April to July 1861
And thus, as described in the last chapter, my affairs stood in the spring of 1861, when I was 31 years of age.1 My school for that term would have closed about the first of June. I closed it, however, a few weeks earlier. This I did in consequence of the intense excitement that followed the firing upon Fort Sumpter by the secessionists of South Carolina.2 Like the most fearful earth-quake ever known to man, that first mad act of treasonable warfare aroused a commotion which threatened to shatter our own country—our beloved “Union” into a thousand fragments, and which caused all the nations of the world to stand in awe and to tremble. War of the most terrible nature was now bound to sweep, like the besom of destruction, over our beautiful and once-happy land. From end to end and from side to side of our country, a great cry arose;—a cry for war and for blood. Throughout the South, this cry was for a war that should destroy the “accursed Union” and cause the rivers to run red with the blood of the “______ Yankees” and others who had dared to oppose the extension of the “divine institution of slavery.” Throughout the North, it was for a war that should preserve the “glorious Union,” cause the rivers to run red with the blood of “traitors” and forever “to wipe out the inhuman and damnable institution of slavery.” One who never witnessed any thing of the kind can not well conceive of the fearful excitement that prevailed at that time. Fearful every where, this excitement was more fearful in the border states which were bound to be the theater of the greatest carnage ever known upon earth, and in which the people were more divided in sentiment than they were any where else.3 Human nature among the people, seemed all at once to become perverted. Mild men became fierce, and fierce men became almost fiendish. Women would gladly have changed their sex and rushed into the conflict; and even the children would gladly have changed their play-grounds for the battle-field, their toys for the instruments of death. Farmers, mechanics, teachers,—all classes of the people, forsaking their several employments, in vast, surging, burning masses, crowded the public squares and blockaded the streets of our cities and towns. At every corner, fiery orators, with burning words and wild gesticulations, heightened still the already morbidly inflamed passions of the multitude. Religion, that greatest of all fomenters of discord and of bloodshed, rushed, like a hungry vulture, into the conflict, and added increased blackness to the awful storm-cloud that was just bursting upon us. On every hand was heard the deafening clang, clang, clang of the cruel iron tongue of the church bell, calling for blood. From every pulpit was heard the equally heartless clang of the priest’s voice, yelling to his god, in blasphemous prayers, to help them dye the rivers with the blood, and to enrich the soil with the unburied bodies of their brethren—his children. While the secession priest was informing his god, with these frantic and blasphemous yells, that slavery was a divine institution, founded and fostered by this god himself, the Union priest, often not far away, was informing this same god, with equally frantic and blasphemous yells, that slavery was an institution of hell—an abomination in the sight of this god. While the former priest was distinctly informing his god that he (the god) certainly should and certainly would destroy the Union and utterly overwhelm the abolition hordes of the North, the latter was just as distinctly informing him that he certainly should and certainly would preserve the Union and utterly overwhelm the proslavery rebel hosts of the South.4 What this god would have done had the two parties been equal in strength I do not know. As it was, he evidently helped the stronger party.
As yet, I had kept silent in regard to the all absorbing question of the time. Outside of my own family, my political sentiments were not known in this community.5 For a time, I determined to remain silent until the close of my school. My school-room, however, opening as it did right upon the public square, was exposed to all the uproar of the excited crowds that daily filled the square. Whenever any news arrived favorable to the South, there was loud cheering right at our door. Under these circumstances, my pupils, good and obedient as they were, began to partake of the prevailing excitement and to become unable to concentrate their thoughts upon their studies. This was especially the case with the larger boys and the young men. I, too, began to feel myself carried away by the general excitement. I determined, therefore, to close my school at once. I did this, explaining to my pupils, in a kind little speech, my reasons for so doing. I told them also which side I intended to espouse. I told them that I should stand by the Union. I told them that I could not do otherwise and be true to my own conscience and my own manhood. Most of them seemed grieved when they heard this, and yet they all parted with me kindly. A few of the boys declared that they would stand with me for the Union.
Having closed my school and cut myself off from the sympathy of nearly all my pupils and other friends, who were nearly all secessionists, I felt that I was again standing alone and about to take the most critical step of my life. I had already made known to my parents and other near relatives the course I intended to take, and they had expressed their indignation and had ceased to correspond with me at all. If there were any Union men in the community where I then was, they were keeping extremely quiet. Not knowing my own sentiments, they had kept aloof from me. I did not know any one that I could certainly depend upon; and to stand alone for the Union was as much as my life was worth. That day there was an unusually large crowd upon the public square, and the excitement was intense. The news had just reached us of the seceding of several more states.6 The speakers were jubilant, and represented the United States as virtually destroyed, the Confederate States as virtually established. The Union seemed to have no friends present.7
When the last speaker closed his hot secession harangue, I ascended the steps of the court house, and, calling the attention of the crowd, proceeded to read a series of Union resolutions which I had already prepared. When I closed, there was not an immediate outburst of fury against me as I expected there would be. My act had taken the crowd utterly by surprise, and they seemed thunder-struck by my audacity. For a time there was a general but indistinct murmur of low voices. Presently, I could hear certain voices louder than the others denouncing me as a “traitor to the South,” and declaring that I “ought to be shot down like a wolf or a sheep-killing dog.”
