Rural Missouri - January 2012 - (Page 10)

A foes from the Bleeding Kansas days — the Jayhawkers. Now rapacious bands of Jayhawkers wore Federal uniforms. Their leader, Jim Lane, was a U.S. senator from Kansas and brigadier general of the militia. In September 1861, Lane, the “Grim Chieftain,” led 1,500 Kansans across the border. “There is no such thing as Union men in the border of Missouri,” he thundered. “I want to see every foot of ground in Gov. Gamble ﬁnds his greatest enemies are on his side Jackson, Cass and Bates counties burned over — everything laid waste . . . Everything disloyal, from a Durham cow to a Shanghai chicken, must be cleaned out.” would require hard riding and bloody ﬁghtby Jim Denny On Sept. 23, Lane’s raiders struck ing. Instead, he made his war upon the info@ruralmissouri.coop Osceola. They showed no mercy for the civilians of the region, no matter which town. Plunder worth thousands of dolside they claimed to be on. Pope pres 1861 gave way to 1862, provisional Gov. lars was loaded into stolen wagons. sumed they all either actively supportHamilton Gamble faced two enemies in Hundreds of horses and mules and ed the marauders or withheld intelhis struggle to keep the tenuous loyalty of some 200 slaves joined the procession ligence from Federal authorities. His Missouri’s predominantly Southern popuback to Lawrence, Kan., the empotroops sacked much of the countrylation. These folks believed in the Union to some rium of plunder. Osceola, meanwhile, side. In Palmyra, an Illinois unit looted degree, but only as long as this Union didn’t mess was put to torch and the once prosperstores, stole livestock and with slavery or their rights to their ous town lay in ashes. Millions of dolhelped themselves to anySouthern-leaning opinions. lars worth of goods had been destroyed thing else they wanted. Missouri was an oddball partner in and nearly 1,000 people left homeless. A Fremont’s free staters were the Union coalition. At best, the state third of the victims were loyal Unionists, at liberating slaves, no matter shared an uncomfortable coexistence Jim Lane least until then. what the policy was. During with neighboring free states ﬁlled The Jayhawker reign of terror extended into the Fremont’s march to Springﬁeld, many with soldier-abolitionists who equated new year. On Jan. 14, 1862, a Union colonel reportslaves came into his lines. One soldier slavery with secession. To reassure the ed that soldiers under the notorious Jayhawker, stated: “The newcomers are employed state’s skittish Southerners, Gov. GamCharles “Doc” Jennison, were operating in Johnson to do the work about camp, and we ble pledged in his inaugural address County, near Rose Hill. He reported that 42 houses ﬁnd them very useful — and they serve that his administration would protect in that vicinity had been burned and that people us with a zeal which is born of their the institution of slavery and support were robbed of valuables and their stock driven off. long-bafﬂed love of liberty . . . So long the interests of slaveholders. In this he In exasperation, the Union commander in Missouri, as Gen. Fremont is in command of this had the full backing of President AbraMaj. Gen. Henry Halleck, reported to the high comdepartment, no person, white ham Lincoln, who desperately mand, “The conduct of the forces under Lane and or black, will be taken out of needed to keep Missouri and Jim Denny, a Co-Mo Electric member Jennison has done more for the enemy in this State our lines into slavery.” Gamble Kentucky — slaves and all — in from Lupus, brings the state’s Civil War than could have been accomplished by 20,000 of clearly had to get such soldiers the Union column. history to life in Rural Missouri as we (Price’s) army. I receive almost daily complaints of out of Missouri or see Price’s The Missouri State Guard and commemorate the sesquicentennial of outrages committed by these men in the name of ranks grow dramatically its Confederate allies had only a this time in our nation’s history. Order the United States . . .” tenuous hold on the state by the Jim’s book, “The Civil War’s First Blood,” as the loyal SouthHalleck was right about the damage that been ern population beginning of 1862. Gen. Steronline at www.ruralmissouri.coop. done to the Unionist cause by the extreme men. In lost faith in his ling Price’s guardsmen would be late August 1861, Fremont had proclaimed the malpledge to protect slave property. driven out of Springﬁeld and into Arkansas by midadies that afﬂicted Missouri were: “disorganized But Gamble’s greatest enemy on February, while the Confederates would hold New condition, the helplessness of the civil authority, the “friendly” side came out of Kansas, Madrid for another month. the total insecurity of life and the devastation of not Illinois. During the fall of 1861, after Another threat to maintaining the wavering loyproperty by bands of murderers and maraudPrice’s army came and went, the Missouri alty of the local Southern population was Gamble’s ers, who infest nearly every county of the border was relatively free of Fedother enemy — the “extreme men.” The ﬁrst of State.” As Gamble knew, conditions were not eral soldiers and ripe these men, Gen. Nathaniel Lyon and Frank Blair, that bad at that time and might have been to be plucked by old with their regiments of German-American soldiers, improved by moderate policies. But by won Missouri for the Union. The Federals ended up the dawn of 1862, with the extreme men with control of the capital, territory and resources. doing their worst, Fremont’s prophecy had But they had not won the hearts and minds of a become self-fulﬁlling, and Missouri would good portion of Missouri’s people. descend still further into the nightmare of The next extreme man, Maj. Gen. John C. Fretotal war. mont, placed two-thirds of Missouri under martial law. While Gov. Gamble attempted to craft an amnesty program to entice disenchanted followers of Price to return to their homes and This watercolor, “Looking to The West,” take up peaceful pursuits, Fremont saw painted by Samuel J. Reader, shows the outstate Missouri in a state of insurstate line was no obstacle for the battle that rection that needed to be dealt with raged. harshly. He threatened executions for treasonable actions and emancipation of the slaves of the disloyal. Lincoln personally rescinded both provisions. The last thing the Union leader needed was a war of reprisal in Missouri and large numbers of loyal slaveholders bolting to the Confederate side because of the issue of abolition. During the summer of 1861, one of Fremont’s zealous subordinates, Gen. John Pope, led untrained troops from Illinois into northeast Missouri to deal with bands of partisans and nightriders who were wreaking havoc along the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Operating at night, these partisans burned bridges, tore out culverts, destroyed track and Art reprinted with ﬁred into troop trains. Pope decided not to direct persmission of Kansas State Historical Society his war against the actual guerrilla bands. That The Civil War rages on ~ Winter 1862 Facing ‘Extreme Men’ 10 WWW.RURALMISSOURI.COOP http://www.ruralmissouri.coop http://WWW.RURALMISSOURI.COOP

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Rural Missouri - January 2012

Rural Missouri - January 2012
Table of Contents
Comments
Columns
Superior steel
Facing ‘extreme men’
Return to the prairie
Outdoors
Out of the Way Eats
Missouri snapshots
Hearth and Home
News Briefs
Woven in tradition
Marketplace
Around Missouri
The Nimblewill Nomad
Neighbors
Just4Kids

Rural Missouri - January 2012