White County, Illinois - Chapter 9: Minor Wars, 1883

Chapter 9: Minor Wars

On pages 59 and 74 of this volume is given a full account of this war, so far as it concerned the nation generally. In this place we will give the part taken by the citizens of this county, which of course was small, as there were but few settlers here at so early a date, and those few very remote from the seat of the troubles. The English disaffected the Indians, and the Indians alienated one another until throughout the West they became either ene¬ mies or very suspicious of the " Americans.''

While this war was in progress the people of the settlement, afterward organized as White County, were protected by a squad of twelve or fourteen mounted "rangers," United States troops or volunteers, who had their headquarters in the " Big Prairie " east of where Carmi now is. Nevertheless, many of the inhabit¬ ants took fright and fled to older settlements in the South and East. Among the volunteers were Captain William McHenry, who had settled near where Grayville now is, and Daniel Boultinghouse, who had located at Williams' Ferry in 1810 and moved out to the prairie near the northern limits of the county, where he was afterward killed by an Indian. After him " Boultinghouse Prairie," in the southern part of Edwards County, was named. During this war one other man from White County was killed and two wounded, between Carmi and Grayville. Colonel Hosea Pearce, who had been a soldier under General Jackson in the South, settled in this county about fifteen miles south of Carmi.

Block-Houses

1. On the Tanquary land, the northeast quarter section 10, township 5 south, 10 east, built by Captain Wm. McHenry in the summer of 1812. The year previous he had erected a horse-mill at the same place.

In March, 1815, before it was known in this region that peace had been declared between the hostile countries, a draft of men for the soldiery was made in this county. None of these, of course, entered the army, but a few went out toward St. Louis a distance and returned.

Black Hawk War

The year 1832 was an important epoch in the history of the State of Illinois. While the hardy pioneers were engaged in preparing their coming crops, the furious red cloud of war burst forth with all the fury of Indian barbarity.. Black Hawk, a distinguished chief, at the head of several thousand hostile warriors of the Northwest, struck terror to the whites in Northern Illinois by an indiscrimi¬ nate slaughter, sparing neither age, sex nor condition. All came under the ban of their displeasure and were put to the tomahawk and scalping knife. Nobly did Southern Illinois respond to the call of humanity. There were giants in the land at that day. Under the gallant Colonel Hosea Pearce, Major William McHenry, Captains Daniel Powell, William Thomas, John McCown, and John Haynes, some 400 brave and determined men of White County marched to the rescue of the defenseless people. Among these were William and Solomon Garrison, who are still living in this county about eight miles south of Carmi, and Noah Staley and Benjamin Clark. Nobly did these men do their duty, for in four short months the last hostile Indian had been slain or driven beyond the Mississippi River, and Black Hawk, a prisoner of war, was taken to Wash¬ ington and presented to General Jackson, the President.

The commanding officer of the troops that so successfully brought to the close the Black Hawk war, was that old veteran of one hundred battles, Major General Winfield Scott, assisted by General E. P. Gaines, General Atkinson, Colonel Leavenworth,

Colonel S. W. Karney, Colonel Zachary Taylor, all of the regular army. The volunteers were in part commanded by General Har¬ grave, of Gallatin County, with Colonel Hosea Pearce, of White County, Colonel Henry, of Morgan County, etc.

The day the volunteers assembled at Carmi to take up their line of march was a day long to be remembered. The wives and moth¬ ers and sweethearts of the men were present in large numbers to take leave of their dear ones, to hear Major McHenry exhort the women to be of good cheer, telling them that they should be proud o their husbands, that it would be a glorious thing to die in the service of their country, etc. There is a halo of glory around the name of Major McHenry, as his name stands to-day towering above any other public man that ever lived in White County, either upon the battle-field or in the halls of legislation. The old man died in the harness at Vandalia while State Senator, in the winter of 1835. He was a Democrat from principle, and an hon¬ est man.

While the soldiers were absent during the summer of 1832, the men, women and children that remained at home were busy culti¬ vating the soil, and there was no great fear of the Indians coming down upon them and repeating the sufferings of the war with Great Britain. They would often relate the massacres that were inflicted upon the settlement on the Wabash. One instance occurred in 1814, about one mile beyond the railroad bridge over the Bonpas Creek. South of the residence of the late George W. Henekin was a family named Cannon, living in a cabin. The Indians tomahawked the whole family except Mrs. Cannon and her daughter; these they made captives and took away. The others, three or four in num¬ ber, were cruelly butchered and left upon the premises to be de¬ voured by wild beasts or the ravens. The rangers from Big Prairie settlement went up and buried the remains of all in one grave. A large cotton- wood tree sprang up as a monument to that grave, and stood until a few years ago, when some person cut it down. Again, while some men from the settlement above New Haven were engaged in shelling corn one dark night in a cabin that stood 200 yards east of Uncle Sam Potter's house, they were startled by the presentation, through openings in the chimney, of eight or ten guns, which were instantly discharged, killing out¬ right Hezekiah Davis, and mortally wounding a Mr. Seabolt, and breaking Richard Davis's thigh. James B. Davis, a brother of

