USA > Missouri > Greene County > Past and present of Greene County Missouri, early and recent history and genealogical records of many of the representative citizens, Volume I > Part 42
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Another soldier was executed in the north part of town for deserting from the Fourth Missouri State Militia to Sid Jackman's bushwhackers.
The execution that attracted the most attention and comment was that of Lieutenant Charles Brownlee, a Confederate, in 1863. He was a resident of Moniteau county, and he was tried and convicted by a military commission of Boonville of being engaged in murder, robbery and burning houses in which people were living at the time, in Moniteau and Cooper counties. The commission sentenced him to be shot, and General Schofield, then in com- mand of the department of Missouri, approved both finding and sentence, but before the latter could be executed, Brownlee made a sensational escape from jail in Boonville, aided by his sweetheart, and got safely away into Arkansas, where he joined the Confederate army and was commissioned a lieutenant, serving until the close of the war. In the spring of 1865 he
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started north with the intention of making his way into central Missouri, and passed through Greene county. A scouting party of Federals captured him in Polk county and brought him to Springfield, where he was recognized by some of the officers who had been members of the commission that had tried I'm at Boonville two years previously. Gen. G. M. Dodge, who was at that time commanding the department in Missouri, with headquarters in St. Louis, was at once notified by telegraph, and was asked what disposition to make of the prisoner. He promptly wired back tot carry out the sentence of the commission and to shoot him. A second telegram was sent the general, more fully explaining the case, and a reply was quickly received to the effect that Brownlee should be shot at once, as he was not a regular Confederate sollier. Whereupon, Lieutenant Brownlee prepared a written appeal to Gen- eral Sanborn, asking that his sentence might be commuted to banishment during the war. This was a piteous supplication, and was later printed and widely distributed over the country. It was not in General Sanborn's power to grant the commutation asked for, but if he had been invested with the authority, no one believed he would have done so, since he even refused to recommend Brownlee to the clemency of General Dodge, saying: "I shoot my own murderers, robbers and house-burners, and I cannot show any favors to the enemy's rascals that I will not grant to my own." So the lieutenant was taken out just south of town and shot. May 11, 1865. Much criticism resulted. Many of the Confederate sympathizers denounced the execution as purely a "military murder." and even many Federals, some of them officers, who knew all the facts in the case, thought that the ends of justice would have been satisfied had Lieutenant Brownlee's sentence been mitigated or com- muted to banishment or life imprisonment, or even imprisonment for a term of years.
In no community in the United States did the news of the assassination of President Lincoln cause more profound regret than in Greene county, and in Springfield many of the business houses were closed, and the town was generally draped in mourning. Funeral ceremonies of an appropriate nature were held here on April 18th for the martyr. There were speeches, a pro- cession and other forms of ceremony. A few of the more unreasonable Confederate sympathizers in the county freely expressed their delight and satisfaction because the President had been killed, and a few of the equally unreasoning Radicals desired to show their great grief by killing every un- armed "rebel sympathizer," as they called all Confederate families of the county : however, the majority of the citizens conducted themselves with be- coming propriety during the excitement.
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THE DRAKE CONSTITUTION.
