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 68
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 68
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 68
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Just as the dawn was peering over the river bluffs, Kempinski and his men knocked at the door of the widow's cabin. Joe Cole lay
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
sleeping, and when his Delilah aroused him with the cry that the Philistines were upon him, he opened his eyes lan- guidly and putting out his hand as if to stroke her fair hair, said softly, " I don't care." Then he heard the angry voices of the mil- itia demanding admission, and a realization of his peril came to him, and he sprang from his couch and in a few seconds stood clothed and in his right mind and armed cap a pie.
The widow asked the soldiers what they wanted. " We want Joe Cole," answered the lieutenant. The widow and Delilah and Delilah's sister protested : " He is not here ! He is not here ! Don't come in ! For heaven's sake don't come in !" But the soldiers insisted, and said sternly, " If you don't open the door, we will burn the house." Amid the wailing of the women and the demands of the militiamen came a clear, ringing voice, " Stand aside!" The door opened and forth came Joe Cole, a revolver in each hand, blazing away, firing right and left.
No use. A militiaman at the side of the door shot him in the twinkling of an eye and he fell to the ground. But Cole turned in his dying agony and desire for vengeance and caught another man named Harris by the coat and sought to raise himself so that he could shoot ; but Harris raised his musket and with the butt of it struck the guerrilla a fearful blow on the head crushing in his skull.
When daylight came good and broad and the sun shone out, Kem- pinski sent for the citizens to come and bury the body, and they did so.
The militia administered on Joe Cole's personal estate, and took charge of it. They found two good horses, two large navy revolvers and a double-barreled shot gun. Citizens came and claimed the horses ; one, a fine big black stallion, belonged to Mr. Clark, from whom Joe had " borrowed" him one night when everything was still and Clark was asleep. Nobody came forward to claim the revolvers and the shot gun.
As Kempinski and his seven men were riding back to Wellsville they passed a school-house where a Miss Mosely, of a family of noted Unionists, was teaching. The young school mistress, with her brood of little ones about her, came out to ask the soldiers where they had been and what was the news. " We have killed Joe Cole," answered the lieutenant. Instantly the lady was on her knees, actually return- ing thanks and praising God that the " rebel villain," as she called him, was no more. " He killed my brother," she said, " and he has threatened my father's life and my other brothers' lives, and for
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
months we have known no peace or safety on his account. O, God ! I thank Thee that the bloody dog is dead. And I thank you, gentle - men," as she turned to the soldiers, " that you killed him."
Such were the women in war times.
RAID ON RHINELAND.
May 26, 1863, a band of bushwhackers, fifteen in number, among whom were Frank Ramsey, Col. Brewer, and a German named Myers, made a raid on Rhineland, a small hamlet in the southern part of the county. The band came in from the west and as part of them were dressed in Federal blue they were mistaken for militiamen.
Mr. Andrew Rincheval, the founder of Rhineland, kept the only store in the place at the time. His son Louis, a young man, assisted his father in the store. Mr. Rincheval, saw the party approaching, and supposing it to be a militia scouting party, and desiring to gain their good will said to his son : " Louis, go down in the cellar and bring up some whisky for those militia." While .Louis was in the cellar he heard a commotion above and running up saw his father struggling with two or three bushwhackers, and a moment afterward saw him shot by Col. Brewer, who was a one-armed man and well known in the country.
It seems that, from the statement of Mrs. Rincheval, the bush- whackers rode up to the door, suddenly dismounted, rushed in and Rincheval seized the leader and threw him to the floor and while hold- ing him in this position, and nearly succeeding in dragging another down, he was shot by Col. Brewer, and killed instantly.
Louis Rincheval, seeing that his father was killed, ran into a back room. His mother closed the door leading into the room and bolted it, and he ran out the back way and dodging through the fields and the high grass and woods in the bottom, he succeeded in reaching the river and passed on down to Hermann. His mother could do nothing but wring her hands and weep and wail.
The bushwhackers made a short visit. Spurning the body of Mr. Rincheval to one side after having rifled his pockets, they took about $200 in greenbacks from the money drawer, what fire-arms they could find, and such goods as they could carry, and rode rapidly away to- wards Portland or Bluffton, Col. Brewer and Frank Ramsey in the lead.
The burghers of Rhineland hardly knew what had happened until they saw the raiders leaving. Then came Mrs. Rincheval telling of the murder of her husband. He had been shot through the body and
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
Brewer's ball had cut close to his heart. Mr. Groteveil, Mr. Hohl- man, and one or two others ran off to Hermann for soldiers. A Capt. Smith, then in command at Hermann, sent up 20 men, who followed the bushwhackers fifteen miles up intoCallaway, but did not encounter them.
