stalked it and struck it, there had come five additional inmates
from other quarters equally as disreputable. Altogether the male
attendants numbered twenty, two lieutenants, one sergeant major, a
corporal, four citizens and twelve privates from an Iowa regiment.
Webb’s attacking column, not much larger than a yard stick, was
composed of the original detail, four besides himself.
The night was dark; the nearest timber to the house was two hundred
and fifty yards. There was ice on everything. The tramping of iron
shod feet over the frozen earth reverberated as artillery wheels.
At the timber line Maddox suggested that one man should be left in
charge of the horses, but Webb overruled the point.
“No man shall stir tonight,” he argued, “except he be hunted for
either war or women. The horses are safe here. Let us dismount and
make them fast.”
As they crept to the house in single file, a huge dog went at
Harrison Trow as if he would not be denied, and barked so furiously
and made so many other extravagant manifestations of rage, that a
man and a woman came to the door of the house and bade the dog
devour the disturber. Thus encouraged he leaped full at Trow’s
throat and Trow shot him dead.
In a moment the house emptied itself of its male occupants, who
explored the darkness, found the dog with the bullet through its
head, searched everywhere for the author of the act, and saw no
man, nor heard any retreating steps, and so returned unsatisfied to
the house, yet returned, which was a great deal.
As for the Guerrillas, as soon as Trow found himself obliged to
shoot or be throttled, they rushed back safely and noiselessly
to their horses, mounted them and waited. A pistol shot, unless
explained, is always sinister to soldiers. It is not to be denied.
Fighting men never fire at nothing. This is a maxim not indigenous
to the brush, nor an outcome of the philosophy of those who were
there. A pistol shot says in so many words: “Something is coming,
is creeping, is crawling, is about--look out!”
The Federals heard this one--just as pertinent and as intelligible
as any that was ever fired--but they failed to interpret aright
this significant language of the ambuscade, and they suffered
accordingly.
Webb waited an hour in the cold, listening. No voices were heard,
no skirmishers approached his position, no scouts from the house
hunted further away than the lights from the windows shone, no
alarm had been raised, and he dismounted with his men and again
approached the house.
By this time it was well on to twelve o’clock. Chickens were
crowing in every direction. The north wind had risen high and was
blowing as a winter wind always blows when there are shelterless
men abroad in a winter night.
The house, a rickety frame house, was two stories high, with two
windows on the north and two on the south.
George Maddox looked in at one of these windows and counted
fourteen men, some well advanced in liquor and some sober and
silent and confidential with the women. None were vigilant. The six
upstairs were neither seen nor counted.
At first it was difficult to proceed upon a plan of action. All the
Federals were armed, and twenty armed men holding a house against
five are generally apt, whatever else may happen, to get the best
of the fighting.
“We cannot fire through the windows,” said Webb, “for women are in
the way.”
“Certainly” replied Whitsett, “we do not war upon women.”
“We cannot get the drop on them,” added Trow, “because we cannot
get to them.”
“True again,” replied Maddox, “but I have an idea which will
simplify matters amazingly. On the south there is a stable half
full of plank and plunder. It will burn like pitch pine. The wind
is from the north is strong, and it will blow away all danger from
the house. Were it otherwise I would fight against the torch, for
not even a badger should be turned out of its hole tonight on word
of mine, much less a lot of women. See for yourself and say if the
plan suits you.”
They saw, endorsed the proposition, and put a match at once to the
hay and to the bundles of fodder. Before the fire had increased
perceptibly the five men warmed their hands and laughed. They were
getting the frost out of their fingers to shoot well, they said. A
delicate trigger touch is necessary to a dead shot.
“Fire!”
All of a sudden there was a great flare of flames, a shriek from
the women and a shout from the men. The north wind drove full head
upon the stable, roared as like some great wild beast in pain.
The Federals rushed to the rescue. Not all caught up their arms as
they hurried out--not all even were dressed.
The women looked from the doors and windows of the dwelling, and
thus made certain the killing that followed. Beyond the glare
of the burning outhouse, and massed behind a fence fifty paces
to the right of the consuming stable, the Guerrillas fired five
deadly volleys into the surprised and terrified mass before them,
and they scattered, panic-striken and cut to pieces,--the remnant
frantically regained the sheltering mansion.
