were.

"Looking up toward the square we soon saw people carrying their things out of the houses and into the street, and then several columns of rising smoke showed that the buildings were being fi,red. A few moments later one of the band rode up to our house, came in and told us the building was to be burned. There was a pile of cotton in the corner that we had raised on Center creek and, despite my sister's expostulations, he set fire to this. She argued and pleaded with him and he put it out but then lighted it again, saying that if he did not burn the place the other boys I would. She continued to ask him not to do it and he I again extinguished the fire, lighted it again and once more put it out. Finally he left, remarking as he did so, 'Well, I won't do it but some of the other boys will.' "A few minutes later another man came in to burn the building and was soon joined by a third. They refused to listen to arguments and told us to get what-

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ever we wanted to save out into the street. My sister and I carried out what we could and the guerrillas helped us with the things that were too heavy for us. They obligingly carried out the cook stove and some other articles, then set fire to the pile of cotton and soon the building was blazing.

"We went over to our grandmother's home and found that her house also had been set afire but that the fire had gone out or been put out. The guerrillas returned and started it again but it was once more extinguished. Naturally we did not like to see the place burned. They came back a third time and, threatening me with revolvers, made me kindle a blaze in the center

of the floor and watched it until it had gone so far that it was manifestly beyond control, and the house was soon in flames.

"I saw no looting but I suppose that the men took anything that they wanted although there was naturally not much left by this time that they would care for. I heard of one man who started to carry off some dress patterns but was prevented from doing so by Harris Hatcher whom we knew. I cannot say whether Hatcher was a member of the band or not or whether

he took part in the burning but my understanding is that he was a confederate soldier and he was in town that day. Another acquaintance of ours named Conrad was also among the men but I do not remember hearing of any others that we knew.

"A few of the houses had not been burned and when the guerrillas rode away the people bunched in

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these, Some of the families later went north and some went south and a few, having no place to go, planned on trying to stay on indefinitely in the remaining houses. My mother and sister and I joined my stepfather and went to Fort Scott and I do not know what eventually became of the people who tried to stay in Carthage."

Mrs. Sarah Ann Smith, wife of Campbell Smith, a confederate soldier, lived with her two children and her mother-in-law in an unfinished brick house on the southwest corner of what is now Oak and Garrison. She has described the burning of the town as follows: "On this day I saw a crowd of bushwhackers riding into the town from the west, You could always tell

bushwhackers because they wore feathers, bunches of ribbon, etc., in their hats. Some of the men stopped at our house and asked who lived there. "

'Cam Smith's family," I replied.

" 'Oh, we know Cam,' one of them replied, 'but we are going to burn this whole town so you better get what things you want out of the house. We will help you carry them down.'

"By this time there were bushwhackers everywhere and I suppose they had come into the town from all directions at once. We carried out such stuff as we wanted, the men helping us, but a good deal of our property we left because we had nowhere to take it anyhow. The bushwhackers then split up some kindling, placed it under the stairway and set it alight. Soon

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the stairway was blazing and before long the interior of the house was all afire. The blaze consumed all the interior of the building but the walls still stood. "Practically all of the town had been burned by now and we moved into a small barn with some other families and a day or two later went out to Walkers northwest of town to stay. I was not personally acquainted

with any of the bushwhackers that burned Carthage but part of the boys were from the Center creek neighborhood."

On September 24 General Sanborn sent the following order to Colonel Allen: "On receipt of this you will detach from your command one lieutenant and forty men for special duty.

Instruct them to proceed to Jasper county and there collect all available teams for the purpose of removing women and children from about Carthage. Instruct them also to escort the mowing machines now near Carthage to Greenfield and then return to your post. If the teams belong to union men they will be returned after moving out the families. If the owners are Secesh send the teams to the quartermaster here. Let Mitchell's men perform this duty if they have not already come in, and then report to you."

The guerrilla force around Carthage was increased about this time by a hundred or more men under Major Andrew J. Piercey, according to federal reports and Piercey seems to have taken command of the entire band of 200 or 250. Burch held his position at Neosho and Colonel Allen concentrated as much of his command

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as possible at Mount Vernon. A portion of the regiment, however, was called away and engaged in the pursuit of Price who was moving toward the center part of the state. A clash with these guerrillas somewhere near the eastern edge of Jasper county occurred on September 30. Colonel Allen under date of October 1 tells of it as follows: "I sent out sixty men on scout under command of Captain Morris yesterday morning. He was met and attacked by the enemy and after a sharp fight was compelled to fall back. The enemy were about 200 strong and came within about five miles of this place. 1 started with reinforcements to Captain Morris at 1 o'clock yesterday and made the rebels fall back from their position. They went down Spring river in the direction of Carthage. 1 shall start a large scout this morning in pursuit of them."

The next day he wrote again : "The scout sent out by me has returned without effecting anything. They could not overtake the rebels; followed them to Carthage."

On October 7 Major Burch reported that Piercey had gone south but on October 10 he again reported Piercey near Carthage with about 250 men and added that he had called on Colonel Allen for 100 men and when he received them would try to drive the confederates out. A few days later Major Burch from Neosho acting in conjunction with Major Moore from Mount Vernon made the move toward Carthage but

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apparently did not come in contact with their enemy for nothing further is mentioned about the affair. On October 24, however, we find Burch writing to the commander at Springfield as follows: "In regard to the sending out of scouts in the direction of Fort Scott it is a very dangerous undertaking from the fact that Piercey has 250 men between here and Fort Scott. Piercey's men are on Spring river below Carthage. I have not force to drive him and hold the post. I will do the best I can in getting information from the northwest. If you could send me 150 men I could clean out Piercey and open communication with Fort Scott. It is certain that Piercey is in Jasper county and has not less than 250 men and some reports, say 500. I would like very well to get a lick at him. If you can send me any aid, send it immediately."

Meanwhile the confederate column under Price had reached the Missouri river and moved west toward Kansas City driving a portion of the state militia before them and with other organizations of state troops hacking at their rear. Between Independence and Kansas City Price found 15,000 union troops posted behind the Big Blue and in the battle of Westport which followed, the southern troops were defeated and driven south, the retreat growing more and more precipitate every day. Two days later the main body of Price's army was practically routed at the crossing of the Little Osage river and only the stubborn fighting of General Jo Shelby's division is said to have saved it from utter destruction. The next day the defeated army

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reached Carthage, Shelby protecting its rear. The itinerary of the expedition contains this entry: "October 26, at Carthage. No enemy; left everything behind; distance 56 miles."

General Price's report states: "We marched over beautiful prairie a distance of 56 miles, and camped at Carthage on Spring river, the nearest point that forage could be obtained, as I was

informed by Major General Logan and Brigadier General Shelby who earnestly desired me to reach Spring river.

"The federal prisoners that I had with me became so exhausted by fatigue that out of humanity I paroled them."

George B. Walker, quoted heretofore, was a member of Shelby's brigade of Price's army at this time and tells interestingly of getting separated from his command while at Carthage.

"I was in the regiment commanded by Colonel Hunter who was a Nevada lawyer before the war," says Mr. Walker, "and since Shelby's brigade was in the rear during the retreat, for us it was a constant battle. We camped on the river near where the lower bridge now is and I went to Colonel Hunter and asked permission to go home for a few hours, explaining that I lived

down the river a mile or two. With me was George Rader one of my friends who wanted to go along. Colonel Hunter was at first a little reluctant but finally gave permission.

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" 'You can go, young men,' he told us, 'but see that you are back here before daylight, for at that time we move:

"We both assured him that we would be back and so rode away from our regiment and never saw it again. I had learned up on the Missouri river that my father had been killed. Lewis Scruggs, an acquaintance, had told me how a detachment of militia had ridden up to the house while my father was sitting on the porch reading and had opened fire on him, sixteen bullets entering his body and of course killing him instantly. My brother had also been killed by the militia the year previous while returning from the timber where he had been cutting wood and I knew that only my two sisters would be at home. We knocked on the door and roused them but I had a hard time making them believe who I was. They were not taking any chances. I finally convinced them that it was really their brother come home and they opened the door and admitted us.

We watered and fed our horses and then ate the supper which the girls had prepared. At an early hour we were again astir, fed our horses and breakfasted and started back to rejoin our organization. "We were back at the ford before daylight as we had promised but as we approached it a column of horsemen were already crossing. It was dark and we could not see who they were but there were a great many of them and somehow they did not look right.

We drew rein and watched a moment.

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" 'I don't believe those are Shelby's men,' I said at length.

