Jasper County, Missouri - Chapter 7: The War Continued, 1912

The Fourth Missouri and Jackman's Scouts - Fisher's CoiiPANY op United States Volunteers - The Sixth Kansas Scouts into the County - Two Skirmishes at French Point - ^Negro Regiment and Burning op Sherwood - a Girl's Darinq and Bravery - ^Katib Sill's Biscuit - Captain Burch's Scouts on Turkey Creek - Shelby's Raids - ^R^moval op Confederate Families - The Return OP the Veterans.

On November 18, 1862, Major G. W. Kelley, commanding the Fourth Missouri State Militia (Union), was sent into Jasper county for the purpose of dispersing Colonel Jackman's Scouts (Confederates), who were foraging in Jasper county; an engagement took place November 20th near Carthage.

The fight was of short duration but a desperate one, the men engaging in a hand to hand combat. The result was a Union victory. Several prisoners were taken by Major Kelley 's command, together with a number of horses.

During the same month Quantrell, with a thousand men, passed through Jasper county en route to McDonald county. With a view of protecting the people of southwest Missouri from Quantrell, United States troops were thrown into that section of the state in great numbers, a garrison being placed at both Sarcoxie and Carthage.

After Hon. Hamilton R. Gamble was chosen as the provisional governor of Missouri a call was made for volunteers, and these were at first called Enrolled Militia of Missouri, serving in conjuncture with the United States volunteers and regular army. Captain Fisher, of Mc- Donald township, raised a company of men for this service and the enlistments were almost entirely from Jasf or county. The company participated in a number of engagements. .Lptain Fisher was killed in a skirmish with the Livingston Scouts oiv Spring river near the present site of La Russell. After the term of enlistment had expired most of the members joined the Fifteenth Missouri Cavalry and served to the end of the war.

On Sunday, March 8, 1863, the Sixth Kansas Volunteers entered Jasper county on a scout and passed through the section from Diamond Grove to Sherwood, which place the Federal troops occupied. On March 9th, south of Sherwood and not very far from the present western limits of Joplin, the scouting party met Livingston's men about one hundred strong and a short fight ensued, in which Sergeant Isaac Fountain of the Sixth Kansas and a Jasper county citizen was wounded. The Confederate scouts sustained a severe loss.

In May, 1863, Colonel Crittenden sent a scouting party into Jasper county from Newtonia, Newton county. The command divided into three companies, or bands, scouting along Center and Turkey creeks.

Captain Cassair of the Eighth Missouri United States Volunteer Cavalry, took the north side of the creek and Captain Hensley, of the Seventh Missouri, took the south side. They proceeded west until they came to the home of Major Livingston at French Point, west of Oronogo, where a severe hand-to-hand fight took place, the Federal troops being repulsed. Returning, however, on the 18th the attack was renewed and Livingston driven from his position with a considerable loss of men on both sides.

The first fight at French Point took place on May 14, and for the next six days a number of small skirmishes occurred, both commands sleeping on their arms by night and fighting during the day. Major Enos, of the Eighth Missouri Regiment United States Volunteers, in his report of the first fight at French Point pays a high compliment to Private Horace Palmer of his command. When the retreat was ordered Palmer exclaimed *'I did not volunteer to run, I volunteered to fight. Right here I die," and dismounting from his horse coolly commenced shooting at the Confederates, firing eighteen shots before he was captured.

During the third year of the war the government began enlisting the negroes in the army of the United States. This greatly enraged the south and when the southern soldiers came in contact with a negro regiment they fought them with all the fury that the high-spirited southerners could command.

A regiment of colored soldiers was being organized at Baxter Springs, Kansas, and quite a number of Jasper county colored men were enlisted.

June 15th, 1863, Colonel Williams, commanding the regiment, sent a foraging party into Jasper county and they fixed temporary headquarters at the farm house of Captain Rader, who was away from home serving with the southern army. The Rader home was at that time the finest house in the western part of the county, being a two-story ten-room structure. Captain Rader 's mother and sisters were driven from the house.