[Illustration: PRESS WEBB, A BORN SCOUT]
Eight were killed where they stood about the fire; two were
mortally wounded and died afterwards; one, wounded and disabled,
quit the service; five, severely or slightly wounded, recovered;
and four, unhurt, reported that night in Kansas City that Quantrell
had attacked them with two hundred men, and had been driven off,
hurt and badly worsted, after three-quarters of an hour’s fight.
Press Webb and his four men did what work was done in less than
five minutes.
Little Blue
Captain Dick Yager, commanding ten men, the usual number the
Guerrillas then operated with, engaged twenty Federals under
Lieutenant Blackstone of the Missouri Militia regiments, and slew
fourteen.
Yager had ambushed a little above a ford over the Little Blue
and hid behind some rocks about fifteen feet above the crossing
place, and Blackstone, unconscious of danger, rode with his troops
leisurely into the water and halted midway in the stream that his
horses might drink. He had a tin cup tied to his saddle and a
bottle of whiskey in one of his pockets. After having drunk and
while bending over from his stirrups to dip the cup into the water,
a volley hit him and knocked him off his horse dead, thirteen
others falling close to and about him at the same time.
Jarrette and Poole, each commanding ten men, made a dash into
Lafayette County and struck some blows to the right and left, which
resounded throughout the West.
Poole pushed into the German settlement and comparatively surprised
them.
Where Concordia now is, there was then a store and a fort, strong
and well built. This day, however, Poole came upon them unawares
and found many who properly belonged to the militia feeding stock
and in an exposed position. Fifteen of these he killed and ten he
wounded severely but not so severely as to prevent them from making
their way back to the fort.
Arrock Fight, Spring of 1864
Todd and Dave Poole went east through Fayette County to Saline
County and thence to Arrock, with one hundred and twenty men to
avenge the death of Jim Janes, Charles Bochman and Perkins, who
were captured by the Federals under Captain Sims.
The men who captured the boys made them dig their own graves and
shot them and rolled them into them. We made the raid for the
benefit of this captain and were successful. We caught him and his
men playing marbles in the street, unaware of any danger. We rode
slowly into town with our Federal uniforms on, Sim Whitsett in
advance.
“Boys,” said he, “I will knock the middle man out for you.”
He fired the first shot. Then it was a continuous fire and the
Federals surrendered in a very few minutes.
We killed twenty-five men, wounded thirty-five and had only one
man, Dick Yager, wounded.
Ben Morrow and I had the pleasure of capturing the captain in an
upstairs bed room of a hotel. He died with quick consumption with a
bullet through his head.
We captured one hundred and fifty men and swore them out of
service.
Fire Bottom Prairie Fight, Spring of 1864
One of the most daring things I ever witnessed was when Ben Morrow
saved my life at the time they got me off my horse at the battle of
Fire Prairie Creek near Napoleon, Missouri, in the spring of 1864.
George Todd, in command, was sent out to meet a bunch of Federals
going from Lexington to Independence. We expected to meet them in
the road and charge them in the usual way, but they got word we
were coming and dismounted, hid their horses in the woods and came
up, on foot, and fired on us from the brush as we charged. They
caught my horse by the bridle and before they could shoot me I
jumped off over the horse’s head. As I went over, I fired at the
man holding him and he fell. I was on foot amidst the worst of
them. This gave me an advantage as I could fire in any direction I
wanted to and they could not, as their men were all around me and
in danger of being hit by their own bullets. I saw a hole where a
large tree had been uprooted, a hole large enough to conceal me
almost, and I made direct for it, firing at everything in sight as
I went.
Captain Todd ordered his men back, with three of them, Babe
Hudspath, Bill McGuire and Tid Sanders, so badly wounded they were
unable to go further.
I was left there in the hole, bullets blowing up the dirt all
around me, the hole being deep enough for me to get out of sight.
I lay on my back, loading my pistols and watched close as a hawk.
They said I was dead and wanted to come up and get my pistols.
Whenever one would show his head I took a shot at him and they saw
that I was very much alive and their scheme would not work.
One of the blue billies climbed a tree close by, thinking he would
be able to get a better shot at me. I waited until he got fairly up
in the tree and then shot him in the thigh and down he came. I kept
up firing, thinking the boys would hear it and come back and help
me.
