USA > Missouri > St Charles County > History of St. Charles, Montgomery, and Warren counties, Missouri, written and comp. from the most authentic official and private sources, including a history of their townships, towns and villages, together with a condensed history of Missouri > Part 67
USA > Missouri > Montgomery County > History of St. Charles, Montgomery, and Warren counties, Missouri, written and comp. from the most authentic official and private sources, including a history of their townships, towns and villages, together with a condensed history of Missouri > Part 67
USA > Missouri > Warren County > History of St. Charles, Montgomery, and Warren counties, Missouri, written and comp. from the most authentic official and private sources, including a history of their townships, towns and villages, together with a condensed history of Missouri > Part 67
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Capts. Rogers and Laws were at the capture of Lexington, and Milton's battalion was highly spoken of by Gen. Harris for its con- duct. Some of the Montgomery men were at the second Boonville fight, under Col. Brown, who was killed in that engagement.
When the Missouri State Guard entered the Confederate service in the winter of 1861-62 the majority of the men from this county were members of Col. Elijah Gates' regiment. They were at Pea Ridge, and afterward crossed the Mississippi and served east of the river to the close of the war. Henry De Koty and James Nowlin were killed at the battle of Corinth. Lieut. Tannehill, John Ooley, Henry Porter and Joseph Porter were killed at Champion's Hill.
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
MISCELLANEOUS WAR ITEMS DURING THE YEAR 1861.
About the 1st of August Daniel Bryan, John Bryan, the merchants of Montgomery City, and John W. Powell, a prominent citizen of the county, started for Gen. Price's army, then in south-west Missouri confronting Gen. Lyon. About the 8th of August, near Lamar, Bar- ton county, they were killed by a party of Col. Montgomery's Kansas jayhawkers, whom they encountered in the prairie. It is believed they were shot after they surrendered. Their bodies were buried where they fell. The jayhawkers carried off their horses. It is re- ported that Judge Nathan Bray, of Springfield, was present when these men were shot.
About the last of October a considerable body of secessionists assembled in Callaway county, north of Fulton. Col. John B. Hen- derson, with 1,200 Pike county Home Guards (six months' militia ), marched across the country to attack Jones. But at Wellsville Hen- derson halted, and here messages passed between him and Col. Jeff. Jones, under flag of truce, and at last Jones agreed to disband and disperse the Callaway men, they to be exempt from arrest or punish- ment of any kind. Col. Arnold Krekel, with some of the St. Charles militia, was also at Wellsville to co-operate with Henderson. Col. Chester Harding, with the Tenth Missouri and Eighty-first Ohio, and two pieces of artillery from Hermann, reached Fulton, on his way to Jones' camp, when he was informed of the dispersion of the seces- sionists, and returned to Hermann.1
1 Relative to this affair, the particulars of which have never before been published, Gen. Henderson, now in St. Louis, states that he was stationed at Louisiana, and hearing of some disturbances caused by secessionists in Montgomery and Cal- laway, he concluded to march over and suppress them; that with about 1,200 men he arrived at Wellsville, where, pursuant to orders, Col. Krekel joined him with 500 men from St. Charles; that here Jeff. Jones sent a note informing Henderson that his ap- proach with his armed men had alarmed the farmers of Callaway, and that they had assembled for mutual protection against the reported outrages that they - the Unionists - designed perpetrating on them. Henderson returned an answer to Jones' messengers, denying that his men had committed or proposed to commit any out- rages, and notified Col. Jones that "the farmers " must disband immediately or he would attack them as enemies of the government. Jones disclaimed any authority, civil or military, over the Callaway men, but merely acted as their mouthpiece in ad- dressing Gen. Henderson, and of course received his reply. This reply Jones read to the multitude, thereupon they disbanded. Gen. Henderson says this is all the " treaty," if it be proper to call it a " treaty," that was ever made. After two days' stay at Wellsville, Gen. Henderson took his command to Fulton and remained some weeks.
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
In the fall of the year a band of 15 Confederate partisans or bush- whackers, whose leader was said to be Ike Cobb, made a raid on and robbed the store of Hugo Monnig, a German Unionist, living on the road from Danville to Rhineland, half a mile from the bottom.
MISSOURI'S SECESSION.
