Chapter 18:
- General Price's expedition in Missouri -- the Southern women of Missouri -- Clark and Jackman take Glasgow-fight at Little Blue -- guerrilla warfare in Missouri -- a retaliation of Federal Outrages -- General Halleck's order -- Lawrence burned in the retaliation for the burning of Osceola.
General Price did not reach Batesville until the 12th of September, 1864. He remained there one day and reached Pocahontas on the 16th. His command for the expedition into Missouri consisted of three divisions, led respectively by Fagan, Marmaduke and Shelby. General Fagan's division was composed entirely of Arkansas troops—the brigades of Gen. W. L. Cabell, Col. W. F. Slemons, Col. A. S. Dobbin, Col. T. H. McCray, and four pieces of artillery—aggregating about 4,000 men. General Marmaduke's division was composed of his old brigade, commanded by Brig.-Gen. John B. Clark, Jr., Freeman's brigade, and a four-gun battery—in all about 3,000 men. General Clark was an infantry officer and unaccustomed to handling cavalry. Some time before, Gen. D. M. Frost's wife had passed through the lines with the consent of the Federals to visit her husband. She determined to return to her home by the way of Matamoras and Havana. General Frost got leave of absence to accompany her to Matamoras and place her on shipboard. But when she embarked he went along, and the Confederate army knew him no more. Colonel Clark was appointed brigadier-general in his place. Clark's brigade included the Third Missouri cavalry, Col. Colton Greene; Fourth cavalry, Col. John Q. Burbridge; [180] Seventh cavalry and Davies' battalion, Col. Solomon G. Kitchen, Lieut.-Col. J. F. Davies; Eighth cavalry, Col. William L. Jeffers; Tenth cavalry, Col. Robert R. Lawther; Fourteenth battalion, Lieut.-Col. Robert C. Wood; Hynson's Texas battery, Capt. S. S. Harris' Missouri battery, Capt. J. T. Hogane's engineer company. Col. Thomas R. Freeman's brigade was composed of his regiment, that of Col. Edward T. Fristoe and the battalion of Lieut.-Col. Barney Ford. General Shelby's division included his old brigade, under Col. David Shanks; the Fifth Missouri cavalry, Col. B. Frank Gordon; Eleventh cavalry, Col. Moses W. Smith; Twelfth cavalry, Col. David Shanks; Col. Benj. Elliott's cavalry command; Lieut.-Col. Alonzo W. Slayback's battalion; Capt. Richard A. Collins' battery: Col. Sidney D. Jackman's brigade, including Jackman's cavalry under Lieut.-Col. C. H. Nichols; Col. DeWitt C. Hunter's cavalry; Lieut.-Col. D. A. Williams' battalion; Lieut.-Col. John A. Schnable's battalion, section of Collins' battery, Lieut. Jacob D. Connor; and Col. Charles H. Tyler's brigade, including the cavalry commands of Cols. Caleb Perkins, John T. Coffee and James J. Searcy. The aggregate of Shelby's division was about 3,000 men. Altogether the army under command of General Price aggregated about 10,000 mounted men and twelve pieces of artillery. General Price crossed the Missouri tine on the 5th of October, moving in three columns, with Shelby on the left, Marmaduke on the right, and Fagan in the center. Price marched with the center column. Governor Reynolds marched with Shelby, and did service on his staff as volunteer aide-de-camp. Shelby struck the enemy first. A body of Federals leaving the little town of Doniphan, burned it. A detachment, sent in pursuit by Shelby, came up with them, and they never burned another. General Price's orders were that the army should march on an average fifteen miles a day, and the [181] different columns should form a junction at Fredericktown at a given time. Shelby had the exposed side—that toward the interior of the State—and took the liberty of going as he pleased. He captured Patterson and forty of Leper's band of marauders without firing a gun. He also reached Fredericktown two days ahead of time, and, finding neither of the other columns there, took Mineral Point and tore up miles of railroad track between Potosi and Iron Mountain. When Fagan and Marmaduke reached Fredericktown Shelby was there, loaded with supplies, which he shared with the other less fortunate commands. General Price took Ironton, that is to say, the Federals evacuated the town and Fort Curtis, September 27th, and retired to Fort Davidson at Pilot Knob. This was a strong, irregular fortification, surrounded by a deep and wide ditch, partially filled with water, and difficult under any circumstances to cross. Price determined to assault the fort, though the opinions of his division commanders were opposed to it. Marmaduke's division was ordered up from the east of Fredericktown and he was ordered to attack the fort from Shepherd mountain, while Cabell attacked from the plain. Marmaduke was assured there was no ditch