Among my resolutions were the following: “Resolved that the treasonable act of secession, though committed by the Governor, the Legislature and a majority of the citizens of our state, can not and does not in any respect absolve the balance of the citizens from the allegiance which they owe to the United States; and, therefore, Resolved that we, the loyal portion of the citizens of Missouri, will be true to our allegiance to the United States, that we will resist rebel force with force, and that, if necessary, we will whiten with our unburied bones the fair plains of Missouri which we fought to save.” Our traitor Governor, Claiborne F. Jackson, had just issued a proclamation according to which these resolutions constituted treason against the state of Missouri and a capital offense. I called the attention of the crowd to this fact, and declared that Claiborne F. Jackson and I could not both live.8
After I had read my resolutions and finished my remarks upon them, I stepped down among the crowd and waited to see what they were going to do about it. When the storm of indignation against me began to assume a dangerous form, I felt the fingers of a child clutching one of my hands. Looking down, I saw the anxious face of one of my pupils, a bright little boy of eight years. Seeing that he wished to lead me away, I permitted him to do so. Indeed, I was glad of an excuse to leave the crowd just then, so that I should not seem to leave through fear. The little boy led me around behind some store buildings and into an old ware-house, the doors and windows of which were all closed. There, in the darkness, I found four men who said that they had managed thus to get me away before I was torn to pieces by the infuriated crowd. They said that they endorsed every word I had uttered, but that, by thus publicly proclaiming my principles, I was simply throwing my life away without doing any good. They begged me to let them conceal me for a few days until the excitement died away. To this, I dissented. I told them I would rather die than not to prove myself a man on that occasion. I asked one of them, the owner of the store and the ware-house, to loan me his revolver. He replied that he did not have it with him, and that he would not dare to loan it to me any way. I asked him where it was. He replied that it was under his pillow in his bed room. “Very good,” said I, “when you look for it, it will not be there.” Having added this revolver to the arms I already carried, I was prepared to sell my life at a dear rate, if I was compelled to sell it at all. I left the ware-house and crossed the public square on my way home. The crowd had mostly dispersed, by this time, and no one attempted to interrupt me. These four men, my first Union friends, were W. B. Edwards, Dr. E. Hovey, A. Lindsay, and A. Vanderford.9
About a week later, another grand meeting was called in our town. This meeting was to be addressed by Peter Wilkes and other able speakers from Springfield.10 A fine Confederate flag was to be flung to the breeze from the dome of our court-house, guns were to be fired, secession songs were to be sung, Dixie and other appropriate airs were to be played by the band, and a great boom generally was to be given to the rising rebellion.11 The day arrived. A vast concourse of people assembled. A procession with music met the speakers and the flag, and, for a time, everything was lovely. Mr. Wilkes delivered a really eloquent oration urging the people to stand as a unit for secession. He said that the seven states which had then seceded were typified by the seven stars, the seven churches, the seven candlesticks, the seven years of plenty, the seven angels, and other sevens of the scriptures, all of a glorious, a heaven-approved character.12 Many of his remarks were loudly applauded. I saw among the crowd, however, many men with pale earnest faces who did not join in the applause. I knew that some of these were Union men, and I supposed that they all were. Indeed, during the last week, I had learned that there was quite a strong Union element in the county,13 and that, after my bold public declaration of my principles, I was coming to be regarded as the leader of that element. I had declared my intention to reply to Mr. Wilkes on this occasion. My friends did their best to dissuade me from carrying out this intention. They said that to attempt such a reply would be, on my part, an act of madness, and they could not agree to sustain me in so hazardous an attempt. My mind was made up, however, and no amount of dissuasion could deter me from carrying out my intentions. Perceiving that they could not dissuade me, some half dozen of my friends, under the leadership of a young merchant by the name of John McConnell,14 banded themselves together and armed themselves to the teeth for the purpose of defending me to the death if any attempt should be made upon my life. Still hoping that I would yet give up my rash intention, they did not, however, let me know that they proposed thus to defend me. In the meeting, they took their places, as if by chance, near me, close to the speaker’s stand. On the other side of the stand, were about thirty men who seemed to be banded together for some purpose. They were hunters from the Neongo [Niangua]15 hills—a rough looking set of customers. Many of them were dressed in buckskin, all carried long rifles, and all had their belts loaded with revolvers and bowie knives. What they meant, no one but themselves seemed to know. They had come from a distance of from 20 to 30 miles and from a locality in which the Union sentiment strongly prevailed. Afterwards, they told me that they had come on my account—that they had heard I was to be killed on that occasion if I attempted to speak, and that they had come to see who killed me and how the killing was done.