On the 26th of October, " Claib. Jackson's Legislature," as it was called, met in the Masonic Hall at Neosho, and on the 28th an ordi- nance of secession was passed by both houses. In the Senate the only vote against it was cast by Charles H. Hardin, afterwards Gov- ernor of the State, and in the House the only member voting " no " was Mr. Shambaugh, of De Kalb. The secession ordinance and the act of annexation to the Southern Confederacy were approved by the Confederate Congress at Richmond 1 and recognized by that portion of the people of Missouri who were in favor of cutting loose from the Union. And so those Missourians then and afterwards in arms against the Federal flag became entitled to the name of Confederates, and will thus be denominated in future pages of this history, instead of being called " State Guards," "secesssonists," "Southern troops," etc., as they have hitherto been spoken of.
MURDER OF M'GLATCHEY, A UNION MAN, NEAR BLUFFTON.
It was probably in October of this year that a Union man named McGlatchey, who lived in the south-western part of the county, near Bluffton, was taken from his house one night by a band of secession- ists and thrown into the Missouri river and drowned. McGlatchey was about the only reliable Union man in the neighborhood, and his neighbors looked upon him as a spy and a man dangerous to them.
Upon one occasion, when a band of Cobb's or Ramsey's men were on their way to lynch the notorious . " Capt." Page, McGlatchey recognized some of them and got them into trouble over the matter. His presence in the community was a source of uneasiness and annoy- ance, and it was resolved to " remove " him. The " removal " was accomplished in the manner above described.
A year or so afterward Henry Hill, Jim Davis and Joe Poindexter, and Hill's son-in-law, all of whom lived in and near Bluffton, were
I A convention held at Richmond, Oct. 31, between Thos. L. Snead and E. C. Cabell, on the part of the Jackson government of Missouri, and R. M. T. Hunter, on the part of the Confederate States, agreed upon the admission of Missouri into the Southern Confederacy, and it was really this agreement which was ratified by the Confederate Congress.
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
arrested, charged with the murder of McGlatchey. They were taken to Mexico, tried by a military commission and sentenced to confine- ment in a military prison during the war. Henry Hill and his son- in-law died in prison.
THE RAID ON THE RAILROADS.
In the latter part of December, 1861, pursuant to the instructions of Gen. Price, a number of bridges on the North Missouri and the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroads were burned by bands of Confed- erates, who, for the most part, were from the vicinity where the injuries were inflicted, but were usually led and their movments directed by a leader from Price's army, then down in South-west Missouri.
On Friday night, December 20, many miles of track on the North Missouri were destroyed through Boone, Audrain and Montgomery. There was a general uprising of the adherents of the Confederate cause throughout these counties. (Since the passage of the ordinance of secession by Gov. Jackson's Legislature of Neosho, October 28, the secesssionists claimed that Missouri was one of the Confederate States). The bridges and depots were also burned wherever prac- ticable.
The most serious damages to the North Missouri in this county were inflicted at Wellsville and High Hill. Near the latter place a com- pany of Confederate recruits, under Capt. Lycurgus James, assembled and silently and stealthily swarmed upon the track, tearing up the rails and throwing them over the embankments, and cutting the cul- verts and bridges.
The railroad bridge over the wagon road west of Warrenton was burned. Other bridges and culverts at different points were either wholly or partially destroyed. A few freight cars were given to the flames. The entire road-bed was attacked as savagely as if it had been a line of Federal, breast-works.
In Callaway county a considerable force assembled at Mr. Lail's, in the western part of the county, under Capt. Bill Meyers, of Lincoln county, and Alvin Cobb, and moved upon the road at Wellsville. Here the depot and some cars were burned, a barrel of whisky tapped, and then the raiders prepared to enjoy themselves ! The store of the Kempinski Brothers, Unionists, was entered and such goods taken as pleased the fancy of the rebel " boys." The amount taken has always been a matter of controversy. The Kempinskis claim that they lost above $5,000 worth, while the raiders assert that
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
not more than $500 worth were taken. These were hauled away in wagons brought for the purpose, and " pressed " by Capt. Myers from Mr. Lail.1
Then portions of the road above and below the village were torn up, and Capt. Myers himself, with some of his men, galloped down to Montgomery City to burn the depot there. But Tom Stevens, the depot agent, prevailed on Myers not to burn the building or destroy any property, and the raiders rode away without striking a match. They took one or two Union men prisoners, but released them when they left. The force at Wellsville moved back into Callaway under Cobb, followed and perhaps joined by Capt. Myers. In a few days Myers and Cobb, with their companies, joined Col. Caleb Dorsey's command and were in the fight and rout at Mt. Zion Church, where Myers was wounded in the side.
A MONTGOMERY COUNTY COMPANY FOR PRICE'S ARMY.
