USA > Missouri > Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I > Part 85
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Private
Executive Mansion, Washington, Nov. 19, 1862.
Judge S. Treat,
St. Louis, Mo.
My dear sir:
Your very patriotic and judicious letter, addressed to Judge Davis, in relation to the Mississippi, has been left with me for perusal. You do not estimate the value of the object you press more highly than it is estimated here. It is now the object of particular attention. It has not been neglected, as you seem to think, because the West was divided into different military districts. The cause is much deeper. The country will not allow us to send our whole western army down the Mississippi, while the enemy sacks Louis- ville and Cincinnati. Probably it would be better if the country would allow this, but it will not. I confidently believed last September that we could end the war by allowing the enemy to go to Harrisburg and Philadelphia, only that we could not keep down mutiny, and utter demoralization among the Pennsylvanians. And this, though unhandy sometimes, is not at all strange. I presume that if an army was starting to-day for New Orleans, and you confidently believed that St. Louis would be sacked in consequence, you would be in favor of stopping such army.
We are compelled to watch all these things.
With great respect,
Your obt. servant, A. LINCOLN. .
Grant and Missouri.
William H. Swift gave the writer this account of a conference held in the office of the State Journal at St. Louis early in 1861, before hostilities began in Missouri. The editor was Deacon Tucker. His paper was looked upon as the organ of the democrats who sympathized most strongly with the South. Gov- ernor Claiborne F. Jackson came from Jefferson City to attend the conference. David H. Armstrong, Basil Duke, Robert M. Renick were among the St. Louisans present, while the interior of the state was represented by half a dozen generals and colonels of the state militia. The purpose of the conference was to select some one to command the state troops. Governor Jackson proposed Captain U. S. Grant. Deacon Tucker urged the selection of Sterling Price. At that time Price was a pronounced Union man. He had presided over the state con- vention which declared against secession. Governor Jackson continued to urge the reasons why he favored Grant until Mr. Dent, the father-in-law of Captain Grant, strenuously opposed the proposition. The choice fell. upon Price. The day after the conference an effort was made to find Grant, when it was dis- covered that he had gone to Illinois. Shortly afterwards he offered his services to Governor Yates and was given a regiment. Price clung to the hope that he
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THE STATE THE STAKE
779
could, with his state guards, preserve the neutrality of Missouri; that the United States troops would not go outside of the arsenal and Jefferson Barracks against the protest of the state government. Then came the capture of St. Louis militia in Camp Jackson. Price joined his fortunes with the Confederacy.
Grant had tried to establish himself permanently in St. Louis. He lived several years in his own house. On the 15th of August, 1859, he filed his appli- cation for the appointment of county engineer. Addressing his letter to the county commissioners, he submitted the names of "a few citizens who have been kind enough to recommend me for the office." He added, "I have made no effort to get a large number of names nor the names of persons with whom I am not personally acquainted." The petition bore the signatures of these :
Thomas E. Tutt
Daniel M. Frost
Felix Coste
Fred Overstolz
Robert M. Renick
Bauman & Co.
John P. Helfenstein
Robert J. Hornsby
Wm. L. Pitkin
Taylor Blow
Thomas Marshall
J. A. Barrett
James M. Hughes
John O'Fallon
K. Mckenzie
, John Mitchell
John F. Darby
George A. Moore
J. G. McClellan
N. J. Eaton
R. A. Barnes
Charles A. Pope
Thornton Grimsley
G. W. Fishback
W. S. Hillyer
Sam B. Churchill
J. McKnight
C. S. Puskett
L. A. Benoist & Co.
John How
C. W. Ford
L. G. Pardee
Edward Walsh
A. J. Robinson
James C. Moodey
Accompanying the application were the following high indorsements :
St. Louis, August 1, 1859 .- Capt. U. S. Grant was a member of the class at the mili- tary academy, West Point, which graduated in 1843. He always maintained a high stand- ing and graduated with great credit, especially in mathematics, mechanics and engineering. From my personal knowledge of his capacity and acquirements, as well as his strict integrity and unremitting industry, I consider him in an eminent degree qualified for the office of county engineer. I. I. REYNOLDS.
Professor Mechanics and Engineering, Washington University.
I was for three years in the corps of cadets at West Point with Capt. Grant and after- ward served with him for some eight years in the army, and can fully indorse the fore- going statements of Prof. Reynolds. (Signed) D. M. FROST.
On the back of the application was indorsed, "1859. application of Captain U. S. Grant to be appointed county engineer. Rejected."