NOVEMBER ELECTION, 1863.
At the general election for 1863, in Missouri, but two tickets were voted for, both claiming to be " Union." One ticket, headed by Barton Bates, W. V. N. Bay and J. D. S. Dryden, for Supreme Judges, was called the Conservative ticket ; the other, headed by H. A. Clover, Arnold Krekel and David Wagner, was denominated the " Radical " or " Charcoal " ticket. The latter was supported by all of the immediate emancipationists in the State. This election is remarkable for being the first in Missouri, under a general law, where voting was done by ballot, and not viva voce.
ANOTHER COMPANY FOR GUITAR'S REGIMENT.
In the fall of this year another company was organized in this county for the Federal State militia. This company came to be known as Co. L, Ninth M. S. M. At the time it was received, Guitar had ceased to command the company ( having been promoted to brigadier-general), and Col. John F. Williams was its com- mander.
TROOPS IN THE FEDERAL SERVICE.
Up to the close of the month of December, 1863, Montgomery county had furnished 410 men for the regular Federal service, includ- ing the Missouri State militia, but not the enrolled militia. These included 42 negroes, who had enlisted in the Third Arkansas "A. D.," or "African Descent."
The total list was as follows : -
In the Missouri Volunteer Regiments. - Second infantry, 1; Sixth infantry, 1; Eighth infantry, 4; Tenth infantry, 2; Twenty-fourth infantry, 51; Twenty-sixth infantry, 46; Thirtieth infantry, 22; Thirty-first infantry, 27; Thirty-second infantry, 5; Thirty-third in- fantry, 15; Second cavalry, 2; Tenth cavalry, 10; Eleventh cavalry, 2 ; total in Missouri regiment's, 188.
In the Missouri State Militia. - First cavalry, 1; Ninth cavalry, 176; Tenth cavalry, 1; total in M. S. M., 178.
Miscellaneous. - In an Illinois regiment, 1; in an Arkansas regi- ment, 1 ; in the Third Arkansas "A. D.," 42; total miscellaneous, 44
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
Those in the Thirtieth, Thirty-first, Thirty-second and Thirty-third regiments of Missouri infantry enlisted mainly in the fall of 1862, under President Lincoln's call for " 300,000 more."
1864-MISCELLANEOUS.
In the latter part of the year there was a great deal of outlawry in the county. Thefts and robbery were quite common. Horses were stolen, and many people were called upon and made to deliver their money at the point of the pistol. Neither life nor property was very safe in some quarters. In some parts of the county bands of bush- whackers or fugitive returned Confederates did this bad work; else- where the marauders were unquestionably militiamen.
Though the country was greatly disturbed, and people were gener- ally demoralized, courts were held, and the political machinery of the county ran along smoothly until after the Danville raid. It was a Presidential year, too. Gen. George B. McClellan and Hon. George H. Pendleton were the Democratic nominees, and Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson were the nominees of the Republicans, only two tickets being in the field. Geo. W. Anderson, of Pike, was the Re- publican candidate for Congress, and his Democratic opponent was Hon. James S. Rollins, of Boone. Col. Anderson was elected. The Democrats carried Montgomery county by a good majority for " Little Mac," the vote standing : For the McClellan electors, 597; for the Lincoln electors, 158; Democratic majority, 439.
Many Democrats remained away from the polls, even among those entitled to vote. No one could vote or hold office who could not and would not take the oath of loyalty, and of course many a Confederate and "rebel " sympathizer was disbarred. The vote in the State for President was : Lincoln, 71,676 ; Mcclellan, 31,626. For Governor, Thos. C. Fletcher, 71,531; Thos. L. Price, 30,406.
KILLING OF COL. BREWER AND HIS SON JAMES.
It was some time in the summer of 1864, after the raid on Rhine- land, that a scouting party of Federal cavalry, under Capt. Hunter, 1 crossed the river and came westward through the southern part of this county on a scouting expedition to Portland. Either at Port- land or en route back to Hermann they caught Col. Brewer and his son James, the latter a young man of 20, and shot them both on
Believed to have been Capt. Samuel A. Hunter, Co. M, Ninth Missouri State militia, Guitar's regiment.
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
top of Poindexter's hill, three miles west of Rhineland, on the Port- land road.