around the fort. Cabell made an attack upon the plain and was repulsed, because there was no way of getting into the fort after he reached it. Clark's brigade dismounted, advanced down the side of Shepherd mountain through a heavy growth of scrub-oak, and attacked, just after Cabell had failed, and failed as he had because the men could not cross the ditch. Some of them got so close to the fort as to be under the enemy's guns, and remained there till night. That night General Ewing, who was in command of the garrison, blew up his magazines, left his dead and wounded behind, evacuated the fort and retreated in the direction of the southwest branch of the Pacific railroad. No pursuit was attempted until nearly noon the next day, [182] and then with the start Ewing had it was futile. In the attack on the fort Maj. G. W. Bennett of Clark's brigade, a splendid officer and man, was killed; Col. J. C. Monroe of Cabell's brigade was wounded, as also were Lieut.-Col. John C. Bull and Major Thomas of Fagan's staff. The loss of Cabell's brigade was particularly heavy, he himself having his horse killed under him. At Pilot Knob it became evident that General Price did not intend to try to take St. Louis—though he might have done so by a rapid march and a bold dash—for he moved northwestward in the direction of Jefferson City. In other words, it became evident that the expedition was a raid, and had no other object than to go to the Missouri river, scatter the Federal garrisons in the towns of the river counties and in those of the southwest, and return to southern Arkansas He took such towns as Franklin, Herman, Union and Washington and their garrisons, if they had any, as he moved slowly up the Missouri river. Jefferson City he found so strongly fortified and garrisoned that he was content to drive in the outposts and pass around it. In forcing the passage of the Osage, October 6th, Col. David Shanks, commanding Shelby's old brigade, was so severely wounded that he had to be left behind, and Gen. M. Jeff Thompson was assigned to the command of the brigade. Shelby was ordered to take the direct road from Jefferson City to Booneville, and by a forced march surprise and capture the town and its garrison. This he did, except that part of the garrison which escaped across the river on the steam ferryboat General Price, with Fagan's and Marmaduke's divisions, marched southwest to Versailles, and then turned and marched northwest to Booneville. At California the road General Price was moving on joined the road Shelby had taken. Fagan's division with General Price was in front, Marmaduke's in rear. The ammunition train was between the two divisions. When Pagan passed through California, [183] no force was thrown out to hold the road by which Shelby had come from Jefferson City. The Federals in Jefferson City, finding the army withdrawn, concluded to follow Shelby, and, just as the ammunition train reached California, drove in the stragglers on the unguarded road. Marmaduke was riding at the head of his division with his escort company, and just behind him was his battery. He had barely time to unlimber his artillery before the Federals appeared. When the artillery opened upon them they naturally supposed it was supported and drew back to form a line of battle. The delay was fatal to them. By the time they were ready to charge, Clark's brigade was in line, and though the fight was hot for an hour, the ammunition train was saved and eventually the enemy repulsed. In the towns and counties above Jefferson City the sentiments of the people were strongly Southern, and General Price's army was received with enthusiasm, especially by the women, who were not restrained in their words and acts by any suggestions of policy or expediency. Indeed, the Southern women of Missouri were as loyal and true to the cause and as brave and heroic in the support they gave it and its defenders, as the women of any part of the South. At the hazard of their lives they made their homes hospitals to care for the sick and the wounded, and when they were not safe in their houses hid and fed them in the woods and in caves, until they recovered or died; in the one case starting them to the army again and in the other giving them decent burial. This spirit of heroism and disregard of consequences was not confined to the country. They were as true in the towns as in the country. Nowhere were they more active and zealous and self-sacrificing than in St. Louis. No Southern soldier lacked for friends among the Southern women to feed him, to secrete him, to supply him with arms and money and whatever else he needed, to give him a horse and a guide. [184] and start him to the army—in that city crowded with