MissouriLife Articles

Preserving Sacred Ground

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 17:54:42 GMT

By Larry Wood

According to Tom Higdon, treasurer of the protection
association, the First Battle of Newtonia
on September 30, 1862, is thought to be the
only engagement of the Civil War in which
American Indian units of regimental strength
fought on opposite sides. The Second Battle of
Newtonia on October 28, 1864, is considered
the last significant battle west of the Mississippi.

In the summer of 1862, Confederate leaders
determined to reestablish a presence in
Missouri after having virtually abandoned the
state a few months earlier following the decisive
Battle of Pea Ridge. Col. Jo Shelby and his newly
formed Missouri Brigade marched into southwest
Missouri in early September and drove the
Federal forces from Newtonia on September 13.
On September 27, Col. Douglas Cooper with his
Confederate Indian brigade joined Shelby at his
camp south of Newtonia. Cooper took charge
of overall Confederate operations in southwest
Missouri and sent two officers to set up an outpost
at Newtonia.

Alarmed by the Confederate forays into the
region, Federal officials started concentrating
their forces around Sarcoxie to counter the
Southern activity. On September 29, a Union
scouting party under Col. Edward Lynde went
out from Sarcoxie and skirmished briefly with
the Southern soldiers at Newtonia before falling
back when he realized he was outnumbered.
Reinforcements arrived, and the First Battle of
Newtonia began in earnest the next day.

Shortly after daylight on September 30, the
bolstered Union force drove the Confederate
sentries a mile north of Newtonia and began
shelling the town with artillery from long
distance. The Confederates fell back and took
shelter in a stone barn and behind a stone wall at
the Matthew Ritchey estate at Newtonia. Federal
soldiers kept up their cannonade and continued
advancing until they were within a few hundred
yards of the Rebels’ positions, at which point
the besieged Confederates finally dug in and
repulsed the Union advance with what Colonel
Lynde called “a perfect stream of fire.”

Colonel Cooper arrived with fresh troops and
chased the fleeing Federals for three miles before
dropping back to Newtonia. The arrival of additional
Union reinforcements a few hours later
prompted the Federals to advance on the town
again and renew their cannonading. The lively
exchange of fire between the two sides moved
one Union soldier to describe the battle as “a beautiful
sight, with just enough excitement to give
it a ‘delicious flavor.’ ” The Confederates repulsed
the attack, however, and once again drove
the Federals from the field as darkness fell.

After the Confederate victory at the First
Battle of Newtonia, Colonel Cooper reported his
casualties at twelve killed, sixty-three wounded,
and three missing. Exact figures for the Union
are unknown, though the Federal loss is thought
to be considerably greater.

The Second Battle of Newtonia happened
at the end of the Confederate army’s failed
invasion of Missouri in the fall of 1864 as the
Rebels, with Brigadier General Shelby’s brigade
in advance, were retreating from the state after
their decisive defeat at Westport.

On the afternoon of October 28, Shelby’s
men routed a small Federal detachment stationed
at Newtonia and then went into camp just south
of town, while the rest of the Confederate army
continued farther south. As Shelby’s men were
still settling into camp, General James G. Blunt,
leading the Federal pursuit, arrived on the scene
and deployed his forces in a line across the
prairie facing the rebels. With two intervening
fences, both sides dismounted and started firing
as they marched toward each other.

Despite heavy artillery from the Federals,
the Confederates crossed the first fence and
began pressing Blunt’s outnumbered troops,
who remounted and dropped back. The Rebels,
though, crossed the second fence and continued
their advance. Blunt’s line was about to give way
when Union reinforcements arrived late in the
afternoon, enabling the Federals to make a stand
and repulse the Confederate attack.

The Union cavalry made a halfhearted pursuit
before returning to Newtonia, while the Rebels
retreated south. Both sides claimed victory at the
Second Battle of Newtonia, and the action was a
stalemate in terms of casualties (about a dozen
killed and approximately a hundred wounded
or missing on each side). It is usually considered
a Federal victory, though, since the Confederates
left the battlefield in Union hands.

The Newtonia Battlefields Protection
Association, Inc., was formed in 1994. In 2002,
the group acquired the Ritchey home and
surrounding grounds. Listed on the National
Register of Historic Places in 1978, the 1850s
mansion served as a headquarters and hospital
for the two armies during the battles of
Newtonia and has been the centerpiece of the
preservation effort. In addition to restoring the
Ritchey mansion, the protection group oversees
approximately twenty-five acres, including the
old Newtonia Cemetery, where soldiers killed
during the two battles were buried.

In 2006, Kay Hively, another founding member
of the Newtonia Battlefields Protection
Association, Inc., testified before Congress on
the importance of preserving the battlefields,
and U.S. Congressman Roy Blunt introduced
legislation to authorize a study of the feasibility
of making the Newtonia battlefields part of the
National Park Service. The bill passed in the
House of Representatives, but the 2006 legislative
session ended before it could be acted upon
in the Senate. Representative Blunt introduced
similar legislation again this year, and it was
passed by the House. Although the bill is still in
the Senate, members of the Newtonia protection
group have hopes that the legislation will be
enacted before the end of the year and that the
Newtonia battlefields will become a satellite of
the Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield park.

“Where men fought and died for a cause is, in
my view, sacred ground,” Kay says, “and it must
be commemorated in some manner. I hope the
battlefields of Newtonia will be one day placed
under the stewardship of the National Park
Service so they have a better chance of being
well cared for when we who started this preservation
project are gone.”

Tom Higdon visualizes an expanded role
for the Newtonia site, if the legislation passes,
beyond preserving merely the history of the two
battles that were fought there.

“The important role of American Indians in
the Civil War was unique to our area,” he says,
“and we would like to tell the entire story of
their involvement in the conflict.” As a first step
in realizing this goal, the protection association
earlier this year accepted pledges of ten thousand
dollars from the Eastern Shawnee Tribe
of Oklahoma and the Newton County Tourism
Council toward the painting of a mural at the
Ritchey mansion depicting the role of American
Indians in the First Battle of Newtonia.

The Ritchey home is located at 520 Mill Street
at Newtonia. Call 417-592-0531 for more information.
Visit MissouriLife.com for more information
on the American Indians who fought.

December 2007

Slavery + Scott

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:45:00 GMT

By Jerre Repass

Calvin C. Chaffee was in for quite a surprise. An abolitionist elected to
Congress, he had married the widow Irene Emerson in 1850. He was
apparently unaware that she owned arguably the most prominent slave in
America, Dred Scott. Rather interesting baggage.

Scott had garnered attention after being
involved in a number of trials leading all
the way to the United States Supreme Court.
Originally born into slavery, his life story
turned out to be pivotal to the beginning of
the Civil War.

From infancy, he was the property of the
Peter Blow family. Slaves were financial assets,
which could be used in the same way as
property. As such, Scott was sold to Dr. John
Emerson when the Blows suffered money
problems. Many records show that Peter Blow
died, which resulted in Scott being sold to
Emerson. An army surgeon, Emerson took
his slave with him as he received assignments
outside of Missouri. Two of the places they
worked, Illinois and the Wisconsin Territories,
were under the Northwest Ordinance, which
prohibited slavery.