During the Civil war this indorsement was changed to read, "Not appointed."
The county commissioners were John H. Lightner, Benjamin Farrar, William Taussig, Alton R. Easton, and Peregrine Tippett. Mr. Easton and Mr. Tippett voted for Grant. The others voted for Charles E. Salomon. With grim satire General Grant, in his memoirs recalled this experience :
While a citizen of St. Louis and engaged in the real estate agency business, I was a candidate for the office of county engineer, an office of respectability and emolument, which would have been very acceptable to me at that time. The incumbent was appointed by the County Court, which consisted of five members. My opponent had the advantage of birth over me (he being a citizen by adoption), and carried off the prize.
780
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF MISSOURI
The Grants never returned to St. Louis to live but the memories of the chil- dren of the general clung to the early home. General Grant acquired the estate of his father-in-law, White Haven, and maintained it for years. While at the head of the army and while President he made several visits to the place. He looked forward to the time when he might retire and spend his declining years there. During the World's Fair, General Frederick Dent Grant spoke feelingly of the house in which, as a boy, he had lived. He visited it in company with Cyrus F. Blanke and was photographed, sitting on his horse, at the front door. Mrs. Nellie Grant Sartoris always showed strong affection for St. Louis. When Nellie Grant's marriage occurred in the White House, John N. Edwards wrote for the St. Louis Times a congratulation from St. Louis which brought from Mrs. Grant a personal letter full of appreciation for the remembrance of the Grants by their old time friends.
Missouri, the Civil War Kindergarten.
Just before the Civil war, Ulysses S. Grant was selling wood in St. Louis; William Tecumseh Sherman was managing the Fifth street railroad; John M. Schofield was an instructor in Washington University. They rose to the rank commanding the United States army. Franz Sigel was teaching school in St. Louis and Peter John Osterhaus had a little business across the river. They became major generals of volunteers in the Union army.
Phil. Sheridan, too, saw his earliest Civil war experience in Missouri. He came to Jefferson Barracks a captain in 1861. The first duty of the man who was to become the great cavalry leader on the Union side was clerical. He was assigned to audit accounts in the quartermaster and subsistence department. Then he was made chief commissary of the army of Southwest Missouri. He surprised Halleck and Curtis by performing in addition the duties of chief quartermaster in the campaign through South Missouri leading to the battle of Pea Ridge. Sheridan did so well in providing supplies and transportation for an army of 15,000 men over the muddy roads and across swollen streams that after Pea Ridge his appeal for a part in the actual fighting secured him the com- mand of a regiment of cavalry and his great career began. But the point is that out of Missouri as the Civil war kindergarten came the great commanders on the Union side.
The year before Camp Jackson, in 1860, the militia of St. Louis were ordered into camp under the same provisions of law that applied to the formation of Camp Jackson. Among the militia companies which went into camp in 1860 were Germans who, the next year, participated with Lyon in the capture of Camp Jackson. Captain Stifel who commanded a regiment of Lyon's force had a company of militia cavalry under Frost in the camp of 1860. Some of the German militia in the camp of 1860, it was found, had difficulty in understand- ing the commands given in English. At Captain Stifel's suggestion, Franz Sigel, then a St. Louis school teacher, was employed to translate commands into Ger- man so that German militia could learn the tactics. This was carried out. A few months later Sigel was in command of one of the Lyon regiments which marched on Camp Jackson. His men sang through years of war their song "Fight mit Sigel." A statue of Sigel stands in Forest Park.
781
THE STATE THE STAKE
From the little army with which Lyon fought the battle of Wilson's creek in August, 1861, came seven major-generals and thirteen brigadier-generals. Of the southern rights Missourians who fought in that same battle seven rose to be general officers in the Confederate army.
When the year 1861 closed there had been fought in Missouri and for the most part between Missourians, sixty-one battles. The losses on the Union side were 500 to 600 killed, 2,000 wounded and 3,600 taken prisoners. The losses on the Confederate side were about the same.
Lincoln, in a letter about the close of the year, wrote, "Before Spring the people of Missouri will probably be in no favorable mood to renew for next year the troubles which have so afflicted and impoverished them during this."
