From The Missouri Republican
October 1, 1864
(The raid itself was September 28, 1864)

We have information of a most daring proceeding on the part of rebel guerillas Wednesday evening at Cheltenham, on the Pacific railroad, only four miles from the city.

Mr. Augustus Muegge, Postmaster at Cheltenham, arrived at the militia camp at eight o'clock Wednesday evening, and as soon as possible was sent into the city and reported at Post Headquarters the following facts:

Between five and six o'clock Thursday, evening four men rode up to his door, two of whom discounted and went in, the other two remaining outside and holding the horses. They were all splendidly mounted and finely dressed with 'duster' over their fine clothes. When the two men entered they asked Mr. Muegge "which side he was on?" Mr. Muegge replied he did not know what they meant. "What's your position?" asked the intruders. "I am a Union man," replied Mr. M. They then asked if he had ever held office under the Lincoln Government. Mr. M. replied "Yes – I hold office now. I am Postmaster here." "Then," said the stranger, "it's just such men as you that we went to kill," and one of them drew a revolver, cocked it, and was pointing it at Muegge when the latter's wife rushed between them and declared they must first kill her. The assailant point the pistol over the shoulder of the woman, but she threw it up and Muegge dodged out his back door and made his escape.

The Post Office is situated some half mile from the depot of Cheltenham station. As soon as Mr. Muegge could procure a horse, he came to the city and reported at the militia camp on the Olive Street road, the above facts; but owing to the great delay on account of the incredibility of the story , the statement was not reported at headquarters until Friday morning. Mr. Muegge reported also that he heard of a similar party being at a house two miles from Cheltenham on the Manchester road.

A scout was sent out immediately, but nothing had been heard from it up to a late hour last night.

The affair is enveloped in some mystery, it being the presumption that the fellow were regular officers from the invading army now menacing the Pacific railroad. They displayed the regular Confederate uniform, and were evidently old soldiers. Every bridge and ford on the Meramec is well guarded and it is impossible that those men could have crossed at any of these. Such is the official statement. The most plausible explanation is, that the fright of the Postmaster induced him to imagine a great deal more than he saw, and in his statement drew largely on his fancy.

Louis Schmidt's account and analysis of this raid

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Order No. 11 was the most drastic and repressive military measure directed against civilians by the Union Army during the Civil War. In fact, with the exception of the hysteria-motivated herding of Japanese-Americans into concentration camps during World War II, it stands as the harshest treatment ever imposed on United States citizens under the plea of military necessity in our nation's history.

Issued August 25, 1863, by Brigadier General Thomas Ewing, Jr., commander of the District of the Border, with headquarters at Kansas City, Order No. 11 required all the inhabitants of the Western Missouri counties of Jackson, Cass, and Bates not living within one mile of specified military posts to vacate their homes by September 9. Those who by that date established their loyalty to the United States government with the commanding officer of the military station nearest their place of residence would be permitted to remove to any military station in the District of the Border or to any part of Kansas except the counties on the eastern border of that state. Persons failing to establish their loyalty were to move out of the district completely or be subject to military punishment.[1]

The general public at the time, as well as most historians since, regarded the order as an act of retaliation for the destruction of Lawrence, Kansas, and the massacre of c. 200 of its male residents by William Clarke Quantrill's Missouri guerrillas on August 21, 1863. Critics of the order both then and thereafter condemned it as being cruel, unjust, and unnecessary.[2]Its defenders, on the other hand, while admitting its severity, maintained that it was fully warranted by the military situation and that it achieved the results intended—the forcing of Quantrill's bushwhackers out of the border region of Missouri and the ending of guerrilla raids into Kansas.[3]

Both parties to the controversy over Order No. 11 have usually dwelt upon the circumstances immediately preceding its promulgation and upon the short-range impact of its execution. Rarely, if at all, have they examined its full background or its ultimate operation. Yet it is only through such an examination that a valid evaluation of the order can be made. Once this is done, then perhaps a definite answer can be given to the question, was Order No. 11 a justified act of military necessity or an unjustified deed of military tyranny?

