USA > Missouri > Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I > Part 89
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War on the Smugglers.
A good deal in brief space was told by Capt. J. W. Edwards, commanding at Cape Girardeau : "I sent a scout, under Lieut. Davis, of twenty men, Tuesday morning, up the country around Wolf island and vicinity. They returned Thursday evening, having scouted the whole country within six miles of Charles- ton and also on the river. They succeeded in breaking up large gangs of smug- glers, killed three authorized Confederate smugglers and three noted guerrillas ;. they broke up seven skiffs and one flatboat that were used by the smugglers; just opposite Columbus captured two horses and some contraband goods. I think it has been a severe lesson to them. The guerrillas murdered John Gard- ner Tuesday morning near Fugitt's. They shot him sixteen times and robbed him of his money and horses. Neute Massey and four of his gang did it. Lieut.
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Davis killed John Hancock, who was Massey's right-hand man and was a regular authorized Confederate smuggler. I think the scout did well."
One of Gen. John McNeil's Orders.
In the latter part of September, Gen. John McNeil, commanding the District of Rolla. in sending out a scouting party issued this order :
"Lieut. L. Storz, 5th Regiment Cavalry Missouri State Militia, will proceed, with twenty-five men and five days' light rations in haversacks, to the country between Mill creek and Spring creek, in search of guerrilla bands and disloyal persons. The former will be pursued and exterminated, taking no prisoners in arms, except such as voluntarily sur- render previous to conflict. The latter when found guilty of harboring and feeding guer- rillas will be warned out of the state and their houses burned, their fences and crops destroyed. The inhabitants of the country will be warned that aiding and assisting the enemies of this government, whether in regular force or when acting as guerrillas, will call down certain destruction on them, and that the commandant of this district gives them a friendly warning, which he hopes they will heed, and save him from the disagreeable duty that will devolve on him when they are detected in such practices. Lieut. Storz will call on the officer in command at Little Pina for a guide and such advice and assistance as he may need in the execution of these orders. He will make the power of the government felt and respected in the counties he moves through by the good order and discipline of his men and respect for the property of the loyal; next, by the destruction of every house and farm where the occupants have violated the repeated orders of this department against feeding and harboring or giving aid and information to bushwhackers."
Forced Contributions in Callaway.
Assistant Provost Marshal Charles D. Ludwig sent in from Fulton, Callaway county, a discouraging review of the situation :
"During the past month the bushwhackers have been more troublesome in this sub- district than at any time before. The bands are numerous and large, and it is impossible for small squads of men to scout, as the bushwhackers in every instance, nearly, out- number them, and they are better mounted and better armed. In the first part of August the troops here, in conjunction with a company stationed at Columbia and a small squad of Illinois men, had a fight with bushwhackers in Boone county, under command of one Todd, killing and wounding several of the latter. About the middle of August a squad of from twenty to forty were in the eastern part of this county, and on the 20th entered Portland, robbed stores and made the citizens pay a tax of $25 a head. They went to the place of Mr. Martin, on Nine-mile prairie, and robbed him of $5,000. They collected over $10,000 in this manner, besides several fine horses. A squad of soldiers sent out from here fell in with these scoundrels the next day and killed one of them. The bushwhackers are concentrating in Boone county. There is a rendezvous in Prussia Bottom, above Provi- dence, in Boone county, where there are from 300 to 500 men, who lately crossed the Missouri river. They are not mounted, but are procuring horses very fast, and are splen- didly armed. They are recruiting with great success. It is beyond a doubt that most of the drafted men in this and Boone county will join them, as it is openly avowed by many. An outbreak is feared here every moment, and Union men are fleeing from their homes. David Cunningham, a citizen of Boone county, a preacher, is recruiting bushwhackers. He is said to have eighty men. This man is one of the wealthiest citizens of Boone county, and holds a large real estate, as also others who are now in the rebel service.