They were a quarter of a mile off when Ben Morrow said, “Boys, we
are all here except Harrison Trow, and do you hear that shooting?
He is still alive and by G--d I am going back to get him.” So on
came Ben Morrow, yelling and shooting with a pistol in each hand.
When within forty yards of me and letting in on the enemy with a
pistol in each hand, he saw me and came straight for me. I caught
the crupper of his saddle, jumped up behind him, and pulling two
pistols, one in each hand, firing as we went, we got safely away.
From that day on, I would have died any where, and any place and
any how for Ben Morrow, who saved my life at the risk of his own.
After the Fayette fight Lieutenant Jim Little, one of Quantrell’s
best men, was badly wounded in Howard County, Missouri, and
Quantrell went with him to the woods to take care of him until he
recovered.
Then, after the Centralia fight, Ben Morrow, Bill Hulsh and I went
to where Quantrell and Jim Little were in the woods. Jim was much
better by this time, so that Quantrell could leave him and he came
back to us in Jackson County, where we swam the river on our horses
near Saline City. After we had crossed the river we went to a house
to get breakfast and dry our clothes. Quantrell wanted to intercept
General Price who was on a raid and have a consultation with him.
At this house we discovered some Federal clothing--caps, etc.--in
the hall and asked whose they were. We were told they belonged to
some Federal soldiers who had stayed there through the night and
attended a dance. We captured them at once and swore them out of
service. We then went on to intercept Price at Waverly, Saline
County, Missouri, where arrangements were made for Quantrell’s
men to take the advance clear on up through Fayette and Jackson
Counties, and up through Kansas City. We were in advance all of the
way from that time until Price started south, and we went with him,
about one hundred miles, almost to the Arkansas line, and turned
back to Jackson County.
Death of Todd and Anderson, October, 1864
Curtis’ heavy division, retreating before General Price all the way
from Lexington to Independence, held the western bank of the Little
Blue, and some heavy stone walls and fences beyond. Marmaduke and
Shelby broke his hold from these, and pressed him rapidly back to
and through Independence, the two Colorado regiments covering his
rear stubbornly and well. Side by side McCoy and Todd had made
several brilliant charges during the morning, and had driven before
them with great dash and spirit every Colorado squadron halted to
resist the continual marching forward of the Confederate cavalry.
Ere the pursuit ended for the day, half of the 2nd Colorado
regiment drew up on the crest of a bold hill and made a gallant
fight. Their major, Smith, a brave and dashing officer, was killed
there, and there Todd fell. General Shelby, as was his wont, was
well up with the advance, and leading recklessly the two companies
of Todd and McCoy. Next to Shelby’s right rode Todd and upon his
left was McCoy. Close to these and near to the front files were
Colonels Nichols, Thrailkill, Ben Morrow, Ike Flannery and Jesse
James.
The trot had deepened into a gallop, and all the crowd of
skirmishers covering the head of the rushing column were at it,
fierce and hot, when the 2nd Colorado swept the road with a furious
volley, broke away from the strong position held by them and
hurried on through the streets of Independence, followed by the
untiring McCoy, as lank as a fox-hound and as eager.
That volley killed Todd. A Spencer rifle ball entered his neck in
front, passed through and out near the spine, and paralyzed him.
Dying as he fell, he was yet tenderly taken up and carried to the
house of Mrs. Burns, in Independence. Articulating with great
difficulty and leaving now and then almost incoherent messages to
favorite comrade or friend, he lingered for two hours insensible to
pain, and died at last as a Roman.
George Todd was a Scotchman born, his father holding an honorable
position in the British navy. Destined also for the sea, it was the
misfortune of the son to become engaged in a personal difficulty
in his eighteenth year and kill the man with whom he quarreled. He
fled to Canada, and from Canada to the United States. His father
soon after resigned and followed him, and when the war began both
were railroad contractors in North Missouri, standing well with
everybody for business energy, capacity and integrity.
