The Missouri in the Civil War Message Board

Re: OR Help
In Response To: OR Help ()

Neil,

Let me tackle these one at a time, as time allows. The "O.R." may not be enough to give you what you need about where the southern dead were buried for the SCV to render proper honors. I will fill in with whatever source I have that may get you close enough to commemorate dead southerners in an appropriate form.

Let's start with the Roanoke fight of 6 September 1862.

The Union side was Captain Joseph W. Baird and 40 troopers of Company D, Merrill's Horse (2nd MO Cavalry) accompanied and guided by Captain James L. Morgan and some of his men of Company E, 46th EMM who happened upon 14 Rebel recruits from the Macon County area on their way south to join Confederate forces. No southern commander was identified. The fight took place at what sources call the Fristoe Farm four miles northwest of Armstrong not far from Roanoke in north Howard County. Baird's and Morgan's horsemen came upon the southerners' camp and attacked, after one source said Captain Baird refused the southerners' offer to surrender. In the cavalry attack all but two of the campers scattered into the brush. The two fought back mortally wounding Captain Baird, but the Union troops captured the pair. Baird's men gunned down and mortally wounded one of the prisoners, a George Teeters, and would have killed the second unidentified man, but Captain Morgan interceded and saved the man's life. Morgan also prevented Baird's angry troopers from killing two other Rebels who had gone to get water from a well and returned to camp to find themselves made prisoners. The Yankees took Baird to the Fristoe house where he died of his wound.

The "O.R." series 1, vol. 13, p. 266 just summarized this action, and left out all the controversial parts. It says the Union patrol "killed 4, wounding several, capturing 3 prisoners, horses, arms, and etc." Regarding the four Rebel dead, it is possible that the patrol chased the southerners and killed three others, or that Colonel Merrill's report of this patrol simply raised the body count. We will probably never know for sure.

I checked the 1860 census which revealed to me that no Teeter or Teeters family seemed to live in Macon County during 1860, but there were some in Randolph County, several in Boone County, Chariton County, and others in more distant counties. The census also indicated two Fristoe households in northwest Howard County, the Augustus Fristoe household on page 499 of Chariton Township and the Thomas Fristoe household on page 503 of the same township.

Other sources for this action include:
--"Capt. Baird Killed," "Missouri Statesman," Columbia, Boone County, 12 Sept. 1862;
--articles in the "Daily Missouri Republican" of St. Louis from 15 September 1862 and the "Liberty Weekly Union" Clay County of 19 September 1862;
--Lay, "Civil War Incidents in Howard County," paper or pamphlet by Boonslick Historical Society, page 26;
--Hale and Eakins "Branded As Rebels" 1993 p. 425 (also about George Teeters and quoting the Boonslick Historical Society);
--Dyer, "A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion" vol. 2, p. 804, (giving only bare facts taken from Union army records).

--I also mentioned this fight in my 2004 "Guerrilla Warfare in Civil War Missouri, vol. I, 1862" on page 187, citing most of these same sources, but I did not go into this much detail.

That's all I have on this one. I intend to write about the other actions on another time in this forum.
Bruce Nichols

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