During the applause that followed Mr. Wilkes’ speech, and before the next speaker could be introduced, I leaped upon the front of the stand and waved my hand for attention. Instantly a dead silence prevailed. No one in the audience seemed even to breathe. The very audacity of my act seemed to hold them all fixed with a kind of fascination. My whole soul aglow with a kind of inspiration, I seemed to see in great letters of flame the very words I should speak. I forgot myself and my danger. I thought only of the cause I was defending and of victory. I showed that the seven seceded states were typified by the seven lean kine, the seven years of famine, the seven plagues, the seven vials of wrath, the seven heads of the dragon, the seven devils, and many other sevens of the scriptures, all of a damnable, a heaven-abominated character. I showed that, as Satan had drawn away one third of the hosts of heaven, so the arch fiend of secession had drawn away one third of the hosts of our Union—our heaven of [sic; on] earth.16 I recalled the struggles of our forefathers, and repeated the inimitable words of our immortal Washington’s Farewell Address. I depicted the unutterable horrors of the internecine war that they were blindly bringing upon us;—the blood, the carnage, the desolated homes;—the widows, the orphans, the childless parents;—the broken honor, the wasted virtue, the black despair, the gloating of vultures, the lost souls, the exulting howlings of the demons of hell. But few of my hearers had ever heard or read a word on my side of this great question. Tears—loyal tears rolled down the rough cheeks of many a brave and honest man who came there that day believing himself to be a secessionist. The real secessionists grew pale. The speaker whose place I was usurping trembled as if in an ague. A change was wrought in that great assembly. A tidal wave was rising that could not now be turned back, or resisted. When I closed, the pent up feelings of hundreds found vent in loud and hearty hurrahs for the Union and our brave old flag.17
The moment I closed, W. B. Edwards, of whom I have already spoken, an old wounded soldier of the War of 1812, hobbled with his crutches into my place.18 Though a slave owner, he was as true as steel to the Union, and now, for a few moments, he poured forth a torrent of patriotic eloquence that I never heard surpassed. Under the inspiration of that eloquence, the loyal fire that I had kindled burst into a flame. When he closed, I called upon him to walk out upon one side of the square and represent Washington, the Union, and the Star-spangled Banner, and upon Mr. Wilkes to walk out upon the other side and represent Benedict Arnold, treason, and the Confederate flag, and see how the crowd would divide. As the old hero hobbled to his place, several hundred men waved their hats, hurrahed for the Union, and formed in a long line by his side. Mr. Wilkes did not walk out at all, and his party did not form in line. Indeed, they seemed thunder-struck and alarmed at this totally unexpected outcome of their great secession boom. They conferred together a few moments, then the speakers and the rebel flag were hurried away in wagons amid the cheers of the enthusiastic Union men. We had won a great, though a bloodless victory.
Knowing that the time to strike was “while the iron was hot,” we proceeded at once to form ourselves into military companies called Home Guards.19 I had the honor to be the first man to volunteer into this service. The second man was Milton Burch, a merchant of our town. He was lame from a wound received while a soldier in Mexico, but he made one of the foremost warriors of the army of the frontier. I shall often speak of him hereafter.20 I was elected Captain of one of the first companies formed. A week later, I was elected major. I was nominated for Colonel, but declined and insisted upon the election of my brave old soldier friend, W. B. Edwards. His election was unanimous. For Lt. Colonel, we elected Dr. E. Hovey, a popular physician of our town. After my promotion, Burch took my place as Captain.21
We now had a regiment of 800 men, about half of whom were armed with the old-fashioned long-barreled rifles used by the hunters of that time. A few had good shot-guns, and many had revolvers. In order to arm the balance of our men, we made raids upon various parts of the county, and seized the arms of disloyal men. We took possession of the court-house, established a system of signals, and, under the drill of a few old soldiers, soon came to know something of military discipline. Being thus the first to organize and to arm, we so forestalled the enemy that we were enabled to hold our own county without much trouble. Most of the rebels soon disappeared from the county. In an adjoining county, however, the rebels had been the first to act, and they, under the command of an able officer, Major Maybry, held that county as we held our own. That was Hickory County, and the Union men of that county seemed almost frightened out of their wits. They had all fled to the brush for hiding, and many of them, when they escaped and reached us, had blood-curdling tales to tell of the doings of Maybry and his band of rebels.22 On one occasion, a small party of them came rushing into our camps, their hats gone and their horses covered with dust and foam, and reported that Maybry was only a few miles away, rapidly advancing upon our position, burning every Union house that fell in his way, and hanging every Union man that fell into his hands. This report appearing to be reliable, threw our camps into a wonderful excitement. We were soon ready for battle, however, at first dreading to see the terrible Maybry approach, but, finally, growing bolder from impatience, we began to wish he would come and give us a taste of real war. Presently another party of fugitives arrived and informed us that the alarm was all a hoax gotten up by certain mischievous parties of rebel proclivities for what they were pleased to call “fun.”