" 'They don't look like it to me,' answered Rader. "Just then two of the men detached themselves from the column and rode toward us. We saw that they were union soldiers and wheeled our horses and dashed downstream. The federals both fired at us and gave pursuit, following us a short distance. Pretty soon we decided that we had no cause to run from two men,

so turned our horses and began shooting. The federals replied, but wheeled their horses in turn and rode back toward the road. It was hardly beginning to get light yet and so no harm was done to anyone by all this firing. "Rader and I rode west a short distance, then turned south, hoping to get ahead of the federals and rejoin our forces. Just after it became light we met Whitey Heiden, one of Dave Rusk's men that I knew. We told him of our experience and what we were trying to do.

"'You haven't a show in the world to catch Shelby,' Heiden told us, 'He broke camp during the night and is probably miles south of Center creek by now. There is not a chance of you overtaking him.'

.. 'Where are you going?' I asked.

.. 'I am going to join Dave Rusk.'

.. 'Where is Dave?'

.. 'He is down on Grand river. You fellows had better come along with me. There is nothing else for you to do.'

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"So we went with Heiden to Rusk's camp. Rusk was a small, light haired man, not much more than a boy and was a very likeable fellow. He had lived at Sherwood before the war and had two brothers in the union army. This last was not especially unusual as many confederates had brothers in the enemy camp. I had one myself although he was out on the west coast

and fought only against the Indians. Just now Rusk was painfully wounded but as soon as he heard our news he decided to break camp and go south. We helped him into the saddle and away we went. We secured a Cherokee guide who took us across the Indian Territory where the plains were covered with cattle so we had plenty of meat although we were without bread or salt for twenty-eight days. On arriving in Texas we reported for duty and were assigned to another regiment than the one we had left."

The van of the pursuing forces of union troops Walker and Rader had seen at Carthage seems to have been Colonel C. R. Jennison's brigade of Kansas troops. His report in reference to this part of the operations follows:

"The brigade took up a line of march southward through Barton and Jasper counties, Mo., reaching Carthage on the early morning of the 27th and going into camp some five miles south of town, the brigade having then the extreme front of the pursuing column and being only a few miles behind the rear guard of the enemy. Indeed so closely was he pressed that one

squadron of his cavalry retreated only upon the ap-

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pearance of our advance at the point designated as our encampment. The rebel army was then only four or five miles before us, his rear having passed about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Here we met a number of paroled prisoners of the Kansas State Militia who had been released during the afternoon after having been stripped of their clothing, shoes, etc., and robbed of

everything valuable about their persons. These were compelled to walk barefoot and almost naked twelve miles until they reached the advance of our lines where they were as well cared for as our circumstances would permit."

On the night of the 27th the larger part of the confederate army camped on Shoal creek, twenty-two miles from Carthage, but the rear guard was farther to the north inside Jasper county. The union forces were arriving in the vicinity of Carthage all night, the headquarters 'of General Curtis who was in command reaching the town mentioned at 3 a. m. and halting until

6 o'clock. Next morning both armies resumed the southward movement, Ford's Kansas brigade leading the union advance.

The confederate rear guard was found drawn up in battle line near Diamond Grove but retired without fighting and the pursuit continued through Granby to Newtonia, some distance south of which town the southern forces camped.

General Jo Shelby's division was about the only unit in Price's badly battered command at this time which it was safe to trust in battle so to it was given

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the task of protecting the camp from the advancing federals. Soon the Third and Fourth Kansas brigades with General Blunt in command came down through Newtonia. Through a misunderstanding the rest of the union troops had halted to feed their weary horses and Blunt for the time was entirely unsupported. The Kansas general threw his troops into line however and ordered them forward, personally leading the charge. Shelby had dismounted his entire Command and, after stopping the Kansas attack with a heavy musketry fire,

advanced in turn. Outnumbered, outflanked and without support, Blunt's men were forced back, fighting hard. For some distance the retirement continued and the ranks of the Kansans had begun to weaken, as was evidenced by stragglers breaking away and starting to the rear, when help arrived. As soon as General Curtis had learned that Blunt had gone on ahead he had hurried General Sanborn's Missouri brigade to join him and now it reached the front in the nick of time. Dismounting his men, Sanborn flung them into line--the Sixth and Eighth Missouri State Militia cavalry regiments, the Sixth and a portion of the Seventh Provisional Enrolled Militia, the Second Arkansas cavalry and these fresh troops, extending Blunt's line to the left, redeemed the day and Shelby was forced back to his horses, leaving his dead and wounded on the field.

Soon the confederate army was in motion southward once more.

Moving down through Pineville, Mo., Cane Hill, Ark., thence through Indian Territory, Price

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eventually reached the confederate lines after suffering many hardships. The expedition from which the southern sympathizers in Missouri had hoped so much had ended in a precipitate retreat that save for Shelby's men would probably have been a complete rout. The cause of the confederacy in Missouri was obviously and irrevocably lost. Mrs. C. C. Warner tells of an incident which happened at the Kirkpatrick farm, now the Corwin farm, four miles south of Carthage. This was not far from where Mrs. Warner lived.

"Price had retreated through this country, pursued by federal soldiers," said Mrs. Warner. "One of the Price stragglers, sick and unable to go further, stopped at the Kirkpatrick farm and was taken care of by the Kirkpatrick girls in the best way they could. Within a half day, the pursuing soldiers came along. Finding this man, they took him out and hanged him on a tree

in the orchard and went away and left him there. "The girls wanted to give the dead man a decent burial, but they did not know how to get the body down. When some more soldiers came along, these responded to the request of the girls and cut the hang rope, but they left the body where it fell, all in a heap. The girls had a hard time to get the heavy body  straightened out and carried away to a place of burial. We went over to help them in their undertaking.

"It was a hard job indeed to get a hole dug deep enough, because we did not have any very efficient implements to work with and only girls to do the work,

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and because the ground was so hard and rocky. We had to be content with a shallow hole and then piled the dirt high over the body to sufficiently cover it. It gave us the 'shivers' to work with the dead in this way, but there were no men folks to do it and we felt that it must be done."

More typical perhaps of the experiences of the civilian population with the pursuing federals was that of the Walker girls and Mrs. Sarah Ann Smith who as had been mentioned had gone with her children and mother-in-law to the Walker home northwest of Carthage after the town had been destroyed.

I did not see Price's army when it passed," Mrs. Smith has told, "but the roads were full of union cavalry. Some captain came to the Walker house and told us that the men were hungry and that we had better guard the doors or they would take everything we had. I posted myself at the smoke-house door and one of 'the Walker girls stood at each door of the house. The captain detailed a soldier to stay there with me and I think there were some others helping guard the house. Soon the yard was full of men who said they were starving. I watched the front of the building good but some of them tore some boards off the back and stole several sides of bacon. The soldier with me called my attention to it but did not try to stop the men. When the fellows saw I had seen them they ran with the meat, a great crowd of other soldiers after them and I think they must have torn that bacon to pieces right away and eaten it raw. I kept better watch after that and they 

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did not get anything else. This had been a good apple year and just a few days before we had gathered the apples and 'holed them up' in the garden. The soldiers got into these and not only took everyone but went out i in the orchard and got every apple that we had not been able to shake off the trees.

"The officer in charge of the militia at Bower Mills at this time was George F. Bowers and a little while after Price's raid he sent us word that we should come up there. So we borrowed wagons and teams from the Bower Mills neighborhood and went there to live."

On November 2 in writing to General Sanborn regarding a movement of certain organizations to Springfield in accordance with Sanborn's order, Colonel Allen of the Seventh Provisional said:  * Company C will go to Springfield today. Company C is very much needed below on Spring river. Captain Stotts with his twenty-five men has brought in thirty-six prisoners and is very active. The rebels are still passing in small squads from 150 down to 10."

Ten days later Allen reported that all was quiet in his district, and asked that a portion of the Enrolled Militia which had been called out especially to serve during the emergency created by Price's raid be relieved from duty. The band under Piercey which had been in the vicinity of Carthage seems to have gone south either with Price or at about the same time.