Hezeki&h, and son of Richard Davis, sprang into the fire and stamped the burning corn-cobs and put out the only light in the cabin, thus preventing the Indians from taking the second deadly aim. One of the party made his way through the roof of the cabin and leaped to the ground in the midst of the Indians, but Dunlap made good his escape amidst a shower of bullets sent after him by the Indians9 rifles. A stampede took place and the Indians fled, taking with them one blind horse out of a lot of seven or eight fine animals. It was the opinion of Richard Davis, that had it not been for the desertion of Dunlap, the whole company would have beeii massacred; the Indians mistook his maneuver, and beat a hasty retreat. The horses were immediately saddled, and the party, minus Hezekiah Davis, mounted and rode to Big Prairie that night. Seabolt was held on his horse by some of his party, but died in a few days from the effect of his wound. Richard Davis's shattered thigh was very painful, and the disabled leg would lap around the saplings as he rode for the stockade at New Haven that night. An armed burial party was sent up to bury young Davis, and his remains rested in that sepulcher until 1858, when u Uncle Dicky " Davis departed this life, and by his request, his son Hezekiah's bones were buried in the same grave with his father. The occasion was a very solemn one. When the grave of Hezekiah was opened, but slight evidence of the body remained. Some portion of the clothing could be seen, and the pewter but¬ tons tEat were upon his coat, were in a good state of preservation; and four or five pieces of cut silver coin were found in the grave in the same state of preservation as on that fatal night forty-four years before, when that young man's spirit passed through the valley and shadow of death at the hands of the red men of the forest. A son of Daniel Boultinghouse was killed and scalped by the Indians about the same time of the Cannon massacre, while herding hogs some three or four miles southwest of Albion, near Boultinghouse Prairie.

But all fear of the Indians disappeared when the victorious vol¬ unteers returned in September, 1832, and brought the glad tidings of great joy, that not one hostile Indian roamed between the waters of the Wabash and the Mississippi. There are but few of the brave men left who went from White County in Colonel Pearce's regiment; almost the entire command have answered to the reveille beyond the grave.

Mexican Wail

In 1835 Texas revolted against Mexico and set np an indepen¬ dent government. A horrible and bloody strife ensued between the contending governments. The Texan army conducted the war upon Christian rules of modern warfare, but on the part of the Mexi¬ cans, the Emperor, General Santa Anna, at the head of a large force, descended upon Texas, spreading destruction and desolation before him. When he stormed the Alatno and put its noble and devoted defenders to the sword, where Colonel Fannin, after fighting gallantly an overwhelming force of his enemies, was seduced into an honorable capitulation, basely and treacherously violated this capitulation, and assassinated Colonel Fannin's followers. On Sunday morning, March 6, 1836, the undaunted garrison of Alamo, victorious in so many assaults over twenty times their number, perished to the last man, by the hands of those, part of whom they had released on parole two months before, leaving not one to tell how they first dealt out to the multitude that death which they themselves finally received. Unhappy day, that Palm Sunday, March 27, 1836, when the 512 prisoners at Goliad, issuing from the sally port at dawn of day, one by one, under the cruel delusion of a return to their families, found themselves enveloped in double files of cavalry and infantry, and marched to a spot fit for the per¬ petration of the horrid deed, and there, without an instant to think of parents, country, friends, or God, in the midst of consternation, of terror and surprise, were inhumanly set upon and pitilessly put to death, in spite of those moving cries which reached to heaven, and regardless of those supplicating hands stretched forth for mercy from which arms had been taken under the perfidious forms of a capitulation. Five hundred and six perished that morning, young, vigorous, brave sons of respectable families, and the pride of many a parent's heart; their bleeding bodies, torn with wounds, and many yet alive, were thrown in heaps upon vast fires for the flames to con¬ sume what the steel had mangled. Six only escaped, not by mercy, but by miracles. Accursed be the ground on which the dreadful deed was done. No fruitful cultivation should ever en¬ rich it; no joyful edifice should ever adorn it; but shut up and closed by gloomy walls, the mournful cypress and weeping wil¬ low and the inscriptive monument should forever attest the foul deed of which it was the scene, and invoke from the passer-by a throb of pity for the slain, and a start of horror for the slayer.