As soon as we learned that Maybry was not coming, we at once perceived that we could easily have “whipped h-ll out of him if he had come.” Many of us, who had just been speaking of him in whispers, now boldly blasphemed his name out aloud. In some way, we all made known to one another the important fact that we were invincible heroes. Indeed, so ferociously brave did we become that we determined to send an expedition against Maybry to administer to him a severe chastisement. I was sent in command of this expedition. My force consisted of the available men of two companies, the one commanded by Capt. Burch, the other by Capt. McPheters.23 We were fairly well mounted, but we were in citizens’ dress, and were badly armed for any other than bush fighting. At Louisburg, eight miles north of Buffalo, we encountered a small party of rebels. These we captured without firing a gun, and sent them back to Buffalo. We then moved westward some 20 miles or more, over a beautiful but rather rough country, and camped for the night within eight miles of Black Oak Point. This is the county town of Hickory County, and was then regarded as the stronghold of the redoubtable Major Maybry. Hearing of our approach, the Union men came out of their hiding and joined us.24 The rebels fled in great consternation. We soon bore as fearful a name as Maybry had borne when he was supposed to be on his way back to attack our strong hold.
That night, we had a violent thunder storm accompanied by heavy rain. Fearing that the enemy might try to surprise my inexperienced men, I volunteered to act as officer of the guard myself. I did not close my eyes in sleep. The next morning was fair and we were in motion early. As a reconnoitering party, I sent forward 25 well mounted men under command of Captain Burch. With the main body, I hastened on as fast as I could. I expected that the enemy would make a stand at Black Oak Point, and that Burch would have to fall back. In this expectation, however, I was deceived. When I arrived, I found that the terrible Maybry had fled during the night, and that Burch had captured about 51 armed rebel citizens and four rebel soldiers and had them shut up in a church. I immediately proclaimed martial law, and sent out parties to seize arms, cut off stragglers, &c. while I, as a high court from whose decision there was no appeal, proceeded to try the treasonable culprits that Burch had already captured. Most of these, except the four soldiers, I released upon their taking the oath of allegiance to the United States. The utter folly of administering this oath soon became apparent. Few if any of those who took it under such circumstances ever held it binding.
Having completed the trial of my prisoners, I moved out about four miles east, on the route taken by Maybry, and went into camp for the night. My camp was protected on the north and on the west by high rail fences. On the east and on the south extended an open prairie. But few of us having picket ropes, most of our horses were turned loose to graze in a fine large pasture that lay just west of our camp. I had my men lie down to sleep in two lines about 20 feet from the fence on the outside. I informed them, however, that, in the event of an attack by the enemy, we would retire to the other side of the fence. Knowing that Maybry was only a few miles away, and knowing that he was very likely to attack my camp that night, I again declined to sleep. When all were still and the lights extinguished, I went out alone and on foot a long way in the direction of Maybry’s camp. I had learned that he occupied so strong a position that, to attack him in it would be an act of madness on my part. If we fought, he would be the attacking party.
When I was some three miles from my own camp, and within that distance of the camp of the enemy, I found the whole country, which was thickly settled, all in commotion. By the clear moonlight, I could see many small parties of horsemen hurrying toward Maybry’s camp. Being on foot and alone, I could see these parties while I was invisible to them. When any of them were approaching, I would conceal myself in the high grass near the road, and there, with my gun cocked and bearing up on them as they drew near, I would wait and listen to what they were saying as they passed. I soon learned that they were rebel citizens who were coming in armed to help Maybry in the attack which he did propose to make upon my camp that night. Having learned this important fact, I hurried back to my own camp. On my way back, I had to hide from several small parties that came meeting me. I could easily have shot some of them, and I would have done so, had I not feared that I would thereby disarrange my plans for something better. I wished Maybry to attack my camps under the belief that he was taking us by surprise. Then, by a counter-surprise, we would punish him severely.
Just outside of my line of guards on that side, was a high point in the road from which my whole camp was distinctly visible. I was satisfied that the enemy would reconnoiter my camp before attacking it, and suspected that the reconnoitering would be done from this very point. I therefore concealed myself near this point and waited further developments. In a few minutes, two men rode up, sure enough, and stopped within twenty feet of the muzzle of my gun. They sat so in range between me and the moonlit sky that I could easily have sent a bullet through them both; and, had I known how the affair was to turn out, I should certainly have done so. I think one of them was Maybry himself. They seemed to think that they were going to surprise us completely, and utterly destroy us as they had recently surprised and destroyed a body of Union men at a place called Cole Camp.25
When they had departed, I entered my camp and made known to my officers all that I had learned. I ordered them to wake the men quietly and have them retire to the other side of the fence. The hats, saddles, and blankets were to be left so arranged as to look like men still asleep there on the ground. The guards on that side were called in. The way was now open for the enemy to swoop down upon our camp and fire into our blankets; while we, sky-lighting them from our low position behind the fence, each with a good rest for his gun, should pour in our deadly volleys. I still believe my plan was a good one. When a dozen or more men at the head of the line had been awakened and instructed, however, and when they were silently climbing over the fence into the field, a voice from among the refugees was suddenly heard crying aloud: “They’re getting their horses to leave! They’re getting their horses to leave!” Instantly, the whole body of refugees, some 50 or more, who were camped together on our right, rose up and rushed with great noise into the pasture to get their horses. Aroused from their sleep and alarmed by this uproar, the balance of my men sprang up and followed the example of the refugees. There was an end to all discipline. Pandemonium seemed to have been let loose, and a disgraceful rout seemed inevitable. The officers sustained me nobly, but their voices could not be heard. Fortunately, the horses were so frightened that very few of them could be caught. Had the men been able to get their horses, they would doubtless have nearly all run away. Most of those that did get their horses, did run away. Some of these reached Buffalo, 25 miles distant in two hours and reported that I and my command were all being slaughtered and that they had come for reinforcements. At last only half a dozen men were left with me. I then grew desperate and told them that they might go, too, if they wished;—that I would remain there alone and die defending our camps. They replied that they would remain and die with me. We took our places, therefore, behind the fence, prepared to fire upon the enemy should they charge upon our camp as we expected they soon would. Even then, we could see a small party of them outlined against the sky upon the high point already mentioned.