Nothing further is heard of it. The federal troops again established garrisons in various towns throughout the district at this time but Carthage was not re-

228

occupied. The only post in Jasper county was at Cave Springs where Captain Stotts had again taken station. On November 20 and 21 there passed through this county a brigade of troops returning from the pursuit of Price. The brigade was commanded by Col. C. R. Jennison, commander of the Fifteenth Kansas Cavalry, and consisted of that regiment and the Sixteenth Kansas Cavalry, the First Colorado and the Ninth Wisconsin' batteries, detachments of the Fourteenth Kansas Cavalry and the Third Wisconsin Cavalry and a train of about 200 wagons. The conduct of these troops as they moved back north and before they reached this neighborhood is best evidenced by a statement signed by a large number of officers at Pea Ridge, Ark., on November 16 and addressed to Colonel Jennison. The statement which is evidently aimed at the Fifteenth Kansas, Jennison's own regiment, is as follows:

"The undersigned officers with this command respectfully protest against the indiscriminate pilfering and robbing of private citizens, especially of defenceless women and children, that has marked the line of march of this division of the army of the border from the Arkansas river to this point. While we are all in favor of the complete destruction of the property of bushwhackers and of those who harbor them, we think that no property should be taken or destroyed without the express order of the officer commanding. If soldiers are permitted to rob and plunder without discrimination the result would be demoralization of the men and

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disgrace to the officers and the service in which we are unwilling to share." That the protest of these officers was fruitless is seen by the following letter written on November 22 by Captain Stotts to General Sanborn:  "Jennison has just passed through this vicinity on his return from the Arkansas river. The night of the 19th he stayed at Newtonia, the 20th at Sarcoxie, and the 21st on Dry Fork. Where he passed the people are almost ruined, as their houses were robbed of the beds and bedding. In many cases every blanket and quilt were taken; also their clothing and every valuable that could be found or the citizens forced to discover. All the horses, stock, cattle, sheep, oxen and wagons were driven off. What the people are to do it is difficult to see. Many of them have once sympathized with the rebellion but nearly all of them have been quiet and cultivated their farms during the last year, expecting the

protection of U. S. troops. Jennison crossed Coon creek with as many as 200 head of stock cattle, half of them fit for good beef, 200 sheep, 40 or 50 yoke of work oxen, 20 or 30 wagons, and a large number of horses, jacks and jennets, say 100, as they were leading their broken down horses and riding· fresh ones. The Fifteenth Kansas had nearly all this property and the men said they had taken it in Missouri. Threatening to burn houses in order to get money is the common practice.  They acted worse than guerrillas. Can the stock be returned to this department so that the owners can get their property?"

230

In forwarding this communication General Sanborn asked that the pay of the Fifteenth Kansas be stopped until the amount of losses sustained by citizens could be ascertained by a commission and that then the total amount of losses be deducted from the pay and turned over to the persons robbed. "The citizens are loyal," said Sanborn "and have raised their crops at great risk and in great danger and deserve protection."

Meanwhile Jennison had been relieved of command and placed in arrest as an indirect result of the plundering in Missouri and Arkansas. So many officers of his brigade had protested against his course that the matter came to the attention of General Blunt who, in reassigning the Kansas districts, gave Jennison a small and relatively unimportant one. Jennison reo

fused to accept it and was therefore placed in arrest for subordination by Blunt who stated, "If I am to believe one-half that has been reported to me by officers who were present, the most outrageous acts of vandalism were perpetrated while on your return march that have occurred anywhere during the war; and I am told that these acts were done under your

direction and further that you represented to your victims that they were done by my order."

When Captain Stotts' communication eventually reached Jennison through military channels he denounced Stotts for a "rebel sympathizer" and averred that his orders from Blunt had been to "desolate the country from the Arkansas River to Fort Scott, and

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burn every house on the route." "For simply carrying out in part these instructions," he added, "the enlisted men who had battled so nobly for the cause of their country are to suffer."

Blunt approved Sanborn's suggestion about a military commission and ordered the pay of the Fifteenth Kansas stopped. Higher officials disapproved the commission idea however and there is no record of there  ever having been any of the injured citizens paid for their property. Jennison however had been thoroughly discredited and soon resigned from the army.

It has often been said that a number of houses in Carthage which had not been burned by the guerrillas when they fired the town were later burned by Kansas troops returning from the pursuit of Price. It is not improbable that this is true and that Jennison's men were the soldiers who did it. The passage of Jennison through this country is the last thing of note which the records mention as having occurred during 1864.

CHAPTER V

1865-The Coming of Peace

The early months of 1865-the last months of the war-were in the main uneventful so far as Jasper county was concerned. Practically the entire western part of the county had been devastated and depopulated by the years of war preceding and in the eastern part of the county many people had left. Most of the people wh~ had gone had been driven out by the generally lawless conditions which prevailed at frequent intervals and others suspected of sympathy to the cause of the south had been required to leave during 1864 by the federal authorities who feared that they would feed bushwhackers or give them information and thus help to maintain them in the guerrilla warfare they carried on every summer.

It seems to have been the intention in the beginning of 1865 to still further move out people who were suspected of southern sympathies or who were trying to maintain an attitude of neutrality. A letter written by Mrs. Sarah Scott of Sarcoxie, protesting against this proposed move is not extant but the answer written to her by General Sanborn appears in the official records. Some years ago Mrs. Scott, then Mrs. Sarah Musgrave, in speaking of the incident and the correspondence said: "In 1865 near the end of the war, as it afterwards proved, an order was issued to go in effect by a certain

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time clearing the county of what few people were left in it. It was desired to render this territory so it would yield no sustenance for the guerrillas and bushwhackers. Many people left, but I stayed. Some others stayed too, but I suppose there were not over 50 people left in Sarcoxie after that order came, probably not that many.

"Capt. Stotts, who had charge of the militia company at Cave Springs, brought to me the notice to leave. That was in January, 1865. I told the captain that I was a harmless woman, a widow with two small children, had no conveyance of my own and no means of obtaining one and no knowledge of anywhere to go., It was winter and I did not propose to start off aimlessly,

even by spring, unless I had to. Captain Stotts told me to write General Sanborn a letter telling him these facts. I do not think I ever wrote a better letter in my life, for I felt that much was at stake. He replied insisting on the order, rebuked me for being content to say I had not done anything against the country and advising me to do something for the country. I stayed

on at Sarcoxie, however, determined to go only when I had to, and soon the war was over and all was happiness once more. My uneasiness was then at an end."

General Sanborn's letter which was dated February 1, was as follows:

"Dear Madam: Your letter of the 27th ultimo came duly to hand. I write a few lines in reply, partly because you requested it and partly to correct the erroneous idea you seem to entertain in regard to the mo-

234

tives that led to the promulgation of the order to which you refer. I have nothing to say of the motives that actuated others but I know that in all that I do in my official capacity I am actuated only by a desire to promote the true interests of security and the general welfare of the people. How strange it is that the simple fact of women and children being compelled to seek a new place of residence at a season of the year not usually inclement in this latitude strikes your mind with horror, while the spectacle of honest, peaceable men, laboring in their fields for the support of their wives and little children, shot down like dogs by men whom these families you refer to are harboring and feeding, does not call for a sympathizing word or even a remark. You take a strange view of the requirements of charity and seem to conclude that charity requires an officer to stand still with folded arms and see murderers and their

accessories turn whole communities of happy families into widows and orphans and cover the earth with innocent slain, because the remedy will occasion some inconvenience

and perhaps suffering of the parties in a manner guilty. Charity itself calls for the execution of the order. Then your own plea of justification, 'I say with a clear conscience that I have done nothing against the federal government.' How impotent! When this day of passion and excitement shall have passed away, and our posterity shall look back and see the government

as it was, imposing no burden upon the people, protecting every right and fostering every interest, enlightening and elevating the masses, affording succor and asylum to the friendless and oppressed, and shall

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behold it assailed by myriads of traitors aiming only to cast down and destroy, how will those then appear to them who stand back with folded arms and say with a clear conscience, 'I have done nothing against the federal government.' Would it not be natural for them when reflecting upon their condition, bereft of relations by a war most cruel, burdened by taxation, surrounded by the crime and immorality that a war always engenders, to acclaim, 'Accursed is the person and all his descendants who in such an hour and such a crisis did not rally to the support of the flag of such a government and at such a time sacrifice all for the common weal, or at least do something for the government and not be content with having done nothing against it. The removal of the families at the time mentioned is deemed a necessary step to enable the loyal people in that section to come to their homes and remain there

in quiet. Whatever is necessary to enable the government to exercise its authority and protect its subjects in all places of its dominion will be done without regard to the sufferings of any particular class, or even that of a whole generation. The order will be executed with as much promptness and vigor as circumstances will allow."

In January 1865 a large number of members of the legislature submitted a petition to the governor of the state asking that he adopt the policy of seizing ten or fifteen of the most  prominent and wealthy southern sympathizers in every community and informing them that they would be held responsible in their persons and

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property for any injury done to union men in their neighborhood. Among the names signed to this petition is that of James McFarland, representative from Jasper and Barton counties. This plan seems never to have been put into effect, at least as far as Jasper county was concerned. It would have been hard to find that many "prominent and wealthy" southerners remaining. On February 18 General Sanborn in a letter written to Governor Fletcher pointed out that the term of service of the Sixth Missouri Militia Cavalry was about to expire and that that of the 15th Missouri Cavalry, formerly known as the Seventh Provisional, would expire July 1 and asked that volunteer militia companies be formed for Jasper and other border counties. "The advantage of holding these border counties by volunteer militia organizations is twofold," he wrote, "First: These organizations are made up of men who reside in or who have been driven from these counties and in addition to being acquainted with all roads and by-ways have a great personal interest in restoring the state authority and in filling up these counties with a loyal population. Second: These men thus joining an organization and going back to their old homes to serve induce most of those loyal families who have been driven from their homes to return also and raise crops, and thus these depopulated counties become again settled with a loyal population, a most desirable result that cannot be as speedily attained by simple military occupation with a federal force."

