USA > Kansas > Bourbon County > History of Bourbon County, Kansas. To the close of 1865 > Part 10
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Springs, wells, water everywhere, gave out. The farmer sought the lowest "draw" on his place and dug down for water, sometimes with partial success. The creeks and larger streams were perfectly dry except in
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THE GREAT DROUTH.
1860]
the large "holes," which, ordinarily from ten to fifteen feet in depth, were reduced to muddy, stagnant puddles. There would often be a stretch of a mile or more be- tween these pools in which the bottom of the river was dry and dusty, and the dry leaves, lately fallen from the trees, would rustle and swirl in the little whirl- winds as they swept up and down the river bed.
In the latter part of September or first part of October the drouth was partially broken. It rained a little. The rains were not general or heavy, but it rained enough to freshen up the stagnant pools, and form many small ones. Stock water was not so scarce, and once more the cow and yoke of steers could have enough to drink.
The drouth had lasted for more than a year. Dates of its beginning and ending vary with localities, but it may be said, in general, that there were from twelve to fourteen calendar months during which time the total rainfall did not exceed one inch.
Of course all crops were practically a failure. In fields around the base of the mounds, which in ordinary years are wet and springy, and in some places in the low bottom lands some corn was raised, in some instances as much as five bushels to the acre, of little wormy-ended nubbins. Sorghum sugar cane did better than any other crop. In fact, it made a fair yield where planted, and all that fall the creak of the cane mills could be heard in neighborhoods where they had been fortunate enough to have planted cane.
In the year before, a good crop of cane had been raised on a small patch of ground on the farm of Dr.
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HISTORY OF BOURBON COUNTY. [1860
A. G. Osbun. In harvesting the cane that fall the seed had rattled out over the ground and in the spring it came up quite a thick "volunteer" crop. It grew that season about four or five feet high, being so thick on the ground, and was cut and put up like hay, and fed to the horses and other stock that winter.
Unfortunately but few farmers in this county had sorghum seed, and but little was planted. In Linn County this crop was quite general and very good. The farmers there made any amount of molasses, but some had nothing to "put it on." Children were often seen eating sorghum molasses off a chip instead of their much loved crust of corn bread.
This general failure of crops of course caused much suffering, especially as winter approached and the store of old corn in the country became more nearly ex- hausted. Many were compelled to leave the country temporarily, to seek subsistence. In such cases where the family had a claim it was the tacit understanding that their claims should be protected until their return the next year.
Efforts were begun that fall in the direction of secur- ing aid. Delegations were sent East to represent the facts and solicit help. Considerable aid was received in this county, but not as much as in that part of the country contiguous to the Missouri river, up which all freights had to come at that day. From here it was a round trip of two hundred miles to Wyandotte.
There were a few intermittent rains and snows during that fall and winter, but the flood gates were not opened and the streams flushed until early in April, 1861.
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STATE GOVERNMENT.
1861]
CHAPTER XXIII.
KANSAS ADMITTED.
ANSAS was admitted as a State on the 29th day of January, 1861. It came to the fireside of the Union only to witness the frowning and wayward sisters of the South departing, one by one, across the threshold, out into the darkness-out into the coming storm. But Kansas came not in the innocence of childhood, nor like "a fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs and waving tresses," but "like a bearded man ; armed to the teeth, one mailed hand grasping the broad shield and one the sword ; its brow, glorious though it be, is scarred with tokens of old wars." On its shield was written, Ad Astra per Aspera ; on its sword, Excalibur Expurgatorius.
The Territorial probation was at an end. The untried and unexampled task set before it had been accomplished, not as designed by the spirit of the past ages, but as marked out by the advancing rays of the Nineteenth Century.
STATE GOVERNMENT.
The Territorial Legislature adjourned on the 2nd day of February, to meet no more.
11
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HISTORY OF BOURBON COUNTY. [1861
Governor Charles Robinson was sworn into office on the 9th day of February, as the first Governor of the State of Kansas. He convened the State Legislature, elected under the Wyandotte Constitution, on the 26th day of March. The members of that Legislature from Bourbon County were : J. C. Burnett, of Mapleton, Senator. Horatio Knowles, of Marmaton, S. B. Ma- hurin, of Scott, and J. T. Neal, of Osage, were the Representatives. James H. Lane and S. C. Pomeroy were elected United States Senators on the 4til day of April.
CITY AFFAIRS.
