EXPERIENCES DURING THE CIVIL WAR
This brought us up to the Civil War which stopped everything from the country town up, no schools of any kind. For two or three years I attended a few months more but not more than five or six weeks at any time until I acted a fool at 20 and married to get out of my troubles.
Well, there is no use to grieve over spilled milk but, oh, my regrets, my regrets that I did not have the opportunity of today. But, alas, they are forever gone.
Well, we will now pass to the second episode, In 1861 the great Civil War broke out, distressing beyond description. The historians have attempted to record the fact and indeed have in the mean. But they have not told all the facts. Allow me to say that all or nearly all the school histories are greatly biased, possibly it was best. I think Evcans is the best unbiased I know.
Early in 1861 a number of the states seceded and formed the Southern Confederacy, war was declared and volunteers called for. Very soon great numbers had enlisted and courts, law and order abandoned. No mails or any kind of government service was rendered. Blockades were soon established by the Federals to cut off supplies from the south and did. In May in the north part of the county two white men named Henderson Fletcher and Purseful entered into a conspiracy with a number of negroes to rise up on a certain night and kill and rob a number of well-to-do citizens. They were to start at F. M. Mock's (Lafayette's father) and were to be led by Purseful and Fletcher to the north where they would receive protection.
I cannot begin to name all the negroes that were in the conspiracy but will name a few. Several of Judge Martin's negroes, but not Rube, his blacksmith, a negro that I very much liked, John Boblinger, Rube Jarrett, Bird Mock, Aunt Louisa Mock's negro, was to make the start at F. M. Mock's by first killing Uncle General, as we called him, then kill the family and rob the house of all that could be found and Uncle General was supposed to have lots of money. Bird Mock was to have General's big gray horse as his part of the spoils. Then they were to start on their murderous job. Just who all they were to kill and rob I do not now remember. Hen Fletcher was a distant relative of F. M. Mock, who also kept him up, as Hen was as worthless and trifling as they ever get. The time was drawing very near when they were to make the raid. Fletcher always drank all he could get so he got drunk and I suppose his conscience hurt him, if such men have any conscience, so being drunk he hung around Mr. Mock hinting that he knew something awful was going to happen right away. So Mr. Mock finally got Fletcher to disclose to him the plot under promise of protection. The alarm was given secretly that night and by morning all the men all over the country had gathered together with such firearms as they could get, organized and divided up into squads and started out to arrest the conspirators. They gathered all they had any evidence against and corralled them on Judge Martin's farm about ¼ mile north of his house on the Pocahontas and Doniphan road. There they struck camp and whipped negroes for about a week. They would take a negro out to one side, buckle him over a log and take their time about laying the lash on and them tell him if he would divulge all he knew they would let him up and generally they would do so, but some were stubborn. They kept this up for days until the white people were satisfied they had gotten all the information. But a number of the negroes were whipped almost to death and for many days were in bed, not able to be up. In the absence of law or courts the committee tried the leaders, Purseful, Fletcher and the negro, Bird Mock, and condemned them to be hanged within a few days. They released all the others and kept guard over the three to be hanged. It was agreed that Hen Fletcher was to go with F. M. Mock to a neighbor's house to spend the night and Fletcher was to return with Mr. Mock the next day. But next morning Fletcher was gone and nobody was surprised and nobody critized Mr. Mock. Couldn't do it. It was Fletcher's confession that averted the terrible calamity. But it sure put a quietus on negro uprisings for the balance of the war.
Everybody went to the hanging of Purseful and Bird. The slave holders had all their slaves to witness the execution. Purseful was sick and they let him lay on some kind of bed in an ox wagon and Bird was chained to a wheel and lay under the wagon like a dog. I was well acquainted with him. I would sit near and watch him as he would wall up his big white eyes at us boys but not a word did I hear him utter. Then there was some dissatisfaction aroused among the people about the trial so the men assembled in a group and divided the lines for hanging and against hanging and almost all voted to hang. What else could they do in the absence of any kind of court or law? Then they proceeded to put old Bird in the wagon and drove them under a pole put up by means of forks like a pole to hang hogs on, and drove the wagon out from under them dragging their feet over the wheels and bed and their spirits swept off into eternity. There was some criticism because of the fact that Bird was hanged and was the only slave that Aunt Louisa Mock a widow had while all the men who had slaves in the trouble were allowed to keep them.
Sherman said "War is Hell" but its more than that. Hell is only intended for the vicious and wicked but in war the good and innocent have to suffer the same as the wicked. The war swept on until only the old men, women and children were left. Great destitution existed. The armies of both sides were continually coming and going and soon stripped the people of the scanty supplies they had. Although I was here and saw with my own eyes, I can't adequately describe it.