237

In February the first of the bushwhackers began to appear and complaints began to be made about thefts of stock, etc. On February 20 there was a skirmish in Jasper county between the federals and guerrillas on Center creek. No details of this affair are on record. The union organization that took part in this was undoubtedly Captain Stotts' company as it was still stationed at Cave Springs and was the only force in the county.

On account of the new militia law, drawn in accordance with Sanborn's recommendation, being about to go into effect, Company G, 76th Enrolled Militia, was disbanded on March 2. This was the company which during its course of existence had been commanded by Captain Henry Fisher and Captain T. J. Stemmons but was now headed by Capt. George F. Bowers.

On March 7 Governor Fletcher issued a proclamation stating that there were no longer any organized forces of enemies of the government within the borders of the state and calling upon all judges to hold regular terms of court. This could not be acted on at once in Jasper county however and the first session of court did not begin until in August at Cave Springs.

On March 8 Captain Stotts was ordered to take steps toward organizing the new Jasper county militia company. Just when the formation of this unit was completed is not shown in the records but it was probably soon. First Lieut. Lyman J. Burch was chosen to command it.

238  

On March 25, Major Burch at Neosho reported that a band of thirty guerrillas passed eight miles west of Neosho on the night of March 23 headed in the direction of Sherwood in Jasper County. It was said that their intention was not to stop in Jasper county but to move on northward. About the same time General Blunt over in Kansas reported that small parties of southern sympathizers were making their way north through southwest Missouri. When Colonel Allen at Mount Vernon received Major Burch's message regarding the band moving toward Sherwood he sent out a detachment of forty men from Companies Band C, 15th Missouri Cavalry, to endeavor to intercept them and to make a scout in the west part of the county. The report of Captain S. E. Roberts, commander of the detachment, shows the emptiness and desolation of this once prosperous section.

HWe have scouted Spring river thoroughly from  Carthage west down several miles below the line," said Captain Roberts. HWe also scouted Center creek and the North Fork of Spring river to the mouth. We found no bushwhackers and no fresh signs. On Spring river about seven miles west of Carthage we found a trail where fifteen rebels had crossed and gone north,

I presume, about five or six days ago. On Spring river near the mouth of Center creek we found two camps and from the signs I suppose that six or eight had been at each camp. From all appearances I suppose they had been evacuated some ten days ago. There is no

239

family on Spring river west of Sly's mills. Those families that lived on Spring river when I was there before are gone; their wagon tracks went north." In early April the news of Lee's surrender to Grant caused great rejoicing to the union people of southwest Missouri and corresponding gloom to those of southern sympathy. All realized that the war was just about

over. General quiet prevailed in this portion of the state, General Sanborn reported on April 26. That night, however, two bushwhackers made their appearance on Center creek and robbed Parson Oliver. Lieut. J. P. Boyd of Stotts' company with 13 men started in pursuit at 9 o'clock the next morning and followed the marauders to a point four miles west of James creek and there caught them in the thick brush and killed both, recovering all the property that had been stolen and also getting the guerrillas' arms and equipment. The confederate armies to the south were now disintegrating and bands of men from these forces were passing north, going as quietly as possible usually with no other thought than to get back to their homes again. Occasionally a band left a trail of blood behind it, killing soldiers and citizens, but none of this type passed through Jasper county. Indeed few men at all went through this region, most of the returning southerners passing up to the west on account of Grand river being in flood, and entering Missouri in Barton county just north of the Jasper county line.

All confederate soldiers and guerrillas were being offered generous terms of surrender, the same made

240  

by Grant to Lee and, seeing the futility of further resistance, were beginning to accept them. On May 20 the guerrilla leader, Henry Taylor, a former sheriff of Vernon county, who now professed to command all of the guerrillas under arms in southwest Missouri, surrendered himself and his band to federal authorities at Fort Scott. A few days later General Jeff Thompson surrendered all the confederate troops in northern Arkansas and these two events marked the end of the war in this section. The state militia cavalry that had done such active work in this region throughout the war was mustered out and on July 1 the 15th Missouri Cavalry was discharged from the service and the men returned to their homes, many of them in this county. There was not much to return to. All the towns and villages in the central and western part of the county were in ashes and those in the eastern part were either destroyed or badly damaged. Most of the farm houses had disappeared and all over the region were skeleton chimneys, surrounded by fallow, weed grown fields. In the main the district had reverted to the wilds. Deer, wild turkey and game of all sort had increased tremendously during the last years of the war and early comers after the struggle state that wolves were so tame that they could be shot from the wagon seat of those who at wide intervals drove along the seldom used roads.

The revised constitution of Missouri went into effect on July 4,1865, and under its provision the governor appointed the following officials in Jasper county to Typical of 1865. War time chimney north of Carthage.

 241

carryon the work of reorganization: W. B. Hamilton, F. B. Nichols and Thomas Caldwell, members of county court; S. H. Caldwell, sheriff; W. G. Bulgin, county clerk; J. H. Fullerton, treasurer; Joseph Estus, prosecuting attorney; Hon. John H. Price, judge of the circuit court. Since Carthage, the county seat, was in ruins the governor named Cave Springs as the county seat and here the newly appointed officers met on October 10, assumed their offices and began the work of reorganizing the county.

In a speech made at an old settlers' gathering at Carthage in 1879, J. M. Young stated that when he came to Jasper county in December 1865 and was going from Carthage to the county seat at Cave Springs he met E. M. and Lyman J. Burch who told him that although there were at that time only about thirty men in the county that they believed that he would find a

residence here a safe one provided he took necessary precautions. There was one store at Carthage at this time-that of George Rader-and not much else. Sarcoxie, the gateway of the county," was beginning to show signs of life, several stores having opened up there.

Refugee families and former soldiers were now coming back to rebuild their old homes. Many of those who had fought for the cause of the south, particularly those who had taken part in the partisan warfare that had been so bitter in this region, did not return for fear of reviving old animosities. Many did, however, and to take the place of those that did not, came hardy

242

immigrants from Kansas or from the north, many of them former federal soldiers who had seen this country during the military operations and liked it. During the early part of 1866 there began to be considerable agitation to change the county seat back to Carthage inasmuch as Cave Springs was inconveniently situated and there were no accommodations there. This was done in September of that year. At first only people who had been loyal to the union were allowed to vote, this in accordance with a provision of the state constitution, and every voter was required to take what was known as the test oath. At the 1868 election 1,697 men took the oath, and allowing for the large number of former confederates who did not and for the women and children, it will be seen that the population of the county was at least as large as it had been in 1861.

The towns had been rebuilt and were thriving and growing rapidly; farmhouses again dotted the country that had been desolate, and once fallow fields were producing the abundant crops for which Jasper county is noteworthy; the mines at Minerville were once more disgorging lead, and the smelters belching smoke. Jasper county had passed the first period of reconstruction and was well on the road to recovery and to that great growth and prosperity which was destined to be hers.

APPENDIX

Partial List of Slain 1861-1865

It is impossible at this time to compile anything like a complete list of Jasper county residents who lost their lives during the civil war. The F. A. North history published in 1883 gives as many names as it was possible to secure at that time in a rather thorough canvass of the county and the following list is based mainly on that of the North history, supplemented and

checked from numerous sources. Many of those about whose death no explanation is given were doubtless slain in skirmishes; some others were unquestionably murdered. A considerable number of Jasper county men serving in the union and confederate armies fell in battle at points other than in the county and unfortunately practically none of these men's names have been preserved.

The list of Jasper county slain, as complete as it has been possible to make it, follows:

Lilburn Arthur, a soldier in Captain Stott's company, wounded in Carthage and later died.

Moses Baker, guerrilla captain, captured in skirmish near Sherwood by Ninth Kansas Cavalry in 1862 and said to have been later killed near Fort Scott.

Richard Burris, killed by federals on streets of Sarcoxie.

Littleberry Bedford, killed by federals at old Neosho ford on Center creek in 1862.

244  

Peter Baker, Company G, 76th Enrolled Militia, killed in action east of Carthage July 21, 1864.

George W. Broome, citizen, murdered by marauders at his home near Medoc, August 1861.

John Bishop, citizen, captured and killed by Kansas negro soldiers, at Sherwood, 1863.

John Blake, Company G, 76th Enrolled Militia, killed in action east of Carthage July 21, 1864.

Joe Bradbury, killed in Carthage, date unknown.