The population of the City of Fort Scott was now about 500. At the regular spring election for muni- cipal officers the result was as follows :- Mayor, Joseph Ray ; Councilmen, H. T. Wilson, J. S. Redfield, A. McDonald and Chas. W. Blair; Clerk, William Galla- her; Treasurer, C. W. Goodlander; Recorder, J. S. Miller ; Assessor, A. R. Allison ; Marshal, R. L. Philips; Street Commissioner, J. G. Stuart.
The vote was 83, which indicated about the popula- tion of 500, as stated.
IMPENDING CRISIS.
The Southern States had now nearly all seceded and their Provisional Government was in full operation at Montgomery, Alabama.
Still, the people of Bourbon County, in common with the entire North, laid the flattering unction to their
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IMPENDING CRISIS.
1861]
souls that in some way, or by some means, the impend- ing war might yet be averted. The Governor of the State had appointed four commissioners to the Peace Convention, two of whom had voted for peace and compromise. Meetings were held in various parts of this county, all of which expressed sentiments of con- servatism, and especially a spirit of conciliation towards the people of the neighboring State of Missouri living along our border. The leading Democratic citizens of Fort Scott united with the Republicans in a letter to James H. Lane, inviting him to come down and make a speech. He accepted, and came about the 15th of March, and spoke at a public meeting that day.
The attendance at the meeting was very large, and included many citizens of the adjoining portion of Missouri. Lane advocated the cultivation of amicable relations between the people of the two States. He advised the belligerent portion of the Kansas people to "get a bag of meal under the bed, a liam in the cellar, and a dress for the baby," before engaging in a war which would be certain to desolate and impoverish the whole country.
A few days afterwards-about the 20th-a large and enthusiastic meeting of the citizens of Linn and Bourbon Counties, Kansas, and Vernon County, Mis- souri, was held at Barnesville. It was presided over by H. G. Moore, Sheriff of Bourbon County. Byron P. Ayres, of Linn County, was secretary. James H. Lane, W. L. Henderson, A. B. Massey, J. T. Neal, Ben Rice, George A. Crawford, Chas. W. Blair, C. W. McDaniel, Geo. A. Reynolds, and A. Burton were
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HISTORY OF BOURBON COUNTY.
[1861
appointed a committee on resolutions. The resolutions were conservative throughout. General Lane after- wards addressed the meeting in about the same tenor as in his speech at Fort Scott.
The circumstances attending this meeting, -the con- gregation of a mass of men who had been so long in a whirling eddy of sectional discord, -the appointment on working committees of men who had heretofore entertained such widely differing opinions, -is worthy of historical note.
The old order of things had passed away. The public mind was adjusting itself on new lines; the political atmosphere was clearing up-clear as a bell, and the bell had but one tone.
WAR.
On the 12th of April, 1861, was fired the first gun of the civil war. By a singular coincidence the deed was performed by an old fellow with whose name we have become quite familiar. It was Ruffian. He was probably not the "Ruffian" of our acquaintance, but his act in pulling the lanyard over that old smootlı- bore Napoleon gun, which fired the first shot against Fort Sumpter, was the climax of the political doctrine that had been taught, not only to our Border Ruffian, but to the entire people of the South. The firing of that gun was the natural and logical sequence and culmination of that spirit-that political essence -- which the people of Kansas had contended against for four long years, and which the Government, and the
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WAR FEELING.
1861]
people of all tlie other states were to now take up on an appeal, and enter into a gigantic trial of another four year's duration.
The artillery "heard around the world" on that April day opened the greatest conflict the world has ever seen. It was the grandest, most momentous sound ever heard on earth. Artillery is God's own music. The reverberating thunder of artillery, the steady tread of contending hosts-fierce, bloody war- these are God's instruments for the advancement and civilization of the human race, and have been since the days of Joshua.
Every war in every nation,-every war between nations,-cuts through the filmi of ignorance on the eyes of the people, and advances the banner of regener- ation and disenthralment. The real camp followers are freedom, tolerance, invention, science. War breaks the fetters of the serf and the slave; it unyokes the woman from the plow team; it casts off the wooden sabots of the listeners to the Angelus.
THE WAR FEELING IN BOURBON COUNTY.