1
CHAPTER XXIV
CIVIL WAR IN MISSOURI
A Great Emergency-The Man of the Hour-"Old Sanitary"-Organising the Plan of Relief -Merciful Missourians Behind the Firing Lines-Major Hodges' Narrative-James E. Yeatman-The Sanitary Fair-Assessment of Southern Sympathisers-Dr. Eliot's Protest to President Lincoln-Desperate Character of the Conflict-Women Took Sides -The Spirit of Jael-A Wooden Leg Shot Off-How Ben Prentiss Assessed-Secret Lodges-The Missouri Chaos "Stampeded" Sherman-A Leave of Absence-The Story of Insanity-A Long Hidden Confidential Letter-Halleck Called Upon to Explain- Missouri in the War Records-The Policy of Extermination-"War Is Butchery on a Grand Scale"-Guerrillas "Should Not Be Brought in as Prisoners"-"Forty-one Guer- rillas Mustered Out by Our Boys in the Brush"-William F. Switzler on "The Reign of Terror"-Missouri Warfare as John F. Philips Saw It-Graphic Story of the Charge on a Church-Retaliation by Order of General Brown-Bill Anderson and the "Kansas First Guerrilla"-A Defiant Proclamation-The Death of Anderson-Depopulation Suggested for Boone County-A Man Hunt in the Lowlands of the Southeast-"We Killed in All Forty-seven"-The Paw Paw Militia Controversy-Gen. Clinton B. Fisk's Reports-A Brush Expedition in Western Missouri-The War on Smugglers-Gen. John McNeil's Order to Burn-Fisk Said, "Pursue and Kill."
In Missouri the war was waged with unspeakable bitterness, sometimes with inhuman cruelty. It was fought by men in single combat, in squads, in companies, in regiments, in great armies, in the open, in fortified town, and in ambush, under the Stars and Stripes, under the Stars and Bars, and under the black flag .- Champ Clark.
Unpreparedness was the state of the Union when Civil war broke out. Men could be enlisted. Guns and uniforms could be bought. Cartridges could be made. The fighting began as if no thereafter was taken into. account. Back from the front trickled the earliest human stream of wounded and sick. It swelled rapidly as the months passed. The fighting became heavier. Born of a great emergency, late in the summer of 1861, the Western Sanitary Commission came into existence.
From the battlefield of Wilson's Creek in mid-August were brought to St. Louis 721 wounded men. In the whole city there were not hospital accommoda- tions for so many. Medical Director De Camp had established an army hospital at the St. Louis House of Refuge only four days before the battle but was not ready for patients. According to an official report the hospital "had neither stoves nor bedsteads, nor beds, nor bedding, nor food, nor nurses, nor anything prepared. The first 100 arrived at night. They had been brought in wagons 120 miles over a rough road, by hurried marches, suffering for food and water, from Springfield to Rolla, and thence by rail to St. Louis, and to the station on Fourteenth street. Then, having had nothing to eat for ten hours, they were put into furniture cars and carried the remaining three miles. Bare floors, bare
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CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF MISSOURI
walls and an empty kitchen received them. The kind-hearted surgeon obtained from the neighbors cooked food for their supper, and lost no time in getting together the means for their comfort. The poor fellows were so shattered and travel-worn that they were thankful to get food to eat and hard boards to sleep upon, and no word of complaint was heard from them. In the course of the week 300 or 400 more arrived. Conditions were improving, but there was so great a difficulty in obtaining what was wanted that many of the badly wounded lay in the same unchanged garments in which they had been brought from the battle- field three weeks before, but in the course of a month all were made comfortable. The sick and wounded continued to arrive and other accommodations had to be secured without delay. All the wards of the Sisters of Charity hospital and the City hospital were filled. The sad and neglected condition of those brought from Springfield excited the sympathies of the patriotic people. The wounds of many had not been dressed since leaving the battlefield, others were suffering from unextracted bullets and pieces of shell, and the hospitals were unprovided with clothing to substitute for that which in many cases was saturated with the blood of their wounds."
The Western Sanitary Commission.
Of such conditions was brought into activity the Western Sanitary Commis- sion. Fremont launched the organization on its career of mercy by declaring in a military order: "Its general object shall be to carry out, under the properly constituted military authorities, and in compliance with their orders, such san- itary regulation and reforms as the well-being of the soldiers demands."
The general proceeded to indicate in specific details some of the services which might be performed. These were the selection and furnishing of build- ings for hospitals, the finding of nurses, the visiting of camps, the inspection of food, the suggestion of better drainage, the obtaining from the public of means for promoting the moral and social welfare of soldiers in camp and hospital.
To avert friction and enlarge usefulness, Fremont concluded his order with the following: "This commission is not intended in any way to interfere with the medical staff or other officers of the army, but to cooperate with them and aid them in the discharge of their present arduous and extraordinary duties. It will be treated by all officers of the army, both regular and volunteer, in this depart- ment with the respect due to the humane and patriotic motives of the members and to the authority of the commander-in-chief."