The territorial conflict of the 1850s left a legacy of hatred between Kansas and Missouri. Kansans resented the invasions of the Missouri “Border Ruffians” and the Missourians bitterly recalled the incursions of John Brown, James Montgomery, and other Kansas “jayhawkers.” The outbreak of the Civil War intensified this mutual animosity. Kansas jayhawkers and Red Legs made devastating raids into Missouri during which they plundered and murdered, burned farmhouses and crops, and liberated hundreds of slaves. These forays in turn caused pro-Southern guerrilla bands to retaliate against Kansas. Led by Quantrill, the Missouri bushwhackers sacked Kansas border settlements and shot down unarmed civilians “like so many hogs.” At the same time they waged a deadly partisan warfare against Federal troops and Union adherents in Missouri itself.

The efforts of the Federal army to put down bushwhacking were frustrated by the skill of the guerrillas, the difficult nature of the countryside, and above all the assistance rendered the bushwhackers by the civilian population. Most of the people of Western Missouri looked upon the guerrillas as their avengers and defenders, and a large portion of them had friends and kinsmen riding with Quantrill. Consequently they aided them in every possible way, from feeding and sheltering them, to smuggling them ammunition and acting as spies. Even anti-Confederates assisted the partisans out of fear of reprisals. Thus in effect the Federal forces in Western Missouri were opposed by an entire people.[4]

By the spring of 1863 Union officers serving along the border had concluded that the bushwhackers could never be suppressed by ordinary tactics. “Good men and true,” wrote one of them, “have been for months trying to catch the bushwhackers, and I know it is, as they declare, almost an impossibility.”[5] And declared another: “If any one ... can do better against bushwhackers than we have done, let him try this country, where the people and bushwhackers are allied against the United States and its soldiers.”[6]

In June 1863, Brigadier General Thomas Ewing, Jr., took command of the District of the Border. Ewing, aged thirty-four, was a prominent Kansas Republican, former chief justice of Kansas, and the brother-in-law and one-time law partner of General William T. Sherman. A man who believed that he had “few equals in mental vigor,” he was intensely ambitious and hoped to secure election to the United States Senate. With that goal in mind he was at this period seeking the favor of Senator James H. Lane, the “King” of Kansas politics.

By the end of July Ewing decided that unless his forces were tripled the only possible way to destroy the guerrillas was to strike at the root of their power, the support they received from the civilian population. Therefore on August 3 he wrote his departmental commander, Major General John M. Schofield, stating that since two-thirds of the families in Western Missouri were kin to the bushwhackers and were “actively and heartily engaged in feeding, clothing, and sustaining them,” several hundred families of the “worst guerrillas” should be transported to Arkansas. This would not only deprive the guerrillas of their aid, but would cause the guerrillas whose families had been removed to follow them out of the state. Surrender terms could then be offered to the less offensive bushwhackers remaining.[7]

Schofield approved the plan, and on August 18 Ewing put it into effect by issuing General Order No. 10.[8] Then, three days later, Quantrill and 440 bushwhackers destroyed Lawrence. This deed, which was not only the climax of the Kansas-Missouri Border War but also the most horrible atrocity of the entire Civil War, shocked, frightened, and enraged Unionists in both Kansas and Missouri, and caused them to demand that the bushwhackers be crushed once and for all so as to prevent further raids of this kind. Ewing, who likewise believed that drastic action was needed, responded to their clamor by promulgating Order No. 11 on August 25.

Immediately large numbers of pro-Southern and Conservative Union Missourians denounced the order as “inhuman, unmanly, and barbarous.”[9]Most prominent and vehement among the critics was George Caleb Bingham, the famous artist. Although a Unionist, Bingham hated Kansans in general and Ewing in particular. After Order No. 11 was announced he went to Ewing's headquarters in Kansas City and demanded that it be rescinded. Ewing refused, and the interview became highly acrimonious. Finally, as he departed, Bingham warned: “If you persist in executing that order, I will make you infamous with pen and brush as far as I am able.”[10]


Bingham carried out his threat in both respects. First he produced a painting entitled “Order No. 11 .” It showed Ewing astride a horse complacently supervising his troops as they expel a Missouri family from its home. A Kansas Red Leg has just shot down a young man, and another is about to shoot the elderly head of the family, oblivious to the pleas of a beautiful young woman kneeling at his feet. The house is being pillaged by Union soldiers, one of whom bears a likeness to the noted jayhawker, Colonel Charles Jennison. In the background columns of smoke rise from burning fields and a long, funereal line of refugees wends its way along the road. The painting was mediocre art but excellent propaganda, and it did more than anything else to create the popular conception of Order No. 11.[11]