Eventually, Emerson and Scott each got
married and in 1842 returned to the slave
state of Missouri, living in St. Louis. The
doctor soon died, but his widow made use
of her “assets,” hiring the Scotts out to work
for other families. Scott was illiterate and may
not have been aware of the doctrine, “once
free, always free,” which would have made
his family free people since they had lived in
a free state and territory.

In an interesting turn of events, Scott
reconnected with the Blow family, who first
owned him. They were willing to finance
his efforts to be legally free, and so in 1846,
he filed suit, going to trial in 1847 in the old
courthouse in downtown St. Louis.

A series of trials followed. Scott lost the
first but won the second round when the
jury said “once free, always free” should
prevail. But Widow Emerson and her brother
appealed. The 1852 decision went their way
and was explained as follows: “Times now are
not as they were when the previous decisions
on this subject were made.” Scott filed a new
suit in St. Louis against Mrs. Emerson’s brother,
which went to trial in 1854. Scott lost, but
the United States Supreme Court accepted and
heard the appeal in 1857.

In the context of the times, the case was
more about property than people. Slaves
belonged to their owners, not as people but
as property. Owners didn’t see the relevance
between where they happened to be—in a
free or slave state—and continued ownership
of their property.

The makeup of the United States Supreme
Court at that time was crucial. The chief
justice was Roger Brooke Taney. He was born
in Maryland into a wealthy family of tobacco
farmers who were also slave owners.

In 1835, Andrew Jackson submitted
Taney’s name to be an associate justice. After
the death of Chief Justice John Marshall that
same year, President Jackson wanted Taney
confirmed as chief justice. That’s what happened
in March of 1836, despite a bitter fight
against the appointment.

Arguments took place before the Supreme
Court in Washington, D.C., in 1856, with
sessions devoted to the question in both February and December. The final majority
decision was handed down March 6, 1857.
Taney wrote the opinion, declaring that the
attitudes toward slavery when the constitution
was constructed were not favorable to a
slave ever becoming a citizen. The court later
widened that to include a prohibition against
citizenship for even the free descendants of
slaves and determined that Congress could not
forbid slavery in the territories.

Again the property question was
addressed: Slaves were property and not
citizens, so they could not bring suit in a
federal court. Justice Taney said that Slave
Scott as property was subject to the provisions
of the Fifth Amendment, which
prohibited taking property from an owner
without due process.

By this time, Irene Emerson, who had
been married to Dr. Emerson, had been
widowed and remarried to Calvin Chaffee,
the abolitionist. Her brother, who had championed
her through the first trials, was in
an insane asylum. Chaffee, embarrassed
and criticized, arranged Scott’s return to
his original owners, the Blow family. They
had aided his struggle for freedom and now
emancipated him on May 26, 1857. He
worked as a freeman, laboring as a porter at
Barnum’s Hotel until his death in 1858.

The aftershocks of the decision were
incredible. Taney labeled opposition to slavery
as northern aggression. He was widely criticized
for the Dred Scott decision, of which
Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts
said: “The opinion of the chief justice in
the case of Dred Scott was more thoroughly
abominable than anything of the kind in the
history of courts. Judicial baseness reached its
lowest point on that occasion.”

But there was another result: The decision
inflamed the country and is considered
one of the most influential forces in the
outbreak of the Civil War. Alongside the
book Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the newspaper
The Liberator, publication of the court decision
made common people aware of what
slavery meant and moved them to action.

This year is the 150th anniversary of that
decision. Events at St. Louis during the year
have commemorated the Dred Scott decision
and taught today’s citizens some of the basic
civil rights that many take for granted.

An exhibit in St. Louis’s Old Courthouse
will continue through March 2008. This is
especially poignant as the site where the first
trials began a century and a half ago.

There are original documents collected
from the St. Louis Circuit Court, the Missouri
Supreme Court, the City of St. Louis, the
National Archives, the St. Louis Mercantile
Library, the Missouri Historical Society, and
the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.
The exhibits in the courthouse are on three
subjects: the family story of the Scotts, the
story of the legal system at the time, and the
bigger picture of slavery in the 1800s.

There is a recreated courtroom environment
where reenactments of the case take
place. The original courtroom is set up as
well as additional courtrooms on the second
level to accommodate visitors.

On the weekend the exhibit opened,
students played the parts of lawyers of the
day; the judges’ parts were played by sitting
judges who took time to explain to the audience
how politics and pressures of the times
influenced the decisions judges made. The
National Park Service provides scripts for
groups that wish to schedule a reenactment,
a popular thing to do this celebration year.

Visitors to St. Louis can see a painting of
Dred Scott permanently on display at the
Missouri History Museum.

The Eugene Field House and Toy
Museum also has Dred Scott exhibits.
Eugene’s father Roswell Field was the
attorney who strategized the Scott lawsuit
so that it would be heard by the Supreme
Court. The display includes photographs
of letters from the Library of Congress
explaining the attorney’s role.

Another part of the exhibit compares the
lives of free and slave children 150 years
ago. The historical material in the exhibit
also illustrates well the hopelessness the
early civil rights cause experienced.

Visit https://cms.mwr.nps.gov/jeff/historyculture/
dredscottsesquicentennial.htm.

