Randolph County, Missouri - Chapter with an unread heading (no. 11 of those read), 1920

Early Wars

BEFORE WAR OP 1S12 - INDIANS IN WAR OF 1812 - FORTS CONSTRUCTED IN BOONSLICK COUNTRY - INDIAN WARFARE - SETTLERS KILLED BY INDIANS - CAPTAIN COOPER ASSASSINATED - CAPTAIN SARSHALL COOPER'S COMPANYMEXICAN WAR - COMPANY ORGANIZED IN RANDOLPH COUNTY - CIVIL WAR.

Doubtless before the War of 1812 began, the Missouri Indians were at heart hostile. They were idle, shiftless and treacherous, from the white man's viewpoint. In the presence of the settler, they were apparently frank, accommodating and kind. Yet they knew by experience that the white man coveted their lands, hence was their enemy, and that eventually they would be dispossessed of their hunting grounds, all of which subsequently came to pass.

Immediately upon the breaking out of hostihties the settlers in the Boonslick country began to erect forts in every neighborhood. Four were constructed north of the Missouri river and two south.

The largest. Coopers fort, a stockade flanked by log houses, was erected in the bottom south of Glasgow and near the Missouri river. A common field of 250 acres lying between the fort and said river was worked by all of its inhabitants. Some twenty or more families and a number of young men took refuge therein.

High School, Moberly, Mo Woodland Hospital, Moberly, Mo

In 1814, the Hannah Cole fort was erected on a bluff overlooking the Misosuri river not far from Boonville. The settlers of these several neighborhoods took refuge in these forts and so remained until peace was declared. Thus situated, co-operation, so vitally necessary for the safety of all, was rendered difficult. They made common cause of their danger, however, and stood together and extended to each other armed aid. And when on one occasion the settlers in Cole's fort, south of the river were threatened with extermination and escaped across the river to Fort Kincaid, they found not only a refuge, but an indefinite right of hospitality.

There were no phones in those days whereby one fort could communicate with the other in safety. When danger appeared, some daring man or woman if need be, must take his life in hand and bear the message in person.

Beside these imprisoned women and children and men as well must be fed and the woods was their larder. The hunter must go forth, otherwise a famine. The hunters went at duty's call, sometimes he did not return, for the Indian was a "bushwhacker," the first of the kind.

Fair play and no favors was no part of his war creed, nor is it now among so-called enlightened nations, as it once was in the days of chivalry. The Indian preferred to lie in wait and slay his enemy from ambush. The redmen were not cowards, but they went on the warpath to kill, not -to be killed. A scalp counted, whether obtained by a shot from the bush or in open fight, and he preferred to shoot when concealed; it was safer. Indians were seldom reckless in battle, but if need be they knew no fear. Today full blood Indians who served with the American forces in France in the late World War, are wearing "decorations" awarded them for efficient and daring service, unsurpassed by any soldier of any nationality. The Indian as a foe was cruel and vengeful, but what about the white race in this last great war. Waged as it was by enlightened nations that claim to be Christian countries as well. Every damnable device that inventor could design or chemist discover was used to cruelly and effectually destroy life and future health. Thousands of hopeless invalids may today be found in the countries engaged with lungs burned beyond repair by poison gas, who must suffer until life ends.

Thus it has come to pass that the savage Indian of more than a century ago has been so far outdistanced in cold-blooded war cruelty, as to make the redman of that time appear comparatively humane.

During the war of 1812 it is definitely known that the Indians took the lives of ten of these early settlers, two south of the river, and eight north, in the Boonslick country.

Later, in 1814, William Gregg, while feeding hogs, was shot and killed from ambush by Indians. This took place above Arrow Rock, and both these killings were south of the Missouri river.

Early in the year 1812, Jonathan Todd and Thomas Smith, while looking for land upon which to settle were set upon by Indians near the Boone County line. They bravely resisted and killed several Indians, but in the end paid the forfeit with their lives.

In July, 1812, a man named Campbell and Adam McCord went to Campbell's home from Fort Kincaid to do some work. Campbell was killed from ambush and McCord escaped.

Braxton Cooper, Jr., was killed in September, 1813, two miles north of New Franklin while cutting logs to build a house. He was armed with a rifle and a hunting knife, and fought to the end. When his body, lying face downwards, was found, his gun lay by his side and in his clenched right hand was his knife bloody to the hilt. He was a young man of superior physical strength and courage and the trampled ground and broken bushes about bore evidence that he had fought desperately. He was not scalped nor mutilated, positive evidence that the Indians were put to flight while he was yet capable of resistance.