Presently a few more men, unable to catch their horses, came back and took their places with us; then a few more, and so on until all my men but about a dozen were in their places eager to atone for their bad conduct. A very few also of the refugees remained. I was now really eager for the enemy to come. It spoils a good story for them not to come. Were I writing a novel, I would have them come my way, and would whip them like blazes. As it is, however, I can not do this. They did not come. The bright morning came, and not a drop of blood stained the grass upon which we sat to eat our early breakfast. I felt disappointed; but, maybe it is better that no one was slain there that night. Some of Maybry’s men told me afterwards that the reason they gave up their intention to attack us was that the reconnoitering party that had seen our camp in the time of our greatest confusion, had reported that we were evidently aware of their intention and were prepared to receive them. They supposed that our noise was the noise of preparation. It was well, perhaps, that they did not know any better. On that evening, we reached Buffalo, having taken a few more prisoners on our march. I made my report in accordance with the facts, and my superior officer fully approved of all that I had done, and even congratulated me upon the skill with which, in so critical an emergency, I had managed my undisciplined men. And thus ended my first military expedition. It was fuller of instruction than of glory.
Soon after my return from this expedition, my wife gave birth to a son. He was a beautiful child and we called his name Ianthus. On his death a year later, I wrote the poem that bears his name.26 From this time on till the beginning of August, we did but little more than patrol the county in every direction, arrest suspicious characters, seize rebel arms, and preserve order. During all this time, I rapidly grew in favor with my men and with the loyal people generally. In a corresponding ratio, I came to be feared and hated by the disloyal portion of the people. I now see some mistakes that I then made, but my intentions were always good. Though I had always deprecated civil war, now that it was inevitable, I entered into it with all the energy of my restless nature. I was now regarded as an able leader,—a kind of modern Francis Marrion, and I was proud of the distinction.27 It is generally thought to be the proper thing to condemn men for ambition. For my own part, however, I have very little use for any man, and no use at all for a soldier, that has no ambition. Ambition is the essence of energy.
Source: Kelso, “Auto-Biography,” chap. 9, 708–15. Spelling, punctuation, capitalization, paragraph breaks, and chapter divisions are Kelso’s. His interlineations have been rendered in line. His underlines appear here as italics and his double underlines as bold print. The editor has supplied the chapter titles.
1. Kelso had separated from his wife Adelia in the fall of 1856. Their divorce was finalized two years later, immediately after which he married Martha S. (“Susie”) Barnes. He graduated from Pleasant Ridge College in Weston, Platte County, Mo., in June 1859. He, Susie, and his two children from his first marriage, Florella (b. 1854) and Florellus (b. 1856), moved to Buffalo, Dallas County, Missouri. He and his wife purchased a 120-acre farm a mile and a half from town, and Kelso opened his “Academy,” beginning with seven students (his sister Ella was an assistant teacher). See Kelso, “Auto-Biography,” 702–7, and Missouri Marriage Records.
2. The Confederates began their bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, S.C., occupied by the U.S. Army, at 4:30 a.m., April 12, 1861.
3. The border states (slave states that remained in the Union) were Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri. In the 1860 presidential election, Missouri cast 58,801 votes for Stephen A. Douglas (National [Northern] Democratic Party, which supported “popular sovereignty” in the states on the slavery question); 58,372 for John Bell (Constitutional Union Party, which wanted to compromise and preserve “the Union as it is”); 31,317 for John C. Breckinridge (Constitutional [Southern] Democratic Party, proslavery and supporting the right of secession); and 17,028 for Abraham Lincoln (Republican, promising not to interfere with slavery in the states but opposing it in the territories). Parrish, History of Missouri, 3.
4. On religion and the Civil War, see esp. James H. Moorhead, American Apocalypse: Yankee Protestants and the Civil War, 1860–1869 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1978); James M. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); Randall M. Miller, Harry S. Stout, and Charles Reagan Wilson, eds., Religion and the American Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); Steven E. Woodworth, While God Is Marching On: The Religious World of Civil War Soldiers (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001); Mark A. Noll, America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), part 5; John Patrick Daly, When Slavery Was Called Freedom: Evangelicalism, Proslavery, and the Causes of the Civil War (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2002); Harry S. Stout, Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the Civil War (New York: Viking, 2006); Mark A. Noll, The Civil War as a Theological Crisis (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006); Robert J. Miller, Both Prayed to the Same God: Religion and Faith in the American Civil War (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2007); David Rolfs, No Peace for the Wicked: Northern Protestant Soldiers and the American Civil War (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2009); and George C. Rable, God’s Almost Chosen Peoples: A Religious History of the American Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010).
