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Bushwhacking
and its History in Missouri
Jim Cochran
One must always remember that conventional
history tends to be written by the
winners, and can be biased in its
reporting. First off, it is a common
misconception that the War Between The
States (WTBS) or the War of Northern
Aggression, depending on your beliefs, was
a Civil War. It was not. A civil war, is a
war between a radical faction, trying to
overthrow a government or regime to place
itself into power.
The
Confederacy was not designed, nor was its
purpose to overthrow the U.S. government,
but to break away from what it perceived
as a tyrant, no different than the British
Empire that our ancestors broke away from
in our Revolutionary War.
Believe
it or not, the bushwhacking of the war,
gets its start before Missouri was even a
state. When the Missouri Compromise was
enacted in 1820, it basically was created
to allow an equal amounts of anti slavery
and pro slavery states, as well as created
a dividing line that no state North of a
36* 30' line would be allowed to own
slaves This line is the Southern boarder
of Missouri.
Well,
we all know that there were slaves in
Missouri, so how did that work? It was
proposed that after admission, no new
slaves were to be brought in, and any
children born to slaves in Missouri, would
be born free. But there were still issues,
by admitting Missouri as a slave state,
there would be an off amount of pro
slavery senators. At that time, an area of
Massachusetts wanted to create its own
state, so it was proposed to allow
Massachusetts to break off into two
states, the other becoming Maine, and
being admitted as a free state, and
Missouri to be admitted as the balancing
state for the pro slavery. This would
remain the same until 1854, when the
Kansas-Nebraska act would reappeal what
had been set in the Missouri Compromise.
Around
1856, Northern abolitionist groups started
immigrating, and moving other
abolitionists into the Kansas Territory,
to sway the vote into the anti-slavery
faction, upon its admission to statehood.
Missourians were furious, as the
abolitionists of Kansas were causing so
much trouble on the Missouri side, with
their speeches, and attempts to do away
with slavery in Missouri. One of the most
ardent and fanatical at this time, was an
older, God fearing, Biblical inspired man
by the name of John Brown. John Brown
would later, in 1860, become infamous for
his foray into the arsenal at Harpers
Ferry, Virginia, to arm the local slaves
and attempt an uprising. Ironically, the
only casualty of John Brown's band, was a
Negro. The colonel that was in charge of
the U.S. Army detachment sent to stop John
Brown, was a man by the name of Robert
Edward Lee.
Another
family that would figure prominently in
the Missouri bushwhacking would be the
Younger family. Henry Washington Younger
and Bursheba Leighton Fristoe were married
in 1830. Both came from prominent southern
families. They became the parents of
fourteen children: Laura, Isabelle, Anne,
Richard, Mary Josephine, Caroline, Thomas
Coleman, Sally, James Hardin, Alphae, John
Harrison, Emma, Robert Ewing and
Henrietta. Henry was a successful
businessman who operated a livery and dry
goods business. He owned property in both
Jackson and Cass counties and decided to
move his family to Harrisonville in 1857.
While living in Harrisonville, he became
involved in politics and was elected the
2nd mayor of the city in 1859.
During
the border war, there was allot of
ransacking and looting going on by the
Kansas Jayhawkers and Red Legs throughout
the border counties along the
Kansas/Missouri state line. Henry’s
livery was not exempt from these raids and
in 1861, his business netted a loss of
over $4,000 in merchandise during one of
these raids. Over the next year, he would
be hit again on several occasions. This
angered his son, Cole, who encouraged his
father to take a stand against the Kansans
but Henry resisted. About one mile south
of Westport, on July 20, 1862, Henry
Younger was shot three times in the back
and killed.
There
are several versions of where Henry was
actually shot, but according to the story
told by Cole, the above version is
correct. Henry’s body was found and
turned over to the federal commanding
officer. A witness saw Irvin Walley and a
group of his soldiers depart shortly after
Henry Younger. Although Henry Younger had
a substantial amount of cash on him, his
body had been undisturbed after his fall
from the wagon, so the murder was
politically motivated and not a robbery.
Most likely, Walley was seeking vengeance
for an earlier incident involving Cole.
Walley was brought up on murder charges
but was released because his fellow
soldiers provided him with an alibi.
It
was the killing of his father that caused
Cole to join up with the Missouri
guerillas. Because of his involvement with
the guerillas, his capture became a high
priority of the Federals. The Younger home
was watched constantly as Cole became more
involved with the guerillas and Bursheba
and the remaining family members were
constantly harassed. Life for the
Younger’s would never be the same.-
Upon returning home to check on his
family, Cole found one of his sisters
distraught and crying. Prompting her to
tell him what was wrong, he found out that
a federal captain had assaulted her. He
vowed revenge on this officer and his
anger towards the Union Army was further
fueled.
When
the WBTS broke out in April of 1861,
Missouri had two governments... the
government in Jefferson City was a Union
based, while the Confederate government
was usually on the move. Union Governors
Hamilton Rowan Gamble 1861-64 Willard P.
Hall 1864-65 Confederate Governors
Claiborne Fox Jackson 1861-62 Thomas Caute
Reynolds 1862-65 In August of 1861, at a
farming community in Southwestern Greene
County MO, the Union army, led by General
Nathaniel Lyon, a staunch abolitionist,
with his force of about 5,400 troops, met
up against about 12,000 Confederate troops
led by General Sterling Price. In this
battle, General Lyon was killed, after
being struck 3 different times by
gunfire... first in a leg, second, a wound
in his head, and after returning to
battle, a third mortal wound, to his
chest. General Lyon was to become the
first Union general killed in battle
during this war.