Reece Crabtree, wounded by guerrillas near Pilot Grove and died while being taken to Neosho. Just after he died, a party of men intent on killing him caught up with those having him in charge.

Orange Clark, Co. G, 76th Enrolled Militia, killed in skirmish east of Carthage, July 21, 1864. His home was on White Oak.

Edward Cagle, killed in his own yard by federal militia.

--- Cranshaw, a negro, ran himself to death from fright. A companion, Alfred Scott, also colored, had been seized by southern sympathizers and because he refused to tell the whereabouts of a certain union man was threatened with cocked revolvers, partially strangled with a cord, and finally left for dead on the Carthage square. Cranshaw feared that a like fate would be his and he ran until he died.

Latham Duncan was killed near Avilla in 1862 while helping defend Dr. J. M. Stemmons' home against a party of southern men.

Polk Dunkle, Co. C, 15th Missouri Cavalry, captured and killed by Humbard's guerrillas in 1864.

245

John DeGraffenreid, Co. G, 76th Enrolled Militia, killed by guerrillas ten miles east of Carthage one night in 1863.

James G. Ennis, killed near Shirley's ford on Spring river near Medoc, by Colonel Ritchie's Indians.

Captain Henry Fisher, Co. G, 76th Enrolled Militia, killed by guerrillas ten miles east of Carthage early in 1863.

--- Fisher, a son of Captain Fisher, killed by guerrillas in 1863 two miles west of Bower Mills.

Thomas Fountain, captured by guerrillas in 1862 at his home near Minersville, and killed by his captors a few days later near Neosho.

--- Finney, killed by federals near Pilot Grove.

Dr. E. R. Griffith, killed in Carthage by federals in August 1864.

Rich Guthrie, Co. C, 15th Missouri Cavalry, killed in skirmish with Humbard's guerrillas at "the narrows" in 1864.

Titus B. Heusted of Carthage killed in August 1864 by federals near mill two miles east of Carthage.

"Babe" Hickey, killed by federals said to be members of the Eighth Missouri Militia Cavalry.

T. R. Hazlewood, a southern sympathizer, mortally wounded in his own yard by federal soldiers about August 1864: He lived northeast of Carthage.

Dick Hall, lived on Center creek, killed by federals in Newton county.

Jabez T, F. Hatcher, lived near present site of Webb City, killed by federals in 1863.

246  

Joel P. Hood, federal scout, killed by mistake by union men in Cedar county, 1864.

Lieutenant Brice Henry, Co. G, 76th Enrolled Militia, killed in action east of Carthage July 21, 1864.

---Huston, killed in Carthage.

Austin (or John) Ireland, killed at Merrick's Post in western part of county.

Isaac Ireland, killed on Lightning creek, Kansas.

John (or Austin) Ireland, lynched at Medoc, August 1861, for complicity in murder of George W. Broome.

Oliver Johnson, killed by Ritchie's Indians on LaBette creek, Kansas.

Chancey Jackson, shot and killed by man hiding behind tree in Carthage on Grant street near Seventh street intersection. Jackson had been a member of Livingston's band but seems later to have joined the federal garrison at Carthage.

Alfred Lawrence, Company C, Seventh Provisional Enrolled Militia, killed in skirmish with confederates in northeast part of county.

Moses Lake, killed by Ritchie's Indians near Medoc.

Major Thomas R. Livingston, noted guerrilla chief, killed in action at Stockton, Mo., July 11, 1863.

John Meadors, killed by federals near mouth of White Oak in 1863.

Jonas Meadors, killed by federals ten miles east of Carthage near present site of Melugin.

Moses Meadors, killed by a comrade in his own party of bushwhackers, following a quarrel. His slayer sought refuge with the' Enrolled Militia of Captain

247

Stemmons' company and wanted to join them but they would not permit him to do so. He was sent to Springfield as a prisoner of war.

William Montgomery, a union man, was killed by Ritchie's Indians eight miles west of Carthage in 186!.

Joshua Martin, residing near the Kendrick place north of Carthage, killed by federals in August 1864.

John McKinney, residing on North Fork, killed by unknown persons on night of June 10, 1862.

Brice Martin killed by guerrillas at his home near Moss Springs.

Thomas Martin who lived on Turkey creek near Sherwood killed at his own gate by federals.

James McBride, residing ~ear head of Turkey creek, killed by federals in 1863.

Thomas McBride of Jasper county killed by federals in Newton county.

Abraham Mathews, murdered in 1861.

Gabe McDaniel, killed by militia, 1864.

Archibald McCoy, captured and killed by guerrillas in 1862.

Mayfield brothers, southern sympathizers, killed in fight with two union men, one of whom also was killed.

C. B. Margrave, citizen, taken from his home near Medoc by bushwhackers, robbed and killed.

James Petty killed southwest of Carthage square by federals during a skirmish.

William Parkinson, prominent miner and former partner of Livingston, killed in Saline county by federals.

248  

Umphrey Robinson, a union citizen, taken prisoner while plowing in a field on White Oak and never heard from again, undoubtedly killed by his guerrilla captors. He left a wife and seven small children.

William Rader, killed by federals on Turkey creek in 1864 while trying to elude capture.

--- Robinson, confederate sympathizer, killed in 1864 by unknown persons for his money.

John Snodgrass, killed by Ritchie's Indians at Shirley Ford, 1862.

Levi Sly, federal soldier, killed by guerrillas while home on furlough.

George Sly, lived on White Oak, taken from a sick· bed by guerrillas and murdered.

William B. Southard, residing near Minersville, captured by guerrillas in Kansas, brought back to Jasper county and supposed to have been hanged north·west of Sherwood.

Dan Stith, killed in 1862 by Ritchie's Indians, three miles north of Minersville.

Peter Storm, killed by federals at his home near present site of Galesburg.

Dr. Jacquilian M. Stemmons, one of most prominent union men in the county, killed in 1862 and his home two and a half miles northeast of Avilla burned by band of southern sympathizers.

William Storm, son of Peter Storm, killed by federals on Center creek in 1864.

Jack Sparlin, killed by Ritchie's Indians at Shirley's Ford, 1862.

249

Bud Shirley, a bushwhacker, whose home was in Carthage, killed in Sarcoxie by men of Co. C, Seventh Provisional Enrolled Militia, 1864.

--- Sparks, civilian, killed by Humbard's guerrillas, 1864.

Bob Seymour, Co. G, 76th Enrolled Militia, killed in action east of Carthage, July 21, 1864.

Fry Smith, guerrilla captain, killed in action near Maysville, Ark., January 15, 1863, by Lieut. Whitlow, Third Indian Home Guards.

James Saunders, killed by federals just north of Center creek on Sarcoxie road.

John Spencer, killed by guerrillas, 1862.

Hiram Thompson, lived on Turkey creek, killed by federals December 23, 1863, at a point about a mile east of present site of Joplin.

Thomas Thompson, lived on Turkey creek, killed by federals in Newton county.

James K. Terry, lived near Minersville, killed by federal militia.

Thomas G. Walton, lived on Spring river northwest of Carthage, killed by federals in August, 1864, and his home burned.

Beverly Windsor, killed at Willow Springs northwest of Minersville by Ritchie's Indians, 1862.

James Walker, an old settler who lived three and a half miles northwest of Carthage, was killed on his own front porch by federals one morning about daylight.

Burns Walker, killed by federals on Turkey creek near Sherwood.

250  

Thomas Webb, residing near Pilot Grove, captured by guerrillas in 1864, taken about a mile south of his house and there killed.

---Webb, son of Thomas Webb, killed at same time and under same circumstances as his father.

William Wilkerson, residing near Pilot Grove, killed in Newton county by federals.

John Wilson, residing near Center creek ford on old Carthage-Sarcoxie road, killed in his own dooryard by federals.

John White, Co. C, Fifteenth Missouri Cavalry, killed in fight with Humbard's guerrillas, 1864.

Jesse Whitehead, killed by bushwhackers, 1864.

Joseph Zoph, killed at Shirley's ford by Ritchie's Indians, 1862.

INDEX

A

Adams, Billie _ 181-183

Akard, J. J 139, 140

Allen, John D.