My father remained home the first year of the war or part of it and we made a splendid crop, filled our barns with corn, oats, fodder, etc. In the spring of 1862 the Federal armies invaded Arkansas and one division camped at McElrath's mill, now Phipp's mill. At about ten o'clock I was plowing along the lane and looked up and saw six or eight blue coats coming down the lane. Although I had never seen any Yanks before, I knew what it meant. They went on down to the house so I tied up my horse and went down to see what was going on. They had ordered mother and my sisters to get dinner for them. They hardly started until I could see blue coats coming from every direction, infantry, cavalry through the fields, tearing the fences down whenever they came to them, through the woods from all quarters. They kept my mother and sisters cooking nearly all day until everything was exhausted then they began to carry off everything they could get their hands on, hams, lard, a barrel of N. O. molasses in their canteens, clothing, chickens, ducks and started in on our sheaf oats and fodder of which we had a large old log house full. They would use their halter reins and such loads as they would carry off was surprising. By this time some of them had gotten back to camp and I suppose had reported their findings. We had a large log crib full of shucked corn. About 2 p. m. those big 4 and 6 mule teams and large government wagons began coming down the lane, threw the fence down everywhere and began driving in beside the crib which was covered as described in chapter one, with clapboards and weight poles. It took only a few seconds for a few soldiers to throw the poles and boards and before night practically every bushel was gone. In addition a scout came across our horses and took the best one. They burned the McElrath mill, a splendid new structure and went on to Little Rock, taking everything as they went. Distress was upon us. Nearly everything gone, not a dollar to buy anything and nothing to buy if we had had all the money you could have hauled in one of those big government wagons. I can't begin to picture to you, dear reader, the terrible privations the old men, women and children had to undergo. If you had had all the money there was you could not have bought a barrel of coffee, sugar, groceries, shoes, not an article of wearing apparel, a scrap of iron, not an axe, hoe, plow or any kind of manufactured goods if your life depended on it.
The distress grew worse for the lack of food and the extreme cold weather in 1864. Stock nearly all died. Jan. 1, 1864 I think yet was the coldest day I have ever seen. We lost all our stock except the oxen and two or three cows which we gave a little better attention as a matter of necessity. It kept me busy dragging off dead carcasses.
My father was wounded at the battle of Prairie Grove in Dec. 1862 and was sent home in May '63 on furlough until he got able for duty and in August was captured by a band of Federals at Siloam church with many others and carried to Iron Mountain where all the prisoners were released except my father. It being very hot weather when he was taken prisoner on Aug. 21, he had on besides his pants etc., a linen duster and a domestic (muslin) shirt. When they arrived at Iron Mountain after several days of travel,
his shirt needed laundering. He sent it to the laundry and on the 26th it turned very cold, not only frosted but killed all vegetation up there and there was a heavy frost here. As above stated all the other prisoners were released and my father was sent on to St. Louis shirtless, using his duster as a shirt in that cold weather. It frosted every month that year except July. Matt Robb, who lived on Little Black river in Ripley county, Mo., generously gave him a shirt and they were ever after inseparable friends ...
FATHER WAS A PRISONER OF WAR
Father, being an officer, was sent off to Camp Chaise, Ohio, and held a prisoner' of war until the surrender and returned home May 31, 1865. During the time, nearly 2 years, we scarcely ever heard from him and then in no direct way as mail did not pass at all. Awful is war, especially when it is among our own people. We had despaired of ever seeing him, but, oh, such joy when we saw him coming home.
My father was in the Greenville, Mo., Surprise battle. Tim Reeves and his men and many private citizens under command of Col. Reeves and Col. Ponder made a raid up in Missouri. After they had traveled all night up in the Black river mountains they arrived on the scene just as the bugle sounded. A charge was ordered and Leeper's Command was taken by such surprise that they fled in all directions like stampeded cattle, leaving everything behind. So Reeves made quite a haul in horses, guns, blankets, clothing, etc. They made a hasty retreat for a day and night until they got back within their own lines. Later in the war, Col. Leeper played the same trick on Col. Reeves. Reeves had
been up in Missouri on a raiding trip and had retreated across the line to safety, as he thought, after having ridden day and night traveling a road about 4 miles northeast of Warm Springs near Uncle Tom Pulliam's they left the road and went over a high hill and down in the next hollow where they struck camp, To their surprise, Col. Leeper's men were in hot chase and just at daybreak they crept up to the top of the hill, raised the yell and charged down on Reeves, men, killing and wounding quite a number of them, two of the Phelps brothers of Walnut Ridge, John and Fount, as I remember and I knew all of them at that time. A number of others were killed and wounded that I do not remember. They utilized Uncle Tom's house as a hospital until the wounded could be moved. I lived for several years within a mile of this battle ground hollow as it has ever since been called. It was not uncommon for these raiding parties to take innocent parties out and shoot them for no offense at all but such was our great and cruel war.
Jayhawkers and marauders were the terror of this country that I will not try to describe. Col. Leeper on the northern side and Col. Reeves on the southern played the balls, first one and then the other, and what one did not get the other did. Although Col.
Reeves was a preacher and a distant relative of my mother. Oh, that I could never think of this awful war.
The only way we could get salt was to go to Cape Girardeau or Iron Mountain and only those who could prove their loyalty could get it. We had to go before the provost marshal and prove to him that we were loyal and he would give us a permit for two
bushels, 100 pounds to the family. I went for Uncle J. F. Johnston and got 2 bushels as he was at home on parole from the evacuation of Vicksburg, Miss. My mother was with me and got her allowance by telling him the truth, that my father was a prisoner of war. Four others were with us and it took us two weeks to make the trip with two yoke of oxen to one wagon as he had to take feed and provisions for the entire trip as we could not buy anything. Many people dug up the earth in their smoke houses, and put it in a board hopper, run water through it and dripped, the salty water through it like they dripped lye from ashes to make soap, then boiled the salty water down which concentrated the brine and made a hard cake of dark, dirty salt. But it would "keep meat alright. Salt would sell readily for a dollar a pound, confederate money, which was then about like the German marks at present. We' would wonder if we ever again would have stores where we could buy the necessities of life.
The war over, the distress continued. Property nearly all gone, soldiers returning, crippled and worn out, many, many missing never heard of because of the absence of the mails. Many, many homes and farms burned up, slaves all gone. In those deplorable conditions we started life over again to build a new south and we did a job of which we are justly proud.