Todd made a name by exceeding desperation. His features presented
nothing that could attract attention. There was no sign in visible
characters of the powers that was in him. They were calm always,
and in repose a little stern; but if anything that indicated “a
look of destiny” was sought for, it was not to be found in the face
of George Todd. His was simple and confiding, and a circumspect
regard for his word made him a very true but sometimes a very blunt
man. In his eyes the fittest person to command a Guerrilla was
he who inspired the enemy before people began to say: “That man,
George Todd, is a tiger. He fights always; he is not happy unless
he is fighting. He will either be killed soon or he will do a great
amount of killing.” It has just been seen that he was not to be
killed until October, 1864--a three years’ lease of life for that
desperate Guerrilla work never had a counterpart. By and by the
Guerrillas themselves felt confidence in such a name, reliance in
such an arm, favor for such a face. It was sufficient for Todd to
order a march to be implicitly followed; to plan an expedition to
have it immediately carried out; to indicate a spot on which to
assemble to cause an organization sometimes widely scattered or
dispersed to come together as the jaws of a steel trap.
Nature gave him the restlessness of a born cavalryman and
the exterior and the power of voice necessary to the leader
of desperate men. Coolness, and great activity were his main
attributes as a commander. Always more ready to strike than to
speak, if he talked at all it was only after a combat had been
had, and then modestly. His conviction was the part he played, and
he sustained with unflinching courage and unflagging energy that
which he had set down for his hands to do.
A splendid pistol shot, fearless as a horseman, knowing nature well
enough to choose desperate men and ambitious men, reticent, heroic
beyond the conception of most conservative people, and covered with
blood as he was to his brow, his fall was yet majestic, because it
was accompanied by patriotism.
Before the evacuation of Independence, Todd was buried by his men
in the cemetery there, and Poole succeeded to the command of his
company, leading it splendidly.
The night they buried Todd, Ike Flannery, Dick Burns, Andy McGuire,
Ben Morrow, Press Webb, Harrison Trow, Lafe Privin, George
Shepherd, George Maddox, Allen Parmer, Dan Vaughn, Jess and Frank
James and John Ross took a solemn oath by the open grave of the
dead man to avenge his death, and for the following three days of
incessant battle it was remarkable how desperately they fought--and
how long.
Until General Price started southward from Mine Creek in full
retreat, the Guerrillas under Poole remained with him, scouting and
picketing, and fighting with the advance. After Mine Creek they
returned to Bone Hill, in Jackson County, some going afterwards to
Kentucky with Quantrell, and some to Texas with George Shepherd.
Henceforward the history of the Guerrillas of Missouri must be the
history of detachments and isolated squads, fighting always, but
fighting without coherency or other desire than to kill.
Anderson had joined Price at Boonville and the meeting was a
memorable one. The bridles of the horses the men rode were adorned
with scalps. One huge red-bearded Guerrilla--six feet and over, and
girdled about the waist with an armory of revolvers--had dangling
from every conceivable angle a profuse array of these ghastly
trophies. Ben Price was shocked at such evidence of a warfare
so utterly repugnant to a commander of his known generosity and
forbearance, and he ordered sternly that they be thrown away at
once. He questioned Anderson Long of Missouri, of the forces in
the state, of the temper of the people, of the nature of Guerrilla
warfare, of its relative advantages and disadvantages and then when
he had heard all he blessed the Guerrillas probably with about as
much unction as Balaam blessed Israel.
General Price was a merciful man. Equable in every relation of
life, conservative by nature and largely tolerant through his
earlier political training, thousands are alive today solely
because none of the harsher or crueler indulgences of the Civil
War were permitted to the troops commanded by this conscientious
officer.
Finally, however, he ordered Anderson back into North Missouri,
and he crossed at Boonville upon his last career of leave taking,
desperation and death.
Tired of tearing up railroad tracks, cutting down telegraph poles,
destroying miles and miles of wire, burning depots, and picking up
and killing isolated militiamen, terrified at the uprising in favor
of Price, Anderson dashed into Danville, Montgomery County, where
sixty Federals were stationed in houses and strong places.
He had but fifty-seven men, and the fight was close and hot.
Gooley Robinson, one of his best soldiers, was mortally wounded
while exposing himself in a most reckless manner.
It was difficult to get the enemy out of the houses. Snatching up
torches and braving the guns of the entrenched Federals, Dick and
Ike Berry put fire to one house. Arch Clements and Dick West to
another, Theo. Castle, John Maupin and Mose Huffaker to a third,
and Ben Broomfield, Tuck, Tom and Woot Hill to the fourth.
