USA > Missouri > Jasper County > Jasper County, Missouri, in the Civil War > Part 12
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"I think it was near the close of the war that Bud Shirley was killed and Milt Norris was shot, at Mrs. Stewart's residence, not far from my home. I went over and helped take care of the dead body of Shirley afterwards. Shirley was from Carthage. I think his family lived on the north side of the square in Carthage. At least I have been told since that that was where their home was. Norris was a Sarcoxie young man.
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Both were noted bushwhackers. A company of state militia, union men, was camped at Cave Springs, not far north of Sarcoxie. They had been hearing of these two men coming to Sarcoxie and were watching for them. While the two men were in Mrs. Stewart's house getting fed, the militia surrounded the house. Both men broke out and ran. Shirley was shot as he leaped over the fence and fell dead on the other side. Norris got a rifle ball scratch on his side as he went over the fence, but was not much hurt and escaped in the brush, where he could not be seen.
"Norris came to Carthage post haste and told the Shirley family of Bud's death. Next day Shirley's mother and Myra Shirley, the 16-year-old sister of Shirley, appeared at Sarcoxie, the latter with a belt around her waist, from which swung two big revolvers, one on each side. She was not timid in making it known among those she saw that she meant to get re- venge for her brother's death. As is well known in Carthage, Myra Shirley is the girl who afterwards ac- quired bandit fame as Belle Starr, and became famous in literature under that name. So even in her early youth she was showing the character which afterwards made her notorious.
"Next morning the militia returned and burned Mrs. Stewart's home, for harboring bushwhackers, and also burned Mrs. Walton's home, near by, as she had also assisted in entertaining the bushwhackers.
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"This burning was done by a lieutenant of Cap- tain Stotts and I have always understood that Captain Stotts did not approve of it when he heard of it."
In early July Major Burch at Neosho reported that there had been a force of 100 guerrillas operating in Jasper and Newton counties but that he had been hard after them and believed he had driven them away. They were commanded by Lieut. J. R. Goode and "the notorious Stecker." Burch mentions having killed a Kansas guerrilla named Conrad during these opera- tions.
A few weeks later federal officers in this county began to have some anxiety about a force of confeder- ates supposed to be under Major Pickrell that had come up from farther south and occupied Baxter Springs. Many of this force had homes in Jasper county and it was anticipated that they would come into the county. Even while General Sanborn and Col. Allen were cor- responding in reference to a proposed attack on this band at Baxter Springs the enemy struck.
On July 21 a force of guerrillas supposed by the federals to have been commanded by Captain Rusk, Livingston's former aid, surprised a detachment of the enrolled militia herding horses east of Carthage just beyond where the old Dr. Carter home now stands. Lieut. Brice Henry, commander of the detach- ment, and five of his men were killed, and eleven others captured. These men all belonged to the company com- manded by Captain T. J. Stemmons,
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Brigadier General Sanborn at Springfield made the following report on July 29:
"The troops at Neosho and Carthage have killed four bushwhackers during the week. Brown's forces and Pickrell's moved north to Baxter Springs and about 60 of their men came into the vicinity of Carthage and attacked about nineteen of the enrolled Missouri militia. The militia, being surprised, lost six men killed and eleven taken prisoner and afterwards released."
The day of the skirmish Colonel John D. Allen at Mount Vernon made a report upon it. Evidently he had just received word of the affair and believed more men to be killed than really were. His report follows :
"One hundred and twenty-five rebels under com- mand of Captain Rusk attacked Lieut. Henry, of Capt. Stemmon's company, within 300 yards of Carthage when he was out grazing his stock. They killed Lieut. Henry with eight of his men and several others are missing, no doubt killed. The rebels were too strong for the company at Carthage and they did not come out of the fort.
"I immediately sent thirty men from Cave Springs to reinforce Carthage, and on yesterday morning sent Captain Roberts with twenty men to Cave Springs and to scout the country. There is a force of rebels in that country there is no doubt. I have not men enough to guard against anything of a large force and hold the posts. Captain Sutherland will go to Carthage tomorrow evening. That will relieve that post considerably."
