USA > Missouri > Buchanan County > The history of Buchanan County, Missouri > Part 33
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Who, too, does not remember the hospitality, characteristic of our well-to-do settlers. The latch-string was ever out, and their gen- uine and sometimes burdensome hospitality puts to shame the article of modern times. Old settlers of Ray, Clay, Clinton, Platte and Cald- well, do you not remember our old-time camp-meetings, where every well- to-do farmer had his log hut or tent, and entertained both man and beast of all who would accept ? Those rich and rare old scenes in the open square of the camp-ground are gone, alas ! I fear, never to return. Do you remember old Father Patten, who would talk so loud that he placed his thumbs in each ear to prevent his own voice from deafening himself? Do you remember the store coats ; how few they were and how great a curiosity the appearance of each one and its owner excited ? Do you remember the stirring times incident to the mustering in of the companies furnished by each county as its quota for the Mexican war, the heartrending partings, in many instances, and the joy manifested at their return, and the rich and generous barbecue given to them.
Do you remember the Mexican saddles brought back by them, and the rage of the young men for them, especially for those with the silver mountings ; and that of each young lady to possess, as her own individ- ual property, with bumble bees, or some other kind, nicely stitched upon the seat in golden colors, in an age when our only mode of travel was upon horseback ? And now how varied and different the scene. Railroads checker North Missouri like a chess board, and in our travels, as the darkey said, " we are there before we start," for truly is distance annihi- lated and time overcome.
I remember well in the late summer of 1852, when only a strippling grown, of returning from the East, where I had been at school for nearly three years, of being on the road for three weeks, and now it is readily done in as many days. Then the Pennsylvania Railroad, probably now the most wealthy railroad corporation in the world, was not then completed from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, but was supplemented by the slow-going canal.
But time passes and I am warned I must close. How magical the changes wrought in our midst. Even far more so than those of the Genii of the magic lamp possessed by Aladdin. Northwest Missouri, yea, even your own proud city of St. Joseph, have no ancestry to boast of. They are alike the product of the energy and genius of her own sons and the hon- ored and venerated pioneers who are all around me. Twenty-five years ago that man would have been declared insane who prognosticated the simple truth of to-day, and the most boundless and vivid imagination could not nor did not fortell the half of to-day. Your own proud, but turbid and restless river, on my right, has been subdued. Seven bridges, monumental of man's power and energy, span its rapid current, and I, young as I am, have seen the celebrations over those erected at your own city, Kansas City and St. Louis. What shall I say, in conclusion, of St. Joseph, proud and Queen City of the Northwest. I have declared she had no ancestry to boast of. No ; she has sprung into existence full
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fledged, armed at all points, and equipped for the battle of life, resting upon the strong arms of her own sons to carry her on to still greater victories than any yet achieved in the past. Her proud career and com- manding station in our state, furnishing as she has, Governors, Supreme Judges and other high state officials, and the home of such men as a Burnes, a Hall, a Woodson, a Craig and a Vories, reminds me of an anecdote of Gen. Jackson's administration. Shawnee was a great Indian
warrior, the measure of whose fame filled his own nation and was the envy of surrounding tribes. He visited the great father, at Washington, and while there was asked by Mrs. Jackson, who did not know how sen- sitive every Indian warrior was upon the subject of his ancestry, who his father was. His face darkened with a cloud, but quickly recovering he said, years ago, the Great Spirit, in his wrath was angry at his red chil- dren, and in his fury, in the midst of storm and thunderings and light- nings, the Great Spirit smote the oldest and proudest oak of the forest, and rent it from top to bottom, and as it fell prone upon the earth, from out of its heart stepped Shawnee, a full-grown Indian warrior brave. So it is with St. Joseph, she sprang into existence full-grown, and her com- manding position, as the gateway of the Northwest, will enable her to maintain her vantage ground.