Reports and Letters _ 174-176, 189, 204, 205, 211

Mentioned 175, 176, 188, 211,216,227,238

Almond, William B _ _ _ xv

Anderson, Bill _ _ 60, 153, 158, 172

Anderson, John T 122

Arthur, Lilburn 243

Avilla In 1861 _.._ 23, 24

Skirmishes near _ 92-96, 170, 171

B

Babler, M. D _ _ _ 177

Baker, Moses _ _ 103, 243

Baker, Peter _ _ 190, 244

Ballew, Squire _ 118-123

Barstow, Lieut _ _ _ 43

Beach, Samuel _ 122

Beck, Huestin _ _ _.._............... 185

Bedford, Littleberry _ 96, 97, 109, 243

Bedford, Miss _............................. 96,97

Benjamin, J. P•................................................................._ _. 53

Bennie, S. M _ _... 184

Bishop, _ _........................... 194, 195

Bischoff, Henry _............................... 35

Bishop, John _ _ 125, 244

Blair, c. W _ 117,118,211,212

Blake, Miss Jane _ 207

Blake, John _ _.._ _ 190, 244

Blake, Lee _ _ 191

Blakely, Mrs. Lucy _ _ _ _ 55, 56, 61-64

252

Bledsoe, Hiram 32, 35-37, 39, 90

Blunt, General 69, 71, 73",~2, 101, 106, 155, 224, 230, 231, 238

Boggs, Lilburn W _ xv-xvi

Border Guard 28

Border Rangers 27

Bower Mills

Skirmishes at _ _ _ 97-98

Destruction of _ 149, 150

Bowers, George F 132, 227, 237

Boyd, Josiah _........................... . _ 44

Boyd, J. P _ 181, 184, 239

Bradbury, Joe _ __ 244

Bray, Nathan _ _ 176

Britton, Wiley 50, 74, 75, 87, 88

Broome, Geo. W.

Murder of _ 52

Mentioned 25, 51, 244

Brown, Col. Ben 33, 36, 38

Brown, General _............................... 109

Brown, S. M., account of operations 183-186

Brummet, Mrs. James _ _.._ 197, 198

Bryant, Mr. and Mrs. John _ 55, 56, 61-64

Buck branch, engagement on 38

Buck, Thomas 142

Bulgin, W. G _ 67, 208, 241

Bunch, J ames 63

Burch, E. M _ 241

Burch, Lyman J _ _.._ 237, 241

Burch, Milton J.

Reports of operations....140, 141, 151, 152, 161-164, 193,194, 218.

Mentioned....139, 140, 150, 151, 158, 175, 188, 206, 211, 212,

216-219, 238.

Burbidge, J. Q 33

Burris, Richard _ _........................................... 243

Buskirk, Taylor :: _ 194

283

C

Cagle, Davy ~ _............................... 185

Cagle, Edward 244

Caldwell, S. H•......................................._ 241

Caldwell, Thos _ 241

Cannon, J. C 208

Carl Junction, site of _ 23

Carter, Dr _ 188

Carthage

In 1861 ~........................................................... 23, 27

In 1864 _ 207-209

Battle of _ 31-43

Burning of _ 207-216, 231

Expeditions to 64, 139, 140

Skirmishes at or near 77-79, 110, 113, 127, 129-131, 136,

150, 152, 159, 160, 188-192.

Cassairt, Capt•.......................................................................... 119-121

Cather, Lieut _ 101

Center creek, skirmishes on 119-121, 200-204

Chenault, John R. 26-28, 45, 47, 209

Chester, Benjamin 81-83, 86

Chrisman, L 208

Clanton, A. F 28

Clark, John B•........................................................................ 33,36,37

Clark, John B. jr 33

Clark, G. W _ 53

Clark, Orange _ 190, 244

Clayton, Powell

Report of expedition _.._ 64, 65

Mentioned 66, 67, 69, 106

Cloud, W. F.

Reports by 126-127

Mentioned 72, 73, 86, 123

Cockrell, Col. _ 71, 72

Coffee, J. T; 71, 72, 126,127,136,139,140,141,149,154,177

Coleman, C. F 102, 103, 106

254

Coleman, Col. 177

Colley, Sergt. 185

Conkey, Theodore 67, 101-106, 127, 128

Connell, Timothy, tells of killing of Wm. Rader _.._ 194-196

Conrad, c.•..•••••..•....•......................•.. 214

Com·ad, ---- 188

Coon creek, action on c••••••••••••••••••••••••_ ••••••••••••••• 72-74

Cooper, Douglas H 89, 91

County (See Jasper county)

Crabtree, Reece _ 244

Cramer, Capt _ _ 38

Cranshaw, 244

Cravens, C. C. ...................•.....................................c _....... 26

Cravens, Jesse L 208

Cravens, Joseph _ 45

Cravens, William _ 44, 45

Creesman, Bob _ _.._ _ 143, 144

Creitz, Capt _ 64

Crispin, Capt. . _............. 160

Crittenden, T. T _ 118, 123, 124

Crude, Charles _ _ 122

Crum, Jacob _ _ 108, 109

Curtis, S. R.

Report of trip to Jasper county _ _ _.._ 167

Mentioned 211, 223, 224

D

Dale, Ann F 134-136

Dale, J. . _....................................... 208

Dale, J. B _ _ 28, 45, 208

Dale, Robert J _ 134-136

Davis, _ 195

Dawson, Christopher C _ 24, 26, 44, 209

DeGraffenreid, John 131, 132, 245

Dengler, Capt _ _ 37

Dills, Major _ _............. 33

Donely, Winster C _..__ 122

255

Doniphan, Col. _ 33, 34

Drace, _ 93

Dry Fork

Action on _ _ _ 37

Skirmish on - _.._ _ 179-180

Duncan, Layton (Latham) 92-96, 144, 244

Dunkle, Polk _ 181-183, 244

De Soto, Ferdinand _ _ xi

Delassus, Charles Dehault _.._ xi

E

Earl, George F _ _ 101

Edwards, John N.

Account of action against Indians 77-79

Mentioned _ _ _ 73, 159-160

Ehle, E. M _ _ 117, 118

Elliott, Ben _.._............... 78, 79

Endicott, Joseph _ _ 126

Ennis, James G _ 86, 245

Eno, Edward B.

Report of operations _................... 114, 115

Report of raid on Granby _ 115

Mentioned _.._ _ 110, 111, 141, 154

Essig, Christian _.._ 35, 37

Estes, Capt _ _ _ 124, 154

Estus, Joseph _ _ _ 241

Ewing, General _ 159, 160

F

Fallion, A. J _ _.._. 26

Fidelity _ 24, 114

Finney, _ _ _ 245

Fishburn, Miss Mary J ana 207

Fisher, Henry 70, 98, 99, 131, 132, 207, 237, 245

Fisher, _ 207,208

Fitzgerald, Mr. . _... 208

Fletcher, Governor _....... 236, 237

256  

Ford, James H 223

Fountain, Pleasant 116

Fountain, Thomas 245

Franklin, 208

French Point 24, 119-121

Fullerton, J. H 241

G

Gaither, Lieut (or Cather) _ 101

Galentine, John ....•.................................._ 67

Garrett, Cameron 126

Gibson, Mrs. Jane 148

Gibson, John _ 148

Gibson, Isaac _....................... 148

Gibson, Terry 148

Golmer, Capt 37

Goade, Dave 202, 203

Goode, J. R 188, 193, 194

Granby, skirmishes at 77, 115

Grant, U. S 239, 240

Graves, John R. 32, 35, 37, 39

Greer, Col. 54

Gregg, W. H 153, 157

Griffith, Dr. E. R. 197,245

Griggs, 143

Guibor, H. 35, 43

Guthrie, Rich _ 181-184, 245

H

Hall, Dick _ 245

Halsell, John 45, 72

Hamilton, W. B 241

Hammer, Betsy 202-204

Hammer, George 62, 63

Hancock, Van Rennsler 126

Harmon, John 194

Haskell, T. J 44, 45

257

Hassendeubel, Francis 35

Hatcher, Ben _ 148

Hatcher, Harris _ _ _ 214

Hatcher, J. T. F _ ~ 148, 198, 245

Hatcher, John _ _ 148

Hawkins, T. H _ _ _.._ 194

Hawpe, T. C _ _ 85, 86

Hazelwood, H. J _ _ 76

Hazelwood, Jane Onstott

Tells of Ritchie's Indians _ _ 76, 77

Tells of burning of father's home _ 200-204

Mentioned _ _ 46

Hazelwood, T. R _ _ 245

Heiden, Whitey _.._ 221, 222

Henning, B. S _ 69, 101, 102, 106, 127, 128

Henry, Brice _ _ 188-190, 246

Henslee, M. C _ _ 119-121

Herron, Francis J _ _ _ 110

Heusted, Titus B. _ _ 197, 245

Hewitt, Monroe _ _ 194

Hickey, "Babe" 245

Hickey, Bannister _ 106

Hickey, Joshua _.._ _ 206, 207

Hickman, Mrs. Robinette (See Mrs. John Snodgrass)