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J. B. Stemmons, brother of Capt. Stemmons, has told of this skirmish east of Carthage as follows:
"One incident during the war made a great impres- sion on me. That was the capture of some men by the rebels at a point just east of Carthage. These men were in command of my brother, Thomas J. Stemmons. They were in Carthage that day. Toward evening my brother told his men to start out for headquarters at the east edge of the county, but stop over east of the Carter place near town and let their horses graze until he should come up. He tarried behind to transact some business. Feed was scarce and the horses needed to graze, which was why this arrangement was made.
"In being sent away, the men were told to set out a guard while they stopped, so that they could not be surprised by an attacking party. However, the men felt so safe, while yet so close to Carthage where some federal soldiers were then stationed, that they did not put any men on guard. There were about 30 of our men, and suddenly they found themselves confronted by a superior force of rebels. In the firing which fol- lowed, five of our men were killed and a sixth was badly wounded.
"The killed were: Orange Clark, Bob Seymour, Peter Baker, Brice Henry and John Blake. The wound- ed man was Lee Blake, whose injury was a shot in the hip. As near as can be calculated now, the scene of this conflict was about a mile east of River street on the north side of the present Chestnut street road
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near where is now located the McWilliams brick resi- dence. Some of the federals, about 20 of them, ran into nearby cellars or a small building of some kind. Some of the rebels rode up in front of this and de- manded of the men inside to surrender.
"The hiding men asked on what terms surrender was demanded and were told that surrender must be unconditional. They refused to give themselves up on such terms and reminded the rebels in front of them that they, the rebels, were themselves under direct aim of those hiding and would be dead men in a moment if the hiders should so choose. The rebels then agreed to treat the federals as prisoners of war and on this condition the federals came outside and surrendered.
"Before starting away with their prisoners, the rebels shot all the dead men again, lest some of them might recover consciousness and survive. Now Lee Blake lay where he fell with his wounded hip and was pretending to be dead, so they would go off and leave him. While the dead men were being shot again, one rebel came to Lee Blake and suggested that it would be useless to shoot him again as he was undoubtedly dead. But another rebel rode up and remarked that dead men tell no tales. That one pointed his rifle down towards Blake's head, fired away and rode on. The ball happened to pass through Blake's cheeks, knocked out some teeth but reached no vital point. Strange to say, Blake recovered after all that.
"The captured men were taken some distance southeast of town and robbed of any money they might
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have. Any good clothes or shoes which any of them wore were taken. Then that night the men were turned loose afoot, some of them barefooted, and they reached headquarters as best they could. The rebels were away with their prisoners so quickly, after the short action at the scene of the capture, that the federal troops at Carthage did not try to follow them."
Although the official reports indicate that federal authorities believed that it was Rusk's band that at- tacked Stemmon's men there are former southern sympathizers that deny it. They state that the band was composed entirely of citizens who had banded to- gether for the purpose and that the men of Pickrell's command were not connected with it in any way. One of the southern sympathizers mentioned makes the following statement regarding the occurrence:
"When it became known that Captain Stemmons and his men were to move down toward Carthage it was rumored they were going to requisition stock belonging to southern farmers and people became much worked up about it. They had lost so much that they did not want to lose any more. The word was passed around the country and when Captain Stemmons started west the citizens began to gather. I do not know where the rendezvous was but a prominent farmer who lived somewhere between Carthage and Sarcoxie was chosen captain. After the fight and after the prisoners had been released, the band dispersed, each man going to his own home. Captain Rusk had nothing to do with the affair whatever."
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On August 2 the guerrilla, Lieut. Goode, men- tioned heretofore as operating in Jasper and Newton counties, was killed on Diamond Grove Prairie. Papers found on Goode at his death showed that he had been an officer of the Eleventh Missouri Infantry in the confederate army. He had been given a thirty-day fur- lough in January, 1864 and seems never to have re- turned to the army but instead remained in this region, setting himself up as an independent guerrilla chief. Major Burch's report of his death follows:
"I have the honor to inform you of the death of the notorious guerrilla chief, Lieutenant Goode. He was killed on the second by Captain Ozias Ruark, Com- pany L, Eighth Cavalry, Missouri State Militia.