What he depicted in the painting Bingham also expressed in various writings which may be regarded as representative of all the criticisms of Order No. 11. According to him the order was “an act of purely arbitrary power, directed against a disarmed and defenseless population” in violation of “every principle of justice.” It was inspired by vengeance and was issued by Ewing in order to curry favor with the Kansas “mob” and advance his political ambitions. It resulted in “barefooted and bareheaded women and children, stripped of every article of clothing except a scant covering for their bodies,” being “exposed to the heat of an August sun and compelled to struggle through the dust on foot.” Under it men “were shot down in the very act of obeying the order, and their wagons and effects seized by their murderers.” Union soldiers and Red Legs burned dwellings and sent long wagon trains of plunder into Kansas. Refugees “crowded by hundreds upon the banks of the Missouri River, and were indebted to the charity of benevolent steamboat conductors for transportation to places of safety where friendly aid could be extended to them without danger to those who ventured to contribute it.”

There was neither need nor cause for Order No. 11, asserted Bingham. Most of the real bandits on the border were not Quantrill's bushwhackers but Kansas Red Legs who carried on their “nefarious operations under the protection and patronage of General Ewing. . . . The bushwhackers were but small in number, “at all times insignificant in comparison with the Federal troops. . . .” The guerrillas could “at any time have been exterminated or driven from the country had there been an earnest purpose on the part of the Federal forces in that direction, properly braced by a willingness to incur such personal risks as become the profession of a soldier.”

Finally, the order did not accomplish its professed purpose. Instead of driving them out, it gave up the country to the bushwhackers, “who, until the close of the war, continued to stop the stages and rob the mails and passengers, and no one wearing the Federal uniform dared to risk his life within the desolated district.”[12]

Much of Bingham's pictorial and verbal condemnation of Ewing and Order No. 11 was false and unfair, and motivated by personal malice. It is extremely unlikely, for instance, that Ewing, as the painting “Order No. 11” would imply, ever sat about on his horse callously watching the Red Legs slay defenseless men. The charge that the Red Legs enjoyed Ewing's “protection and patronage” was viciously absurd, since Ewing, while in command of the District of the Border, made constant and earnest efforts to suppress the Red Legs and stop jayhawking.[13]As for the assertion that bushwhacking did not become widespread until after Order No. 11, this is so obviously contrary to facts as not to require refutation.

Other of Bingham's accusations, however, had at least some basis in fact. Thus, in issuing the order, Ewing was motivated in part by a desire to satisfy the clamor for revenge in Kansas. In addition there can be little question that he was also concerned about his political prospects. Many Kansans criticized his conduct of affairs along the border and declared that he should be removed from command. Senator Lane warned him that unless he took harsh measures against the guerrillas, he would be a “dead dog” politically.[14]

However, these were not the sole motives, nor even necessarily the main ones, behind the issuance of Order No. 11. Other important considerations were Ewing's desire to reassure the badly frightened people of Kansas, and to forestall a threatened mob invasion of Western Missouri. Shortly after the Lawrence Massacre, Senator Lane called on the men of Kansas to assemble on the border for the purpose of marching into Missouri and carrying out a campaign of “devastation and extermination.” Had it not been for Order No. 11 this invasion probably would have taken place; as it was, even after issuing the order Ewing had a great deal of difficulty heading off Lane's proposed expedition.[15] Thus it can be argued that however drastic Order No. 11 was, it helped prevent much worse.

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Batesville, AR - Batesville residents got a good view of Civil War action on May 4, 1862, when Confederate and Union troops shot across White River at each other.

"Some Confederate soldiers showed up across (south of) the river and shot over into town, and the Union soldiers dragged a cannon down to the river and shot at them.

"The whole town came down to watch," Civil War researcher Hail Bryant told members of the Batesville Civil War Round Table recently.

"It was like a circus," fellow researcher and author Freeman Mobley agreed.

Mobley said no one actually knows which side fired first, but the Rebels were digging fortifications along the river's south bank when the Union leaders decided to fire the cannon at them.

"But they (the Confederates) must have fired some," Mobley said, "because one Union soldier got hit."

Union Gen. Samuel Curtis' troops occupied Batesville at the time, having arrived the day before, and they wanted to discourage the Confederates from digging in, he said.

"One Union soldier was wounded, and they saw some Confederates being carried off," Mobley said.

No one knows how many times the cannon was fired.

"It's the nearest thing to a battle in Batesville," Mobley said. "Unless you count when (Union Gen. R.R.) Livingston came in a second time on Christmas Day, 1863, with 1,500 soldiers. They surprised a group of Confederate soldiers having a party."