5. Early in the “Auto-Biography,” Kelso discussed his opinions in 1855: “Kansas was just across the river and there actual war was going on to determine whether slavery should or should not exist in that territory when it became a state. Every body on our side of the river was suspected and ostracized who was not wont to loudly hurrah for slavery, and to just as loudly curse the abolitionists and the ‘Black Republicans.’ Although I was a minister in the M. E. Church South, I had fully studied the subject of slavery, and had, in my own mind, fully condemned that divine institution. I was silent in regard to the matter but, in those days, such silence was very suspicious” (697).
6. The seven states of the lower South (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas) seceded between Dec. 20, 1860, and Feb. 1, 1861 (the Texas referendum was Feb. 23). Virginia followed on April 17 (referendum on May 23), Arkansas and Tennessee on May 6 (Tennessee referendum on June 8), and North Carolina on May 20. Kelso was probably describing the events of May 6 or 7. Similar excitement occurred on May 7 during “Secession Day” in Rolla, Missouri. See the Rolla Express, May 13, 1861, cited in John F. Bradbury, Jr., The Old Phelps County Courthouse and the Civil War (Rolla, Mo.: Old Courthouse Preservation Committee and the Phelps County Historical Society, 1999), 4.
7. In Dallas County, as in the state at large, about 70% of the electorate in the 1860 presidential election voted for either Douglas or Bell, the compromise candidates, though in Missouri as a whole Douglas barely edged Bell by a few hundred votes, while in Dallas Douglas received 31% and Bell 41% of the vote. In the county, Breckinridge, the southern candidate, received somewhat more support than in the whole state (24% to 19%) and Lincoln significantly less (less than 3% to over 10%). The southern tilt of Buffalo can be seen in the 1860 governor’s race. Sample Orr of the Constitutional Union Party got 42% of the vote in Missouri, 55% in Dallas County, and only 12% in Buffalo. Claiborne F. Jackson, a Democrat with what were thought to be moderate southern sympathies, won in Missouri with 47%, received 43% in Dallas, and 70% in Buffalo. Hancock Lee Jackson, the Breckinridge Southern Democrat, got 7% in Missouri, 6% in Dallas, and 18% in Buffalo (Parrish, History of Missouri, 2; “Missouri Returns,” St. Louis Daily Missouri Republican, Nov. 14, 1860; “Election Results, 1860,” Western Historical Manuscripts Collection–Columbia, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri Digital Heritage, www.sos.mo.gov/mdh/ [hereafter MDH]).
8. Gov. Claiborne Fox Jackson (1806–62) had been publicly advocating “armed neutrality” for Missouri and privately working for secession and the state’s admission to the Confederacy. On May 3, 1861, he called out the Missouri Volunteer Militia (his speech must be what Kelso refers to here). His later proclamation calling for all loyal Missourians to rise up and drive out the federal invaders was published in the Boonville Times on June 12, 1861. On Jackson, see Phillips, Missouri’s Confederate. For his May 3 speech, see “Governor’s Message,” St. Louis Daily Missouri Republican, May 4, 1861, and Jackson, “Special Session Message,” May 3, 1861, in Buel Leopard and Floyd C. Shoemaker, eds., The Messages and Proclamations of the Governors of the State of Missouri, vol. 3 (Columbia: State Historical Society of Missouri, 1922), 343–48. For the text of his June proclamation, see Silvana R. Siddali, ed., Missouri’s War: The Civil War in Documents (Athens: University of Ohio Press, 2009), 69–71.
9. William B. Edwards (b. 1810 in Tenn.), D. A. Lindsey (b. 1830 in Tenn.), and Asa. R. Vandiford (b. 1818 in Ohio) were prosperous farmers in Dallas County (1860 U.S. Census, Benton Township, Dallas County, Missouri, family nos. 154 [Edwards] and 96 [Vandiford]); Dr. Eleazar Hovey (b. 1816 in N.Y.) was a dentist and physician (1860 U.S. Census, Benton Township, Dallas County, Missouri, family no. 241; “Eleazer Hovey,” in Burton Lee Thorpe, Biographies of the Founders, Prominent Early Members and Ex-Presidents of the Missouri State Dental Association [St. Louis: Ev. E. Carreras, 1909], 33).
10. Peter S. Wilkes (b. 1826 in Tenn.) was an attorney, but one source also describes him as a minister. He served in the Missouri legislature and was a leader of the pro-southern party in Springfield in 1861. He would become a member of Capt. Dick Campbell’s Company of the Missouri State Guard, organized near Springfield in May 1861, and serve in the Confederate Congress in the last year of the war (George S. Escott, History and Directory of Springfield and North Springfield [Springfield, Mo.: Patriot-Advertiser, 1878], 101; Holcombe, History of Greene County, 404; Obituary, San Francisco Call, Jan. 1900).