The famous Drake Constitution was adopted by the state convention .April 18, 1865, Mr. Mack, the delegate from Greene county, voting for it. It was to be presented to the voters for adoption on June 6th, and the canvass made at that time was one of great bitterness. Notwithstanding the fact that all the main Confederate armies had surrendered and the President of the Confederacy was a prisoner, a number of guerrillas and bushwhackers continued to operate in Missouri, to the detriment of the peace and safety of the sections which they infested. Their presence furnished an excuse for keeping a number of Federal soldiers in the field and they were stationed in many counties, their principal duties being to hold the outlaws in check and punish them when apprehended. One of the sections of the proposed new constitution provided that all those who had participated in or given any kind of voluntary aid or encouragement to the Confederate cause should be debarred from voting or holding office, as well as from teaching, preaching, practicing law and engaging in various pursuits, and all such were prohibited from voting for or against the adoption of the constitution. Nothing during the war caused among the people of this state a greater degree of hatred, malevolence, revenge and general ill-will. It caused heated discussions and brawls everywhere, the very character of the issue itself widening the chasm caused by the war instead of assisting to obliterate it. Under this, the third section of the constitution, hundreds of taxpayers, many of them old and respected citizens, non-combatants during the war and men of education and influence, were disfranchised, and denied the privilege of the ballot in the decision of the momentous issue before the state. But the Radicals and supporters of the proposed constitution argued that citizens who, by overt or covert acts, had attempted to destroy their government; who had, by taking up arms against the Union, committed treason, or in deeds, words and sympathy given encouragement to those who had, were not and could not be proper recipients of the ballot. It was further maintained that, had the Confederacy been successful, and Missouri become in reality one of the Confederate states, then every Union man in the state might have considered himself truly fortunate if he had been permitted to live in Missouri; that no Union soldier or militiaman, or those who had sympathized with either, would have been allowed to vote; and that, in all probability, General Price's threat, made early in the war, would have been carried out, and the two hundred and fifty million dollars' worth of property belonging to the Union people of the state would have been confiscated for the benefit of those who had supported the Confederate cause.
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The constitution was adopted by a small majority and went into effect July 4. 1805. Greene county cast an overwhelming vote in favor of the constitution, there being one thousand and seventy-one votes for it and two hundred and eight votes against it, making a majority for the constitution of eight hundred and sixty-three.
The author of the new constitution was Charles D. Drake, of St. Louis, who was a strong pro-slavery man before the commencement of the Civil war. The bitter days when this constitution was in force have long since passed. but perhaps not all the hatred which it engendered, as many old Confederate veterans still retain vivid recollections of its workings.
Federal troops remained at Springfield some six months after the close of the war, or until the autumn of 1865, owing to the fact that large quan- tities of valuable government stores were here as well as the general hospital for the Army of the Frontier, and the fact that it was headquarters for this district. On May 18th General Mullings accepted the appointment as colonel of the Twelfth regiment of Missouri Militia, an organization perfected in 1865 to preserve the peace. There were two regiments of the Missouri Militia organized in Greene county. The other, the Thirteenth regiment, was commanded by Col. John Hursh. General Mullings was placed in com- mand of all the militia in this district. On June 9th the citizens met and passed resolutions complimentary to Gen. John B. Sanborn, who had been ordered from the command of the district of Springfield to take the field against the hostile Indians in Colorado. He was succeeded in this district by Brigadier-General McKean on June 20th. Five days later seventy-five Confederate soldiers from the old Trans-Mississippi army passed through Greene county on their way to their homes in various parts of southwestern Missouri. They met with no hostile treatment from the Federals at Spring- field. A battalion of Colonel Gravelly's regiment, the Fourteenth Missouri Cavalry, which had been stationed in Greene county for some time, left on July 6th for Fort Riley, Kansas, with the intention of accompanying General Sanborn on his expedition against the western Indians. During this summer many bodies of Federal troops were ordered to Springfield to be paid off and mustered out of service. During the months of June and July Col. John D. Allen, of the Fifteenth Missouri Cavalry; Col. Thomas Derry, of the Second Wisconsin Cavalry; Col. Dudley Seward and Maj. Albert Barnitz, the two latter of the Second Ohio Cavalry, were successively in command of the post or sub-district of Springfield. The Second Wisconsin left for Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, on July 20th. Seven days later the general hospital at Springfield was reduced to a post hospital, and placed in charge of Doctor Moxley. Dr. H. S. Chenoweth had been relieved as surgeon of the post a few days previous.