Col. Brewer is declared by Louis Rincheval to have been the one- armed man who shot Andrew Rincheval, at Rhineland, in May, 1863, and he and his sou were both called bushwhackers. The colonel was a man of uncommon intelligence and acquirements. He had a mili- tary education and on the outbreak of the war drilled a company or two for the Southern army.
The graves of Brewer and his son were plainly to be seen, near the roadside, surrounded by rail pens, some years after the war.
THE MURDER OF THE FRIDLEYS AT DRYDEN'S MILL.
Some time in September, 1864, two men rode into Danville from the west and stopped at Mrs. Nunnelly's hotel. These men wore an air that caused suspicion. Capt. George J. Smith's Co. D, Forty- ninth Missouri, was then in Danville, and the captain arrested the two suspicious strangers, who at last confessed that they had been bushwhackers, members of Anderson's band.
They gave their names as Fridley, father and son, and said they lived in Howard county. They had become tired of bushwhacking, they said, and were going down into St. Charles county to remain with some relatives until the war was over.
Capt. Smith's company was about to start for St. Louis and he determined to take the prisoner's with him - at least he so stated. But when the company did start it took the Fridleys as far as Dry- den's mill (the old horse mill), two miles west of New Florence. The two men were taken into a peach orchard and summarily shot to death, and their bodies left to rot and fester in the autumn sun.
Smith went on to New Florence, and told T. J. Powell, the well known ex-sheriff, etc., that there were two dead bushwhackers at Dryden's mill. Powell and Dan Nunnelly rode out and found the bodies of father and son. Esq. Forshey and others assisted and the corpses were decently buried in the orchard where they fell, and where the still remain.
Some days after the shooting of these men, the news traveled up to Howard county and reached Mrs. Fridley. She came down to learn the particulars, and remained at T. J. Powell's some days, and stated to the family that it was true that her husband and son were bushwhackers, and that it was true, as they had stated, that they had abandoned the guerrilla warfare and were going to St. Charles county for safety.
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
TWO MORE COMPANIES FOR THE FEDERAL SERVICE.
In September, 1864, two companies were raised in this county for the Federal or Union army. They were known as Cos. Band D, of the Forty-ninth Missouri infantry, Col. D. P. Dyer's regiment. Co. B was from Middletown and the eastern and north-eastern part of the county. Co. D was from the vicinity of Danville.
These companies served in North Missouri until February, 1865, when they were sent to New Orleans. They took part in the siege and capture of Mobile and Spanish Fort, after which they were stationed in Alabama until the expiration of their term of service.
DURING THE INVASION OF GEN. PRICE.
At the time of Gen. Price's invasion of Missouri, in October, 1864, the Confederate sympathizers in this county were greatly elated for a time. It was reported that he had captured St. Louis, then Jefferson City, and a letter was received saying he would be in this county soon. The country was full of guerrillas and bushwhackers, and the Con- federate cause, long smoldering in this quarter of Missouri, had flashed up, as it were, and its flickering blaze brightened the faces of its friends for a brief season before it died out and was quenched forever.
Gen. Marmaduke captured Hermann, but did not cross the river, or stay long in the German town. Perhaps 50 men improved the oppor- tunity to leave the county and join the Confederate army. Col. Caleb Dorsey passed into Lincoln and Pike and the eastern part of Mont- gomery and took out 300 or more recruits. He went through the southern part of this county, past Big Spring and up Dry Fork, on the Cote Sans Dessein road. At the big spring, on the old Groom farm, he camped one night. Dorsey crossed the Missouri river at Portland, swimming his horses, and one of his men was drowned.
While Dorsey was on Hancock's prairie, in camp, Col. S. A. Holmes with the Fortieth Missouri was sent into the county, about October 25. He went to Danville and tried to induce Col. Canfield to accom- . pany him with his mounted militia and they would march out, but Canfield would not. Col. Holmes then passed down the railroad from Mexico, repairing the injury done by the guerrillas and Confederate scouting parties. Holmes had previously been in this county as major of the Tenth Missouri.
It was not long, however, until the news was received that Gen. Price and his army had been defeated. Then the hopes of the Mont- gomery county Confederates sank very low indeed.
CHAPTER IX.
THE CONFEDERATE GUERRILLA RAIDS OF 1864.