11. A similar rally was held in Newtonia, Newton County, Mo., on April 24, 1861: “Peter S. Wilkes of Springfield Mo. made an Eloquent and stirring speech on behalf of Southern Rights.” Judge M. H. Ritchey also spoke. Then a committee passed resolutions in support of Governor Jackson and the southern cause (“Resolutions of a Public Meeting Pledging the Participants Support on the South and Gov. Jackson,” April 24, 1861, Missouri Digital Heritage, Missouri Union Provost Marshal Papers [hereafter, MDH Provost Marshal Papers], reel F1611, file 9049, http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/provost/provostPDF@t1).
12. Rev. 1:20: seven stars, golden candlesticks, angels, and churches; Gen. 41:29: seven years of plenty.
13. An analysis of the 1860 census reveals some socioeconomic differences between “greater Buffalo” and the rest of Dallas County, Missouri. Benton Township, which included Buffalo, was on average wealthier than the other five townships in the county ($2,076/household as compared to $1,582/household). Benton had the three richest households in the county and eight of the top twenty. The ten wealthiest households in Benton were 10% richer than the ten wealthiest in the rest of the county. Over 18% of Benton households listed occupations other than farming, as opposed to fewer than 4% for the rest of the county. The county had 5,892 residents (1,024 families) in 1860; 40 were slaveholders, who held 114 slaves. Thirteen of those slaveholders, holding thirty-seven slaves, lived in Benton. So in Dallas County as a whole, slightly less than 4% of households had slaves; in Benton, 8% did. The number of household heads born in slaveholding states, however, was somewhat higher in the county at large than in Benton: 84% as compared to 76%. A majority in the county came from the upper South, especially Tennessee.
14. John Newton McConnell (1837–1905) had come to Missouri from Tennessee after 1856. In 1860, he was a merchant living with his wife, Sarah, and his father-in-law in Benton Township, Dallas County, Mo. (1860 U.S. Census, Benton Township, Dallas County, Missouri, family no. 230).
15. Kelso gives the phonetic spelling; see Eva Murrell Hemphill, Early Days in Dallas County (N.p.: N.p., 1954), 7.
16. Gen. 41:3: seven lean kine; Rev. 15:5 and 21:9: angels bearing seven vials of the seven last plagues; Rev. 12:3: seven heads of the dragon. Rev. 12:4, describing a great red dragon who with “his tail drew a third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth,” is sometimes read as referring to fallen angels, formerly a third of the heavenly host.
17. Robert Pinckney Matthews (1837–91), an eighteen-year-old Union supporter in Springfield, Mo., remembered a similar experience (although there the Unionists and secessionists were more evenly divided) in May 1861: “Meetings were being held night and day to discuss the state of the country. Men in both parties were meeting in secret conclave night after night.” At a debate in front of a large crowd, “excitement was at a white heat and a small spark was liable to make a mighty flame at a moments notice.” The secessionist speaker raised his supporters “to the highest pitch of enthusiasm.” Matthews rose to speak for the Union, and “a feeling came over me I cannot define. The whole subject and the consequences of disunion and disruption seemed to open before me and burn like fire on my brain. A sensation of exaltation was over me. What I said I know not, but when I was done, men were crowding around me shouting ‘Union once and forever.’ I realized the field was won and immediately formed a [Union] League of over 50 men who swore with uplifted hand to defend the ‘Stars and Stripes’ with every drop of blood in their veins” (Matthews, Souvenir of the Holland Company Home Guards and “Phelps” Regiment, Missouri Volunteer Infantry, c. 1890, C 1160, typescript, 7, State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia).
18. The pension record for William B. Edwards, filed by his widow, Sarah, in 1890, lists his previous military experience as “Indian War,” not the War of 1812 (U.S. Civil War Pension Index: General Index to Pension Files, 1861–1934, National Archives [online database, Provo, Utah: Ancestry.com, 2000], T288). In 1860, Edwards owned eight slaves, ages two to fifty-five (1860 U.S. Census, Benton Township, Dallas County, Missouri, Slave Schedules, family no. 24).
19. In St. Louis, the state’s largest city and, because of the federal armory, the flashpoint as sectional crisis turned to war, militia groups had been organizing since January. By late February, Capt. (later Brig. Gen.) Nathaniel Lyon (1818–61), U.S. Army, stationed at the arsenal, was drilling with some of these Union Guard companies. After the attack on Fort Sumter on April 15, Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 troops; on April 17, Missouri governor C. F. Jackson denounced the call as illegal, unconstitutional, and diabolical, but 1,500 German Union guards volunteered for federal service and the War Department authorized sending 5,000 stands of arms to St. Louis. On April 22, Jackson under the Militia Act of 1858 called out the state militia for a week of drilling and called the assembly into session to consider a bill that would vastly expand his militia powers. Nearly 900 men camped on the eastern edge of St. Louis, flying secessionist flags. Lyon’s forces surrounded the camp and captured most of them on May 10. In other parts of the state, Unionist Home Guard and pro-southern State Guard militia companies organized. By June 1, Lyon had a force of 10,730 regulars and Home Guards, although the latter were still being paid from private funds. On June 12, the day after negotiations collapsed, Jackson issued a call for 50,000 troops to defend Missouri against federal invaders. On June 11, 1861, Lyon was authorized by the secretary of war to enlist loyal Missourians to defend themselves, the state, and the United States; they would receive federal pay when called into active service. Many Unionist citizen militia units that had already been organized (in Springfield, for example) were officially recognized as Home Guards. The U.S. government quickly sent 10,000 stands of arms. Home Guard units existed for one to six months. The Dallas County companies were mustered in on June 24 and were intended to serve until Sept. 24, 1861, but were disbanded Aug. 10–11. See Holcombe, History of Greene County, 280–90; Britton, Civil War on the Border, 1:1–31; U.S. Pension and Record Office (War Department), Organization and Status of Missouri Troops (Union and Confederate) in Service during the Civil War (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1902), 146–64; Phillips, Damned Yankee, 129–217; Phillips, Missouri’s Confederate, 233–61; Gerteis, Civil War St. Louis, 78–131; and Gerteis, Civil War in Missouri, 8–40.