October 2007

2006 Civil War Guide

Thu, 07 Dec 2006 21:31:22 GMT

*Skirmishes and Scars of the Show Me State's Struggle* *By Rebecca Smith* Literally a stomping ground during the Civil War, almost every corner of Missouri has a story to tell. From city streets to fields of corn to cemeteries, there are legends and stories of battles, encampments, guerrilla warfare, and the underground railroad. Use this guide to discover those stories. *ARROW ROCK* Secessionist Gov. Claiborne Jackson died in Arkansas in 1862 but was interred after the war at Sappington Cemetery outside Arrow Rock. *ATHENS* The August 5, 1861, Battle of Athens was the northernmost skirmish west of the Mississippi River. The State Historic Site preserves period homes and a mill. Especially notable is the Thome-Benning House, struck by Southern artillery fire during the battle and now known as the Cannonball House. *BELMONT* On November 7, 1861, Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant led a drive to force Confederate troops out of their camp at Belmont and across the Mississippi River to Kentucky. The Confederates regrouped, and Union troops ultimately withdrew in the Battle of Belmont. *BILLINGSVILLE* An October 1864 clash between Gen. Sanborn’s Union Army and Gen. J.O. Shelby’s Confederates is commemorated with a bronze plaque at the site of Wilkins Bridge. *BLOOMFIELD* Stars and Stripes, the newspaper that keeps service members and their families informed, was first published in Bloomfield in November 1861. A museum is dedicated to the paper. *The Stoddard County Civil War Cemetery* has 150 military markers for the soldiers and citizens who died in Stoddard County during the war. *BONNE TERRE* Hildebrand’s Cave in St. Francois State Park sheltered outlaws during the war. Sam Hildebrand became notorious for guerilla tactics against the Union. The rugged area made it easy to hide in the Missouri countryside. *BOONVILLE* The first battle in Missouri was the First Battle of Boonville. Union Brig. Gen. Nathaniel Lyon caught up with the Missouri State Guard outside Boonville and took control of the town. *1859 Crestmead Plantation Mansion* has original furnishings and built-in hiding places to tour. Legend says a fellow Mason sent to execute John Taylor for being a Southern sympathizer realized Taylor was a Mason and didn’t carry out his orders. Taylor was sent to prison in St. Louis, instead. *Cooper County Jail* was used as a prison for Southern sympathizers and even held Frank James for a few hours. Until its closing in 1978 by a Federal Court that deemed it cruel and unusual punishment, the 1848 jail was one of the oldest continuously used jails in Missouri. *Thespian Hall,* used as a hospital and troop barracks during the Second Battle of Boonville, is the oldest theater still in use west of the Alleghenies. *BUNCETON* Built for Civil War Capt. Nathaniel Leonard and his bride, Nadine Nelson, Ravenswood Plantation offers tours of the original furnishings, including George Caleb Bingham portraits. *BURFORDVILLE* Burned by Union troops to keep it out of rebel hands, Bollinger Mill, now a State Historic Site, was rebuilt on the original foundation by Solomon Burford. Today, the working mill sits next to Burfordville Covered Bridge, the oldest of Missouri’s four surviving covered bridges. *CAPE GIRARDEAU* The city and surrounding areas were home to several conflicts, most notably the April 26, 1863, Battle of Cape Girardeau. The battle site is marked, and the city’s only remaining original fort, Fort D, has been restored and is now a park. The town also is home to Union and Confederate memorials. *The Old Lorimier Cemetery,* established in 1820, is the final resting place of soldiers that died in battle and also from smallpox in the Minton House hospital. *The Minton House* Hospital was the site of many soldiers’ deaths due to smallpox. *The Common Pleas Courthouse,* headquarters for the Union forces, jailed Southern sympathizers and Confederate soldiers in its dungeon. *CARTHAGE* The First Battle of Bull Run is called the first land battle of the Civil War, but the Battle of Carthage took place seventeen days earlier on July 5, 1861. An interpretive display stands at the site of the last skirmish in the day-long battle. *The Civil War Museum* has an exhibit on Belle Starr, a Confederate spy who reported Union troop positions. The museum has other artifacts from the Battle of Carthage and southwest Missouri. *CENTRALIA* Markers describe the September 27, 1864, Centralia Massacre by “Bloody” Bill Anderson. *The Gray Ghost Trail* opens May 20. It is a driving tour from Danville through Fulton, Centralia, and Columbia to Kansas City that will highlight points in Centralia related to the massacre, as well as lesser known Civil War sites of “Bloody” Bill Anderson. *Centralia Area Historical Society* houses a statue of “Bloody” Bill Anderson and a Confederate flag replica in the Civil War room. *CLINTON* The Henry County Historical Museum boasts a period doctor’s office complete with the surgical bag and instruments used by Dr. John H. Britts during the Civil War. The military room houses a uniform, Confederate money, and an original “pardon” from President Andrew Johnson, needed after the war by all Confederate-affiliated citizens. *COLE CAMP* Museum exhibits tell the story of the Home Guard’s defeat of June 19, 1861, in the Battle of Cole Camp, one of the first of the war. *COLUMBIA* The State Historical Society of Missouri possesses paintings by Missouri artist George Caleb Bingham, including his famous Order No. 11. *CUBA* Outdoor storyboard murals in Cuba commemorate the Battle of Pilot Knob and the Confederate pursuit of the retreating Union army. *The Crawford County Historical Museum* displays Civil War uniforms and weapons. *DANVILLE* “Bloody” Bill Anderson rode into Danville on October 14, 1864, to destroy the homes of Union sympathizers. Baker Plantation House still bears scars from bullets and sabers. *DIAMOND* Peanut innovator and scientist George Washington Carver, born in 1861, was said to be kidnapped with his slave mother and taken to Arkansas by Confederate raiders. Carver eventually was returned to Diamond, where the plantation owner raised him. The George Washington Carver National Monument is on part of that plantation. *DONIPHAN* Maps of Gen. Sterling Price’s battles, stone cannonballs, clay bullets, and Confederate money are on display at the Current River Heritage Museum. Driving tour maps and histories of skirmishes in Ripley County are also available. *DREXEL* The Frontier Military Museum includes Civil War uniforms, saddles, and guns. *FAYETTE* “Bloody” Bill Anderson’s raid on Fayette was repelled by Union forces barricaded in the courthouse in the Battle of Fayette. *FREDERICKTOWN* Union troops led by Col. J.B. Plummer and Col. William P. Carlin successfully pushed Brig. Gen. M. Jeff Thompson and Confederate forces out of Fredericktown in an October 21, 1861, battle. The town cemetery offers a vantage point to view the battlefield. *War Eagle Trail Driving Tour* will highlight the 36 battles of the 8th Wisconsin Infantry with “Old Abe” the War Eagle, an actual eagle, as their mascot. *FULTON* On July 28, 1862, Confederate troops led by Col. Joseph Porter ambushed the Union Army led by Col. Odon Guitar in Callaway County near Calwood but were forced to retreat. The Kingdom of Callaway Historical Society displays artifacts and the history of the Battle of Moore’s Mill. *GLASGOW* A marker describes the October 15, 1864, Battle of Glasgow, during which a Confederate detachment raided Union stores in search of rifles. *HANNIBAL* Union forces occupied Hannibal throughout the war, though most residents were Southern sympathizers. The town was a stop on the Underground Railroad; slaves seeking freedom reportedly hid in Mark Twain Cave. Mark Twain himself served briefly in the Confederate Army. *HARRISONVILLE* The town became a Union stronghold and command center for enforcement of Order No. 11, which forced thousands of Missourians near the Kansas border from their homes. *HIGGINSVILLE* The Confederate Memorial State Historic Site, a 135-acre park, preserves homes used by Confederate veterans, a cemetery, and a 106-year-old chapel. More than 800 Confederate soldiers, including part of William Quantrill of Quantrill’s Raiders, were buried here. *INDEPENDENCE* Brig. Gen. John S. Marmaduke’s troops held back Union forces in a skirmish just west of Independence. *1859 Marshal’s Jail* (now a museum) After Union Provost marshals jailed women and children after the battles of Lone Jack and Independence the jail overflowed. A building that housed some of the overflow in Kansas City collapsed and killed several young girls, and historians believe this prompted the raid on Lawrence, Kansas, in 1863. *IRONTON* The site of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s headquarters, Ironton is home to a Grant memorial statue. The nearby Fort Davidson State Historic Site offers an electronic scale model of the September 1864 Battle of Pilot Knob. One of the largest battles in Missouri, it left a thousand men wounded. The site preserves the Union post of Fort Davidson and the battlefield. *The Iron County Courthouse,* built in 1858 and on the National Register of Historic Places, still bears witness to the Civil War with a cannonball mark on its face. *JEFFERSON CITY* The capital is home to the Missouri State Museum’s Civil War artifacts and the Cole County Historical Museum. *KANSAS CITY* Union Gen. Thomas Ewing signed Order No. 11 in the Pacific House Hotel in Kansas City’s River Marketplace on August 25, 1863. The Order forced nearly 20,000 residents in four western Missouri counties from their homes. *Forest Hill, Elmwood, and