Federal soldiers and alive with detectives and spies. Half the time Confederate commands in the West drew their medicines and lighter forms of ammunition from St. Louis through the aid of the Southern women there. As General Price's army passed through these western counties his soldiers were everywhere treated, not only hospitably, but royally by the women. Old and young they gathered on the roadside to see them pass and to speak kind words to them, and in their houses they were received and treated as honored guests. General Price remained at Booneville three days, and then left to avoid being hemmed in between the LaMine and the Missouri rivers. The immediate cause of his leaving appeared to be that a heavy body of Federal cavalry got possession of the Tipton road, and were with difficulty dislodged for the passage of the troops. At Salt Fork, in Saline county, General Clark and his brigade of Marmaduke's division, reinforced by Colonel Jackman's brigade of Shelby's division, were detached in order to cross the river at Arrow Rock and capture the garrison at Glasgow, six or seven hundred strong, under command of Col. Chester Harding. The troops crossed on a steam ferryboat, and the boat was then run up to near Glasgow to be ready to recross them at that point after they had taken the town and captured the garrison. The Federals occupied a heavy earthwork and were in a position to have made a strong fight if they had been properly commanded. But Colonel Harding did not seem anxious to do more than make a show of resistance. That done, surrender followed as a matter of course. Jackman's brigade, which got in position before Clark's did, drove the enemy into their works without difficulty; and then, through the agency of the principal citizens of the town, came negotiations for surrender, which were soon consummated, apparently to the satisfaction of all the parties concerned. Shelby moved up on the opposite [185] side of the river, just before daylight, with a section of artillery, and before Clark had opened the fight disabled a steamboat loaded with clothing and army stores, and kept her under his guns until Harding surrendered. As soon as Clark's detachment joined the main body, General Price moved into Lafayette county, Lexington being his objective point. En route, on the Salt Fork road, Shelby's command met Gen. Jim Lane of Kansas, who had come down from Leavenworth in force to annihilate Price's army. There was no commander in the Federal army whom Shelby was more anxious to meet than Lane, and his officers and men were as anxious as he was. Gordon's, Hooper's, Crisp's and Elliott's regiments of the old brigade, and Jackman's brigade, joined in the charge and vied with each other in the fierceness of their assaults. Shelby led the charge in person, and it was a running fight almost from the first. Lane was driven through Lafayette county and Lexington, and did not consider himself safe until he reached Independence, in Jackson county. On the advance from Salt Fork, Gen. Jeff Thompson, with Shelby's brigade, made a detour to Sedalia to take in Col. John F. Philips and his command, who held the town. Thompson took the town, and Philips was so closely pressed that he left his pistols behind, which Thompson captured. All this time danger was gathering fast around the army. General Rosecrans had come on the railroad to Sedalia with a strong force, and was advancing on Price from the east. Another heavy force had been concentrated at Leavenworth under command of General Curtis, and was advancing to meet him from the west. These two forces were rapidly approaching, with Price between them. Price, however, did not quicken his leisurely gait or appear in the least disturbed. At the crossing of the Little Blue, a few miles below Independence, October 21st, Marmaduke had a stubborn fight with a brigade of Colorado troops under command of General [186] Ford. The enemy attacked his advance just after it had crossed the stream, drove it back on the main body and charged and nearly captured his battery, which he had hastily got in position. Though beaten back the enemy formed and charged again, but Marmaduke had got another regiment over and repulsed them. Again they formed and for the third time charged the battery, but by that time Marmaduke had got all Clark's brigade over and repulsed them decisively. Shelby, who was behind Marmaduke, crossed the stream higher up and attempted to cut the enemy off, but failed on account of their rapid withdrawal. He fell in their rear and took up the pursuit, carrying on a rapid, running fight with them. In one of the sharp brushes, Capt. George Todd, one of Quantrell's captains, and a noted guerrilla fighter, who was up