Sunday morning, December 22d, a company of men, numbering perhaps 50, from the vicinity of High Hill left the county for the Con- federate army, then stationed at Springfield. Its officers were cap- tain, Lycurgus James ; first lieutenant, John H. Smith ; second lieu- tenant, William Badger. The company was designed to serve as infantry ..
At High Hill the company assembled and repaired to the church, where the preacher, Rev. George Smith of the M. E. Church South, prayed for a blessing on them, and that the cause they served might triumph. A few days later they joined the forces of Col. Caleb Dorsey and participated in the fight at Mount Zion Church.
The Mount Zion fight, to which reference has been made in these pages, came off December 28, 1861, at Mount Zion Church, in the eastern edge of Boone county, and was between five companies of the Third Missouri cavalry, Col. John M. Glover, five companies of Birge's sharpshooters, all under command of Gen. Ben M. Prentiss, and a Confederate force of about 500 recruits under Col. Caleb Dorsey, of Pike county, Lieut .- Col. Coleman Kent, of Warren, and Maj. Thomas Breckinridge, also of Warren. To Dorsey's command be- longed Capt. Lycurgus James' company, Jo Payne's company, Alvin Cobb's and Bill Myers' company, in all of which were Montgomery county men.
1 After the war A. Kempinski brought suit against Mr. Lail for $10,000, double the value of the goods alleged to have been taken. After a protracted fight in the courts Mr. Kempinski was defeated.
35
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
As the Confederates were poorly armed, and were new recruits, and as the Federals were well armed and had the advantage of being well drilled and disciplined, the Confederates were defeated and driven in confusion from the field. Ten or a dozen were killed on each side ; the Federals had 40 wounded; the Confederates about the same number. Among the Montgomery county wounded who were left on the field were A. J. Parsons, in the left thigh, and J. E. McConnell, in the right thigh. Maj. Breckinridge and Capt. Myers were wounded.
INVASION AND OCCUPATION OF THE COUNTY BY FEDERAL TROOPS.
As soon as the news of the assault on the North Missouri Railroad reached St. Louis the Federal commander at St. Louis, Gen. Halleck, ordered troops into this county as soon as possible. The Tenth Mis- souri, Col. Todd, and the Eighty-first Ohio, Col. Morton, both infantry regiments, were lying at Hermann. These two regiments crossed the river and landed on Loutre Island on the 23d. The next day they marched to High Hill, and from thence on to Danville, which they reached on Christmas day. Alvin Cobb and his company left town just before the Federal advance entered.
Horses were pressed from the country and about 50 men mounted to serve as advance guard, as the infantry force could do but- little in attempting to overtake a mounted force at that season of the year. The next morning a slight skirmish occurred between the mounted Federals and some of Cobb's men at the edge of the timber a mile or more west of Danville. The rebels retreated. That day a wounded man of the Tenth Missouri, named Donaldson, accidently shot and killed a comrade.
The two Federal regiments were re-enforced by a company or two of Hubbard's battalion of the First Missouri cavalry and pushed on into Callaway, passing through Williamsburg and Concord and on nearly to Mount Zion, in the effort to come up with Dorsey and the other Confederates under him. They did not participate in the Mount Zion fight, however, and the next day turned about and marched to Mexico via Concord.
The Eighty-first Ohio was stationed at Danville, and the Tenth Missouri sent at first down to Warrenton. In February the Tenth Missouri was sent up to High Hill, where it remained until April, when it was sent South. The Eighty-first Ohio was stationed in the county for nearly a similar period.
CHAPTER VIII.
EVENTS OF THE YEARS 1862, 1863 AND 1864.
Organization of the Missouri State Militia, Co. C, Ninth M. S. M. - A Company for the Union Army - Taking the Oath -Organization of the Enrolled Missouri Militia - Sixty-Seventh Regiment E. M. M. - Miscellaneous -Killing of Joe Cole -1863 - Raid on Rhineland - November Election, 1863 -Troops in the Federal Service - 1864 - Miscellaneous - Killing of Col. Brewer and His Son and of Fridley and His Son by the Federals-Two More Companies for the Union Army - During the In- vasion of Gen. Price.
The year 1862 opened with Montgomery county under complete control of the Federal military authority. By the last of February the Tenth Missouri and Eighty-first Ohio regiments occupied the county, the former at High Hill, the latter at Danville, with one com- pany at Montgomery City. There were no " rebels " in the county, and just why these soldiers were quartered among the people is not at all clear.