"I started my forage train on the first with twenty mounted men under command of Lieutenant Hunter, Company H, Eighth Cavalry, and twenty men on foot under command of Captain Ruark, on the Diamond Grove prairie after forage in Goode's range.
"When the train was loaded it proceeded with twenty mounted men, Lieut. Hunter in command, for this post, (Neosho) leaving the infantry concealed in the brush unknown to any person. The latter maneu- vered around in the vicinity of a spring known as a favorite resort of Goode and his band and concealed themselves.
"They had not remained long in ambush before Goode and two others came along. They mistrusted danger at hand and one remarked, 'There is some one
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in the thicket,' but the words were hardly spoken till the sharp report of a revolver was heard, and Goode rolled from his horse dead. The ball penetrated the left side of his lower lip and ranged upward.
"You will find enclosed herein the papers found on the person of Lieutenant Goode with the list of names of the desperadoes under his command. The individuals whose names you will find on the list are citizens of this county and whose families are here yet."
The names given on the list of members of Goode's band were as follows: J. R. Goode, Caloway Johnson, J. W. Scaggs, T. H. Hawkins, T. V. Parnell, E. M. Mar- tin, James Ramsey, W. F Ray, John Harmon, Taylor Buskirk, Hiram Mayfield and Monroe Hewitt On the same paper containing the names Captain Ruark had written that most of the men named resided in the southern part of Jasper and the northern part of New- ton counties.
Typical of the kind of events that were happening more or less all the time during the war was the killing of William Rader this summer. Rader was a Jasper county resident and his family was well known in this vicinity.
In 1911 the Carthage Press published an interview with Timothy Connell, now deceased, who was a mem- ber of the party that killed Rader. Mr. Connell's ac- count follows :
"Our regiment, the Seventh Provisional, had sent a man by the name of Bishop to Fort Scott with dis-
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patches and, as he did not return, about 200 men were sent out in search of him. In the vicinity of Golden Grove the large number of buzzards circling in the air showed us that there was a body of some kind near. The 200 cavalrymen were spread out in a long line and moved across the prairie. After we had gone a short distance a soldier by the name of Davis, who was just left of me, ran across Bishop's body. It had been rid- dled with bullets, and the head, which had been cut off, lay some distance from the trunk. It was not long until we had started south on the murderers' trail.
"Meanwhile an old confederate sympathizer by the name of Robinson who lived in Jasper county had been murdered for his money. William Rader had been seized by a number of Robinson's friends and charged with the murder. When we arrived on the scene he was trying to explain to his accusers that he could not have killed Robinson because the wound was inflicted by a different calibre revolver than the one he carried.
"At first sight of our uniforms, Rader by a sudden effort broke from his captors and plunged into the heavy underbrush with both soldiers and civilians in pursuit. Among the pursuers and a little ahead of me was a man whom we called the buckskin scout and who belonged to a family well known in Jasper county both then and now. I resolved to watch and follow him be- cause he knew the country thoroughly and could catch Rader if anyone could. After some time the buckskin scout veered sharply to the left and started through the brush in a direction almost at right angles to the
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main chase. Six or seven men, including myself, fol- lowed him and kept close behind.
"We came out of the brush at the place where the Joplin Seventh street road now crosses Turkey creek, and a few minutes later Rader ran up on the bank. The scout and several others opened fire and Rader fell forward on his hands and knees, fatally wounded. The scout went up to him and asked him where his men were, for Rader usually had a small gang of followers.
" 'They are down on Shoal creek,' answered the wounded man.
" 'You are a liar,' replied the scout, 'We know they are not on Shoal creek. Tell us where they are.'
"Before Rader could answer again, one of the pur- suers who had gone in the other direction, broke through the brush and seeing Rader on his hands and knees, fired into his body, killing him instantly.