Judge Birch was then introuced, and spoke as follows :
MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN :- As there can be no motive to impugn the sincerity of the declaration that none of you can be more disappointed than I have been by the non-attendance of the distinguished citizen you came to listen to, who, as the orator of the day, would have so generally swept the field, I will waste no time in excusing myself for that want of preparation to properly supply his place which will soon enough become apparent to you all. I will proceed, therefore, at once to the duty which been assigned me, and shall hope to discharge it in such a manner as may be at least excusable as the results of the reflections of an hour or so instead of a week, or a month, as it would have been my duty and my pleasure to have expended upon a task so complimentary and so honorable had it been assigned me in time. As the chronologies and other items of precise information which should have entered so largely into an address of this character will have to be recalled from memory instead of the more reliable sources with which I might have refreshed and better assured myself at home, I can but promise to do the very best I can, and as no man has ever heard me premise a speech by excuse of any nature before to-day, it is felt that I may the more confidently rely even upon the indulgence of criticism, than I could have done had I been set to the task you have assigned me and in many respects failed to redeem your reasonable expectation. What I deem it appropriate to suggest in advance of anything that I may be prompted to bring up before this vast assembly, is to submit to the old settlers who thus so candidly and encouragingly honor us with their ear, the reverential recognition of an overruling Providence who has so long guided and sustained us, and who has in like manner encouraged and sustained those who subsequently followed us to a country which is here so grandly represented in the all-embracing Exposition of the industries, the enterprise, and, in short, the progress and civilization which have grown up and gladden the eye and ear almost to the verge of intoxication. All honor to the man and men of St. Joseph who pre -.
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sided and have carried to consummation the magnificent Exposition which is before us and around us, and who have inaugurated this re-union of the old settlers who yet linger around and among them.
And what has brought us all to this pass since the distinguished President of this re-union and myself, with the hundred who are before us, were men of middle age? Those of us who are called " old settlers," and who are known accordingly in the programme, and in the badges of the day, are of course content that it be written of us as it has been, that we so blazed the way to what we see before us and around us as to encourage others to follow us up as they have done, and it may perhaps be added, without immodesty, that we have been strengthened and accredited to have so borne ourselves in the conflict to which our circum- stances have committed us, each in his sphere, as to have at least not repelled such proper associations and enterprises as have since clustered around us, and as are typified before us to day. This little conceded, we as unreservedly concede the rest to others, each again in his sphere, and point again and again to this wondrous Exposition as the result of a progressive and common civilization, the outcome, if we may say, of the germs, which, however rudely planted, had nevertheless to be planted before there could be realized the fruition and fruits of to-day. May such and similar fruitage be progressive in the heritage of our children, and our children's children, who may remain to enjoy them ; or if in the untowardness of events, some of them shall feel constrained to go in quest of new associations, and to embark upon newer fields of usefulness or of enterprise as their fathers once did, may they carry with them at least the sturdy manhood of their fathers, and continue to adorn and to benefit society, instead of inflicting a blemish upon it or staining it with a wrong.
What more shall I say in recognition of the distinction which puts me in the place of such a man as Alexander W. Doniphan, upon such an occasion as the present one ? Firstly, that I shall not be presumptious enough to expect to speak as he would have spoken, even by trying to say it in a different manner to what he would have said it, but simply to substitute as best I may such incidents or experiences as it may occur to me will be most indulgently received by the rows and tiers of benches. pit, box and gallery full, which so rise up and stretch out before me, as for the first time in fifty years to render me distrustful as to whether my . voice can compass the audience which thus honors me with its ear. I briefly allude, therefore, to what I have witnessed, and the humbler part in which I was permitted to act during a period of many years in our state. It may be permissible to premise that when I first looked upon the City of St. Louis from the deck of a steamer which was about to land me there, during the winter of 1826-27, there was something in what seemed to the stately grandeur and the unerring prestige of the location which made me feel that the good old uncle, who had long resided there as a bachelor surveyor of the public lands, and who had invited and inticed me (young as I was) to come to him, buy the office of a newspaper establishment, which had been presided over by Thomas H. Benton, up to the period of his election to the Senate, and afterwards by Gen. Duff. Green, until his transfer to Washington, as the organ of what was then known as "the Jackson Party," at least intended great things for me, whether I could be brought up to them or not. I soon came
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to believe, however, that although the population of the city at that time was only about 6,000, it was too large a place for " one of my age," months afterward I transferred myself to a village of the interior with a small newspaper, then the extreme newspaper west.