Joseph Still and Stephen Cooper, a youth of sixteen, both rangers from Fort Cooper, while scouting, came in contact with a band of one hundred Indians twenty miles from the fort. The Indians barred the way, so the two rangers rode full speed at the Indians' line with cocked rifles. Both fired with effect. Cooper killed an Indian and Still shot and wounded another. Still was shot from his horse at the Indian line and killed, while the boy Cooper went through and escaped to the fort. This was in October, 1813.

About the same time, October, 1813, William McLean was killed near Fayette. He with several other men went to select a piece of land upon which someone of them desired to settle. They were attacked by a large party of Indians and McLean was shot in the head and fell dead. The others escaped to McLean's fort.

A negro named Joe, belonging to Samuel Brown, was killed by Indians near Burckhartt's farm, three-quarters of a mile from Estill Station. Several other men belonging to Cooper's fort also lost their lives during the war period, but no record of their names remain.

One of the most lamentable events of this war was the taking off of Captain Sarshall Cooper on the night of AprU 14, 1814. The night was exceedingly dark and a storm was raging. Captain Cooper and family lived in one of the angles of Fort Cooper. A single warrior crept up to the fort and made a hole in the clay between the logs, large enough to admit the muzzle of his gun. Captain Cooper was sitting before the fire, his youngest child in his lap, his wife nearby, was sewing. The Indian fired and Sarshall Cooper fell lifeless to the floor in the midst of his family.

Captain Cooper was a born leader. He was five feet and ten inches in height, fine physique, a superb horseman and was cool, deliberate and courageous. Cooper County was afterward named for him.

The musterroll of Captain Sarshall Coopers' company, dated April, 1812, is not without interest, and gives the names of the following officers and men :

Every enlisted man furnished his own equipment and an order was promulgated so the "citizen soldiers may not be ignorant of the manner in which the law requires him to be equipped; he is reminded that it is his duty to provide himself with a good musket, with bayonet and belt or fusil, two spare flints and a knapsack pouch with a box thereon to contain not less than twenty^four cartridges, or a good rifle, knapsack, powder horn and pouch, with twenty balls and one-quarter of a pound of powder."

It is not within the provinca of this work to go further into the details of this war period. They are intensely interesting, however. At that time the now Randolph County was a part of the Boonslick country, but as yet no white settler had reared his cabin within its boundaries, hence Randolph County had no part in this struggle.

No doubt descendants of some of these pioneers who took an active part in this struggle may be found in Randolph County at this time, but the writer of this work cannot so state positively, nor give names.

In July, 1846, upon the call of the president of the United States, a company of men was organized in Randolph County foi the Mexican War. The company consisted of about 100 men, and left Huntsville on the first Monday in August, 1846. Before leaving the company was presented with a beautiful silk flag, made by the ladies of Randolph County. This flag was carried by the men through all their long marches and engagements, and when they returned home, in November, 1847, with a list of the names of the men, stored away in the courthouse for safe keeping, and, unfortunately, destroyed by fire when the courthouse was burned. This list, being thus destroyed, we are unable to give all the names of the men who made up the company; the list, however, is as complete as we can make it:

This company belonged to the Second Regiment, Missouri Mounted Volunteers, and was under the command of Gen. Sterling Price, and Lieut.- Col. D. D. Mitchell, two as brave and gallant officers as ever commanded a regiment in any war.

The men were in two small engagements, one at Taos, and the other in the Moreau Valley, and like the American forces generally, came out victorious.

The young men from Randolph County joined the army away from home. Their names were Clinton B. Samuel and his cousin, Edmond T. Taylor. The former joined Capt. O. P. Moss' company, Doniphan's regiment, and the latter Captain Barber's company, of Linn County. They were true-hearted and brave; one died with the consumption (Samuel), and the other (Taylor) died from an attack of measles, and was buried far away from home and friends, on the top of a lonely mountain in New Mexico.

Randolph County, as did the state of Missouri generally, suffered much during the Civil War. Her territory was nearly all the time occupied by either one or the other antagonistic elements, and her citizens were called upon to contribute to the support of first one side and then the other.

Among those who commanded companies which were partially or entirely raised from Randolph County for the southern army were Col. H. T. Fort, Col. John A. Poindexter, Capt. Frank Davis, Capt. John W. Bagby, Capt. Benjamin E. Guthrie and Col. C. J. Perkins. Some of the above named officers were from adjoining counties, but recruited portions of their companies from Randolph county.

Among those who raised companies for the Union army were Capts. T. B. Reed, C. F. Mayo, W. T. Austin, N. S. Burckhartt, W. A. Skinner, M. S. Durham and Alexander Denny. The number of men entering each army was about the same - numbering between 600 and 900.

During the war a few non-combatants were killed in the county: James Harris, Martin Green, James K. Carter, Andrew J. Herndon, and two or three colored men were shot to death at their homes or in the county.