with the advance guard, was shot through the neck and died in a few minutes. The guerrilla warfare in Missouri was more bitter and merciless than in any other State; but as far as Southern men who took part in it were concerned it was strictly a war of retaliation. In September, 1861, Jim Lane with a body of Kansas jayhawkers took and wantonly burned the town of Osceola in St. Clair county. Later in the fall of that year the butcher, McNeil, had ten prisoners, many of them non-combatants, shot because one Andrew Allsman, of whom they knew nothing, had disappeared from his home and could not be found. In November, 1861, Col. C. B. Jennison, of the First Kansas cavalry, issued a proclamation to the people of the border counties of Missouri, in which he said: ‘All who shall disregard these propositions (to surrender their arms and sign deeds of forfeiture of their property) shall be treated as traitors and slain wherever found. Their property shall be confiscated and their houses burned; and in no case will any one be spared, either in person or property, who refuses to accept these propositions.’ Indeed, the Federals boasted of their barbarity. On December 27th, [187] 1861, the St. Louis Democart stated that ‘Lieutenant Mack, sent out to Vienna with twenty Kansas ranges, returned yesterday. He brought no prisoners, that being a useless operation about played out.’ The Rolla Express of the same date said: ‘A scouting party of rangers, which left this place last week for Maries county, has returned. The boys bring no prisoners—it isn't their style.’ At that time there was not an organized Southern guerilla band in the State. The first organization of that kind was effected in Quantrell. In January, 1862, he had seven men with him and operated in Jackson county. During that month Capt. William Gregg joined with thirteen men, making his force twenty. After that his command increased rapidly. They had many fights and took many prisoners, but always paroled them. In a fight at Little Santa Fe Quantrell and his band were surrounded in a house, the house was set on fire, and they fought their way out, one man being wounded, captured and taken to Fort Leavenworth. Shortly afterward Quantrell captured a Federal lieutenant. He proposed to the Federal commander to exchange the lieutenant for his man. The commander refused. He then paroled the lieutenant and sent him to ask the commander to make the exchange. The commander still refused. The lieutenant reported back, and Quantrell released him unconditionally, but his man was shot. On the night of the 20th of March, 1862, Quantrell with sixty men camped on Blackwater, four miles from California. Early on the morning of the 21st he got a copy of the St. Louis Republican, which contained General Halleck's proclamation outlawing his band and all other bands of partisan rangers, and ordering Federal officers not to take them prisoners, but to kill them wherever and under whatever circumstances found. Quantrell said nothing of the proclamation until he had formed his men next morning. Then he read it to them, [188] told them it meant the black flag, and gave every man who could not stand that kind of warfare permission to retire and return to his home. After a short consultation twenty of the men turned and rode away. Never until then had Quantrell or his men shot a prisoner or a Federal soldier who offered to surrender. They accepted the black flag when it was forced on them and fought under it, but it was not of their seeking nor did they inaugurate that kind of warfare. The capture, sacking and burning of Lawrence, Kan., was in retaliation of the sacking and burning of Osceola by Jim Lane and his men more than a year before. The fight, and massacre as it has been called, at Centralia, was in retaliation of the killing of one of Anderson's sisters and the crippling for life of another by undermining and throwing down a house in Kansas City in which they with other Southern women were confined. Missouri was isolated and cut off from the rest of the Confederacy. It was far removed and practically beyond the range of vision of the civilized world. There was a Federal garrison in nearly every town and at nearly every crossroads. Any manifestation of freedom on the part of the people was repressed by banishment, the destruction of property or death. There was no law. The courts were terrorized, and the nominal officers of the law were puppets of the military power. Fire and sword, rapine and murder, reigned supreme, and the guerrillas simply paid back the insults and wrongs to which they and their families and their friends were subjected. They fought in the only way in which they could fight, and they fought to kill. [189]