Hindman, T. C _ 69

Hines, Sim _ _ 146, 147

Higdon, J~hn B _ _ _ 44

Holman, D. S _ _ 24

Hood, Joel P _ 140, 141, 142, 151, 196,246

Hood, Norris C _ 26, 45, 48, 67, 142, 208

Hood, Stephen 184

Hood, T. C _ _ _ _ 142

Hottel, R. L _ _.._ 180-183

Hottel, Mrs. Rhoda

Tells of skirmish _ 180-183

Hubbard, J. M _ _.._ _ 70

Hughes, John T _ _ _ 33, 35, 39

258 INDEX

Humbard, Ab _ 180-186

Hunt, Eugene 179

Hunter, DeWitt C _ _ 158, 160

Hunter, James A _.............•_ 28, 29

Hunter, Col. _.._ 71, 127, 219, 220

Hunter, Lieut _.__ _ _ _ _ _ __.__ _. 193

Hurst, Col. Edgar V _ 32, 35, 37, 39

Husten, _ _ _ __ _ _. 246

I

Ireland, Abraham _ _ _ _. 52

Ireland, Austin _ _ _ _ 52, 246

Ireland, Isaac _ _.._ _....... 52, 246

Ireland, John _ __ _ __ 52, 246

Irwin, _ _ _ 84

J

Jackman, S. D _ _ _ _ _.._ 71, 84, 110, 167, 177

Jackson, Chancey _.._ _ 246

Jackson, Claiborne _ 30-41, 47, 53

Jacobi, Lieut. Col ...•......_ _ _ __ _ 89, 90

James, Frank ...................................•......................_ 153

James, Jesse __ 154

Jarrette, John _.._..~ __ _ _ _ _ 153

Jasper County

Court house burned _ 158

Funds saved _ 45-47

Government in 1861 _ _ 44-45

Government in 1865 _ ~ _ 240-241

Records saved _ _ 47-48

Jennings, Edmund _.._ _._ xii xiii

Jennison, C. R.

Report by _ _ 222, 223

Mentioned _ _ 222, 228-231

Johnson, Ben C __ _ _ 208

Johnson, B. F•........._ _ _..•.................._.28

Johnson, Caloway _ _....•......................_ 194

259

Johnson, Mr 207

Johnson, Oliver 246

Johnson, W. P 209

Johnston, John J 25

Jones, Capt 160

Joplin, Site of 23, 24, 196

K

Keith, Sally 63

Kelley, Col _ 33, 35

Kelley, G. W 110

Kelso, John R _ _ 162, 178

Kendrick, W. B 159

Key, Ben : 93

King, A. A _ 152, 158, 160

Kirkpatrick Sisters 225, 226

Knight, Nelson 93-95

Knowles, Daniel 118

L

La Force, Samuel 26

Lake, Moses 86, 246

Landers, James 63

Langley, James 45, 79

Langley, Robinette _ -79

Lawrence, Alfred 132, 246

Lea, Capt 160

Leadville _.._............................................................. 24

Lee, Robert E 164, 239, 240

Levacey, Martin _ _ 162

Lindster, Dempsey 163

Lincoln, Abraham 25

Livingston, Joel T 85

Livingston, Thomas R.

Report of operations 12-1-126

Death of 136-138

260  

Mentioned. 24, 26, 45, 59, 84, 85, 101-105, 108, 114-127, 164, 246

Logan, Major General _.._ _ _ __ __ __ __ _. _.__ 219

Long, _ _.._ ._._ __.._ _ _ _._ 25

Love, Dr __ _ _ .__.. . . .__ _ _.. 208

Lucas, Samuel D..__ _ __.. _ . xv

Lynde, E _ __ . 89, 90

Lyon, Nathaniel .. _ _._.__._ _ _.__ 30, 31, 42

M

Margrave, C. B .__. _.__. .. __. _._. .__.__. 247

Margraves, Tip _ _ _ _ _._ _ _ ._ 27

Marmaduke, John S. _.__..__..__._ _ _.._ _.._ _ 79

Martin, Brice ._ . 61-63, 246

Martin, E. M _ _ _ _.. ._ _.. 194

Martin, John B .__..__ __ __ __ _ . _ __.. 44

Martin, Joshua _._ ._ _ _ __.__. . . 247

Martin, Thos _ _ . . 247

Mathews, Abraham _._ _ _ _.._ _._ 53,247

Maxey, Henry C _ ._._._.. 122

Mayfield Brothers _.. _ __ _ 247

Mayfield, Hiram _._._ __ _ .__. ..__ _._. 194

Meadows, ._._ _ _ _.__ _ . _.__ 141

Meadors, John ._ _ _ __._........ 246

Meadors, Jonas __..__._._.__ _ .__ .. . .._ .____ 246

Meadors, Moses ._. ..__ ._ _ 246

Medoc

In 1861 _.__ __ _ _ _ 23, 24

Military Company .__ ._.__._ 27

Murder and lynching at _ _ _._..__ _ _.__ 52

Skirmish near _ _ _.... 52

Mefford, David .

Report of operations _.__ __. _ 115, 116

Mentioned _..__ _._ __ . __ _................... 89

Meisner, Capt _ _ _ __. ., __ __..__. 37

Merricks Post . __ _ _. _. 24

Military Companies raised in 1861 _.. _ _.__. 27-29, 51

261

Minersville - _....... ..._ _ 24, 27

Mitchell, L. J - 210, 212, 216

Mitchell, Mr. ··························· _ c 208

Monroe, Col. .~ - _ _ 31, 34

Montgomery, Wm 81, 82, 86, 247

Montgomery, Mrs. Wm 81, 82, 86

Moore, Capt 114

Moore, Major - 217, 218

Moorehouse, James 96

Morris, Capt•................-..- _ _ 205, 217

Morton, P. D. G 102

Moss, Dr. D. F _ _ 64

Moss, Riley 64

Musgrave, Mrs.

Tells of Bud Shirley's Death 186-188

Correspondence with General Sanborn 232-235

Mc

McBride, James 247

McBride, Thomas _ 247

McCoy, Archibald _ _ __ 26, 44, 45, 71, 72, 209, 247

McCoy, Capt. (perhaps same as above) 93

McCown, James _ 32,35

McCulloch, Ben _ 40-42, 54, 55

McCullough, Capt _ 124

McDaniel, Gabe ~ 173, 247

McFarland, Robt. 208

McFarland, James _ 236

McGregor, M. G 154

McKinney, F. M _ _ 32

McKinney, John 247

McKnight, Moses 184

McMinn, W. A 136-138

McNeil, John _ 160, 161

McWilliams, 191

262

N

Nan, A. F xvi

Newtonia

Battle of, 1862 _ 89-92

Battle of, 1864 223-224

Skirmishes at _ 70

Nichols, F. B _ _ 241

Norris, Milt 186, 187

o

O'Kane, W. S _ 32, 35, 37

Oliver, Parson _ _ : _ 239

Onstott, Abraham _ 154, 155

Onstott, Sarah 46, 203

Onstott, John _.._ 45, 47,154,200,204

Onstott, Mrs. John ~ _ 46, 201

Orchard, Wm 24

Oronogo (See Minersville)

Osages, original inhabitants of Jasper county ix-xiv

Overton, Mariette _ 145

Overton, Miles 143-145, 207

Owens, Capt _ 32

Ozment, Ferd , _ __ 173,174

Ozment, Mrs 174

p

Palmer, Horace 122, 123

Parkinson, Wm 24,25,108,247

Parnell, Eliza 62

Parnell, T. V 194

Parnell, Marsh _ _................... 63, 64

Parsons, M. S _ 31, 33, 35, 37, 39

Paul, Coal 93

Paul, Rabe 93

Pearce, General 43

Pennington, E 208

Petty, James _ 129-131, 247

263

Petty, Wash ------ -.-.---------.--- .._ __ __.. 98-101

Peyton, R. Y. L -..- - -..- __ _._ 32, 35

Philips, J. F ----------..--..--..-----..----.---------_..~ -- _. _._.__ 110

Phillips, W. A -.----- - ._.__.__ __ 79,86,87,89,91,132

Pickler, Major .· -..------..-- -------------. __.159,160, 177, 188, 189, 192

Piercy, Andrew J -.---.------------------ ._.__ . .. . 216-218, 227

Platt, C. B. --- ---------------.--------------..- ..__._. __._.__.... --__ 209

Pool, Dave ---.- -.--.---- ----..----------- _. __. . . .__. 153

Preston

In 1861 ...-..-.---.--------.--------- . .__. . . .__._. __..._ 23

Skinnish near ----.----------.------ ,__..._._. _ 179-180

Price, Edwin -..-.--- -.-.---.-- ._. ._._.. .._ _ ._ 33

Price, John H. --- . .._.. ..._._..__.__ ._ 241

Price, Sterling

Report by ---__. .... .._. .. ._. ._ 219

Mentioned....33, 40-42, 55, 60, 124-126, 127, 157, 164, 176, 210, 217-219, 222-225, 227, 228, 23l.