And as I see before me some of these old settlers of Howard County whose acquaintance I made when they were commencing life, as I may say, at Fayette, it will at least be unpardonable should I not occupy the remainder of my time with what they and I then knew and have since come to know of the state and the people, of whom we form a part. The state was divided into four judicial circuits, the one over which the Fayette lawyer traveled extending from Montgomery and Gasconade Counties, and all westward on both sides of the river, to the state line inclusive. By and by a new circuit was organized in this end of the state, and as one of the Governor's military confidants was appointed to be Judge of it, but served as his aid-de-camp, the commander-in-chief, was courteously and confidently conferred upon me, which is the way I came to be Colonel about forty-five years ago. Then we had one mem- ber of Congress. Now we have thirteen-but even yet there are not half as many who can get to go to Congress as are willing to make the sacrifice. Then we had a mail once a week from St. Louis to Fayette in a stage, which the passengers had frequently to pry out of the mud and otherwise help along at the steep places. And from Fayette to Liberty, which was the county-seat of Western civilization of the United States, the mail was sent on horseback once a week.
What next ? By a treaty with the Indians, whose wigwams covered the country, perhaps the very spot from which I am thus permitted to address this vast assembly, it was agreed that they would be removed, by their consent, to the other side of the river, and that that should be thereafter the boundary between ourselves, and the red men. The state consenting, and Congress consenting, it was not long before the coun- try was organized into counties and with representation in the Legis- lature, and with David R. Atchison, the President of this reunion, as Judge of this new Judicial Circuit. I wish it were so, sir, said the speaker, (turning to General Atchison), that we could more fully let you loose again from the more rigid conventionalities which but properly attach to an occasion of this nature-you and the lawyers who went around with you at your courts for the first year or so-just to hear you tell a few more stories as to the more primitive ways of an old horseback life, in contrast with the step by step advances which have brought us up not only to our palatial houses in our sojournments, but to our palace cars in carrying us there. But I must pause.
Our politics in those early times were at least none the worse for having in them a little more heart than they have since grown to have. But let that pass. Other parties had worked into the new names of National Republicans under such leaders as Clay and Webster, and Democrats under such leaders as Jackson and Van Buren, and later still, when the National Republicans took the name of Whigs, as being more appropriate, to include all the outs against all the ins-there was war in the great earnestness of nothing-a Presidential election which left the country distrustful and embittered as it has come to be.
The average Whig of that day was a man who, as well as we should put it, drank his grog regularly and voted his ticket without scratching.
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unless it was felt that he could in some respect do better, and when the Whigs won a big race (which was only about often enough to bring back the Democracy to a recollection that even the most powerful party could not brook the popular credulity or retribution as has since been done,)- when a presidential or state contest was their greatest thought, with it was felt that the country was nevertheless just about as safe as if it had gone the other way ; and we all (or nearly all) shook hands and drank each others health accordingly. As to those Pullman or palace cars to which I return, my friend Governor Hall, who is present, remembers how I was thrown down and made to go foot in our party almost a quarter of a century ago for advocating that system of internal improvement, out of which they have since grown. I don't think Williard was ever any better Democrat than I was (and yet am) but he was a better party dis- ciplinarian ; and to that, as well as to the patriotic furore which oppor- tunely sent him (and a Doniphan) to Mexico, with musket at his shoulder, instead of longer continuing to oppose the road to India, as I then phrazed the road which carried our children and grand-children to Cal- ifornia a few days ago, I believe he himself ascribes his election to Congress. Of course I would not thus publicly allude, in his absence, to my Congressional campaign with the Governor, when we were both much younger men than we now are, were it not that I feel free to declare that, as a political antagonist, he was as fair as he was unyielding, and that in the subsequent history of the railroad which he had opposed as a Congres- sional candidate, he made it all up and more, too, as our Congressman elect. Although I am probably a trespasser beyond the line of a proper and considerate courtesy, I venture to add a few parting sentences in the reliance per chance that they may be worth remembering by the younger portion of this patient and listening assembly.