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By Brenda Mishmash

In the days of the Civil War, bushwhackers and guerillas were abundant throughout this area. Most were from our bordering state of Missouri.

Their purpose was to support the Confederacy and to destroy Union sympathizers and soldiers. Many conflicts occurred, as you can imagine. These men would terrorize or kill innocent people.

Although the entire area was at risk, the Lincoln Township sector, which included Cato, played a major role. Here is the "bloody ground" where the retribution was made to twenty murderous bushwhackers.

A strange thing happened there. Twenty men were ordered to dig their own graves — that was the fate of these night warriors that roamed the brush. This is how it happened.

Captain John Rogers of Company K, Sixth Kansas cavalry, operated a store at Cato when the war started. He was mustered out on March 7, 1862 and enlisted again as first lieutenant. He was home on furlough in June 1864, when he was marked for death by the guerillas who roamed the boarder. The bushwhackers attacked the Rogers home on the night of June 21. The home was a half mile north of the Cato of today. He ran from the house but was shot and killed.

Shortly thereafter, Lieutenant L.H. Howard — known as "Hatchet" Howard — was at the home of his parents several miles east of Cato. The bushwhackers went after him too. He had fled from the house to a group of trees nearby. Unfortunately, he was overtaken and killed by the bush fighters. Captain Rogers‘ body was taken to Fort Scott and is buried in the National cemetery. Howard was buried near the old homestead.

Simon Dunbar, another soldier of that section, was sought by the guerillas but he escaped. Pleasant M. Smith, also at home from the war, fled to Bone Creek and hid. When the guerillas left, Smith and Dunbar made their way to Fort Scott and reported on the raid. Captain Bain, with 100 cavalrymen, went to find the guerillas with Smith, accompanying them. The troops rounded up 21 bushwhackers.

They were assembled at Round Grove on Cox's creek. The grove, a landmark of the early days, is half a mile south and a half a mile west of the Taylor homestead north of Croweburg. It was on the Taylor farm. The guerillas were given shovels and told to dig 21 graves. Smith was interested in one of the bushwhackers since he was unlike the others, just a young boy, who said his name was Billy Brown. He told him he had been forced to join the band of guerillas. Smith made a plea to Bain to spare the boy‘s life. He offered to take the boy so the captain granted his request.

The twenty other guerillas stood in the graves they had dug and faced the rifles of the soldiers and met their end. Billy Brown served through the war on the Union side, came back to Fort Scott, and mustered out, a wreck from his wounds, and went home to Missouri. This story was told by Pleasant M. Smith of Pittsburg. There was no official report made of the execution of the soldiers. Prior to that time, the story had not been printed.

My grandfather, Lee Shields, had mentioned that his grandfather, William Cannon Anderson, had told him stories of such events that happened in Bourbon county as well. Mr. Anderson was a member of the Kansas Cavalry as well, stationed at Fort Scott.

In the Crawford County Cemetery book, written by William Cuthbertson in 1974, there are many notations of unknown and possible Civil War graves in the county. These range from Indian graves to Confederate soldiers and most of them were unmarked at that time. Originally, they were upraised mounds marked by large stones if any. In this book, there are 13 pages of descriptions of possible unknown graves in Crawford County. The next time you are out walking in a rural area, watch out for a mound or any sign of a grave. Whose grave will you be stepping on?

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In a country that prizes military service as greatly as the United States, soldiers coming home from war often receive a hero's return. But for many black soldiers returning from the Civil War, the reception was less than warm.

Bird Washington, a former slave who settled in St. Charles following his Civil War service, was not given a hero's welcome, and was unjustly denied the soldier's pension he earned.

Now, St. Charles County Historical Society Archivist Bill Popp is seeking to have Washington recognized as the hero he was.Washington fought in Company D of the 62nd Regiment of the United States Colored Troops. After a bout of frostbite severely injured his feet, Washington spent much of his post-Civil War years battling his ailments. The injury went on to affect his legs and hips, which prohibited a full day's work.

Washington's story had gone mostly unrecognized until Popp stumbled across the soldier's name in a book published by the Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War. He won the book as a door prize from with the St. Charles County Genealogy Society. It was then that his interest was piqued.

"The movie 'Glory' had opened my mind to black soldiers that had fought for the Union," Popp said. "I was looking for St. Charles soldiers and found this black soldier."

Washington's story, Popp said, likely is similar to that of other black soldiers who were wrongly denied pensions after their service.

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