About the 7th of November, 1861, Gov. Gamble received author- ity from the War Department at Washington for the organization of the Missouri State Militia, the members of which, when engaged in active service, were to be armed, clothed, subsisted, transported and paid by the United States, and to co-operate with the United States forces in the repression of invasion into Missouri and the suppression of rebellion therein. The militia was not to be ordered out of the State of Missouri, " except for the immediate defense of said State."
In Montgomery county, under the protection, as was claimed, of the Eighty-first Ohio, recruiting was begun for a company for this ser- vice. In the latter part of February it was about completed and ready for active service. It was attached to the Ninth Cavalry, Missouri State Militia, Col. Odon Guitar, and became Co. C, of that regiment.
A portion of another company of the Ninth M. S. M. was raised in this county, and a Montgomery county man, Benjamin Sharp, was made captain. The lieutenants were from Fulton.
The recruiting of Co. C was begun in November, 1861, but the organization was not perfected until February, 1862. It remained in Danville with the Eighty-first until the last of March, 1862, under command of Lieut. McFarlane. It was stationed at Danville after
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
the Eighty-first Ohio left until the 10th of May when it was ordered to Columbia under Lieut. McFarlane. When organized and mustered in Co. C had about 80 men, every man, so far as is now known, being a citizen of Montgomery county.
"Co. C" was known as the " abolition company," because nearly all of its members came to be Abolitionists. In December, 1863, the company was broken up, and the officers transferred to the Twelfth Missouri cavalry.
A COMPANY FOR THE UNION ARMY.
In the fall of the year 1861 the organization of a company for the Federal military service was begun at Montgomery City. The organ- ization was not perfected until in February, 1862, when the officers were commissioned and the company went to Macon City, joining what was then known as the Twenty-second Missouri volunteers, Col. John D. Foster commanding. It served in North Missouri until April 21, when Col. Foster's regiment, not having but six companies, was broken up and the companies distributed among other Missouri regiments. While at Montgomery City the company was quartered for a time in the college building.
The Montgomery county company, which had been Co. F in the Twen- ty-second, became Co. E, of the Twenty-fourth Missouri volunteers, Col. S. H. Boyd. It was never, however, sent to its own regiment, but was attached during its term of service to the Tenth Missouri in- fantry. It served in the armies of the West, under Gens. Pope, Grant, Rosecrans and Sherman, and was in the battles of Iuka, Cor- inth, Raymond, Jackson, Champion's Hill, and the siege of Vicksburg, Miss., and Missionary Ridge, Tenn. At Corinth and Champion's Hill, as well as at Vicksburg, the men fought directly against the Confed- erates of Gen. Martin E. Green's brigade, or division, many of whom were their old neighbors in this county.
One engagement in which this company took part is deserving of men- tion. On the night of October 12, 1864, after the main part of the Tenth Missouri regiment had gone home, and during the period when Gen. Hood had gained the rear of Gen. Sherman and was marching on Tennessee, Capt. W. B. White, with his company, H, of the Tenth, and the Montgomery county company, under Lieut. Driscoll - Capt. McCammon being on staff duty - had a desperate engagement with an entire brigade of Hood's army, at a point on the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, four miles north of Resaca, Georgia.
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
Capt. White, with his two companies of about fifty men each, had been detailed to guard a camp of timber cutters and bridge carpen- ters. Hearing of the approach of the Confederates he threw up a little fort out of the timbers, and at nine o'clock in the night was attacked. He repulsed first a battalion, then a regiment, then two regiments, and then held an entire brigade (Sears') of French's divis- ion of Stewart's corps at bay until three o'clock in the morning, when, every cartridge having been exhausted, and Capt. White very desperately wounded, Lieut. Driscoll, of Co. E, Twenty-fourth Mis- souri, the only other officer present, surrendered.
In this action two of the Montgomery county men were killed and Capt. White and another man wounded. Owing to their defended position, the loss of the Federals was inferior to that of the Confed- erates. The latter had seventeen men killed and a proportionate num- ber wounded. The Federal prisoners spent several months in Ander- sonville and other prisons, and with a few exceptions were not re- leased until the war was about over.
. TAKING THE OATH.
After the raids on the railroads in North Missouri the Federal authorities resolved to place those of Confederate sympathies not only under oath, but under bond for their " good behavior." In February Gen. Halleck issued a circular order to that effect, and to carry out this order provost marshals were appointed, who notified the people that they had better come forward and take the oath, and soon they came pouring in, hundreds in number, to " take their medi- cine," which many of them did as if it were medicine, with many wry faces, and much squirming and contorting.