Union cemeteries* are all final resting places to many Civil War dead from both sides, including Gen. J.O. Shelby. *Westport* is known as “The Gettysburg of the West,” where the October 23, 1864, Battle of Westport ended with three thousand casualties. *Westport Historical Society Museum* is in the antebellum Harris-Kearney House. *Wornall House Museum* was headquarters and field hospital to both Union and Confederate armies. *KEARNEY* Union soldiers tortured Jesse James’s stepfather and harassed his mother at their farm here. The act led James to vow revenge. James is buried in nearby Mount Olivet Cemetery. *KEYTESVILLE* Gen. Sterling Price’s hometown pays homage to the Confederate leader and governor with a museum and monument. *KIRKSVILLE* Two battles in early August 1862 helped establish Union control of northeast Missouri. Led by Col. John McNeil, Union troops pursued Col. Joseph C. Porter and his Confederate Missouri Brigade to Kirksville, where Porter and his men hid in homes, stores, and fields. In a three-hour battle, the Union secured the town and captured many of Porter’s men. *Truman State University’s Pickler Memorial Library* has letters written by brothers Samuel and Clark Zeigler while they were in Arkansas with the Union Army. *LEXINGTON* Confederate forces captured a Union garrison during the Battle of Lexington September 18 to 20, 1861. The State Historic Site preserves the battlefield and the 1853 Anderson House. *LIBERTY* A battle near here on September 17, 1861, resulted in 126 casualties and helped the Confederates consolidate northwest Missouri. *Clay County Veteran’s Memorial* contains more than 440 names of veterans, including Civil War soldiers. *LONE JACK* The Civil War Battlefield, Museum, and Cemetery depict the Battle of Lone Jack August 16, 1862. *MARSHALL* A marker describes the Battle of Marshall, the final confrontation of Confederate Col. Joseph O. Shelby’s daring 1863 raid. *MEMPHIS* The William Downing House (now a museum), was a Union headquarters. Soldiers rode their horses through the ten-foot doors. *MEXICO* After Ulysses S. Grant joined the Union army, he was stationed at Mexico, Missouri, in July 1861, where he commanded the 21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry. *MOBERLY* The Oakland Cemetery pays tribute to both sides with statuary of both Union and Confederate soldiers surrounded by respective graves. The cemetery is also home to one of the few full-size statues of Abraham Lincoln west of the Mississippi River. *NEOSHO* Southern sympathizer Gov. Claiborne Jackson and the ousted Missouri legislature made a provisional capital at Neosho. On October 30, 1861, the group held the Secession Convention at Neosho to pass a bill calling for Missouri secession. *NEVADA* Known as the Bushwhacker Capital during the Civil War, Nevada is home to the Bushwhacker Museum and Bushwhacker Jail; both house permanent exhibits of the area’s Civil War involvement. *NEW MADRID* Island No. 10 was a Confederate stronghold in defense of the Mississippi River. Nearby New Madrid was a weak spot. On March 3, 1862, Union troops led by Brig. Gen. John Pope laid siege to the city. Unable to hold the island and the town, Confederate forces deserted New Madrid on March 14. The Union continued its push, eventually forcing surrender of Island No. 10 on April 8 to open the Mississippi all the way to Fort Pillow, Tennessee. The victory was essential to the Union’s naval strategy. *The Hunter-Dawson State Historic Site,* once the headquarters for Union Gen. John Pope, still holds about eighty percent of the original furnishings. *The New Madrid Historical Museum* has letters, clothing, equipment, and weaponry. *NEWTONIA* The First Battle of Newtonia, September 30, 1862, ended with a hasty Union retreat. During the Second Battle, Union troops chased Gen. Sterling Price out of Missouri on October 28, 1864. *Old Newtonia Cemetery* contains two hundred unreadable gravestones, possibly Civil War veterans. Second-in-command at the Second Battle of Newtonia, 1st Lt. Robert Christian, is positively identified. Oral history claims Union soldiers buried in the cemetery were moved to the National Cemetery in Springfield. *The Ritchey Mansion House,* built with bricks made by slaves, was headquarters and hospital at different times to both Union and Confederate troops. *OTTERVILLE* The 1861 earthen embankments and trenches are thought to have been built in anticipation of a battle that never happened. *PALMYRA* Brig. Gen. John McNeil commanded a firing squad to execute ten Confederate prisoners in retaliation for the abduction of a former Union soldier and alleged spy. Known as the Palmyra Massacre, the executions earned McNeil the nickname “The Butcher of Palmyra;” his actions were criticized in newspapers around the world. Afterward, enlistments and reenlistments in the Confederate Army increased. A granite monument is a memorial. *PEA RIDGE, ARKANSAS* Just over the Missouri border, nearly 6,000 soldiers, most Confederate, died in the March 1862 Battle of Pea Ridge. Missouri soldiers fought on both sides in this decisive battle that saved Missouri for the Union. The 4,300-acre Pea Ridge National Military Park offers a driving tour of one of the best preserved battlefields in the country. *REPUBLIC* Union Gen. Nathaniel Lyon died in the August 10, 1861, Battle of Wilson’s Creek, the first major engagement west of the Mississippi River. Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield near Republic offers extensive displays. *General Sweeny’s Civil War Museum* traces the war in the Trans-Mississippi West and displays over 5,000 artifacts collected over the lifetime by a descendant of Union Gen. Thomas W. Sweeny for whom the museum is named. *ROLLA* The end of the line for the southwest branch of the Pacific Railroad, Rolla was the staging point for Union troops and supplies heading west. After the Union defeat at Wilson’s Creek, the army fell back to Rolla and established Fort Wyman. *SALISBURY* The Chariton County Historical Society and Museum houses Civil War artifacts. *SPRINGFIELD* A series of twelve markers in Springfield describes Union Maj. John Zagonyi’s successful charge of the city on October 25, 1861, and Confederate Brig. Gen. John S. Marmaduke’s unsuccessful attack on January 8, 1863. *The Springfield National Cemetery* began as a burial place for men who died in the battle of Wilson’s Creek. It contains Civil War memorials as well as a stone wall that originally separated it from a Confederate cemetery. After a federal decision in 1911, the two cemeteries became one. *The History Museum* for Springfield-Greene County has a hands-on exhibit for kids and a display of artifacts from the war. *ST. JOSEPH* The Union used the Pony Express to communicate with allies in California. *ST. LOUIS* *Bellefontaine Cemetery:* Union and Confederate officers are buried here. *Calvary Cemetery:* Union Generals and Dred Scott, the slave who sought freedom in Missouri courts are buried here. *Camp Jackson:* This camp is on what is today St. Louis University campus. *Old Courthouse:* This building is part of the Jefferson National Expansion. *Eads Boatyard:* Bridge builder, inventor, and Union Capt. James. B. Eads built the first ironclad warships used by Union forces. Bellerive Park offers a river view similar to the Eads Boatyard in 1861. *Jefferson Barracks:* The first permanent military base west of the Mississippi River, Jefferson Barracks served as a Union training camp. Several museum buildings, including a laborer’s house, stables, and ammunition storage facilities, contain exhibits *White Haven:* Julia Dent Grant’s childhood home and her home with Ulysses S. Grant early in their marriage is preserved as Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site. The property includes five buildings and exhibits. *Grant’s Trail:* A six-mile trail runs through southern St. Louis and takes hikers and bicyclists past White Haven and Grant’s Farm. *Missouri History Museum:* Located in Forest Park, the museum houses an exhibit about the Civil War experience in St. Louis and the slave Dred Scott. Several Civil War memorials dot the park. *Olin Library, Washington University:* A broad collection of nineteenth-century American historical prints covering slavery, the Civil War, emancipation, and reconstruction from 1840-1890 is on permanent display in the library’s special collections. *Riverfront Trail:* The eleven-mile paved, recreational greenway passes the Mary Meachum Freedom Crossing, one of 64 Underground Railroad sites listed on the National Park Service’s National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. *Lincoln Shields Recreational Area:* A memorial containing names of Confederate soldiers who died in the Alton prison smallpox epidemic across the river in Alton, Illinois, stands at this area in West Alton. Named for a duel that never took place between Abraham Lincoln and James Shields, the area overlooks an island now underwater, at one time called Smallpox Island for the soldiers buried there. *WAYNESVILLE* The Old Stagecoach Stop, now a museum, served as the hospital and infirmary for Post Waynesville. Exhibits of an operating room and surgical instruments are on display. *WEST PLAINS* The town was raided repeatedly by foraging Union and Confederate troops. Paintings and news articles of Civil War actions are on display at the Harlin Museum. *WESTON* The only road into Weston during the Civil War, Leavenworth Military Road is today East Bluff Road, a hiking and biking trail that extends three miles from Route 45 into Weston. Fort Leavenworth soldiers were ferried across the river daily. *Weston Historical Museum* has a collection of Civil War artifacts. April 2006