I see before me old men and old women of all creeds, and what are called no creeds, of whom I ask no more, nor they of me, than as Jehu asked of Jehonadab, is thine heart right? This much conceded, as un- der the old dispensation, the forbid him not of Christ, has sufficiently sufficed us for this present dispensation, and it is believed, I incur no risk in assuming, that the older we grow and the more we reflect, the more and more we have of reciprocal charity-the less and less of reciprocal bigotry. It but naturally follows such premises as these that "repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ" is all we require of each other on the score of Christian fellowship.
In respect to the neighborhood, a social requirement of these old settlers, such men (turning to Colonel Switzler) as the old Sachems who were looked up to in the early settlement of our old county of Howard -if a man was brave to always tell the truth and stand well up to it in a fight, his children could marry with the children of neighbor- hood aristocracies-and so it is with the present day. But as Keitt said of the cock of South Carolina, who was loud in a crow but bashful in a fight, even the pullets had too much consideration for themselves and their posterity to run with them. Farewell, old settlers, and if forever fare- well, we have the consciences to feel in parting (perhaps for the last time) that we have not only been faithful and true to each other, whether as friends or adversaries, but that in the public employment which has fallen to us, we have faithfully served our country; that we have never wronged her, and that in that respect we will be ready to meet the final inquiries of the Judge of all the earth. Farewell, old settlers, farewell.
CHAPTER XIX.
BUCHANAN COUNTY DURING THE WAR.
The history of the important events, which transpired in Buchanan County, during the period of the late war, would alone, fill a large book.
At this late day, when the old ship of state is sailing over the smoothest seas of prosperity, and when the deep wounds and gashes made by the war are being healed by the flight of time, and the hopes of the future, men are disposed to remember that unfortunate episode in our national history as a dream : as a dark story of romance, and are unwilling now to recall the facts and incidents connected with it, espec- ially those that are replete with crime and bloodshed.
So believing, we shall only allude briefly to some of the general fea- tures of the war, and the part taken therein by Buchanan County.
The citizens of Buchanan County, being largely from the southern and western states, were, prior to 1860, intensely patriotic, for it is a matter of history, that prior to that time, the southern people were loud and enthusiastic in their protestations of loyalty to the constitution and flag of the country.
In the canvass of 1860, Bell and Everett received in this county, 1,287 votes. Douglas, 1,226. Breckenridge, 614, and Lincoln, 452, of which number, received by Lincoln, 410 were cast in the city of St. Joseph.
Each of these parties claimed, during the canvass, that it was the simon pure and only union and patriotic party. The old Whig party, gen- ally, voted for Bell and Everett, while a few of them voted for Brecken- ridge as the representative of the extension of slavery. The Irish voted for Douglas, and the German vote was divided between Douglas and Breckenridge, and, anomalous as it may seem, much the larger number of Germans in the Platte Purchase voted for the Breckenridge ticket, believing that he was the regular nominee of the Democratic party.
At the election of delegates to the convention held in this Senatorial District, Governor Stewart, Governor Hall and Hon. Robert W. Donnell were elected by a large majority as union men over the other ticket, composed of Smith and Fallis, who were for disunion, on certain con- tingencies.
The election of Mr. Lincoln embittered the feelings of many per- sons, otherwise loyal men, believing, as they claimed, that the election
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of a sectional president by the votes of the Northern States meant the violent abolition of slavery and the speedy dissolution of the Union. The course of the New York Tribune, which was then regarded as an exponent of Northern sentiment, had prepared most of the slaveholders of this county to believe that the Northern Abolitionists desired a sep- aration of the slaveholding from the non-slaveholding states.