During the summer of 1865 the troops and men in the employ of the
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government at Springfield gradually diminished until by the latter part of the summer they were comparatively few. But they were turbulent and some of them rowdies and wicked. On June 20th the soldiers got on a general drunk and "took in the town," quarreled and engaged in a free-for-all fight among themselves, and with the civilians, one soldier shooting Dick Horn- buckle, a negro, without provocation. And on August 4th, Jerome Leeper, a government employee and a bad character, shot and killed, during a quarrel, another government employee. Leeper had been released from confinement in the stockade only a day or two before. He escaped from the authorities and was not captured. On August 10th, the fourth anniversary of the battle of Wilson's Creek, the siege guns which had been planted in the forts at Springfield were removed and started for Rolla, escorted by two companies of the Second Ohio Cavalry. Other ordnance and the ordnance stores soon followed. In a few days four other companies of the Second Ohio Cavalry left for St. Louis to be mustered out. Four other companies of the same regiment were left behind.
FAREWELL TO THE MILITARY.
Military encampments and buildings began to disappear rapidly by the middle of August. The soldier must now turn his attention from the arts of war to the pursuits of peace. His services in the field were no longer re- quired. It was back to the plow, the shop, the busy mart.
On August roth a meeting was held in the court house at Springfield for the organization of a society to raise funds for the erection of a monu- ment to the Federal soldiers on the battle-field of Wilson's Creek, but nothing of a tangible character ever came of the matter.
On September 18th a great sale of government property was held in Springfield by Quartermaster R. B. Owen, including five hundred head of horses and mules, many of them good ones, but they brought an average of only about forty dollars apiece. On September 12th the post hospital here was broken up, and the sick soldiers, now only four in number, were sent to Rolla. Doctor Moxley, the surgeon in charge, started for his home in Ohio the same day to be mustered out of service. About this date there arrived at their homes in Greene county Brevet Brig .- Gen. John E. Phelps and Cap- tain Orr, both having just been mustered out with the Second Arkansas Cavalry.
During the earlier part of the war the women of Springfield formed an association whose object was the maintenance of a soldiers' orphans' home, wherein the orphans of Federal soldiers who had been killed or died in the Union service could be cared for until they reached an age when they could care for themselves. Mrs. Mary Phelps, wife of John S. Phelps, former
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congressman and colonel of a Greene county regiment, was at the head of the association. For her services in caring for the body of General Lyon and the valuable assistance rendered the Federal army generally, Congress had given Mrs. Phelps the sum of twenty thousand dollars, and this she had mainly expended in fitting up the home for the fatherless children and in caring for them. At first the home was situated in the east part of town, later moved to a site about a mile south of the public square. For the pur- pose of raising additional funds for the home, Mrs. Phelps was the prime factor of "the orphans' fair," held in Springfield in the autumn of 1865, for which commendable work she was praised by the press all over the state.
The last squad of Federal soldiers in Greene county left during the month of September. These troops belonged to the Second Ohio Cavalry. On September 7th the four companies that had remained in Springfield to care for the government property went to Rolla, leaving only twenty men behind. But five days later Captain Hillhouse, with twenty more men, re- turned and took charge of the post. These soldiers were all that were left at that time of the once great armies in southwestern Missouri; but at last they, too, received marching orders on the morning of September 23d, and the bugler of that little troop announced to the people in prolonged bursts of notes that the dreadful reign of terror and bloodshed for Greene county was at last over, and in a short time Captain Hillhouse led his company along St. Louis street toward the well-beaten road that led to Rolla, the men shouting many a farewell to Springfield as they rode away out of sight, this, the rear guard of the mighty Army of the Frontier, and then was heard the faint notes of the bugle as it blew the "retreat." As they passed the farms those who had worn the blue waved at them, and those who had worn the gray sighed musingly and turned to mend their broken fortunes.
THOSE WHO SERVED IN THE LATE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR.
By Ernest C. McAfee, Late Captain Second Missouri Infantry.
I am asked to contribute a chapter concerning those who enlisted from Greene county to serve in the war against Spain in 1898, and to relate some- thing of our experiences as soldiers. I shall acquit myself of the honor as best I may, but shall advert to general features of the war also, taking ad- vantage of this opportunity to make many assertions tending to shatter some popular beliefs, as will frequently appear in the course of the narrative.