After the war had actually commenced, -after the first "overt act," as we called it, the conservatism, the doubts, the hesitation, of our people were laid aside, together with their politics. The Democrat, the only newspaper in the county, came out early and declared that it abandoned all party affiliations and announced itself "for the constitution and the union, and a supporter of the new Administration so long as it shall
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HISTORY OF BOURBON COUNTY. [1861
labor in the direction of their perpetuity." That was the universal sentiment. If war must come the feeling was not only to prepare for it but to prosecute it to the end. Our people realized, also, more nearly than those of other sections of the North the full import of what was to come. The "Ninety Day" theory of Secretary Seward met with no believers. The opinion was, also, often expressed, that the war would result in the extinction of human slavery on this continent.
On Thursday night, April 24th, there was a Union demonstration, the most enthusiastic yet held in the town. The demonstration was entirely impromptu- nine-tenths of those who took part in it being aroused from their slumbers at midnight. As each one joined the procession he was greeted with three cheers, followed by three times three for the Union. "The Red, White and Blue," "Star Spangled Banner," " Yankee Doodle," "Hail Columbia," and other patriotic airs were sung amid the wildest applause. All party feeling was buried beneath the glorious plat- form of National Union. It was a scene worthy of our town, and one long to be remembered with feelings of deep emotion by every true and loyal citizen.
At a meeting held in the office of C. W. Blair, Esq., Wednesday evening following, two volunteer com- panies were organized and the following officers elected: First company-Captain, C. W. Blair; First Lieutenant, A. R. Allison; Second Lieutenant, R. L. Phillips; Third Lieutenant, Chas. Bull; Ensign, Wm. R. Judson. Second company-Captain, A. McDonald; First Lieu-
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WAR FEELING.
1861]
tenant, Charles Dimon; Second Lieutenant, William Gallaher; Third Lieutenant, A. F. Bicking; Ensign, O. S. Dillon. The officers were elected by the com- bined vote of both companies, leaving each man to decide afterwards with which company he would con- nect himself.
There were two companies formed in Drywood town- ship about this same time, under command of Captains Henry Coffinan and E. J. Boring, and one company on the head of Lightning Creek officered by John T. Mc- Whirt, Roswell Seeley, John Tully, John F. Gates and Sam McWhirt.
The first two Fort Scott companies were finally con- solidated, and called themselves the "Frontier Guard." The boys started for Lawrence to be mustered into the service. At Lawrence Captain Blair was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel of the 2d Kansas, which was to be the regiment of the Fort Scott company. After a few days rest at Lawrence, the regiment left for Kansas City for inuster-in. When they got to Wyandotte, about June Ist, most of the Fort Scott boys concluded they had seen enough service and returned home. The larger part of them, however, went into the army afterwards. "Frontier Guard No. 2" was raised soon afterwards by W. T. Campbell, and a company was raised on Mill Creek by Captain Hall.
All this was the usual preliminary business that occurred at that time all over the country, with the object of not only testing who really wanted to go to war, but who were prepared at short notice to leave home for an indefinite time.
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HISTORY OF BOURBON COUNTY. [1861
The Fourth of July had now come, and was quite a gala day in Fort Scott. It had been arranged that Fort Scott Guards, Nos. 1 and 2, should have a parade and drill, and several companies from the surrounding country were invited to join them. The company from Drywood (cavalry,) Capt. Boring, and Mill Creek com- pany, (infantry,) Capt. Hall, responded to the invitation.
At 10 a. m. the Guards formed at their respective armories, and after a little marching and counter- marching, went out to meet and escort in Captain Boring's company. The field music was excellent. The Drywood boys were received with hearty cheers and escorted into town, where the Mill Creek boys were inet and received with like cordiality. After din- ner the cavalry was drilled by Captain John Hamilton, and the infantry had a battalion drill under E. A. Smith. At five o'clock the battalion was dismissed, and all parties returned to their homes, mutually pleased with the Fourth of July and each other.
On the 5th day of July the battle of Carthage was fought. This occasioned great alarm and appre- hension. We had a war sure enough and it was getting uncomfortably close.
Shortly after the Carthage affair General Lyon authorized Captains W. T. Campbell and W. C. Ransom to raise two companies of one hundred men each, to serve as Home Guards. Then two other com- panies were raised by Captains Z. Gower and Lewis R. Jewell, and these four companies were the origin and foundation of the Sixth Kansas Cavalry.
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BATTLE OF DRYWOOD.
1861]
CHAPTER"XXIV.
BATTLE OF DRYWOOD.