20. Milton Burch was a thirty-nine-year-old Buffalo merchant with a wife (Mary) and two small children (1860 U.S. Census, Benton Township, Dallas County, Missouri, family no. 244). The family had moved to Missouri from Illinois in the mid-1850s. Burch’s pension record, which he filed as an “invalid” in 1886 twelve years before his death, listed him as a captain in Co. H, 1st Illinois Volunteers (Mexican War) (U.S. Civil War Pension Index). He is listed as a private in that company in Isaac H. Elliott, Record of the Services of Illinois Soldiers in the Black Hawk War, 1831–32, and in the Mexican War, 1846–8 (Springfield, Ill.: H. W. Rokker, 1882), 204.
21. Col. William B. Edwards, Lt. Col. Eleazer Hovey, Maj. John R. Kelso, First Lt. Milton Burch, Dallas County Home Guards, June 24, 1861–Aug. 11, 1861, when the regiment was disbanded (“Soldiers’ Records: War of 1812–World War I,” Missouri Digital Heritage, www.sos.mo.gov/archives/soldiers [hereafter, “Soldiers’ Records,” MDH]; see also Gary Swift, Dallas County Home Guards, Reconstructed Roster, http://mogenweb.org/dallas/home_guard_roster.html).
22. Capt. John Mabary, Mabary’s Missouri Company, CSA (“Soldiers’ Records,” MDH). See also F. Marion Wilson, Wilson’s History of Hickory County (Hermitage, Mo.: Wilson Brothers, [1909]): “By 1861, the town [Preston, in Hickory County] had grown to be an important business point, but at the commencement of the Civil War nearly all of its inhabitants sympathized with the Confederacy and went South. … Early in 1861, the people of the town and that section of the country became greatly excited about the issues of the Civil War. John Mabary, an Ex-Sheriff and Collector, and a highly respected citizen, with the assistance of others, enlisted a Company of State Guards, at the instance of Claiborne F. Jackson, then, Governor of the State” (65–66). “In the spring of 1861, when [the Civil War] come on there was probably not more than 700 able bodied men between the ages of 18 and 45 years of age in [Hickory] county, and these were divided between the Union and Confederate armies. … It is, probably, not out of place, and justice to say, that Dr. Richard I. Robertson, Dr. J. F. Powers, a Vermont Yankee, who owned a cripple negro, Silas C. Howard, and Benj. F. Staten, were the principal and earnest advocates of secession in and about Preston, and were the cause of the organization of the Mabary company, with John Mabary, as Capt. because he had the nerve and courage while Robertson, Powers et al were purely noise makers and agitators” (78–79). “Captain Mabary died in 1863. Some of his men went South and were in General Sterling Price’s army; some of them quit the service after a short time, and came home, or went elsewhere; some, even, went into the Federal army later” (66).
23. Capt. Claiborne McPheters, Osage County Regiment, Home Guards (“Soldiers’ Records,” MDH).
24. Wilson, Wilson’s History of Hickory County, 66: “In a very short time [after Mabary organized his State Guard company] Union men became so stirred up that … [they] raised Company ‘D’ Osage Regiment Missouri Home Guards, under an order of General Nathaniel Lyon, who was then in command of the Federal troops in the state.”
25. Cole Camp was in Benton County in west-central Missouri. Secessionists on June 18, 1861, surprised a newly formed Home Guard regiment that was temporarily quartered in barns, killing thirty-six and wounding fifty-one. Brig. Gen. Nathaniel Lyon described it as a “massacre” (Lyon to Col. Chester Harding, Jr., June 21, 1861, OR, ser. 1, vol. 3, 385; and see Britton, Civil War on the Border, chap. 5, “Action at Cole Camp, Missouri,” 1:40–50).
26. On Ianthus, see chap. 8, note 9, below.
27. Francis Marion (1732–95) was a Revolutionary War hero known as the “Swamp Fox,” who harassed British troops in South Carolina with small militia forces that would strike quickly and then seem to disappear. See Hugh F. Rankin, Francis Marion: The Swamp Fox (New York: Crowell, 1973), and Paul David Nelson, “Marion, Francis,” in American National Biography, www.anb.org (hereafter ANB).