Missour Civil War Women

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 03:42:26 GMT

*By Larry Wood* Women in the War Between the States disguised themselves as men and fought alongside them, in addition to their more traditional support roles as nurses, cooks, laundresses, messengers, and spies. And the women who fought in the Civil War played the most prominent roles in Missouri, the border state where sharply divided loyalties fueled a bitter guerrilla conflict, bringing the war home to everyday people and inevitably leading to civilian spying and other covert operations. According to Elizabeth D. Leonard in her book _All the Daring of the Soldier: Women of the Civil War Armies,_ an estimated five hundred to one thousand women disguised themselves as men and enlisted in the Union and Confederate armies as combat soldiers. Although not much information is available about these women, historians do have details about a few of them. Of these, three, possibly four, had Missouri connections. Frances Louisa Clayton enlisted in the Union Army with her husband in the fall of 1861. Although the Claytons were Minnesota residents, they are thought to have served in a Missouri unit, according to DeAnne Blanton and Lauren M. Cook’s _They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the American Civil War._ Frances was wounded at the Battle of Fort Donelson, Tennessee, in February 1862. After her husband was killed at the Battle of Murfreesborough, Tennessee, in January of 1863, she reportedly stepped over his dead body and resumed fighting when the order was given to charge. She left the service shortly afterward, having done “full duty as a soldier,” according to Blanton and Cook. Ellen Levasay, a private in the Third Missouri Cavalry in the Confederacy, was among the Southern soldiers who marched out of Vicksburg, Mississippi, on July 4, 1863, when Confederate forces surren-dered to General Ulysses S. Grant after a six-week siege. She was first sent to the Gratiot Street or the Myrtle Street military prison in St. Louis and later transferred to Camp Morton, Indiana, on August 14, 1863. A soldier named William Levasay, of the same Missouri regiment and presumably a husband, brother, or cousin of Ellen Levasay, arrived at Camp Morton the same day. Like Frances Clayton and Ellen Levasay, many women who disguised themselves as men and enlisted during the Civil War did so to follow a loved one into battle. Others, like Jane Short, alias Charley Davis, were simply looking for adventure. Jane, who enlisted in a Missouri Union infantry regiment in 1861, later explained she was “pining for the excitement of glorious war.” Despite being injured at the Battle of Shiloh, Tennessee, in April of 1862, Jane was not discovered as a woman until she became ill and was sent to a hospital a few months later. After her discharge, she reenlisted with Lou Morris, another woman, and served until August 1864 when she reportedly grew frightened at the pros-pect of having to face General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Confederate forces, says Richard Hall in his book _Patriots in Disguise: Women Warriors of the Civil War._ She revealed her identity and also turned Lou in. Both were discharged. There were other reasons besides love or thirst for adventure that prompted women to enlist in the army during the Civil War. Some were motivated by a sense of patriotism, while others simply joined the army as a way to make a living. Regardless of their motivation, the women who disguised themselves as men took great pains to avoid detection. Loose-fitting Civil War uniforms facilitated the charade as did the strict gender roles of the time. Anyone who wore pants was automatically assumed to be a man. Also, many of the women who passed as men had a naturally masculine appearance and bearing. Frances Clayton, for example, was described by Blanton and Cook as a “very tall, masculine-looking woman bronzed by exposure” who readily adopted “manly vices” like drinking and swearing. According to Hall, Jane Short looked like an “unsophisticated country lad of twenty years.” Despite efforts to maintain their disguise, though, most women were eventually detected. For instance, a Private John Williams enlisted in the 17th Missouri Infantry (Union) at St. Louis on October 3, 1861, but was discharged by the end of the month with a notation “proved to be a woman” written on the muster roll. The story of her discovery is unknown, but circumstances such as injury, sickness, menstruation, pregnancy, and being captured often led to disclosure of a woman’s sex. Women who passed as men and fought in combat accounted for a small fraction that served in the Civil War in one capacity or another. But female spies and informants were particularly common in the state of Missouri. Mrs. Susan Bond was carried on the Union rolls and paid as a spy for work in the Springfield area during the fall of 1864. In September, when an unnamed female spy, perhaps Mrs. Bond, reported to General John B. Sanborn at Springfield that General Sterling Price’s Confederate army was moving into Missouri from Arkansas, General William Rosecrans, Sanborn’s superior, questioned the woman’s motives. Sanborn replied that “the woman scout has brothers in the rebel army, and she always manages to get the confidence of their officers. She has spied a good deal for us from Neosho and has always been reliable and correct.” Rather than receiving pay for their work, female scouts and spies often served in an unofficial capacity out of allegiance to one side or the other. Colonel John M. Richardson reported from Cassville in November of 1862, “a loyal woman advised me of the arrival of a small party of rebels on Roaring River.” Richardson immediately sent out a detachment of soldiers who found the rebels at the home of a local resident and attacked the house, killing one man and capturing another. Because Federal forces occupied Missouri during most of the Civil War, Southern women in the state were even more likely than Union women to execute clandestine operations in support of their particular cause. Such operations included spying and scouting, serving as couriers, harboring and feeding guerrillas, tending the wounded, making cartridges, and other similar activities. In the spring of 1863, the provost-marshal-general at St. Louis sought an arrest order for several prominent and influential Southern women, mainly wives and mothers of Confederate officers, because he suspected them of secretly collecting and distributing rebel mail that incited young men to join the Confederacy and encouraged their friends and relatives already serving in the Southern army. Some of the more obstinate rebel women flaunted their feelings through impudence and open defiance toward Federal soldiers. For instance, a Union detachment stopped to take breakfast at the home of a Mr. and Mrs. Spencer about ten miles southwest of Warrensburg in July of 1864 and were told by the couple’s four grown daughters that they could not have any bread because the family’s dogs needed it. The women added that “they would feed no Black Republicans; but said they had and would again feed their grub to bushwhackers when they wanted to, and even dared the soldiers to molest a thingabout their premises,” according to a report made by Union Captain William B. Ballew dated July 2, 1864 in the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Sallie and Jennie Mayfield, whose brothers were notorious guerrillas in the Vernon County area, even rode with the bushwhackers from time to time. On one such occasion, they were captured and taken to the Gratiot Street prison in St. Louis. They eventually escaped after adamantly refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the Union. Personal acquaintance and friendship sometimes overrode politics, though, even for inveterate rebel women like the Mayfield girls. James B. Pond, a Union officer stationed at Fort Scott, Kansas, recalled a time not long after the Mayfield boys had been killed by a Union scout that one of their sisters warned him of an impending guerrilla attack and thereby saved his life, because he had previously been kind to the girls and had protected their family from an overzealous militia. Women have generally supported their fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons during times of war. They have aided the causes in ways that ranged from carrying arms in battles to spying and the more typical support roles. They cried when their men didn’t come home. Women in the Civil War were no different. June 2006