The hour had come. Where was the man? The people recognized the emer- gency. Hearts were throbbing with sympathy. Hands were ready to contribute. St. Louis was the center of activities for an extensive military front. Here troops were mobilized. Hence armies moved southwest and south. Here sup -. plies were received and forwarded. Back to St. Louis came the boatloads and trainloads of wounded. Whether Fremont's Western Sanitary Commission meant much or little depended upon the head. The man was found. He was southern born, a native of Tennessee. He had lived in St. Louis nearly twenty years. He was a banker, a little past forty years of age.
James E. Ycatman made the Western Sanitary Commission. Good men of St. Louis held up his hands. They were named with him-Carlos S. Greeley,
.
C. S. GREELEY Of the Western Sanitary Commission
JAMES E. YEATMAN Head of the Western Sanitary Commission
DR. JOHN T. HODGEN Surgeon of the Western Sanitary Commission
GEORGE PARTRIDGE Of the Western Sanitary Commission
Vol. 1-50
787
CIVIL WAR IN MISSOURI
Dr. J. B. Johnson, George Partridge and Rev. Dr. William G. Eliot. They were wise in counsel, efficient in assistance. But Mr. Yeatman was "Old Sani- tary" to the soldiers in a thousand circling camps. This banker, in the prime of manhood, had a bed put in a room connected with his office so that he might be ready to respond to any call. He was on duty while he slept. A great organ- ization was gradually built up .under Mr. Yeatman's direction. Everywhere in the north were local branches of the Western Sanitary Commission. The great work of relief was systematized and made effective. The collection and for- warding of supplies contributed were directed and controlled as a banker might deal with his country correspondents. There was no waste.
One of the first acts of Mr. Yeatman and his associates was to fit up and open a hospital for five hundred soldiers on Fifth and Chestnut streets. Surgeon John T. Hodgen was given charge. In this building were received the sanitary stores contributed from hundreds of cities, towns and villages. As needed, these stores were distributed. Hospital after hospital was prepared and opened as the wounded increased in numbers. Hospital boats were put in service to bring the wounded from the battlefields. A soldiers' home was opened in St. Louis to care for the furloughed and discharged sick as they came from the front. The mili- tary prisons in and around St. Louis were filled with Confederate soldiers and those who sympathized. The Western Sanitary Commission carried its work of relief into the prisons. Refugees flocked to the city and were temporarily cared for. Homes for soldiers' orphans were provided.
Nowhere else in the country was there a like center of suffering and misery from the war. Nowhere else were relief measures of such magnitude under- taken. The efficiency of Mr. Yeatman's organization came to be recognized the' country wide. An appropriation of $50,000 by the State of Missouri was made for the commission. Another of $25,000 came later. The government of St. Louis made appropriations and placed the money in Mr. Yeatman's hands. Gifts came from all parts of the country. Here was the suffering. Here came the contributions. In the midst of business depression, of war hard times, the Mis- sissippi Valley Sanitary fair held in St. Louis produced more than $500,000 When the books of the Western Sanitary Commission closed, they showed that Mr. Yeatman had handled in money and stores for mitigation of the horrors of war $4,270,098.55. The magnificent liberality had been begotten of implicit confidence in the integrity of the Western Sanitary Commission.
Year after year, almost from the very beginning of hostilities, Mr. Yeatman gave himself to this work. Repeatedly he left the headquarters of the commis- sion in St. Louis and went to the front to see for himself the needs. He sought the suffering and applied the measures of relief. It was this personal visita- tion and inspection that won for him the tender regard of the soldiers and the affectionate title of "Old Sanitary."
Wonderful Details of Work.
Major W. R. Hodges, of the Loyal Legion, has described in graphic detail the work of the Western Sanitary Commission :
"In September came the siege and battle of Lexington, Mo., which threw 300 more wounded into the hospitals of St. Louis, and within two months five additional hospitals
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CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF MISSOURI
were provided. The commission fitted up two hospital cars on the Pacific railroad with: berths, nurses, cooking arrangements, etc., probably the first of the kind in the United States. The commission continued their voluntary labors without abatement; appeals for contributions were made through the newspapers and were generously responded to by New England, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and other western states.