The
Confederate army won the Battle of
Wilson's Creek, even though the number of
casualties for each side was close to the
same, the toll was heavier on the smaller
Union force, but the day's fighting had
left the Confederate army to tired to
follow up the retreat of the Union
soldiers back to Springfield Missouri.
This was also the first major battle West
of the Mississippi River, and the
following spring, 10,250 Union Army
soldiers, under the command of Brigadier
General Samuel R. Curtis would again meet
up against a Confederate army, 16 000
soldiers strong, including the Missouri
State Gaurds led by Major General Sterling
Price, at a place called Elkhorn Tavern,
otherwise knowns as Pea Ridge, in
Northwestern Arkansas in March 7th and 8th
of 1862. Ironically, this Arkansas battle
would determine the future of Missouri.
Missouri
would remain in Union hands afterward for
the duration of the war. At first, local
militias's were welcomed and supported by
the Confederate government, in their
endeavors to harass the Union Army, but as
supplies started running slow, and it
became evident that Missouri would remain
in Union control, these bands of local
militia were left to defend themselves,
and to their own devices. With the
withdrawal of support by the Confederate
government, these 6 year veterans of
boarder warfare had become ruthless and
desensitized to the horrors of war, and
used any opportunity to attack a Union
army, village, farm, or soldier to
resupply themselves. Many of these bands,
their followers, or their families, had
suffered great injustices from
over-zealous Union men. Many times men
were accused of rebel leanings by
neighbors, as a petty means of solving
personal differences.
Though
the accusations may have been untrue,
their homes were burned or they were
expelled from the county with no recourse.
At this point they would usually became
the rebels they had been accused of being.
One of the most deadliest of the Missouri
bushwhackers was William T. Bloody Bill "
Anderson. His father was murdered in 1857
in Kansas, for being born in Missouri, and
supporting the Missourians cause. In
August of 1863, the Federal army had the
womenfolk of Bloody Bill's family
arrested, and they were housed in a
makeshift prison in Kansas City, along
with other suspected Confederate
sympathizers. The building collapsed
killing 4 women; one sister of Bloody
Bill's, and maiming another sister for
life.
It
was never proven what caused the building
to fall, but bushwhacker supporters
claimed that Union sympathizers had dug
under the foundation, weakening it,
causing it to collapse. Irregardless, it
was the excuse that William Quantrill and
his band of bushwhackers, which included
William Anderson, had been looking for to
cross over into Kansas, and take the "war"
to the Yankee home front.
On
August 21, 1863, William Quantrill rode
into Lawrence Kansas, with about 450
drunken raiders. Whatever their
intentions, the result was a torched and
looted town, and 183 men and boys were
murdered, most of the men being civilian,
very few were or had been soldiers. This
would lead to what the Union army would
decide as being necessary to invoke
martial law, and the proclamation of
General Order # 11 General Order #11 -
8/25/1863- Signed by Union Brigadier
General Thomas Ewing, Jr. "
First:
All persons living in Cass, Jackson,
and Bates counties, and in that part of
Vernon county within the District, with
the exception of those residing within
one mile of Union-held towns and except
those in that part of Kaw Township,
Jackson county, north of Brush Creek
and west of the Big Blue River,
embracing Kansas City and Westport, are
hereby ordered to move from their
present places of residence within 15
days. Those who within that time
establish their loyalty to the
satisfaction of the commanding officer
of the military station nearest their
present place of residence, will
received from him certificates stating
that facts of their loyalty and the
names by whom it can be shown. All who
receive such certificates will be
permitted to remove to any military
station in this district or to any part
of the state of Kansas, except all the
counties on the eastern border of the
state. All others shall remain out of
the district. Second: all grain or hay
in the fields or under shelter in the
District from which the inhabitants are
required to move within reach of
military stations after the ninth of
September will be taken to such
stations and turned
over to the
proper officers there; and report of
the amount so turned over made to the
district headquarters specifying the
names of all loyal owners and the
amount of such produce taken from them.
All grain and hay found in such
district after the ninth of September
next, not removed to such stations will
be destroyed."
A
leadership disagreement between Quantrill
and Bloody Bill would split the biggest
band of bushwhackers into two segments in
1864, with Quantrill fleeing the state for
Texas, then back East to Kentucky, where
he would be shot and killed by Union
Troops, in June of 1865. Bloody Bill would
stay in Missouri, collecting scalps of his
Yankee dead, or adding another knot into a
leather strap, a knot for each victim,
when a scalp was not available for taking.
He would be shot down in October of 1864
just South of Richmond Missouri, in Ray
County. After his pistol carrying,
shirtless body being photographed, it was
decapitated, and the head was placed on
top of a telegraph pole as a reminder to
what would happened to any bushwhackers
that were caught.
Even
though we've traced the basic beginnings
back to pre-statehood, and travelled up to
the end of the war, it doesn't end here.
The bushwhacking started another chain of
events that would carry on into the
1900's, as late as the 1930's prohibition
bootleggers and gangsters. A chain that
includes the James/Younger gang, Doolin
brothers, Belle Star, all the way up to
Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd.
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