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CARTHAGE, Mo. -
The Battle of Carthage on July 5, 1861 was the beginning of a protracted four-year conflict that ended with hundreds of Jasper Countians dead and nearly all survivors forced to flee from the area.
The Civil War in Jasper County began as civilly as war can. Back then, armies had rules about how they fought and the preservation of civilian infrastructure.
The massacre at Rader Farm, on May 18, 1863, changed all that, according to Historian and Director of the Jasper County Records Center Steve Weldon.
“The destruction of western Jasper County, which is what this led to, ultimately led to the destruction of the rest of the county,” Weldon said Wednesday at the dedication of a new park in western Jasper County near the site of the Rader massacre. “There’s no disconnect between the two because this brought about so much more destruction. It was no holes barred after the Rader Farm massacre, Thomas Livingston comes in and says you destroyed my home base. That meant John C. Cox is no longer safe, his house was burned in June, and then it wasn’t too long after that before this whole area was devastated.”
Now, thanks to a $25,000 donation by Joplin attorney Ed Hershewe, Jasper County owns five acres of land at the corner of Peace Church Road and Fountain Road near where the attack took place.
Weldon said according to plat maps from the time, the Rader farm house where the fighting took place was located about 300 yards east of the intersection, and accounts of the action by Union and Confederate survivors show that soldiers on both sides crossed the property during the Union survivors flight back to Baxter Springs.
The action
On May 18, 1863, Major Thomas Livingston was commander of a Rebel guerrilla unit of about 70 men that ambushed a Union foraging party that was collecting corn from the Rader farm to feed soldiers at Fort Blair in Baxter Springs, Kan., a Union outpost on the Military Road between Fort Scott, Kan., and Fort Smith, Ark.
According to Author and Historian Steve Cottrell, the African-American soldiers from Fort Blair, commanded by white soldiers of a Union artillery battery, were moving corn from the attic in the Rader farm home to wagons when Livingston’s soldiers attacked from the woods.
“Most likely it was to the south here in the woods as they came up from the cemetery there,” Cottrell said at Wednesday’s dedication of the park. “This whole area here would have been simply a field of chaos and bloodshed, violence as U.S. soldiers scrambled desperately for their weapons or sought cover or simply tried to escape from devastating surprise attack. Nearly half would be gunned down but some would escape and make their way all the way back that night to the Baxter Springs outpost where they would tell their fellow comrades what happened here.”
No holes barred
The Union revenge was swift, and because of what the Confederate soldiers did to the bodies of the African-American soldiers after they were killed, particularly brutal and marked a turning point in the Civil War in Southwest Missouri.
“The next morning on May 19, 1863, hundreds of Union soldiers from the Baxter camp showed up in this region right here seeking retribution,” Cottrell said. “Their commander, Col. James Williams, was further enraged to find that the bodies of his ambushed troops had been severely mutilated. Because of the warm weather and this mutilation, the colonel decided perhaps it would be best to simply cremate the gory remains.
“The corpses were placed in a ghastly pile in the Rader house, but before the flames were ignited, a Rebel prisoner who had apparently participated in the ambush the day before was brought before the colonel. The colonel had him marched into the house and shot dead, his body thrown upon the pile of mangled soldiers and the structure was set ablaze, burning with the hot fury of the hell on Earth we call war.
“The homes of other Southern sympathizers in the area, including the Joshua Martin house, of the Martin farm here, were also burned to the ground, and also the entire town of Sherwood which was wiped from the face of the Earth, never to be rebuilt.”
Sherwood at the time was the third largest town in Jasper County after Carthage and Sarcoxie.
Weldon said the battle changed the tone of the conflict from a somewhat civilized conflict to something far more brutal. Cities such as Carthage, which had seen battle but were, for the most part, still intact and occupied, faced complete destruction.
“There had been some working between the two sides before Rader Farm, they had exchanged prisoners, a little bit of communication, but after this, all bets were off,” Weldon said. “The Courthouse in Carthage was burned in 1863 after this and the rest of Carthage was burned in 1864.”
First park
Western District Jasper County Commissioner Darieus Adams said this is the first time Jasper County has taken possession of land for use as a park, so the county is still deciding what to do with the land.
Currently a dilapidated red house sits on the corner of the five-acre plot on the northeast side of the intersection of Peace Church and Fountain, along with several outbuildings.
Adams said one of the sheds on the property that is in the best shape might be preserved to provide storage space for tools, but the rest will be torn down and a permanent marker and other signs installed telling what happened on those two days in the Spring of 1863.
“For now we’re going to leave it up to the experts,” Adams said. “We’ll let Brad Belk (director of the Joplin Museum Complex) and the Steves (Weldon and Cottrell) decide what should be done. Eventually we’re planning to landscape this and turn it into a permanent memorial to what happened here.”
Belk said plans call for placing the site on the National Register of Historic Places, then conducting an archeological survey of the area, including land around the five acres, to find any objects left over from that horrific day.
Vince Lindstrom, director of the Joplin Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the park could be a big tourist draw with the coming of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War in 2011.
Alan Shirley, Joplin, vice chair of the Missouri Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, said getting the site on the National Register of Historic Places shouldn’t be a problem.
“These are the kind of things that are the little hidden gems that we don’t even know about,” Shirley said. “When you get into it and realize, my gosh, this has been sitting underneath my nose all this time and I didn’t realize it, I think that is going to surprise and please a lot of people.”