I am writing these words on the 6th day of March, 1915. At this moment war is raging in Europe and has been for eight months. Up to this time nothing has been accomplished by the warring nations beyond the ex- termination, almost, of the valiant little nation of Belgium, itself a neutral in the controversy. If published reports be true the bloodshed and horrors of
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the present European war are without a parallel in history, and out of it all comes not a single recompense. Mindful of its magnitude, to write of our own little Spanish war seems but to write of an insignificant thing, yet to those concerned, it was not. It is well entitled to its little place in history.
From the first of May, 1898, to some time in March, 1899, I commanded a company of infantry in the Second Missouri Volunteers, which regiment contained the bulk of Greene county soldiers. I am therefore familiar with all that took place concerning them. The narrative will be of interest to the surviving soldiers and their children, at least I hope so; but previous to my connection with the army, I chanced to be witness to many things in New York and Washington concerning the war that may also be of interest .. 1 will relate much of that also. The proper recital of what follows makes necessary the mention of my own observations and experiences frequently, but I hope to escape the charge of immodesty when the fact is understood.
At the beginning of the year 1898, the people of the United States were in an uneasy mood. The country had suffered from a long business depres- sion, and although a new administration had controlled affairs for a year, yet no relief was in sight. This condition was the cause of much of the prevailing unrest. In Cuba there existed another of the periodical revolu- tions against Spanish rule, and to that island had gone many adventurers from this country to add to the foment and confusion. These men had caused to be published in our newspapers certain accounts of outrages at the hands of the Weyler regime, which we were later to learn were greatly exaggerated.
While the Cuban situation caused high feeling in some quarters, the bulk of the American people knew or cared but little about it. Revolutions in Cuba had been frequent and had ceased to attract much attention in this country. It was not until the Maine disaster that the people betrayed any especial antagonism to Spain, but when that news came they became frenzied. But for the destruction of the Maine in Havana harbor, there would have been no war.
When we come to analyze it, the universal clamor for a war with Spain is easy to account for. We had been at peace with the whole world for half a century and it had been thirty-three years since our Civil war. In 1898, the greater portion of our men had been born and reared to manhood within that period. Those who would compose our soldiery were of these, and their ideas of war were only such as they had gleaned from fireside stories, or from flaming histories dwelling long on the glories, but briefly on the evils of armed conflict. A war with Spain was a thought appealing to a romantic as well as a patriotic sentiment. Then too, such a war would afford North and South to unite under one flag in a common cause, and both were anxious for that. Everything was propitious for the war.
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"REMEMBER THE MAINE."
On the night of February 15, 1898, I happened to be in the city of New York, where, returning to my hotel from a theatre I saw, in Herald Square the first bulletin announcing the destruction of the Maine in Havana harbor but a few hours before. The news was meagre and the first reports declared that Spanish officers had torpedoed the ship, and had thus murdered several hundred of our sailors while they were on a peaceful mission in Spanish waters. These reports went by wire to all newspapers in the country with the result that within twenty-four hours the whole people were aflame with indignation.
I cannot hope to describe the scenes in New York. On the following days the city teemed with excitement. Tremendous crowds surrounded the newspaper offices awaiting news. Slowly it came to be known that our sailors had been done to death and that our people in Cuba were in hourly danger from the Spaniards. New York had many Spanish residents, and these had to be protected from the excited throngs. Indignation meetings sprung up in all parts of the city and General Weyler was burned in effigy near Chatham Square. The usual recruiting stations for the army and navy were deluged with men seeking enlistment, while the stock and produce ex- changes had all sorts of flurries in anticipation of war.
As the official investigation of the Maine disaster progressed, various diplomatic twists occurred and these indicated the final attitude of Spain. At this time I was in Washington. No person familiar with events could doubt the certainty of war, and then ensued the wild scramble for army com- missions by political favorites, and for subsistence, clothing supplies and transportation contracts, and for administration favors generally. The White House was besieged, while the War. State and Navy offices were thronged with men seeking favors. The awarding of contracts to men who later sold them at great profit was one of the scandals of that time. Members of Congress influenced by thousands of telegrams from home were ready to vote for war at the first opportunity.
