A Handful of Confederate Spies Are Captured in St. Louis: September 25, 1864

As Sterling Price’s ill-fated attempt to take Missouri for the Confederates got underway in southern Missouri, Southern sympathizers in St. Louis were organizing a wagonload of supplies and secret messages to deliver to Price’s troops. The band included Major James Utz, who had fought in the Confederate Army previously before being captured and paroled. On his return to St. Louis, Utz began working for the Confederacy again in secret, according to a story from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Utz and a few other notable St. Louisans such as Paul Fusz were moving under the cover of darkness near the Meramec River in Manchester when they were discovered by a Union patrol.

The group was arrested and detained at the infamous Gratiot Street Prison, which was specifically used for those suspected of working against the Union cause in St. Louis. Utz was eventually hung for spying. His prominent St. Louis family did apparently successfully lobby Abraham Lincoln for a pardon, but it was handed down too late to spare his life. Fusz was pardoned by Lincoln however, in one of his last acts as president. The Fusz family would eventually found a chain of successful car dealerships in the St. Louis area.