On July 22, 1862, Gov. Gamble issued an order, known as Special Order No. 101, organizing the entire militia of the State into companies, regiments and brigades, and to order into active service such por- tions of the force thus organized as might be necessary for the pur- pose of putting down all marauders and defending the peaceable citizens of the State.
Three days later Gen. Schofield ordered " an immediate organiza- tion of all the militia in Missouri for the purpose of exterminating the guerrillas that infest the State." The militia were further directed to assemble at any post with whatever arms they had, and a good horse each, if they had one, elect officers and be sworn into service accord- ing to the laws of the State. They were to be kept in service such
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
portion of the time as the commanding officer of the district might direct, and while in service were to be paid as volunteers.
In Montgomery county the militia belonged to the Sixty-seventh regiment, of which Walter L. Lovelace was the first colonel. He resigned in December to take his seat in the Legislature.
MISCELLANEOUS.
At the time of Jo. Porter's raid, in July and August, 1862, the enrolled militia of this county did some service in Callaway county, scouting about trying to intercept the Confederates.
In the fight between Porter and Guitar, at Moore's Mills, July 28, Alvin Cobb and his company were present under Porter. Cobb had joined Porter some days previously, but left him soon after the Moore's Mill fight.
It was some time in the summer of this year that " Capt. " Page, the noted Federal scout and spy, was captured by a party of bush- whackers - said to have been Cobb's men - on the road between Mexico and Concord, and hung. "Capt." Page lived in the vicinity of Bluffton. His was a life of daring and adventure. He belonged to Gen. Fremont's exploring expedition that crossed the continent in 1842-46, and experienced so many hardships and vicissitudes. When the Civil War broke out he was a Unionist, and early attached him- self to Fremont's army. When Fremont was removed from Mis- souri, he returned home, and in February, 1862, became a scout for the Tenth Missouri at High Hill.
Page had an unsavory reputation and record. He was a great jay- hawker, and often, as was charged, led scouting parties to the houses of certain Confederates in order that he might seize upon something to which he had a fancy. The Federal troops grew to dislike him, and it was reported, and is yet believed by some persons, that he was hung by a scouting party of the Tenth Missouri State militia.
But the most probable account is that he started from Mexico to carry some dispatches to Fulton, and near Concord he ran into the bushwhackers and tried to pass himself off as one of their kind. But one of them knew him, and when they searched him they found his dispatches in his boot. They took him out and hung him and left his body dangling in the summer breezes.
KILLING OF JOE COLE.
In November, 1862, Joe Cole, the leader of a small band of bush- whackers that had given the Federal militia no little annoyance and
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
trouble in this county, was killed by a party under Lieut. A. Kemp- inski, of Co. B, Sixty-seventh E. M. M., near Portland, in Callaway county.
Joe Cole was raised in the south-eastern part of Montgomery county, and knew all the country in the southern part of this county and Cal- laway very well. Early in the war he announced himself a rebel and notified some of the German Unionists of near Rhineland that his principal business during the war would be to " raise h - Il with the Dutch." When Hammer's men came into the county in July, 1861, they took Joe's horse, as a German citizen had informed them of what Joe said. Then Joe went on the war path.
With only half a dozen men the bold bushwhacker raided the Germans at will, went in and out of Bluffton, Portland and Williams- burg when he pleased, and killed two or three citizens and militiamen of this county and Callaway at different times. He made many a Union man sleep in the woods, and rode many a good horse to which he could not show a legal title. Sometimes he would dress himself fantastically, and up and down Lower Loutre and Dry fork and Prairie fork and over on the Auxvasse, he rode whistling and sing- ing, with peacock plumes in his hat, his coat and pantaloons slashed with gaudy gilt braid and his horse's bridle trimmed with tassels and rosettes. He delighted to roam the country in quest of women and whisky and militia - and they cost him his life.
A negro came up to Wellsville and informed Lieut. Kempinski that Joe Cole was in the neighborhood of Portland, reckless and off his guard. Kempinski took seven men, well mounted, and started for the neighborhood immediately. Kempinski was wary and careful. At the house of a Union man above Bluffton, Kempinski secreted him- self and six men one day while the seventh, dressed in citizen's clothes, went into Portland, saw Joe Cole, drank with him, talked freely with him, and learned where he would pass the night ; then the militiaman returned in safety with his information.
Two miles east of Portland, in a story and a half cabin, lived the Widow Hill and her two daughters-the latter fair in form and feature and light of love. After his season of devotion at the shrine of Bacchus this son of Mars was wont to repair to the court of Venus for such care and solace and delights as only her daughters can bestow. At the Widow Hill's was where Joe Cole meant to pass the night, as he told the spy.
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