"After the war there was a story current that the scout, when he saw Rader fall to his hands and knees when first shot, stepped up to him and emptied his revolver into the bushwhacker's body. This is not cor- rect, is an injustice to the scout, and whenever I have heard it I have always denied it."
Mr. Connell later identified the "buckskin scout" as Joel P. Hood, mentioned in this volume several times heretofore.
During the month of August there were a number of southern sympathizers killed in the county, most of those of whom a definite record remains losing their
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lives near Carthage. Company D, Seventh Provisional, Captain Thomas B. Sutherland commanding, seems to have been stationed at the post mentioned at this time and it is probable that it was in connection with its operations that the men mentioned were slain.
Titus B. Heusted who lived in a brick house on North Main street in Carthage was shot near the mill two miles east of town; Dr. E. R. Griffith, a boarder at the Heusted home was killed in Carthage; John Mar- tin was shot and killed at his home near the Kendrick place north of Carthage, and Thomas G. Walton who lived on Spring river just northwest of Carthage was also shot. It is said that still others were slain and that a number of houses were burned, the burning of houses probably being on account of their owners hav- ing fed guerrillas.
Mrs. James Brummett, daughter of W. A. Shanks who at this time lived northeast of Carthage, has de- scribed the events connected with Walton's death as follows :
"Mr. Walton was called to the door and shot down by federals. It is supposed he was killed because sus- pected of sending news to confederates but we knew the Waltons and never thought the old man was guilty. Word was sent out to us by friends of the Waltons who lived near and I came in and helped in the preparations for the funeral. There was a big walnut door to the kitchen of the house. This was taken off and taken into Carthage by one of the Walton girls and there it
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was made into a coffin. She then brought it back out again and the body was placed in it. All this time there had not been a man around the house. The body was taken to Carthage for burial and soldiers of the Carthage garrison helped lower the casket into the grave which was dug in what is now Central park."
Speaking of Captain Sutherland's administration at Carthage, D. L. Wheeler, who has been quoted in a previous chapter and who in the summer of 1864 was an eleven year old boy living on Center creek southwest of Carthage, says:
"Some time during the summer of 1864 a new company of federals took post at Carthage and they were a different kind of union soldiers from any we had yet encountered. They were spoken of by the union sympathizers like my father, as a bad outfit and they were commanded, as I remember the talk about them, by a Captain Sutherland. They killed a good many men and burned a lot of houses. It seemed to be their belief that everyone in the country was ac- tively aiding the bushwhackers. On one occasion a party of them rode down toward our house but at the point where the road forked they turned off and went to Hatcher's. They killed Mr. Hatcher and then re- turned to Carthage without coming to our house.
"One day a lady who had been one of our neigh- bors on Turkey creek and who now lived in Carthage, appeared at our farm to warn my stepfather that the militia were intending to kill him also. They were go-
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ing to raise the black flag, she said, and shoot every man and burn every house in our neighborhood and would not believe that there was anyone out there that was loyal to the north. Learning of their inten- tions she had immediately come to warn my stepfather and had walked the seven miles from Carthage as fast as she could. My stepfather at once went to Carthage with her and reported himself at union headquarters, insisting that he was not a southern sympathizer and had done nothing against the north. Clothing of any kind was hard to get in those days and he was wearing an old federal coat that he had obtained somewhere. This seemed to make the soldier in charge at head- quarters very angry and he subjected my stepfather to a storm of abuse that he could only take in silence. My understanding is that this man talking was not Cap- tain Sutherland or any of his officers but was an en- listed man of the company. A number of other federals in the room at the time remained silent during the ti- rade. My stepfather was finally told to get his family and bring it to Carthage and he did so, moving us into an old abandoned printing shop that stood, as I remember it, south of the square.