Early on March 6, I was fortunate in securing a gallery seat in the chamber of the House of Representatives. The corridors of the capitol were thronged with people unable to get within the chamber to hear the discussion on the proposal to issue $50.000,000 in bonds for war purposes. Thomas B. Reed of Maine was then speaker and under his famous rules his power was all but absolute. He was known to oppose the war, but realizing the futility of opposing it he permitted the House to talk itself into a war frenzy. Many were the speeches made that day, but the speech of them all was that of Gen. Joseph Wheeler, the famous ex-confederate, at this time a member of
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Congress from Alabama. That white-haired grizzled warrior, with a sin- cerity none could doubt, begged opportunity to lead a regiment under the flag he had once repudiated. Members on the floor and gallery visitors all rose to their feet to accord him tremendous and long applause, and many old soldiers in that throng gave way to tears. The appropriation was voted shortly afterwards.
ROOSEVELT'S ROUGH RIDERS.
It was about this time that Theodore Roosevelt, holding an obscure posi- tion in the Navy Department, began to feel the lure of the limelight. For several years previous Wild West shows had been popular in the eastern states where the cowboys' rough riding feats had attracted attention. Quick to see the possibilities of the idea, Roosevelt resigned his position, returned to New York and announced his intention to recruit a regiment to be composed of "rough-riders." When the call for volunteers came in April, the project had received great newspaper notoriety. Securing, as a nucleus, less than two hundred western cowboys, he was able tto fill out the regiment with re- cruits from New York City. It was said that Roosevelt was refused a colonel's commission because he could not qualify, while others said he refused such a commission for that reason. However that may be, Dr. Leonard Wood, formerly connected with a hospital corps in the regular army, but at this time a New York civilian, was given a colonel's commission to command the regiment. Roosevelt received a commission as lieutenant-colonel. The regiment was mustered into service as the First United States Cavalry, but was subjected to the euphonious sobriquet "Roosevelt's Rough Riders" by the newspapers.
Going somewhat ahead of my story, I will take occasion to say that out- side of the newspapers, I am unable to find that either Roosevelt or the regi- ment to which he belonged took any preeminent or unusual part at the so- called battle of San Juan. The records of the war department show that General Wheeler was in command of all land forces and directed all move- ments around Santiago. It was Leonard Wood and not Roosevelt who com- manded the rough-rider regiment. San Juan hill was scaled and captured by five regiments of infantry, part of them negroes. After it was captured it was occupied by all troops. The official report of General Wheeler makes no mention of Roosevelt's name, although that of Wood and other officers' is given honorable mention. Roosevelt was never a colonel until after the promotion of Leonard Wood, and that was after the fighting was over.
This is not in accord with the popular understanding of it. It was from the newspapers whose representatives were with Roosevelt that came the impression that the rough-rider regiment and its lieutenant-colonel cap-
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tured San Juan hill. The telegraph cable to Key West had been cut and to get into the United States the news had first to go to Europe and then to New York. The rough-riders being a New York regiment, it is safe to assume that stories of its prowess wouldn't shrink any when first printed by the news- papers of New York. A misapprehension of the facts has long existed, and the correction should have come from Mr. Roosevelt, but since he has neg- lected it. I use my prerogative as a historian to make the correction myself.
When war was declared the regular army was inadequate both as to numbers and efficiency. The constant output from West Point had over- officered it with unseasoned and inexperienced men. The recruiting offices for the army had long been the refuge for men unable to support themselves, and who had enlisted from necessity and not from choice. Such soldiers could not be relied on ; hence, as always, the hope of the nation was in her volunteers, men who would enlist from choice and not from necessity.
Many of the states had an established militia known as the "national guard." The national guard was designed as a reserve to the regular army in case of war, and for that reason was armed and partially equipped by the United States. The national guard had been maintained in this way for many years, but for lack of financial encouragement it was difficult to keep it in any state of efficiency in most of the states. In those states already main- taining a national guard the call for volunteers had been anticipated, and had been recruited to full strength. Thus, when the call came in April, a reserve of the national guard more than double the strength of the regular army, was ready to respond.
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