"There can be nothing done with the troops here, as only a few men of Company L, Ninth Missouri State Militia Cavalry, are mounted. The enrolled militia is apparently dis- solved, as many of them have joined the twelve-months' troops and the rest went home. It is a sad fact that the men of Company L, Ninth Missouri State Militia Cavalry. are
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dreaded even by loyal men nearly as much as bushwhackers, as their officers seem to exer- cise but little control over them. They have a very loose discipline on scouts as well as in camp, as the empty hen houses and watermelon patches, etc., can testify. Complaints are coming in nearly every day of depredations committed by these men, but I am at a loss how to detect the transgressors and bring them to justice, as I have never met with the desired aid and co-operation from the hands of Capt. T. L. Campbell, commanding post here, and the men, knowing this, pay very little respect to the property of private citizens, who are insulted and annoyed by such vandalism."
Congratulations from General Fisk.
Maj. Austin A. King, 6th Missouri Militia, sent in a report that he had come upon Holtzclaw's command east of Roanoke, Howard county. In a running fight of five miles he killed six men and wounded several. "I congratulate. you," Gen Fisk wrote from St. Joseph to Maj. King, "on the good beginning of the bushwhacking campaign. Strike with vigor and determination. Take no prisoners. We have enough of that sort on hand now. Pursue and kill. I have two of Holtzclaw's men, just captured. They state that he camps, when in Howard county, in the rear of old man Hackley's farm, not far from Fay- ette. Make a dash in there at night, and get him if possible. Let a detachment secretly watch his mother's residence. He is home almost daily, and his sisters are great comforters of the bushwhackers. Old man Hackley has a son in the brush. I shall soon send out of the district the bushwhacking families."
CHAPTER XXV
RECONSTRUCTION THROES
A State Without a Government-Secret Conference in a Newspaper Office-Midsummer Session of the Convention-State Offices Vacant-Provisional Authority Established- Willard P. Hall's Keynote-Judge Philips on Anomalous Conditions-Erratic Course of Uriel Wright-Governor Gamble's Death-The Enrolled Militia-Lincoln's Advice to Schofield-Missouri Problems in Washington-A Baby Christened "Sterling Price"- The President's Plain Words-Seventy "Radical Union Men"-Encouragement from the Abolitionists-Reception at the White House-Drake and the Address-A Prayer to Send Ben Butler-Enos Clarke's Vivid Recollections-Lincoln's Long Letter-The Matter with Missouri-"Every Foul Bird Comes Abroad and Every Dirty Reptile Rises Up"-Election of 1864-Blair on the Permit Iniquities-Constitutional Convention- Immediate Emancipation, Test Oath and "Ousting Ordinance"-A Revolutionary Proposi- tion-Removal of One Thousand Judges and Court Officers-Judge Clover's Frank Re- port-Ousting Vital to Reconstruction Policy-Supreme Court Removed by Force from the Bench-A Military Demonstration-Thomas K. Skinker's Valuable Contribution to History-Lincoln and Blair in Accord-The President's Plans for the South-Restora- tion, Not Reconstruction-Farewell Message to Missourians-Plea to Get Together.
The dissensions between Union men in Missouri are due solely to a factious spirit, which is exceed- ingly reprehensible. The two parties ought to have their heads knocked together .- President Lincoln to James Taussig, in May, 1863.
In July, 1861, Missouri was without civil government. "The governor and the legislature had fled the state," said Thomas Shackleford. "I was called to St. Louis to meet other parties in regard to the situation. In an upper room of the Planters' House, Nathaniel Paschall, editor of the Missouri Republican, had a conference, at which I was present, to determine what it was best to do under the circumstances, to prevent anarchy. Mr. Paschall said he had come to the conclusion that it was best to depose the present governor and elect a pro- visional governor. He said that in the next issue of the Republican he would advise this. This was done, and in accordance with the advice, the convention was called together."
Upon the adjournment in March, after declaring in favor of the Union, the convention had provided for future possibilities- by giving to a committee the power to reassemble the body.