HE proximity of war in Missouri led J. H. Lane, who was posing as Brigadier General of Volunteers, in command of Kansas troops, to "fortify" Fort Lincoln, on the Osage River. The work done there, in a military or common sense view, was simply idiotic. He went down on the very lowest bottom land of the river, where lie threw up an earth-work about the size of a calf-pen and then blazoned it forth as a great military fortification.
In the latter part of August a considerable force was being concentrated at Fort Scott. Old Jim Mont- gomery had of course, by this time, gotten a regiment together, and five companies of the Third Kansas under him arrived on the 20th of August. Other Kansas troops arrived from time to time until the aggregate force was about two thousand men. Fort Scott was now headquarters for General Lane's brigade.
The rebel Generals, Price and Raines, were operating in Western Missouri with several thousand men, and contemplated an attack on Southeastern Kansas. On the Ist of September General Raines with his division approached within twelve miles of Fort Scott, on the
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HISTORY OF BOURBON COUNTY.
[186]
southeast, and a scouting party came within two miles of town and captured a corral full of mules, and drove in Lane's pickets. A force of 500 cavalry with one 12 pound howitzer, was sent out the next day to reconnoitre. They ran into the rebel pickets and drove them across Drywood creek, where they were reinforced, and quite a rattling good skirmish was fought, until the ammu- nition of the Union forces gave out, when they fell back in good order on Fort Scott. The official reports give the Union Joss in this action as five killed and twelve wounded. The rebel loss was about the same.
In the meantime the infantry force occupied the heights east and southeast of town. These troops were reinforced by an impromptu company, organized that morning, of such men as McDonald, Drake and the other citizens who were not already in line on the hill. This company was sworn into the service, drew arıns and ammunition, and marched to the front in two rows like regulars. They still belong to the army. They were never mustered out. Some of them have their arms yet. Drake says his old musket is down in the cellar now, with the same load in it he put in on that day. Some of these days a little Lieutenant inay come along and order them out on advance picket with three days' cooked rations, or he may order theni to the Soldier's Home. They never drew pay. They are presumably entitled to back pay and bounty up to date. They are certainly all entitled to pensions by reason of rheumatism, superinduced by exposure while in line of duty. But they did their full duty that day, and if there had been a fight would have held on as long as anybody.
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THE SIXTH KANSAS.
1861]
The entire force waited on the crest of the hill until night for the expected attack of General Raines. About dark a raging thunder storm-which follows after all great battles-came up, and the boys, concluding that it would affect the rebels just as it did them, returned to town and sought shelter in camnp.
That night General Lane ordered the entire force to fall back on Fort Lincoln, twelve miles north, on the Osage, leaving Fort Scott to the mercy of anybody that might come along. A scouting party of fifty men could have gutted and burned the town without oppo- sition. Lane displayed here his usual cowardice when confronted by real danger. It is said that he would have burned the town himself-had actually ordered the torch applied-but he was prevailed on by the citizens to wait at least until the rebel force had crossed the State line. Of course, there was great commotion in town. The non-combatants, women and children- excepting Mrs. Wmn. Smith, Mrs. H. T. Wilson, Mrs. John S. Miller and one or two others, who decided to wait awhile,-were loaded into wagons and driven out west toward Marmaton. The torch was ready to be applied to every building in town on the first appearance of the rebel troops on the summit of the eastern hills. But they did not appear. General Raines was at that moment making a forced march on Lexington, Mis- souri, by au order that day received from General Price, and Fort Scott thus escaped utter annihilation.
THE SIXTH KANSAS.
The Sixthi Kansas Cavalry was organized at Fort
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HISTORY OF BOURBON COUNTY. [1861
Scott on the 9th of September, 1861. A large part of this regiment was Bourbon County men. W. R. Judson was Colonel. The first Lieutenant-Colonel was Lewis R. Jewell, who was killed at the battle of Cane Hill, Ark., November 28, 1862. W. T. Campbell was then promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, and served through the war. Wyllys C. Ransom was Major. C. O. Judson was Adjutant until March, 1862. Isaac Stadden was then Adjutant until August, 1862. The Quarter- inasters were successively Geo. J. Clark, S. B. Gordon, Charles W. Jewell and Levi Bronson. Dr. John S. Redfield was surgeon until February 21, 1865, when he was mustered out and returned home. Capt. John Rogers, Captain of Company K, was killed by bush- whackers near the south line of this county on the 2nd of June, 1864. John G. Harris, lieutenant of Company K, was badly wounded at Cane Hill, Ark., by a ball passing clear through his neck. He recovered, and after the war was Sheriff of Bourbon County. The other line officers of the Sixth Kansas who lived in this county have been mentioned.