There were 2,011 slaves owned in Buchanan County, which repre- sented $1,500,000 in money. The dissolution of the Union meant des- truction to this interest, and the large free territory west and the vicinity of lowa and Nebraska, caused much anxiety and nervous apprehension for the future, which culminated in county meetings in the spring of 1861. At these meetings intemperate action and incendiary resolutions were proposed, but the advice of the older and leading citizens was for quiet acquiescense in whatever might be the result of the approaching conflict outside of this state.
In May, 1861, a portion of the citizens of St. Joseph, who had been organized into independent companies by M. Jeff. Thompson, of this city, and, under command of Captain I. C. C. Thornton, and who had par- ticipated in the sacking of Liberty Arsenal, had brought a part of the arms and ammunition there procured to this county, and some of the more inconsiderate and foolish ones had threatened to drive out the loyal men of St. Joseph, and especially those who had voted for Lincoln in 1860.
John L. Bittinger, a prominent free soil man, had been appointed postmaster of St. Joseph, and had hung out a huge flag over the post- office building when he took possession. Some of the Southern hot- spurs believed this flag was a taunt and defiance to Thornton's camp. and in May, 1861, a crowd collected on the site of the old postoffice building, situated on Second Street, next door to the St. Joseph Hos- pital Medical College, and the flag was taken down by General Thomp- son, to the great gratification of the mob, and disgust of the friends of Bittinger. The business men generally kept religiously away, and did not participate in the transaction.
Many claimed that Major Bittinger had purposely provoked the demonstration in order to have troops sent to St. Joseph, and declared they would shed the last drop of their blood to preserve the old flag from insult, but not a drop to keep Major Bittinger's flag over the postoffice.
The result was the sending of troops here during the same month to protect the loyal men, and to preserve order, which had become necessary from the violent disputes and bitter altercations, constantly threatening to end in street fights and general pillage. The first troops quartered here were United States Dragoons, which arrived on the 20th of May, 1861, and encamped in South St. Joseph, under command of Captain Sully, (afterwards a brigadier general in the Federal army) and Lieutenant Armstrong. Lieutenant Armstrong resigned some time
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later, and became a general officer in the Rebel service. This company of dragoons broke up Thompson's and Thornton's camp, near the Patee House, after which Thompson and Thornton went into the lower coun- ties to raise troops, where many of the men composing the old company rejoined them, and served with more or less credit during the war as soldiers in different Confederate organizations.
The next Federal troops sent to St. Joseph were the Second Iowa, under command of Colonel, afterward General, Custis. They came about the first of June, 1861, and remained until August.
The Sixteenth Illinois, under command of Colonel Smith, arrived in St. Joseph in September, and remained until about the sixteenth of the same month, when it went down through the counties of Platte and Clay, to Blue Mills, where his regiment was engaged in the fight with the Rebels under Patton, Saunders, Boyd and others, and met with con- siderable loss.
This regiment afterwards returned to St: Joseph and remained in camp with the Fifty-second Illinois, during the winter of 1861 and 1862, on Prospect Hill.
The last of September, 1861, Major Cranor, of Gentry, occupied St. Joseph with a battalion of state militia, raised in the counties north of St. Joseph. These militiamen were a source of amusement to the citizens, as they were raw in military matters ; sans everything but courage- rough, ragged and ready.
During the time which elapsed between the departure of the Second Iowa and the arrival of the Sixteenth Illinois, the Confederates, under Colonel Patton, Boyd and others, occupied the city for several days, and levied contributions from some of the citizens, and confiscated contra- band of war, which term was made to include everything a needy soldier desired. If he belonged to the rebel side, he could see contraband of war in nearly all the goods owned by the Union men. If, however, he was training under the stars and stripes, he could discover, as by instinct, that all desirable articles owned by southern sympathizers, were dan- gerous, as aids to the cause.
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