The Second Raid on Rhineland - Hancock's Band Descends on the Place - Brutal Murder of Henry Bresser - Miles Price's Raid on High Hill and Jonesburg - Bill Anderson's Raid - He Attacks and Burns Danville - Murders Five Citizens - Plun- ders the Stores and Destroys the Public Records - Goes to New Florence - Robs the Stores and Burns the Depot- On to High Hill - Repeats the Performances at New Florence - Turns Back -Is Followed by the Enrolled Militia and Routed -- Killing of Five Innocent Citizens of the County by the Militia - Full and Authentic Particulars Never Before Published.
On September 12, 1864, Miles Price, a Confederate raider, and belonging to the regular Confederate service, and whose home was near Pendleton, Warren county, made a raid into this county. Just where and when he entered Montgomery county can not here be stated, but at four o'clock in the afternoon of the day named he dashed into High Hill at the head of 13 men, coming in from the west. He was accompanied by a man who called himself " Capt. Henry, of Saline county."
Price's men took $75 worth of saddles, bridles, etc., from Emil Rosenberger, some money from Mr. Chapin, one horse, two shot guns, and two revolvers from Hance Miller, and made Mr. Miller himself a prisoner.
In a short time the daring band had ridden away to Jonesburg. Here they held the town for an hour or two, robbed Allen Hess' store of $500 worth of goods, and rode out toward the south-west.
Word of the invasion of the bold raiders was conveyed to Danville, and conjecturing that they would pass to the westward that night along the old St. Charles and Cote Sans Dessein road, up Dry Fork, a number of Union citizens, not soldiers, determined to waylay them. Dr. Samuel J. Moore, Tom Ford, Mike Lee, and a dozen others armed themselves and set out. That night at Muke Snethen's corner, on Dry fork, the Unionists ambushed and bushwhacked the raiders. One horse was killed, one man wounded, and the raiders retreated so rapidly that they dropped Hance Miller's shot gun, and let fall many of the goods they had taken from Hess' store at Jonesburg. The citizens gathered these up, and they were afterwards restored to their rightful owners.
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
THE SECOND RAID ON RHINELAND.
July 8, 1864, a second raid was made by the Confederate bush- whackers on Rhineland. They numbered 17 men, and their leader was one Hancock, who had attained some notoriety in Callaway and the western part of this county. They first made their appearance at Big Spring, where they robbed Neidegerke's store. After leaving Big Spring they arrayed themselves fantastically, and even gaudily.
At Rhineland they first encountered Henry Groteveil, who lived a few hundred yards east of the village. Mr. Groteveil, his wife, his son Gerhard, and a daughter were at work in the harvest field. The bushwhackers rode up to the house, and three or four of them entered the stable lot and began to try to catch some horses. Five or six others went into the house and began to ransack it. There was no one at the house but Mr. Groteveil's daughter, Bernardina ( now the wife of Louis Rincheval, of Hermann ).
Seeing the commotion among his horses and the strange men chasing them, Mr. Groteveil started to the house, but did not proceed far. To a command of one of the men to " come here," he refused, and was fired at with a revolver. Then he started to run, and a fusilade of revolver shots was opened on him. One ball struck him in the right leg, making a serious wound, other bullets whizzed by his ears, while one shot grazed his son Gerhard under the arm. Mr. Groteveil made his way to a tobacco barn, where he had a shot-gun, and he was not followed.
The bushwhackers took only a revolver from Groteveil's trunk, and then rushed up into the hamlet. They visited Mrs. Rincheval's store, where her husband had been murdered the year previously, and again her son Louis was chased and more than twenty shots fired at him.
South of Groteveil lived Henry Bresser, a widower, with three or four children. He could speak and understand but a few words of English. Him they also shot, and he died in a few seconds.
Bresser was a harmless, inoffensive man, an alien who had not taken up arms at all, and who had not been long in America. He seemed devoted to his motherless children and they to him, and when a party of rescuers went down to his home after the murder they were sitting by his lifeless body, caring for it.
The guerrillas took two horses from Rudolph Schultener and de- parted for Callaway. Louis Rincheval and others went on to Hermann and gave the alarm, and Capt. Hickman's company of militia followed
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
the trail for several miles but did not overtake the guerrillas, as they had scattered.
Not long after this raid Capt. Gensert resigned as captain of the Enrolled militia, and a new company was organized at Rhineland, composed of the German-Americans in the neighborhood. Of this company, an American, Capt. Kendrick, was chosen captain. This company was organized under the orders of Gen. Rosecrans, and was stationed for some time at Rhineland. A number of men were kept on duty all the time. The quarters was a log building, formidable enough for a fort. Capt. Kendrick scouted the country occasionally, and kept the lower part of the township clear of bushwhackers ever afterwards. He is an old Missourian, and a son-in-law of the old pioneer, Lewis Jones.