It was a night of terror and agony. As the militiamen ran out they
were shot down by the Guerrillas in the shadow. Some wounded,
burnt to death, and others, stifled by the heat and smoke, rushed,
gasping and blackened into the air, to be riddled with bullets.
Eight, barely, of the garrison escaped the holocaust.
Anderson turned west towards Kansas City, expecting to overtake
General Price there. En route he killed as he rode. Scarcely an
hour of all the long march was barren of a victim. Union men,
militiamen, Federal soldiers, home guards, Germans on general
principles--no matter what the class or the organization--if they
were pro-United States, they were killed.
Later on, in the month of October, while well advanced in Ray
County, Anderson received the first news of the death of Todd and
the retreat of Price. By this time, however, he had recruited his
own command to several hundred, and had joined to it a detachment
of regular Confederates, guiding and guarding to the South a motley
aggregation of recruits, old and young. Halting one day to rest
and to prepare for a passage across the Missouri River, close to
Missouri City, Anderson found one thousand Federals--eight hundred
infantry and two hundred cavalry. He made haste to attack them.
His young lieutenant, Arch Clements, advised him urgently against
the attack, as did Captain A. E. Asbury, a young and gallant
Confederate officer, who was in company with him, commanding fifty
recruits. Others of his associates did the same, notably Colonel
John Holt, a Confederate officer, and Colonel James H. R. Condiff.
Captain Asbury was a cool, brave, wary man who had had large
experience in border fighting, and who knew that for a desperate
charge raw recruits could not be depended upon.
Anderson would not be held back. Ordering a charge, his horse ran
away with him and he was seventy-five yards ahead of his followers
when he was killed. Next to him was William Smith, a veteran
Guerrilla of four years’ service. Five balls struck him, and three
struck Anderson. Next to Smith was John Maupin, who was wounded
twice, and next to Maupin, Cundill, who was also hit, and next to
Cundill, Asbury, who got four bullets through his clothes. John
Holt, Jim Crow Chiles and Peyton Long had their horses killed. The
three Hill brothers and Dick West and ten others of Anderson’s old
company fought their way up to Anderson’s body and sought to bring
it out. Tuck Hill was shot, so was his brother Woot and Dick West.
Their wounds were severe, but not mortal. Once they succeeded in
placing it upon a horse; the horse was killed and fell upon the
corpse and held it to the ground. Still struggling heroically over
the body of his idolized commander, Hank Patterson fell dead, not
a foot from the dead Guerrilla. Next, Simmons was killed, and then
Anson Tolliver, and then Paul Debonhorst, and then Smith Jobson,
and then Luckett, then John McIlvaine, and finally Jasper Moody
and William Tarkington. Nothing could live before the fire of the
concealed infantry and the Spencer carbines of the cavalry.
A single blanket might have covered the terrible heap of dead and
wounded who fought to recover all that remained of that tiger of
the jungle. John Pringle, the red-headed giant of the Boonville
scalps, far ahead of his company, was the last man killed,
struggling even to the death to bear back the corpse. He was a
captain of a company, and a veteran of the Mexican war, but he did
what he would not order his men to do--he rushed up to the corpse
heap and fastened about the leg of Anderson a lariat that he might
drag the body away. The Federals killed his horse. Shot once,
he tugged at the rope himself, bleeding pitifully. Shot again,
he fell, struggled up to his feet, fired every barrel of three
revolvers into the enemy, and received as a counter blow two more
bullets.
This time he did not rise again or stir, or make a moan. All the
wild boar blood in his veins had been poured out, and the bronzed
face, from being rigid, had become august.
Joseph and Arch Nicholson, William James, Clell Miller and John
Warren, all young recruits in their first battle, fought savagely
in the melee, and all were wounded. Miller, among those who strove
to rescue the corpse of Anderson, was shot, and Warren, wounded
four times, crawled back from the slaughter pen with difficulty. A
minie ball had found the heart of Anderson. Life, thank God, was
gone when a rope was put around his neck and his body dragged as
the body of a dog slain in the woods.
Many a picture was taken of the dead lion, with his great flowing
beard, and that indescribable pallor of death on his bronzed face.
The Federals cut his head off and stuck it on a telegraph pole.
Going South, Fall of 1864