Pennytown

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 03:22:43 GMT

*By Jerre Repass* Sunday August 7, 2005 — It’s a hot one with temperatures dancing around the century mark. Huge thunderstorms are marching across Arkansas and Mississippi, but there’s not a drop of rain near Marshall, a good thing! People are gathering for what is essentially a summer thanksgiving celebration with food, singing, and motivational speeches. Why would nearly a hundred visitors trudge out into the country to meet in a tiny building without the comfort of either air conditioning or inside plumbing? Because they are the descendants of Pennytown. After the Civil War, freed slaves found themselves in an upsidedown world that offered tumult, uncertainty, and overwhelming personal responsibility. Many of the 117,000 former slaves were refugees on the road — looking for a new life, any life that offered stability. Saline County was part of Little Dixie, where the majority of slaves had been concentrated, and eventually the home of Kentuckyborn Joseph Penny. He was a tenant farmer who realized the permanent value of real estate and began purchasing land. With that toe-hold, the small hamlet of Pennytown became a reality. Others bought land and encouraged their kinfolk to settle in the tiny community south of Marshall. The economics of a black community helped citizens begin the journey down the long road to being truly free. Penny saw the future of his friends and family in self-help and independence. Land was so important that, in the beginning, their dead were buried in ditches and roadways to save every possible inch for farming and surviving. Not surprisingly, Penny had dangerous enemies who would like to have done him harm. But the townspeople knew a thing or two about how to get by in difficult situations: They staged a “leaving” party for him, a going-away event to convince outsiders he had actually moved on. That ploy may well have saved his life. Socially, Pennytown was a grand success. The family circle was restored. Not only did children have both mom and dad, they also had the extended family and community. Ella Wright, born in Pennytown February 22, 1904, is the oldest living descendant. Her grandparents were slaves, but her parents were farmers who sent their children to school in town. “We lived in a three-room shotgun house,” she said. “Pennytown was a good place to be a little girl.” Church and school were the places to gather then. “Oh, I played lots of games,” she remembers. “We jumped rope, played jacks, and brought in the wood for the stove.” Education was important to Pennytown parents. The children walked to school in the river bottoms taking along chicken sandwiches and enjoying the intense heat of the wood stove during cold Missouri winters. Children got their basic education in black elementary schools and then transferred to the black high school in Sedalia. James Madison explained how it was to live in rural Missouri in those days, “Teachers made sure you learned, or you didn’t pass. They’d keep you back until you did pass. My schooling prepared me for how life really is. I never did get the idea that all I had to do was to come out of high school, and a job would be waiting for me. All the jobs were saved for the whites. We understood that.” When World War II broke out, Madison joined the army. He was one of many young men who would see a bigger world and move out of their rural setting. When he returned, he settled in Kansas City. “I always wanted to be a lawyer because I wanted to ask questions, wanted to know how things worked. I finally got to the point in my life where I could do that,” he says. Instead of going to law school, he began work for the U.S. Post Office and eventually became a regional grievance arbitration advocate serving thirteen states. Virginia Huston was the last person to be born in Pennytown, in 1944. That was about the time people began to go to bigger cities that offered more opportunities. Her mother, Josephine Lawrence, was afraid the contributions the town had made to black history would be lost. Around 1982, she started working, digging, prodding, plotting, and cajoling to save the memories. After years of work, she and other generous citizens were able to get the original site of Pennytown put on the National Historic Register. During Ms. Josephine’s funeral, the procession swung by the church in tribute to her work in restoring it. Today, supporters of Pennytown come from surrounding communities, and the color line has blurred. Every year, homecoming is planned for the first Sunday in August. The descendants of Pennytown want their own children and grandchildren to remember and honor the past. _Visit the Friends of Pennytown Historic Site web site at www.penntytownchurch.com._ June 2006