The convention met in Jefferson City on the 22d of July. Its president, Ster- ling Price, was not there but most of the members were. Three of the state officers, the treasurer, auditor and register of lands, who had left with Jackson, came back, swore allegiance to the United States and took up their duties. The governor, the lieutenant-governor and the secretary of state, the official staff
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of the legislature and most of the state clerical force were away. The first action of the convention was the appointment of a committee to consider this extraordinary situation of a state without a government. In three days the committee came into the convention with a solution of the problem. The com- mittee proposed that the convention declare those offices, the holders of which had fled, to be vacant. They recommended that the convention appoint men to fill these offices until a special election could be held; that the convention abolish the legislature which had created it; that the provisional governor be authorized to order a special election for a new legislature. The committee further recom- mended that the convention repeal the military law and other legislation passed by the legislature to facilitate the secession of Missouri; and that the militia law of 1859 be revived. These recommendations reconstructing state government were promptly adopted. The convention chose Hamilton R. Gamble, governor ; Willard . P. Hall, lieutenant-governor, and Mordecai Oliver, secretary of state. The convention not only did this but immediately inaugurated the new state officers.
The New Order of Things in Missouri.
The keynote of the new order of things in Missouri was struck by Mr. Hall when he took the oath as lieutenant-governor :
"I believe, gentlemen, that to Missouri, Union is peace and disunion is war. I believe that today Missouri could be as peaceful as Illinois, if her citizens had recognized their obligations to the Constitution and laws of their country. Whatever might be said by citizens of other states, certainly Missouri has no right to complain of the general government.
"I believe it to be a fact that there is no law of general character upon your statutes that has been enacted since Missouri came into the Union, but has received the vote and support of the representatives of the state. Whatever we have asked from the government of the United States has been given to us most cheerfully. We asked a liberal land policy and we got it; we asked grants for our railroads and we got them; we asked for a fugitive slave law and it was given to us; we asked that our peculiar views in reference to the finances of the country should be regarded, and even that was granted. In short, if the people of this state had the whole control of the Federal government, if there had been but one state in the Union, the very policy which has been adopted by the general government would have been adopted as best calculated to advance the interests of the state.
"Notwithstanding the denunciations we sometimes hear against the government of the United States and the assaults made upon it, I am free to admit, that when I reflect upon the history of this state, when I remember its humble origin, the proud and exalted position it occupied but a few months ago, my affections do cluster around the government of my country. As a Missourian I desire no change in the political relations that exist between this state and the government of the United States; and, least of all, do I desire such a change as will throw her into the arms of those who have proved unfaithful to the high trust imposed upon them by a generous and confiding people."
Judge Philips on the Anomalous Conditions.
More than eighty members attended this meeting of the convention. The vote unseating the state officers and creating a provisional government was fifty-six to twenty-five. In his paper prepared for the State Historical Society, at Columbia, Judge John F. Philips described in graphic manner the conditions which confronted the delegates :
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"The state treasury was depleted, and the convention was left without the means of defraying its own expenses. There was no military force to protect the state in the condition of exposure to anarchy. The state was under martial law; and a German military com- mandant, with but crude ideas of civil government, was dominant at the state capital. Under the recent census the state was entitled to two additional representatives in the Congress of the United States, demanding a new apportionment of the Congressional dis-" tricts, or a legislative enactment providing for the manner of securing such additional representation. The legislature had disbanded without making any provision therefor.
"What was the duty of the members of the convention in such a conjuncture to the people of the state who had sent them to the capital to represent them? Were they to display the moral cowardice of those 'who do not care what becomes of the Ship of the State, so that they may save themselves in the cockboat of their own fortune,' or should they first save the state, and leave their action to the sober judgment of posterity? They chose the latter course.
Uriel Wright's Course.