"In February came the battle of Fort Donelson, where 2,108 of our soldiers were wounded. An associate member of the commission, Doctor Pollak, accompanied by nurses, members of the Ladies' Union Aid Society, proceeded at once by rail to Cairo and thence by steamer to Paducah with sanitary stores. The wounded had been brought to this point. The steamer Ben Franklin was placed under their charge, and loaded with wounded. It was brought to St. Louis. It was then that the suggestion of hospital steamers was made by Medical Director Simmons and embodied in the report of the commission with the pledge that if the suggestion were approved the commission would take the whole care and labor of carrying it into execution. The plan was approved by Gen. Halleck, and the City of Louisiana was chartered and on the 20th of March she was thoroughly fitted with beds and commissary stores, the commission completing her outfit at an expense of $3,000.
"Her first trip was to Island No. 10, under the charge of Mr. Yeatman, as a great battle was expected there. Soon after came the battle of Shiloh, and this boat conveyed 3,389 patients to northern hospitals. She was soon after purchased by the government and renamed the R. C. Wood in honor of the assistant surgeon general of the United States Army.
"During the month of February, 1863, the Western Sanitary Commission distributed 13,250 articles of hospital clothing, food for the sick, bottles of cordials and stimulants, etc., and the members labored unceasingly night and day in making the distribution.
After Pea Ridge.
"On the 7th and 8th of March, 1862, the battle of Pea Ridge was fought, and 980 Union soldiers were wounded. This battle field was 250 miles distant from Rolla, the railroad terminus. The roads were of the worst description, through a half civilized country, mountainous, without bridges, and without hotels, stripped of forage for teams and food for men, subject to raids and murders by guerrilla bands. It was impossible to bring the wounded to St. Louis. The army of Gen. Curtis was deficient in transporta- tion, and the medical department was most miserably provided with means for caring for the wounded. Surgeons were without hospitals, clothing, stimulants, or bedding for the wounded, and the supply of medicines was exceedingly limited. The country was thinly settled, mostly log houses, with few of the necessities of life. The courthouse at Cassville and all the principal dwellings were filled with wounded, and the same was true of Keites- ville. A few of the officers were taken by ambulance to Springfield. The commission at once despatched its agent with hospital supplies to the front. In his report, he says, 'At Cassville I found two large tents, six buildings, including the courthouse and tavern, used as hospitals. The patients were lying on the floors, with a little straw under them, and with knapsacks or blankets under their heads as pillows. They had no comforts of any kind, no change of clothing, but were lying in the clothes they fought in, stiff and dirty with blood and soil.'
"There were 400 Federal wounded here. The stores were turned over to the different hospitals, and never was a provision train more joyously greeted by starving men than this ample supply of hospital supplies by these sick and wounded soldiers. The Confederate wounded were treated with the same consideration as our own. There were two Con- federate surgeons, and one said to the agent of the Sanitary Commission, 'We are Texans. Our army has treated us shamefully; they stampeded and left us here with our sick and wounded men, and I will tell you, sir, that for two days we had nothing to give our poor fellows but parched corn and water. Every Federal officer and man has treated us like gentlemen, and Gen. Curtis told me that so long as he had a loaf of bread we should have half of it.' The agent said, 'I visited the hospitals at Pineville. No provision had been made by Price, and our scanty supplies had been shared with them. For twenty-five miles around every house was a rebel hospital. We had three there then. There was at this point a total absence of stimulants and men were dying for want of them.'
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CIVIL WAR IN MISSOURI
At Vicksburg.
"During February and March, 1863, while the army of Gen. Grant was occupying the low region of country above Vicksburg, exaggerated reports of sickness among the troops were published by northern newspapers.
"Mr. Yeatman went down and made a personal inspection and on his return published an account of his visit. While he found a large amount of sickness, his report tended to allay undue apprehension. He directed the agent of the commission to immediately establish his headquarters near Vicksburg for the distribution of supplies. After the assault by our forces on the 19th and 22d of May, Mr. Yeatman made a second visit, in charge of the steamer Champion, accompanied by surgeons and nurses and dressers of wounds to the number of fifty-five, taking with him 250 tons of sanitary supplies, besides cots, mattresses and everything necessary for the care of 1,000 men. At the time of his arrival all sanitary stores were exhausted and the new supplies were received with grati- tude. In his report he said: 'Supplies were distributed most liberally wherever wanted. Blessings were invoked by both surgeons and men for this timely care in providing for them, in the great extremity which always succeeds a series of battles and which can only be fully provided for in this way. No parched and thirsty soil ever drank the dews of heaven with more avidity than did those wounded men receive the beneficent gifts and comforts sent to them through this commission.' One hundred and fourteen thousand, six hundred and ninety-seven articles were distributed to Gen. Grant's army prior to the fall of Vicksburg.
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