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"[Missouri Union Militia] troops frequently upset the security of the civilians they were supposed to be protecting. Federal officers themselves often reported being driven frantic by the mob-like activities of the troops ostensibly under their command. The Lieutenant Colonel who had just taken command at the [Union] garrison of Warsaw [Missouri] in August 1863, wrote his commander that 'our soldiery' had committed 'six murders within the last ten or twelve days... There is a feeling of insecurity universally prevailing with the peaceable citizens... all in this place that can get conveyances express an intention of leaving. There is no discipline whatever exercised over the soldiers here, which, added to the indiscriminate sale of liquor, renders the soldiers fiends rather than soldiers. The best citizens here have been menaced with death by the soldiers.'"
-Lieutenant Colonel T. A. Switzler to Brigadier General E. B. Brown,
Warsaw, Missouri, August 11, 1863, OR, Quoted in "Inside War"
"Union Correspondence
Headquarters District of Southeastern Missouri
Pilot Knob, Mo., October 25, 1863
Capt. W. T. Leeper, Patterson:
On Tues. evening, the 27th instant, 150 well-appointed troops will arrive at Greenville from Cape Girardeau. You will join them with all the men you can spare from post duty and during their stay in that region, give old Tim [Reeves] and his rascally gang such a hunt and extermination as they never yet had.
You will summon all the wives of the bushwhackers you can reach to come to Doniphan, and give them plainly to understand that either their husbands must come in and surrender themselves voluntarily and stop their villainous conduct, or their houses, stock, and &c. will be given to the flames, and the families all sent down the Mississippi River to be imprisoned at Napoleon, Ark... be firm, but discreet. I shall look for some good work in the lower counties during the next twenty days.
Clinton B. Fisk, Brigadier General"
-OR, Ch. XXXIV, P. 678
"Dave Maberry had come home from the Rebel army and stayed at home and round about home. He was standing in his yard when the Federals came. They arrested him and took him with them. They dashed on and caught Akins. They went on down the valley and crossing the river at House's ford, they saw Frank Wheeler... he ran across the field going north and had reached the top of the field when they caught him. He had two pistols with him but a bullet from the enemy had shattered his right wrist so he could not use the weapons. He cursed them until they shot him in the mouth with his own pistol. Next the leader signalled some of his men to shoot Akins. Mr. Akins, divining their intentions, ran into some woods and got about two hundred yards when they shot and disabled him. They placed him on his feet and tied him fast to a tree and tortured him by shooting him sixteen times, making slight wounds in his flesh. Bud House, then fifteen years old, stood in his yard nearly a mile away and heard him scream many times."
-J.J. Chilton, from the "Current Local," February 3, 1932, reprinted in "The Civil War in Carter and Shannon Counties"
More to come...
-Lieutenant Colonel T. A. Switzler to Brigadier General E. B. Brown,
Warsaw, Missouri, August 11, 1863, OR, Quoted in "Inside War"
"Union Correspondence
Headquarters District of Southeastern Missouri
Pilot Knob, Mo., October 25, 1863
Capt. W. T. Leeper, Patterson:
On Tues. evening, the 27th instant, 150 well-appointed troops will arrive at Greenville from Cape Girardeau. You will join them with all the men you can spare from post duty and during their stay in that region, give old Tim [Reeves] and his rascally gang such a hunt and extermination as they never yet had.
You will summon all the wives of the bushwhackers you can reach to come to Doniphan, and give them plainly to understand that either their husbands must come in and surrender themselves voluntarily and stop their villainous conduct, or their houses, stock, and &c. will be given to the flames, and the families all sent down the Mississippi River to be imprisoned at Napoleon, Ark... be firm, but discreet. I shall look for some good work in the lower counties during the next twenty days.
Clinton B. Fisk, Brigadier General"
-OR, Ch. XXXIV, P. 678
"Dave Maberry had come home from the Rebel army and stayed at home and round about home. He was standing in his yard when the Federals came. They arrested him and took him with them. They dashed on and caught Akins. They went on down the valley and crossing the river at House's ford, they saw Frank Wheeler... he ran across the field going north and had reached the top of the field when they caught him. He had two pistols with him but a bullet from the enemy had shattered his right wrist so he could not use the weapons. He cursed them until they shot him in the mouth with his own pistol. Next the leader signalled some of his men to shoot Akins. Mr. Akins, divining their intentions, ran into some woods and got about two hundred yards when they shot and disabled him. They placed him on his feet and tied him fast to a tree and tortured him by shooting him sixteen times, making slight wounds in his flesh. Bud House, then fifteen years old, stood in his yard nearly a mile away and heard him scream many times."
-J.J. Chilton, from the "Current Local," February 3, 1932, reprinted in "The Civil War in Carter and Shannon Counties"
More to come...