On the 19th of May, the next day after the second engagement at French Point, Major Livingston surprised the negroes, killing twentythree and wounding seven in a running fight which was kept up from the Rader place to the Spring river crossing, a distance of about eight miles. The train of six wagons and thirty mules also fell into the hands of the Confederates, together with a large quantity of ammunition which was in the wagons. The next day a detachment of three hundred Federal soldiers came over from Baxter and burned the town of Sherwood, together with the farm houses of the southern sympathizers in the neighborhood.

-Major Livingston in his official report of the aflfair to General Price states that eleven of the negroes (those who fell at the farm house) were taken by the United States troops together with a man named Bishop, a southern citizen whom they had killed, and placed in the Rader house, after which the structure was fired and the bodies of the eleven dead colored soldiers and the white man cremated in the burning building.

The town of Sherwood was strongly southern, a company of the Eleventh Missouri State Guard and later a part of Livingston's command having been recruited there.

After the burning of Sherwood many of the southern families, feeling that their safety demanded it, left the county, most of them going to Texas and remaining there until the war was over.

Eliza Vivion, a granddaughter of Thackery Vivion, the first settler in Jasper county, at the breaking out of the Civil war was a pretty miss of thirteen. Born and raised in Jasper county and used to the hardships of pioneer life, she early learned to brave danger. Her people were strong southern sympathizers and her brother enlisted in the Confederate army - first in the Eleventh Missouri State Guard and later, after the first term of enlistment had expired, in the Livingston Scouts. Miss Vivion often acted as a messenger for the southerners and we are told that she frequently would ride during the darkness of the midnight hour to apprise the southern troops of the movements of the northern army. She was an expert horsewoman, could take a fence on her fiery steed as well as a man, and went on many a wild ride to bring news to Livingston's command or to carry a message from him to the main army. She rode many a time through the woods, and when necessary swam the swollen streams in order to take a shorter route to her point of destination.

- The report of Major Tom LIvinj?ston was contradicted by the Federals, who lay the blame of the burning of the negroes to the Confederate partisan bands who retaliated. In his official statement, however. Colonel Williams reports the destruction of the town.

After the war the Vivions returned to Jasper county and few people of today would recognize, in dignified Mrs. E. A. Jammison, the girl who in the days that tried the hearts of brave men and noble women performed so many daring deeds for the southern cause.

Among the pioneer settlers of Jasper county was Mrs. Katie Sill (nee Katie Pennington), who came to Jasper county in 1840 and who has been a resident of it, excepting a short time during the later part of the Civil war, up to this time. Although eighty-five years old, she is an exceptionally well-preserved woman and relates with much pleasure the happenings of the early days of the county.

Mrs. Sill was a famous cook and noted throughout the western part of the county for the excellency of her biscuit, which according to the old settlers, who ate at her table, were so good *'that they would melt in your mouth." During the first year of the war small detachments of soldiers of both armies frequently passed her house - ^Union sympathizers going to Fort Scott or Baxter to enlist and those who followed the Stars and Bars, going to their rendezvous for drill or departure for the south. (Pour full companies of the regiment of Missouri State Guards were recruited in the western part of the county).

It was no uncommon occurrence for these detachments to stop at Mrs. Sill's house and ask her to cook them some of her good biscuit. At first she willingly complied, for although a southern sympathizer her people endeavored to remain neutral and take no part in the conflict. But the second year of the war it was diflttcult to keep enough in the house to feed the family, and so one day when a troop of Confederate scouts dismounted in front of the Sill homestead and asked for biscuit such as only she could make her heart sank within her, because the larder was nearly empty and a look in the pantry told her that to cook for that troop would empty the flour barrel and there would be nothing left for the family. Yet she dare not refuse lest she would gain the ill will of the troopers who were tired, thirsty and hungry. So she set to work, and just as she was taking the first batch from the oven (the bread filling the house with an aroma that made the men smack their lips with joyful anticipation of the good things in store) a bugle call was heard and looking up over the hill a regiment of Union cavalry was seen approaching at a quick gallop. The Confederates, perceiving that to stop to eat would let them fall into the hands of a much larger force, quickly mounted and rode away leaving the biscuit. Mrs. Sill, perceiving that the biscuits might be saved for the family, hastily threw them into a cradle and covered them up with a blanket. The Union soldiers stopped when they reached the house but did not look in the cradle, and so the biscuit which had been cooked for the troop of Confederates were saved and the family ate them with great relish.