A Few Good Times Pulaski County

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 19:06:01 GMT

Fort Leonard Wood's surroundings provide a range of attractions for the day-tripper or overnighter. The following are just a handful of the many engaging activities nearby. *The Rivers* Canoes are not the only boats floating on the Big Piney and Gasconade rivers; rafts, johnboats, and tubes are also available for rent on both rivers. Big Piney is a spring-fed, cool and fast-paced river. It's not too fast for a family, but Gasconade River offers a lazier flow with great swimming spots. Fishing in the rivers could yield trophy, smallmouth and largemouth bass. *Onyx Mountain Caverns* This attraction in Jerome was recently added to the National Register of Historic Places. During the 19th century, white marble onyx was heavily mined there, but tremendous dripstone formations of the onyx remain. An underground river and artifacts dating back to before A.D. 1,000 also lure visitors into the caverns' depths. Call (573) 762-3341 for more information. Rainbow trout fishing is popular in the Roubidoux Creek, and there is a wheelchair-accessible fishing deck on the banks. Experienced scuba divers will enjoy the twists and turns of the underwater caves in the Roubidoux Spring near downtown Waynesville. *Old Stagecoach Stop* The Old Stagecoach Stop is on the east side of Waynesville's square. This two-story stagecoach shop is located on the Wire Road, named after the telegraph line strung by Union soldiers. The structure was built in 1860 as a log cabin but was later transformed into a Union hospital during the Civil War. At the turn of the century, it was the Black Hotel, operated by the Black family. Mrs. Black sold 10-cent spaces in the balcony to people who wanted to observe Waynesville's last public hanging in 1905. Later, while Fort Leonard Wood was under construction, builders and troops lodged there. The building fell into disrepair until the Old Stagecoach Stop Foundation rescued it from being condemned in 1983. It is now open as a museum through September. Call (573) 435-6766 to tour. *Dixon Festivals* The Dixon Bluegrass Festival, celebrating the local musical heritage, takes place both Labor Day and Memorial Day weekends at the Bluegrass Park on Highway 133. This festival has attracted visitors from 40 states and abroad to hear the strains of the dobro, the country fiddle, and the bluegrass banjo. Held the third weekend in September, Cow Days is a festival rich with local history. In the late 1920s, the Dixon area was feeling the devastating effects of the Great Depression. For several months in 1929 and 1930, area merchants hosted a promotional program, called Cow Days, to attract customers to the city. The prospect of winning a live, healthy adult cow, along with dancing, cow-trading, dining, and parades, brought in thousands of visitors. The original Cow Days celebration lasted only for a few months, but Dixon businesses in the '80s decided to bring back the festival. Cow Days was reborn as a three-day festival featuring arts and crafts booths, street dances, entertainment, parades, beauty pageants, and food. Like the old festival, the new one is highlighted by a drawing for a healthy adult cow donated by local businesses. *Devil's Elbow* Devil's Elbow was once recognized nationally as one of the most beautiful spots in the country with its majestic 300-foot bluffs. Devil's Elbow, actually just a wide part of historic Route 66, is almost entirely surrounded by water. Lumberjacks coined the name after the bend in the river that surrounds the town, which they said was "a devil of an elbow." The town is located off Route Z in eastern Pulaski County. *St. Robert Restaurants* Diners in St. Robert can choose from authentic German and Asian cuisine. Many internationally born spouses of Fort Leonard Wood's military personnel have brought recipes and flavors from home and started restaurants in St. Robert. *Caveman Steak and BBQ Restaurant* Chandeliers, red carpet, waterfalls, and a German chef put them inside a cave and you get the Caveman Steak and BBQ Restaurant, which is east of Richland off Highway 7. Located 100 feet above the Gasconade River, the restaurant offers transportation from the parking lot below. Call (573) 765-4554. *Trail Ride* One of Missouri's longest-running trail rides, The 4-J Big Piney National Scenic Trail Ride features some of the finest trails and food a rider will ever encounter. Call (573) 774-6879 for a free brochure. *U.S. Army Museums* Fort Leonard Wood boasts several free museums, such as the Engineer, Chemical, Military Police, Fort Leonard Wood, and World War II Area museums. Call (573) 596-0780.