Jewell County in this State was named in honor of Colonel Lewis R. Jewell, when that County was organized in 1867, at the instance of Samuel A. Manlove, who was that year a member of the Legisla- ture from Fort Scott.
Fort Scott was again established as a military post and a depot of supplies. From two thousand to ten thousand troops were inaking transitory stops here, arriving and departing and shifting about as the necessities of the case seemed to require. Long wagon
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SOME MORE POLITICS.
1861]
trains of Government supplies, - hardtack, bacon, beans, rice, coffee and sugar, of the Commissary depart- ment, and blue uniforms, boots and shoes, blankets, etc., of the Quartermaster department were constantly coming and going, and the grand chorus of a thousand voices from the mule corral was the first thing heard in the morning and the last at night.
SOME MORE POLITICS.
In October, 1861, the Republican State Committee was petitioned by a large number of voters to nomi- nate a State ticket, and a special and emphatic request was made in the petition that a patriotic and energetic man be named for Governor on a war platform. They claimed that Governor Charles Robinson was impotent and inefficient, and that by the terms of the State Constitution his term of office expired January 1, 1862, notwithstanding the enactment of the Legislature extending the term. The committee in response to these petitioners nominated a full State ticket with George A. Crawford, of Bourbon County, for Governor. There was no other ticket in the field for State officers. The location of the State Capital was to be voted on, and members of the Legislature were to be elected. The election was held on the 5th of November. Mr. Crawford and his ticket received more than one-half as many votes as the total vote polled on the State Capital question, but the State Board of Canvassers refused to canvass the vote. Mr. Crawford took the case to the Supreme Court, and it is the first case
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HISTORY OF BOURBON COUNTY. [1861
reported in the First Kansas reports. It is held by the Court that the act of the Legislature of May 22, 1861, provided for the election of Governor at the general election of 1862, and that the election of the Crawford ticket was null and void.
Topeka received the majority of the vote cast for State Capital.
Eli G. Jewell and Geo. A. Reynolds were elected to the Legislature from Bourbon County.
On the 2nd of December, 1861, General J. W. Denver was ordered to Fort Leavenworth, and placed in command of the Kansas troops.
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VARIOUS THINGS.
1862]
CHAPTER XXV.
VARIOUS THINGS.
N the Spring of 1862, a considerable force was con- centrated at Fort Scott, consisting of the Ist and 6th Kansas, the 9th, 12th and 13th Wisconsin, the 2nd Ohio Cavalry and Captain Rabb's 211d Indiana Battery. The 5th Kansas Cavalry, which had been camped at Barnesville all winter was placed under command of Col. Powell Clayton. In the early spring this regiment was marched through Fort Scott to Dry- wood. It remained there a few days, when Clayton got permission to take the regiment out of this department, and he hustled it off down on the lower Mississippi. Sam Walker, who has been mentioned several times during the border troubles was Major of this regiment. James Montgomery was Colonel of the 3d Kansas, and afterwards he was transferred to the command of a colored regiment in South Carolina, where he probably renewed his acquaintance with Buford and the Hamn- iltons, or at least with their kinfolks.
Speaking of the Hamiltons, nothing reliable is known of that particular group, after the war began. They all probably went into the rebel army. It is said that in the fall of 1861, Captain Bain, with a portion of the
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HISTORY OF BOURBON COUNTY.
[1862
6th Kansas, captured several persons over in Missouri, and on his way up he camped one night about two miles south of Arcadia. The next morning, after they had broken camp and started on the march, Bain took a detail of inen, and, selecting out seven of the pris- oners, took them off to one side of the road and killed them. Bain gave it out that they were with the Ham- ilton gang at the Marais des Cygnes murder. That was possibly true, but it was more probable that they were Bain's personal enemies
The Kansas troops liad now been in the service sev- eral months, and they began to think they were old veterans. Most of them had quit writing letters to their folks more than twice a week, and they had all learned the best manner of cooking beans, and pre- paring hard-tack so that it would seem like something else. Their ideas of war were somewhat changed before they got through with it.
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