On May 26, 1863, a fight occurred near Diamond Grove between Colonel Cloud, commanding the Sixth Kansas Cavalry and Colonel Coffey with his Confederate band of one hundred men. The notable feature of this engagement was that Coffey's men fought Indian fashion, hiding in the brush and behind the big trees, thus keeping out of the way of the Kansans when they charged.

On the evening of November 29, 1863, Captain Milton Burch, of the Eighth Missouri Cavalry, United States Volunteers, stationed at Neosho with a detachemnt of his men, made a scouting expedition into Jaspei county for the purpose of capturing a number of southern sympathizers who were members of the Livingston Scouts and who were at home on a furlough.

The party scouted along Turkey creek from near its head to the western limits of the county. They went to the houses were the Confederate soldiers lived, surprised and captured them in their beds. At one place a soldier attempted to escape by raising a couple of boards in the floor and going under the house. When the Union soldiers entered his wife endeavored to attract their attention and keep them away from the opening. She succeeded in getting them out of the house but after going a short distance they returned, feeling sure that the southerner was at home, and feigned to set fire to the house. The ruse was successful, for the woman screamed and the man came from his hiding place and surrendered. Six southern men were captured on this scout and two killed.

In October, 1863, General Joe Shelby's brigade made a raid through the western part of Missouri, and on this 1500-mile ride passed twice through Jasper county, each time securing forage and other supplies from the farmers for his command. A considerable damage was done to property in the east central part of the county, particularly in the neighborhood of Bowers' mill, where an engagement took place.

General Thomas Ewing was sent into Jasper county with two thousand men in pursuit of Shelby, and a skirmish occurred near Carthage with a considerable loss of men on both sides. Although the fight could hardly be called a battle it was sometimes referred to as the second battle of Carthage.

During Ewing 's occupancy of Jasper county a considerable quantity of fresh meat was required for the army and it will be readily seen that after feeding two «:reat armies not much was left for the people.

An interesting story is related by one of Shelby's men, now a resident of Joplin, who says that on this raid most of the Confederate soldiers were clothed in the blue uniforms of the northern soldiers, whom they had captured, their grey uniforms being worn out, and having no

After the Quantreli raid at Lawrence, Kansas, General Scofield adopted the policy of removing the Confederate sympathizers from the state, with the view of ridding the border counties of partisan bands by destroying the sustenance for their support and leaving no sympathizers to shelter or help them.

General Ewing, at Kansas City, issued his much talked-of Order No. 11. General Scofield, of Springfield, commanding the Southwest Missouri district, issued similar orders for that part of the state, but they were not so stringent as General Ewing 's.

All families not loyal to the government were ordered to leave and many who held their fealty to the Confederacy went to Arkansas, Texas and other southern states. Some of them never returned but after peace was declared; some of them returned to their old homes.

It was thought by many that when the war was over and the soldiers returned home that much lawlessness would result because of the intense feeling of hatred that had been engendered during the few years preceding and during the war.

But the world now witnessed one of the greatest achievements of modem times, a million soldiers, men of the north and south, laid down their arms and returned to their homes and at once began rebuilding the towns and villages that had been destroyed ; the fields that had been furrowed by cannon shot and shell were cultivated again; the old homes were rebuilt and, in many instances, from the ruins and ashes that came from that bitterly fought war, arose new towns and new homes greater and grander than the ones built by the fathers.