"Naturally enough the few favoring secession or nothing, and others in sympathy with the absent state officials, desiring that nothing should be done conflicting with the mere theory of their official existence, vigorously opposed any action of the convention other than an adjournment sine die. The opposition was led principally, in so far as talking was concerned, by Uriel Wright of St. Louis, who had come to the convention as an unconditional Unionist; and at its first session had made a three days' speech in opposi- tion to the whole theory of secession, minimizing the grievances of the seceding states, with a force of eloquence that enthused, beyond description, the entire convention, including the presiding officer, General Price, who while with dignity seeking to repress the applause of the galleries said to me on adjournment, in walking to the old Planters' House where we boarded: 'That speech was so fine I, too, felt like applauding.' But alas, for the in- firmity of great geniuses, Wright was carried off of his high pedestal by the small incident of the Camp Jackson affair, and came to the July session of the convention anxious to display the usual zeal of the new convert. So he turned loose the whole vocabulary of his invective against everything and everybody pro-Union. To my conception he was the most brilliant orator of the state, with a vast wealth of historical, political and literary information. Like a very tragedian he bestrode the platform, and with the harmony of accent and emphasis he charmed like a siren. But he was unsteady in judgment, unstable in conviction and inconsistent of purpose. And, therefore, was wanting in that moral force that holds and leads thoughtful men. His rhetoric went into thin air before the severe logic and more sincere eloquence of such men as Judge Gamble, the two brothers, William A. and Willard P. Hall, John B. Henderson and James O. Broadhead."
The Convention's Authority.
The convention was authorized in the act creating it "to adopt such measures for vindicating the sovereignty of the state, and the protection of its institutions as shall appear to them to be demanded." The southern rights majority in the legislature intended these words to mean secession. The convention found in them the power to go forward and reconstruct an entire state government loyal to the Union. Judge Philips said :
"The arguments advanced in favor of the power of the convention to establish a pro- visional government to meet the emergency may be summarized as follows: The conven- tion called for by the legislature was elected by popular vote of the people. Under our form of representative government when such delegates met they were as the whole peo- ple of the state assembled.
"In so far as concerned the domestic local affairs and policy of the state, the people were all powerful to make and unmake, bind and unbind, so long as they maintained a
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government republican in form, and not in conflict with the Federal constitution. The only recognizable limitation upon its power was to be found in the terms of the legislative enactment calling it.
"In anticipation and expectation of the framers of the act that an ordinance of seces- sion would be adopted, they sought to invest the convention with most plenary powers in order to meet the requirements of the new, extraordinary conditions likely to arise, both from without and within the state. Accordingly the convention was authorized not only to take consideration of the existing relations between the government of the United States and the governments and the people of the different states, but also 'the govern- ment and people of the State of Missouri, and to adopt such measures for vindicating the sovereignty of the state, and the protection of its institutions as shall appear to them to be demanded.' So that the convention during its deliberations found civil government in the state paralyzed, without a head, society unprotected by the arm of the state, disorder and confusion fast spreading over it like a pall of anarchy. It was the deliberate judgment of the great majority that it was neither extra-constitutional, usurpatory, nor without the recognized law of the public necessity, that the convention should provide a provisional government, ad interim.
"The first step in this work of conservation was to provide for an executive head. And no higher evidence of the conservative impulses of the convention could be furnished than the fact of its designation of Hamilton R. Gamble as governor, and Willard P. Hall as lieutenant governor. Where could have been found two wiser, safer, more prudent, un- selfish men? Their very names were a rainbow of promise to the sorely vexed and per- plexed people of the state. With unsparing energy, consummate ability and unfaltering courage, Governor Gamble set his face and all the aids he could command to the work of restoring order, lawful process, and peace within the borders of the commonwealth."
The Evolution of the Factions.