The Battle of Carthage on July 5, 1861 was the beginning of a protracted four-year conflict that ended with hundreds of Jasper Countians dead and nearly all survivors forced to flee from the area.
The Civil War in Jasper County began as civilly as war can. Back then, armies had rules about how they fought and the preservation of civilian infrastructure.
The massacre at Rader Farm, on May 18, 1863, changed all that, according to Historian and Director of the Jasper County Records Center Steve Weldon.
“The destruction of western Jasper County, which is what this led to, ultimately led to the destruction of the rest of the county,” Weldon said Wednesday at the dedication of a new park in western Jasper County near the site of the Rader massacre. “There’s no disconnect between the two because this brought about so much more destruction. It was no holes barred after the Rader Farm massacre, Thomas Livingston comes in and says you destroyed my home base. That meant John C. Cox is no longer safe, his house was burned in June, and then it wasn’t too long after that before this whole area was devastated.”
Now, thanks to a $25,000 donation by Joplin attorney Ed Hershewe, Jasper County owns five acres of land at the corner of Peace Church Road and Fountain Road near where the attack took place.
Weldon said according to plat maps from the time, the Rader farm house where the fighting took place was located about 300 yards east of the intersection, and accounts of the action by Union and Confederate survivors show that soldiers on both sides crossed the property during the Union survivors flight back to Baxter Springs.
The action
On May 18, 1863, Major Thomas Livingston was commander of a Rebel guerrilla unit of about 70 men that ambushed a Union foraging party that was collecting corn from the Rader farm to feed soldiers at Fort Blair in Baxter Springs, Kan., a Union outpost on the Military Road between Fort Scott, Kan., and Fort Smith, Ark.
According to Author and Historian Steve Cottrell, the African-American soldiers from Fort Blair, commanded by white soldiers of a Union artillery battery, were moving corn from the attic in the Rader farm home to wagons when Livingston’s soldiers attacked from the woods.
“Most likely it was to the south here in the woods as they came up from the cemetery there,” Cottrell said at Wednesday’s dedication of the park. “This whole area here would have been simply a field of chaos and bloodshed, violence as U.S. soldiers scrambled desperately for their weapons or sought cover or simply tried to escape from devastating surprise attack. Nearly half would be gunned down but some would escape and make their way all the way back that night to the Baxter Springs outpost where they would tell their fellow comrades what happened here.”
No holes barred
The Union revenge was swift, and because of what the Confederate soldiers did to the bodies of the African-American soldiers after they were killed, particularly brutal and marked a turning point in the Civil War in Southwest Missouri.
“The next morning on May 19, 1863, hundreds of Union soldiers from the Baxter camp showed up in this region right here seeking retribution,” Cottrell said. “Their commander, Col. James Williams, was further enraged to find that the bodies of his ambushed troops had been severely mutilated. Because of the warm weather and this mutilation, the colonel decided perhaps it would be best to simply cremate the gory remains.
“The corpses were placed in a ghastly pile in the Rader house, but before the flames were ignited, a Rebel prisoner who had apparently participated in the ambush the day before was brought before the colonel. The colonel had him marched into the house and shot dead, his body thrown upon the pile of mangled soldiers and the structure was set ablaze, burning with the hot fury of the hell on Earth we call war.
“The homes of other Southern sympathizers in the area, including the Joshua Martin house, of the Martin farm here, were also burned to the ground, and also the entire town of Sherwood which was wiped from the face of the Earth, never to be rebuilt.”
Sherwood at the time was the third largest town in Jasper County after Carthage and Sarcoxie.
Weldon said the battle changed the tone of the conflict from a somewhat civilized conflict to something far more brutal. Cities such as Carthage, which had seen battle but were, for the most part, still intact and occupied, faced complete destruction.
“There had been some working between the two sides before Rader Farm, they had exchanged prisoners, a little bit of communication, but after this, all bets were off,” Weldon said. “The Courthouse in Carthage was burned in 1863 after this and the rest of Carthage was burned in 1864.”
First park
Western District Jasper County Commissioner Darieus Adams said this is the first time Jasper County has taken possession of land for use as a park, so the county is still deciding what to do with the land.
Currently a dilapidated red house sits on the corner of the five-acre plot on the northeast side of the intersection of Peace Church and Fountain, along with several outbuildings.
Adams said one of the sheds on the property that is in the best shape might be preserved to provide storage space for tools, but the rest will be torn down and a permanent marker and other signs installed telling what happened on those two days in the Spring of 1863.
“For now we’re going to leave it up to the experts,” Adams said. “We’ll let Brad Belk (director of the Joplin Museum Complex) and the Steves (Weldon and Cottrell) decide what should be done. Eventually we’re planning to landscape this and turn it into a permanent memorial to what happened here.”
Belk said plans call for placing the site on the National Register of Historic Places, then conducting an archeological survey of the area, including land around the five acres, to find any objects left over from that horrific day.
Vince Lindstrom, director of the Joplin Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the park could be a big tourist draw with the coming of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War in 2011.
Alan Shirley, Joplin, vice chair of the Missouri Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, said getting the site on the National Register of Historic Places shouldn’t be a problem.
“These are the kind of things that are the little hidden gems that we don’t even know about,” Shirley said. “When you get into it and realize, my gosh, this has been sitting underneath my nose all this time and I didn’t realize it, I think that is going to surprise and please a lot of people.”
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