Pritchard, Lieut __._ __.. .__.__. __ _ __. 110

Q

Quantrill, W. C•.__. ....__...._.._... .._._ .. ..._. 60, 101, 153-158, 167

R

Rader, Mrs _. _ . .. _ _. __ _ 125

Rader, George .__. _.._ _. __. 219-222

Rader, George _. __._.._ .__. .. ._. ._. . __._._._. 241

Rader, William ._. .__..._..._...__..__ . .__. 194-196, 248

Rae, Tom __...._... .__.. ._. . .__. 61, 62

Rafody, John _. __. . .._.. . 62, 63

Rains, James S. .__.. . .__ _. __ __ 25, 27, 30, 32-34, 38

Ramsey, James _._.. . . . .._.. . ..__ . .._.__. ..._.__._ 194

Rankin, Jake .__.__. . ..__.__._ __ . . ._. 67

Ray, W. F. _._ _.._._.__ _ . _ .. . . 194

Reynolds, T. C.. .__.__ . _ _.__. 157

Ritchie, N. F.

Report of Action at Shirley Ford .. ._._. . ..... 83, 84

Mentioned ._ .._ . _ __. . 74-76, 81

264

Ritchie's Indians 46, 74-77, 80-87 SbJ

Rives, B. A __ 33, 36, 38 Sbi

Roberts, S. E. Sbi

Report by 238-239

Mentioned 189 S!J

Robinson, 195, 248

Robinson, Umphrey _ 248

Roecker, Capt. 110

Rohrer, Capt 174, 175 ~

Rosecrans, General _ _._ _ __ 167, 178 S

Ross, ---- : 141 S

Ross, Stanfield 44, 47

Ruark, Capt. Ozias 193

Rusk, Dave 124, 141, 188, 189, 192, 221, 222

S

Saloman, Charles E. 35

SaJoman, Frederick 89-92

Sanborn, GeneraL..168, 176, 178, 188, 189,206,207,210-212,224, 227, 229, 230, 231-235, 236, 239.

Sarcoxie

In 1861 _ 23, 27, 29

Operations near 89-92, 149, 160, 161, 180·182

Killing of Bud Shirley at _.186-188

Sarcoxie Prairie, skirmish on 113

"Sarcoxie War" xiv-xvi

Saunders, J ames _ 249

Scaggs, J. W 194

Schickel, Lieut. 38

Schofield, J. M 92, 109

Schooler, Isaac _ 93

Scott, John J 45

Scott, Mrs. Sarah _ 186-188, 231-235

Scraper, George 84

Scruggs, Lewis 219

Seela, John N. U 68, 106-108

Seymour, Bob 190, 249

265

Shanks, .')6

Shanks, W. A _......................................................................... ~97

Shelby, Jo....32, 34, 36, 'il, 72-74,78,79,91,129,131, 149,150, 154, 157-161,176,177,218,219,221,223,224.

Sherwood

In 1861 23, 27

Burning of _................................................... 125

Operations and skirmishes near..102, 103, 115-118,125, 140.

Sheppard, Chas _ 136

Shirley, Bud _ 96, 129, 130, 186, 187, 249

Shirley, John 51, 129,209

Shirley, Mrs. John _ 187

Shirley, Myra _ 129, 187

Shirley Ford, action at _ 83-86

Sigel, Franz 30-43, 50, 56

Slack, William Y 33, 35, 39

Sly, George _ _ 143, 248

Sly, Levi _ 142, 248

Sly, Jackson, tells of brothers' death 142-143

Smith, Campbell _............................. 215

Smith, Edward, report of skirmish 126

Smith, Fry 249

Smith, R. W., report of , 179-180

Smith, Mrs. Sarah Ann 215, 216, 226, 227

Snead, T. L., account of events following battle of Carthage

.................................................................................................... 42-44

Snodgrass, John 79-81, 83,86,248

Snodgrass, Mrs. John 79-83

Snow, Thomas D _ 183

Southard, William B _ 248

Southwest News _ _ 24-26, 209

Sparks, Mr _ 184, 249

Sparlin, Jack 86, 248

Spence, Lazarus 56-58

Spence, Mrs. Adeline 56-58

Spencer, Billy _ 107

Spencer, John 107, 249

266 INDEX

Spencer, Wm _ _ _. 64

Stacy, Miles 57, 58

Stacy, Joshua _ : _ _. 58

Stand Watie 84

Stark, Capt. . _ _ _.._.._.._.._....... 37

Starr, Belle (See Myra Shirley)

Stecker, - _...........•............... 188

Stemmons, Felix B. . _ _.._ 49

Stemmons, J. B.

Tells of father's death 92-96

Tells of skirmish _ 190-192

Stemmons, Jaquilan M.

Death of -......................................................... 92-96

Mentioned 26, 49, 51, 132, 144, 248

Stemmons, John Martin _ ""'_""" 49

Stemmons, Napoleon L _ 49

Stemmons, T. J. .

Tells of wagons captured 98

Capture of Wash Petty _ 98-101

Attack on Bower Mills _ 97, 98

Skirmish in 1863 132

Shelby at Bower Mills _ 149-150

Skirmish with Kinch West 168-170

Skirmish with unknown guerrilla 170-172

Mentioned .... 49, 132, 149, 150, 173,174,188-192,205,237, 247.

Stemmons, Wilber _ 49

Stemmons, William H. .......................•........ 49

Stephani, Capt 37

Steward, Mrs. . _... 186-188

Stinson, Mr 208

Stith, Dan _ 248

Stockton, Capt~ _ 89, 90

St6rm·, William _ _ _ _... 248

267

Stotts, Green C.

Letter about Jennison 229

Mentioned....70, 98,99,113,132,139,169,174,176,180,185, 188, 204, 205, 212, 228, 230, 233, 237, 239.

Sutherland, Thos. B. _ 189, 197-200, 206, 207, 210, 211

Sweeney, T. W - _ 30

Swingle, F. . _.._.._..- _......................................................... 138

Swingle, Jackson _ 138

T

Talbot, S. J. .. - _..................................................... 28, 48

Taylor, Henry _ 240

Terry, James K _ 249

Thompson, Hiram _ _ 249

Thompson, Jeff _ 240

Thompson, Joe _ _ 55, 56, 61, 62

Thompson, Thos 249

Thornton, J. C 33

Tingle, William 24, 71, 72

Todd, George 153, 157, 167

Toney, Capt 160

Totten, General _ _... 92

Tracy, Col. _ 71

Tucker, Capt _ _. 160

Turk, Capt _ 141

V

Vaughn, Capt. _ _ _ "''''''''''.. 138

Vaughn, Richard _ _ 32

Vermillion, Mr _ _ _ 208

Vivion, Thacker _ xiv

W

Waggoner, 58

Walker, Burns 220, 249

Walker, George B. 65, 66, 103-106, 117-131, 173,219-222

Walker, James _ _ 65, 220, 249

268

Walker Sisters 216, 220, 226, 227

Walker, William J _.._ 165, 167, 176

Walton, Mrs _ _ 187

Walton, Thos. G _ _ 197, 198, 249

Warner, Mrs. C. C.

Account of Berry Bedford's death _ 96-97

Hanging of confederate 225-226 •

Webb, Jack _ _ _ 109

Webb, Thomas _ 250

Webb, _ _ 250

Weer, Col. ..__ _ _._ _ _ __ 75

Weightman, R. H _ _.._ 32,35,37,39

Welch, R. P _.._ _ _ _._ 137

Wells, John _.._.._..__ __ 152

West, Kinch _ 168-170

West, --- .._ __._ _ _ _ __ 168-170

Wheeler, D. L _ _ __ 145-149, 198-200, 212-215

White, John _ _._ _.._.__ 185, 186, 250

Whitehead, Jesse _ _108, 109, 250

Whitehead, John A 66-69, 106-108

Whitehead, Lydia Ann _.._ _._ 108, 109

Whitehead, William _.._ _ _............................................ 69

Wilkerson, William _ _._.. 250

Willet, W. R., account of death of Livingston __._._ _. 136-138

Williams, J. M.._._ _ __ 117, 118, 124, 126, 132

Wilson, Dr _ _ _ 184, 186

Wilson, John _ 250

Wise, Mrs. Ann F _ 134-136

Windsor, Beverly _ _ _ 86, 249

Wolff, Christian _ _ 35, 38

Woods, _ _ _ 162

Wright, Clark __ _ __ _ 49, 71

Wright, Josiah L _ _ 145-150

Wright, Mrs. Josiah L•........._._ _ _ 145-150

Wright, Major _ __ _ _ _ 84

YOl

lot

269

Y

16 Young, J. M _ _ 241

Younger, Cole _ _ , 153

Z

Zoph, Joseph __._ _._ 86, 250

,29 I