Of the subsequent trials of Governor Gamble and the provisional government, Judge Philips drew this picture :
"That in that endeavor and purpose he and his coadjutors should have encountered opposition and criticism from the very element he so earnestly strove to protect excited wonder among thoughtful, good citizens at the time; and in the light of experience it now seems anomalous. There were two extremes in the state. One was the impracticable theorists, who, rather than accept deliverance from any source other than the Claib Jack- son defunct government, would accept anarchy. The other was the inflamed radicals, who preferred the substitution of military for civil government, so long as under its bloody reign they could make reprisals and wreak personal spites upon an unarmed class who had incurred their dislike. In other words, they preferred a condition of disorder and con- fusion as more favorable to rapine, plunder and persecution. The very determined policy of Gamble's administration to extend protection to noncombatants, to life, liberty and property, was made the slogan of the rapidly recruiting forces of radicalism that 'the Gamble government' was but another name for southern sympathy. This feeling was in- geniously communicated to the secretary of war, Stanton, whose motto seemed to be 'Aut Caesar aut nihil.'
"Between the two factions, the one denying on every occasion the lawful authority of his administration, and, therefore, yielding him not even needed moral support, and the other demanding non-interference with predatory warfare and reprisals on 'rebel sym- pathizers,' to say nothing of the machinations of ambitious politicians, his soul was sorely vexed and tried. But with a fortitude as sublime as his moral courage he never hesitated nor halted in waging, with all force and resources at his command, an uncompromising war on outlawry, no matter under what guise it masqueraded or under what banner it despoiled. He believed in liberty with law and government without unnecessary oppression.
"Oppressed with the heavy burdens of such an office, under such conditions, and weakened physically with increasing ill health, Governor Gamble tendered his resignation
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to the convention in 1863, and begged that it be accepted. But so profoundly impressed was the convention with the supreme importance to the welfare of the state that he should continue his great work, it implored him to withdraw the resignation. I can yet see his pallid face, furrowed with the ravages of care and disease, his hair like burnished silver, his eyes aglow with the fire of martyrdom, his voice so mellow, yet perfectly modulated, as he stood before the convention and said: 'Your will be done not mine.' With the harness chafing and bearing hard upon his wasting frame he went to his death, January 31, 1864, lamented and honored at his funeral as I have never before or since witnessed in this state."
Schofield and the Enrolled Militia.
The Minute Men of the winter of 1861 were enlisted by the southern rights leaders "to protect the state:" The next year, under an act of Congress, was begun the organization of the Enrolled Militia of Missouri for the "defense of the' state." It had been found by the Union leaders that there were many young Missourians who were willing to enlist for service in Missouri on the Union side. These young men would not go south to fight against the Union. Neither were they willing to go outside the state to fight against southern relatives and friends in the Confederate armies. They were ready to enlist under officers appointed by the Union governor to preserve order in the state and to repel invasion of Missouri by Confederates. General John M. Schofield, who had been a professor in Washington University, a major in one of the Home Guard regiments which took Camp Jackson, and Lyon's chief of staff in the battle of Wilson's creek, was given charge of the Missouri Enrolled Militia. He organized into regiments 13,000 men who rendered the state good service, making possible the withdrawal of troops from other states.
Assessments Stopped by Lincoln.
After Fremont came, in succession, Hunter, Halleck, Curtis and Schofield as military commanders to deal with the confusing situation in Missouri. The assessment of southern sympathizers which President Lincoln had suspended in St. Louis on the letter of Rev. Dr. Eliot showing that it was doing great harm to the Union cause, had been continued in the interior of Missouri. One of the orders called for an assessment of $5,000 for every Union soldier or Union citizen killed and $1,000 for every Union soldier or Union citizen wounded by the bushwhackers or guerrilla bands. The President wrote to General Curtis one of his friendly letters on the Missouri situation and suggested that he stop these assessments. General Curtis wrote at considerable length in reply. He told how the assessment policy had begun under the provost marshal system started by Fremont and continued by Halleck and by himself. He argued in favor of its continuance. Then by general order the President suspended these assessments in Missouri.
In March the quarrel between the factions had reached such a stage that the President relieved General Curtis. Missourians calling at the White House found in the President's welcome a note of weariness as he referred to his efforts to keep peace between the discordant elements. One of these visitors returning to St. Louis quoted the President as saying :
The dissensions between Union men in Missouri are due solely to a fac- tious spirit, which is exceedingly reprehensible. The two parties ought to have their heads knocked together."
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