"After we had moved in, there came four soldiers to visit us, telling us that they did not belong to the company at Carthage but were from the organization stationed at Cave Springs. They had been at head- quarters when my stepfather was being abused by the soldier there and had come to express their regret for the occurrence, one of them stating that he had left
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the room during the course of it because if he had stayed any longer and heard an old man like my step- father being talked to like that he could not have kept from shooting the man doing it, and then he would have been killed in turn. All four of the soldiers denounced the members of the Carthage company, saying that most of them were a set of rascals and stating that they had once exchanged shots with their company. It was a great surprise to me to hear union soldiers talking about other union soldiers in this way."
One of the houses destroyed about this time was that of Judge Onstott southwest of Carthage south of Center creek. Judge Onstott's daughter, Mrs. Hazel- wood, describes the occurrence as follows:
"One day during the early part of 1864 we heard shooting during the forenoon north of our house on the hills beyond Center creek. My father was not at home and in fact there were few men folks at any of the houses in the country at that time. We paid little at- tention to this firing but just as we finished our din- ner, eight mounted and heavily armed men in civilian clothes, apparently bushwhackers, came galloping across our field from the direction of Center creek. We left the table to watch them as they approached. When they came to the gate by the house they stopped and one of them dismounted and opened it. We no- ticed that one of the horses was wounded.
" 'Watch out. The militia are after us,' shouted one of the men as they rode through the gate and gal- loped up the road.
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" 'Militia nothing,' I remarked to mother, 'They are probably militia themselves,' and in truth you could not always tell in those days who men were by the clothes that they wore.
"A few minutes later, however, some thirty blue- clad soldiers came riding hard on the bushwhackers' trail. My mother told me to go out and tell them the direction the bushwhackers had taken and then per- haps they would go on without stopping. The militia rode up to the house and stopped, one of them dis- mounting and starting in.
" 'Don't stop here,' I told him, 'The men you are after have just gone up that road and if you keep go- ing you can catch them.'
"The man paid no attention to me but strode up to the house and entered. A moment later he re- appeared.
" "They have been here all right,' he shouted to his companions, 'These people fed them and the dishes are still on the table.'
"We denied the accusation vigorously, explaining that we ourselves had just finished dinner and that the bushwhackers had not even come in. I told the soldier that if they had stopped we would have had to have fed them just like we would have had to have fed the militia if they stopped and demanded food but in this case the bushwhackers had not eaten there. If they had we would not deny it.
"All the soldiers had now dismounted and the one who had first entered the house went into the kitchen,
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flung the feather bed off of a bed that stood in that room, then took the straw-tick, ripped it open and dumped the straw on the floor. All of us pleaded and argued with him, begging that he not set fire to the house and leave us without shelter. He cursed savage- ly and replied that we had fed bushwhackers and that the place must be burned. Going to the stove he took a shovel-full of blazing coals and threw them onto the straw, then piled chairs on the flames which were shooting up. We began to carry out what little house- hold goods we had left and the militia stood by watch- ing until the roof of the house was ablaze and it was evident that we could not extinguish the fire, then they rode leisurely up the road in the same direction the bushwhackers had taken.
"Meanwhile the guerrillas had gone on east toward the home of my father's cousin, Mrs. Betsy Hammer, who lived east of us and closer to the Carthage-Fidelity road. My sister Sarah had been to our aunt's house and met the bushwhackers on her way back. They told her that they needed her horse to replace the one they had wounded and made her get off. They then went on, leading the animal, and she came on home on foot. At Aunt Betsy Hammer's the bushwhackers went in and demanded dinner, which my aunt served to them. They ate hurriedly, then doubled back to the southwest, stopping at Dave Goade's house and stealing a horse which was in a lot there. From here they went west until they were a short distance south of our house and stopped in a hollow to change saddles from the
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wounded horse and another one to the new horses they had just acquired.
"The militia had by this time reached the Ham- mer home and ascertained that the bushwhackers had eaten dinner there and just gone. For some reason the soldiers did not burn my aunt's home but kept on after the guerrillas, finding they had been at the Goade house only a few minutes before. Proceeding to the hollow they found the men they were pursuing and charged them, the bushwhackers scattering in every direction. Back at our house-or rather at the still blazing ruins of our house-we could hear the popping of revolvers but could not see anything of the fight.
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