BILL ANDERSON'S RAID ON AND BURNING OF DANVILLE.
Perhaps the most noted and dreadful event in the history of Mont- gomery county is the raid into the county of Bill Anderson's Confed- erate guerrilla band, in October, 1864. Of Anderson himself the readers of this volume have heard as much as they wish to hear. He is known by his deeds, and all of his deeds were evil. Of all the foul, black and bloody monsters the Civil War produced, Bill Ander- son stands out pre-eminently the foulest, the blackest, and the blood- iest. The only redeeming or palliating feature in his character was his suspected insanity by those who knew him best.
GEN. PRICE'S ORDERS.
After the massacre at Centralia, September 27th, in which he was the conspicuous figure, Bill Anderson and his band made their way to Gen. Price's army, at Boonville, where they arrived about October 10th. They paraded the streets of Boonville " in open day, with human scalps hanging to their bridles, and tauntingly shaking bundles of plundered greenbacks at the needy Confederate soldiers." 1 Here for the first time Anderson was recognized by the Confederate officers. Gen. Price sent him out to operate against the North Mis- souri Railroad, giving him written orders to that effect, which were found on his body when he was killed, and are still in existence. Ac- compaying the orders was a pass across the river.
Riding rapidly through Howard, Boone and Callaway, Anderson
I See Gov. Thos. C. Reynolds' letter in " Shelby and His Men," page 471. Gov. R. at that time was the Confederate Governor of Missouri; he at present resides in St. Louis.
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
and his band, 50 strong, reached Williamsburg on the evening of Octo- ber 14th. A few recruits were picked up in Callaway, and there were in the band the three Berry brothers, Dick and Jim and Ike - two of them at least. There was no need of a guide to Danville for there were plenty of men along that knew the road and the town very well. Certain citizens of Williamsburg, too, had been in Danville recently and drew a plan of the town and gave Anderson a correct description of the situation. The guerrillas were assured that no soldiers were there, but that there was a block house standing in the street into which the citizens expected to repair if the town should be attacked.
Anderson desired very much to pass through Danville. It had sev- eral stores well filled and there was thought to be considerable money in the county treasury. Besides the place had a bad reputation in Confederate circles. The majority of the inhabitants were hated " Feds," or Federal sympathizers, and it would afford the guerrillas great delight to give the houses to the flames and the men to the sword.
As soon had night had fallen, therefore, Anderson rode out from Williamsburg on the Boone's Lick road, striking straight for Dan- ville. He had 50 men with him, the best and most desperate bush- whackers in Missouri. His trusted lieutenant, Arch Clements, a young man aged not more than 22, keen and shrewd as a fox, but merciless and cruel as a tiger ; Bill Stuart, another guerrilla leader ; Frank James, since renowned as a bandit and train robber ; Tuck and Woot Hill, desperadoes from Johnson county, the Berry boys, from Callaway, and others equally as desperate, reckless and fearless. All were firmly mounted, all heavily and splendidly armed. No man had fewer than four revolvers, and every horse was a thoroughbred.
The first seen of the band was when it had reached the top of the hill on the Boone's Lick road, west of Loutre creek. Here Alexander Graham, out after a physician, saw and heard them approaching, and without being seen by them, sprang over a fence and crouched down in the corner. The guerrillas went by him with the rush of an ex- press train, all talking and swearing and making a dreadful din.
At old Benjamin White's, nearly two miles west of Danville, they halted. Mr. White was an old pioneer and a " Southern sympathi- zer," but it did not matter. The guerrillas robbed him of his money and watch, and certain other articles, rode their horses into and about the yard, and abused the family shamefully.
In Danville the citizens had been uneasy and fearful for some days and nights. Gen. Price's army had passed up the river a few days.
36
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
previously, and the country was full of scouting parties of Con- federates and bushwhackers. There were no troops in the place, but nearly every citizen had a gun of some kind, and the block house, which stood near the south-east corner of the square, in the street or road, would afford protection and a vantage point if once its shelter could be gained. A group of citizens were standing in front of the store of Watkins & Drury, on the south-east corner, about nine o'clock, and were discussing the advisability of putting out pickets that night and placing half a dozen men to sleep in the block house. Suddenly a column was seen approaching from the west. It had not been heard for the guerrillas were riding slowly and the dust was deep in the roads. Some say that the horses' feet were muffled ! Almost instantly the leader of the column, Anderson himself, wheeled to one side and shouted, "Fire on them."
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