It is not our purpose to write of all the exploits of the patriot army of Texas who conquered the vast legions of the ancient Em¬ pire of the Montezumas, but the combat at San Jacinto must for¬ ever remain in the catalogue of military miracles. Seven hundred and fifty citizens, miscellaneously armed with rifles, muskets, beltpistols and knives, under a leader who had never seen service except as a subaltern, marched to attack nearly double their number, - marched in open day across a clear prairie to attack upward of 1,200 veterans, the elite of an invading army of 7,000, posted iu a wood, their flanks secured, their front entrenched, and commanded by a General trained in civil wars, victorious in numberless battles, and chief of an Empire of which no man becomes chief except as a conqueror. In twenty minutes the position was forced, the com¬ bat became a carnage, the flowery prairie was stained with blood, the hyacinth was no longer blue but scarlet; 600 Mexicans were dead, 600 more were prisoners, half of whom were wounded; the President General himself was a prisoner, the camp and baggage all taken, and the loss to the victors only six killed and twenty wounded. Such were the results, which no European could believe except those who had met Jackson at Hew Orleans. General Samuel Houston was a pupil of General Jackson, and he was the first selfmade General since the time of Mark Antony and the King Antigonus who has taken the General of the army and J head of the Government captive in battle. Different from Antony, he spared the life of his captive, though forfeited by every law, human and divine. This conflict ended the Texas Revolution, and Texas became an independent nation under a republican form of government, and so remained until 1845, when she was annexed to the United States as the Lone Star State.

May 31, 1846, was a grand day in Carmi. Governor Ford, by proclamation, ordered the sheriff of White County to call out the militia of the county and organize a company to serve twelve months in the war unless sooner discharged. John Phipps, Sheriff, issued his proclamation, calling on every able-bodied man in this county liable to military duty to report at Carmi on the 31st day of May. In those days, when no newspaper was printed in or near the county, written notices had to be prepared and posted throughout the county. As many of them were required, the task of writing and posting them was considerable. On that day the streets were full of fighting men, each anxious to slay a Mexi¬ can. A large assembly gathered upon the court-house square, and wag addressed by S. Snowdon Hayes, Colonel J. T. Lawler, William Harrow, James S. Jones and 0« H. Harrison, all of this connty. A fine company was made np in less than an hour, officered as fol~ lows: Captain, O. H. Harrison; First Lieutenant, H. C. Wilson; Second Lieutenant, S. Snowdon Hayes; Sergeant, William Harrow. Hank and file, the company numbered 100 men that would have carried off laurels from any battle field where they might have en¬ gaged the enemy. Owing to the want of telegraphic communi¬ cation with Springfield, this splendid fighting company was lost to the service, as over 40,000 men were reported before Captain Har¬ rison's courier reached Springfield with the tender of his company from White County.

No further effort was then made until in December, when Sam¬ uel H. Martin and William Harrow, of Gray ville, tendered to the Secretary of War, William L. Marcy, a company of infantry, if such could be received, to serve during the war; but this company also was rejected. Mr. Martin, however, was tendered a commission as Second Lieutenant in the regular army, which he accepted, and in February following he entered upon the recruiting service. He raised a number of men in White County, and reported to Captain Edward Bogardus, at Shawneetown, the place of rendez¬ vous. A full company of ninety-six men was formed and assigned duty as Company E, Fourteenth United States Infantry, William Trousdale, of Tennessee, Colonel. This was a portion of the bri¬ gade commanded by Franklin Pierce, afterward President of the United States. The regiment rendezvoused at Camp Carrollton, just above New Orleans, La., and received orders to join General Scott at Yera Cruz, Mexico. On arrival at the latter place they were attached to Scott's army, and marched upon the city of Mexico.

Aug. 12, 1847, fifty men were raised in White County and fifty in Gallatin, and organized into an independent company of cavalry under Captain M. K. Lawler, of the latter county, and Lieu, tenant Scott Clark, of White County. Captain William R. Coch¬ rane, of Carmi, was a member of this company. They rendez¬ voused at Shawneetown until Sept. 16, when they left for the battle-fields of the far Southwest. On the way they stopped a short time at Baton Rouge, and next they landed at Tampico, Mexico, about the 4th of October. Yellow fever, raging in that city at that time, entered the ranks of this company and took off three men the first night after landing. They remained at Tampico four months, and then went about 150 to 200 miles out, scouting. One alarm came upon the heels of another, and one skirmish after another all through the war. One night they traveled at least fifty miles and captured an old guerrilla captain the next morning; and subsequently they utterly routed one Mexican company.

Many a long, tedious march was made by this faithful company. One time they had not a mouthful of bread for seven days. The iron stirrups sometimes became so hot as to blister the bare skin. Among the casualties remembered we may mention that one of the party, a recruit from New Orleans, was kicked with a horse and his leg broken, and Jefferson Gatewood had a toe shot off. The company was mustered out on the termination of the war in the fall of 1848. The soldiers were kept well paid up tor their ser¬ vices during the war, although some preferred to take their reward in land warrants.

Among the members of this company from White County were the following: Asa Webb, William Walters, Ed Buckner, Thomas Hargrave, S. Cochran, Champ. Hughes, George Hughes, Jack Robinson, Thomas Poole, Richard Jones, John Jameson, Charles Berry, Mr. Stone, Robert Morris and Stephen Ensminger.