Master of Ravenswood

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 19:01:40 GMT

All the tourists have the same look on their faces when they walk up to the columned front porch of Ravenswood House. "Like this," 12-year-old Jamey Leonard demonstrates. He tilts his blond head back as far as it will go, widens his eyes, and lets his mouth hang open. You'll do it, too. When you stand on the porch's dainty rust-colored mosaic tile, your eyes travel from the base of the tall white columns, move up past the ornate scrollwork on the second-floor balcony, and look up-up-up until your neck is straining and you can see the rusty white tin ceiling. Yes, your mouth is open. Jamey can see you from the library window. The huge two-story brick house on Route 5 near Bunceton looks like something from Gone With the Wind, but in fact the antebellum-style house was built after the Civil War and completed in 1880. If the sign on the iron gate says "Open," take the curving driveway to the front of the house where you'll find a crumbling steppingstone fitted with an "R" made from the same pieces of tile that are on the porch. When you finally ring the doorbell, you will meet Jamey, the owner's grandson, if he's not in school. The sixth-grader will be your tour guide. This is your first clue that this won't be an ordinary tour. The next is that there are no ropes to keep you from getting a close-up look at the turn-of-the-century furnishings. Everything is not in pristine mint-museum condition. That thick artichoke-green wallpaper is peeling. The stuffing is coming out of that carved chair. There is a tear in that portrait, a chip on that bookcase and that statue, an etched glass panel missing from that door. The furnishings may not be perfect, but they are all still there. The Leonard family has kept the house much the same for more than 100 years. Jamey explains how. "When Nadine first lived here, she left everything how it was, and the next people, they left everything how it was, and then they left everything how it was." Jamey belongs to the sixth generation of Leonards at Ravenswood, and everything is still left how it was. Right now the family still lives, delicately, in the house. Today's copy of The Kansas City Star rests on an oversized, high-backed, uncomfortable-looking Victorian couch, open to the funny pages Jamey was reading before he heard the doorbell and swung open the thick, carved oak front door. Some people remain skeptical that Jamey can give them a good tour. They'll ask to be shown around by someone older. Others will look over the beige pamphlet he gives them and quiz him about the history of Ravenswood. Don't bother. He knows more about this house than you can imagine. Wait until he stands next to the portraits of earlier generations that line the main hall. Compare the dignified bearded men to the blond boy. Some say he looks like Nathaniel Leonard, who founded the Missouri cattle farm in 1825 and named it Ravenswood after a character in a Sir Walter Scott novel. Jamey likes it when people think he looks like the captain, Nathaniel's son and the original Charles E. Leonard, who was in the Civil War. But most think he resembles his namesake, James Nelson, the Boonville banker whose money built the 30-room house for his daughter Nadine and the captain. Jamey learned the family history from Pop, his grandfather Charles W. Leonard. He heard Pop tell the stories to strangers who paid to walk through the house and take pictures of Missouri's famous Bingham paintings and Jamey's great-great-grandmother Nadine's wedding dress. When Pop became too feeble to make it up the 83 or was it 84 steps to the second floor and the attic, he sent the tour groups up the curving staircase to Jamey. Then Pop was too weak even to do the first floor, and Jamey took over the whole tour. The tours used to cost $1.50 when they started 42 years ago. Now it's $5. Some people think the tour is too expensive and turn away at the front door without ever seeing what's inside. Don't make that mistake. You'll get your money's worth. Jamey will lead you through most of the rooms in the house and even show you Nadine's wedding dress. Then he'll show you his favorite, the blue and tan dress Nadine wore to Grover Cleveland's inaugural ball. He'll point out the wire bustle Nadine strapped on under her dress and explain why ladies needed the long fainting couch that sits nearby. He'll lead you through the dimly lit attic and up an even narrower staircase to the roof. He'll go first and hold open the trap door while you climb into the widow's walk that crowns the columned house and delivers the best view of Pop's 2,000-acre farm. Jamey is a good guide. In the dining room, he knows the use for each gold-etched glass that sits above the hand-painted Limoges china on the table Nadine bought at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. "Brandy, wine, water, sherbet," he says, tapping the rim of each glass. He knows how to find the secret drawer in the library desk. He'll show you the grandfather clock that came to Missouri by covered wagon, the music box that creaks out a cacophony of bells when Jamey winds it, and the breezy sleeping porch that overlooks the barn where cob-web-covered carriages are stored. While you're taking the tour, the owner of Ravenswood is in a hospital bed in the brick servants quarters out back. Pop, Nadine's grandson, born in 1912, can see the back of the main house from his window. He talks about moving back up there, to the room he and his wife, Mary Ellen, shared. But he hasn't been in the house for two years. He barely has enough strength to take hold of the walker next to the bed and move around the small one-story house. So he sits in bed and reads magazines, plays chess with Jamey, and tells stories about Ravenswood to those who come to visit: My great-grandfather Nathaniel, you know about him? His older brother persuaded him to come to Missouri. He arrived in Boonville after walking to St. Louis with one dollar in his pocket. When he died, he had over 12,000 acres in Missouri. He was famous for his Shorthorn cattle. He'll talk about Ravenswood in his raspy voice until he's almost out of breath, one story after another, as if he's afraid he won't get to tell them all. And just when you think he's done, he thinks of another one. "One more story, and I'll let you go ..." "Something else you should know ..." "One more thing I thought of ..." He worries about what will happen to Ravenswood when he is gone. It won't be long. Living on borrowed time, he says. He already has a headstone with his name engraved on it in the family cemetery. You probably won't notice the cemetery. It's across the street buried in the woods. Most of the gravestones hug the ground and hide from visitors. Only one tall monument is visible from the front porch. Pop wants his funeral in the dark library. They will move the room's center table that holds the postcards and brochures and replace it with his coffin. He has it all worked out. All except for his house. He flirts with the idea of leaving the house to a public organization so that people could still have tours. He loves the tours. He started them in 1957 to raise money to buy the beautiful stained-glass windows that depict the Last Supper and other biblical scenes for the Bellair Methodist Church just up the road. More than a thousand people came to see Pop's house when he opened it the first day. And they have never stopped coming. He can't imagine Ravenswood without the tours, but he can't decide what to do. He's not worried about the present. His son Charles E., Jamey's father, does a good job taking care of the house and cattle farm. Charles E. has run the cattle farm since 1969. "I was the first Leonard to actually work on the farm," says Charles E. And if you think the house looks pretty good, thank Charles E. Bit by bit, he is restoring it. He used extra cream-colored wallpaper he found in the attic to repair the textured parlor ceiling. He had Jamey and a friend peel several layers of mildewed wallpaper off the walls in Pop's old bathroom upstairs. They painted it a beautiful ice blue. An old bedroom adjoining the bathroom is also now ice blue. A new mattress for the antique bed waits in the hall. Pop never expected Charles E. to be so interested in the house. When the family took trips to historic places, he would stay in the car and listen to baseball games on the radio. It was his younger son, Jamie, who was the history buff, who was excited about the possibility of slave tunnels at Monticello. But Jamie was killed in a car accident. And Charles W. was left with one son, one heir. Charles E. wasn't planning to stay at Ravenswood and be a farmer, either, until he met Sarah, a pretty redhead who lived on the farm down the road. Now, he is intrigued by Ravenswood history. The railroad that used to run along the back of the property and take away the Leonard cattle fascinates him. The heating system that was installed in the house in the early 1900s was brought to Ravenswood by train. "They say it took 29 wagonloads to move the radiators," he says. Unlike his father, Charles E. isn't worried about the future of Ravenswood: Jamey has three older brothers and one sister. "We're blessed because there are five heirs after me," he says cheerfully. Jamey, the youngest, has been the most interested in Ravenswood. He enjoys giving tours most of the time, but sometimes he gets bored. He used to slide down the banister until he worried he might kick off the light on the newel post. He and a friend have sword fights in the foyer. Jamey does battle with the captain's Civil War sword. Sometimes the tourists are interesting, like two college freshmen who stopped. They asked all the right questions. "Hey, you ever jump on the beds?" They teased Jamey when he showed them the chair believed to have belonged to President Andrew Jackson. "Does he know you have it?" But some tourists are not as nice. Some interrupt his stories. Some touch things. Jamey doesn't want them touching Nadine's fragile Limoges china. He is especially protective of the elaborate table settings Pop set out for the tours. Some ask questions he can't answer, such as the exact date of a painting of his great-grandmother Roselia, Pop's mom. She died of an epidemic. He knew it was the late 1800s but not the exact date. Once Jamey had to round up another group of tourists that kept opening the closed doors and walking into parts of the house that were off-limits. The Great Cattle Drive, he called it. Tours like that, Jamey could do without. But he has a job to do. "Dad's in charge of the farm," he explains. "I'm in charge of the house." Someday, he may be in charge of both. He doesn't know if he wants to be a farmer. Right now he's got his hands full taking care of his three goats. His Dad might teach him to drive a tractor next year. He might like it. He might not. He might want to stay. He might not. What would happen to Ravenswood if he doesn't want to farm? He thinks about Pop. Pop lived at Ravenswood but hired someone to oversee the farm. "I'd probably have someone else take care of the farm," he decides. "You can do both. My Grandpa did." _Ravenswood is nine miles south of Interstate 70 at Boonville on Route 5. The home is open for tours on weekends and occasional weekdays through November. It will reopen next spring. Hours are irregular. To be certain to get a tour, call ahead to arrange a time, (660) 882-7143._

Loyalty Oaths

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 17:13:43 GMT

When archivist Becky Carlson began sifting through documents at the Andrew County Courthouse, she uncovered more than the usual records. Tucked away in a cabinet was Missouri’s largest collection of loyalty oaths that date back to the Civil War. During the 1860s, Missouri-ans who wanted to vote or serve in any public or church-related office were required to sign a loyalty oath that stated their allegiance to the Union. The 1,067 oaths that were uncovered in the courthouse mostly have men’s signatures. But some women, who at that time didn’t even have the right to vote, were required to sign if they were going to serve in a leadership position, such as a teacher. The rare documents have remained intact for more than 130 years because the courthouse hasn’t suffered fire or tornado damage. Betty Williams, county clerk, says the finding is significant for genealogists and historians. “Many of the names were here when the county started,” Betty says. _Those wanting to research the oaths can view the original documents at the courthouse or access a microfilm at the state archives in Jefferson City._ August/September 1999