The following relates to the civil war experiences of Elisha Franklin Oldham, born September 28, 1846 in Cape Girardeau County, Missouri, as remembered by Truman Elisha Gladish, his grandson, and Dallas Roy Gladish, his great-grandson, Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and was told them personally by Elisha Franklin Oldham in his lifetime.
Frank Oldham, at about age 18, was hired by the John Fullenwider family who lived west of Jackson, Missouri, to stay at their farm and care for their livestock when they went to Illinois as they were southern sympathizers. Frank hid the livestock and guns in the woods and stayed at the Fullenwider home. The Union soldiers would stop at the farm and would get Frank out of bed at night questioning him about the horses and guns.
In September, 1864, Major General Sterling Price’s Army came thru Cape County recruiting volunteers for his raid through Missouri. Price’s Army was made up of three divisions: Fagan’s Division, commanded by Maj. Gen. James F. Fagan, Marmaduke’s Division, commanded by Maj. Gen. John S. Marmaduke and Brig. Gen. John B. Clark, Jr., to which the 8th Missouri Cavalry, Col. William L. Jeffers, was attached, and Shelby’s Division, commanded by Brig. Gen. Joseph O. Shelby. Frank Oldham volunteered as a private assigned to the 8th Missouri Volunteer Cavalry, led by Col. William L. Jeffers, of Maj. Gen. John S. Marmadukes Division. Frank enlisted at Fredericktown, Missouri in September, 1864, taking with him his horse, saddle, and gun.
Frank took part in the battle at Pilot Knob in Iron County, Missouri, on September 27, 1864, where the Confederates were greatly outnumbered by the Union Army. It is reported in several published accounts that more than 1,000 officers and men died in this battle which lasted only a few hours. Frank recalled that he saw the captain of his company, White Craig, killed during the battle at Pilot Knob; said his head was shot off leaving only a patch of his red hair. The crumbling, tree-grown circular dirt walls of Fort Davidson still stand in the little valley beneath Pilot Knob and Shepard’s mountains. In the center of the earthwork, the hole where the magazine was exploded may still be seen. The lost graves of hundreds of Missouri’s Confederate and Union soldiers are said to lie about the fort.
During the battle of Lexington, Missouri, Frank Oldhams unit was firing into the ice house which the Union soldiers were using as a fort. Frank was lying behind a rail fence, firing into the ice house, when a bullet hit the fence driving a splinter into the back of his neck causing it to bleed; Frank thought he had been hit. The Confederates took over the ice house after the Union soldiers vacated it, and took the supply of saddles, clothing and other equipment left inside the ice house by the Union soldiers.
Frank recalled that he was scouting with Jake Deck (granfather of Harold Deck) when the Union soldiers from the block house started pursuing them. They shot a Union soldier who fell from his horse, and the horse continued running toward Frank and Jake. They captured the horse and took it along with them.
Price’s Army then proceeded northwest toward Kansas retreating into the Indian Nation where they burned large prairies behind them to allow them to slow down the pursuing Union soldiers.
Frank recalled the following incident that happened in the Indian Nation: “The command to which I was attached had been hard pursued by the Union soldiers, and we had been on the retreat for several days, we were running short of food, but did not have time to get provisions. When we got into the Indian Nation, the Union soldiers quit the pursuit. By that time our command ran out of food. It now came a time when every man must shift for himself. We were 27 days without bread or salt. Five of us started out one morning to find something to eat. We had not gone far when we came upon a man and a horse. His horse was in poor flesh and exhausted. He stepped off about five paces and shot the horse, then went on. We were so hungry that we skinned out some steak from the horse, cooked it on forked sticks and ate it without bread or salt and thought it good.”
Carrying their wounded along with them, the Confederates proceeded south toward the New Orleans area where they set up a hospital unit. Frank had a “two-wheeled cart and a sleigh.” He went into the Louisiana swamps and hunted food for his unit. They joined the Western Army on an expedition on the Red River in Louisiana or Texas. At the end of the war, General Price and his officers fled into Mexico.
Frank Oldham’s unit boarded a steamboat at Shreveport to come home to Missouri. The steamboat was loaded with Confederate soldiers and Union guards. When the boat passed the towns along the Mississippi River, the soldiers would all rush to that side of the boat. The guards would have to run some of them to the other side of the boat in order to balance it.
Frank said he had a “small black horse” at the end of the war which he was very fond of and wanted to keep, but was told he could not. When they unloaded after their trip up the river at Cairo, Illinois, Frank said a Union officer had his little black horse and offered to sell it to him.
After unloading at Cairo, they walked to Thebes, Illinois, where they took off the little clothing they had left and put it on logs which they pushed across the river. Back on the Missouri side, they walked to Cape Girardeau and a group of them went into a clothing store where each man put on an outfit of clothing and walked out without paying. The store clerk did not stop them. They then walked from Cape Girardeau toward Jackson, stopping at the Wedeking house (a large white house near the present Wedeking Park on Highway 25) where the family fed the returning soldiers from large iron kettles of food cooked out in the front yard.
Frank Oldham described the gun he used during the Civil War as a type that “shot a ball as big as your thumb” (five hundred to six hundred grain bullet), and that “it could hit a blue-coat as far as you could see him” (a range of about 1600 yards). The bore was hexagon (six-sided) and had a “peep site” (similar to a telescopic sight). He carried this gun until they surrendered somewhere in Texas near the Red River at which time he broke the gun against a mill dam and threw it in the mill pond to keep from surrendering the gun to the Federals. Research by Dallas Gladish proved that this type of gun fit the exact description of an English made Whitworth sniper’s rifle with the above specifications. Dallas found no evidence that the Confederacy imported this type rifle or any other Whitworth rifle. He believes Frank Oldham probably captured this rifle from the Union Army from Iowa sometime during the battle at Pilot Knob or Lexington. Frank treasured this rifle and stated that many soldiers tried to buy or trade it from him. He had carved his name “Oldham” on the rifle stock. Dallas Gladish states that a representative of this gun is displayed in the Museum at the Battlement in Richmond, Virginia.
A copy of Frank Oldham’s service record from the National Archives in Washington, D. C. states: “Elisha F. Oldum, Pvt. appears on a Roll of Prisoners of War of Co. F, 8 Regiment Mo. Vol. Cav., C.S.A., commanded by Lt. William F. Jenkins, surrendered at New Orleans, Louisiana, by Gen. E. K. Smith, C.S.A. to Maj. Gen. E.R.S. Canby, U.S.A., May 26, 1865, and paroled at Shreveport, Louisiana, June 7, 1865.”
Major General Sterling “Pap” Price served as Missouri’s eleventh Governor from 1853 to 1857. He died September 29, 1867 in St. Louis, Mo.
Major General John Sappington Marmaduke, born March 14, 1833 in Saline County, Missouri, became the twnety-fifth Governor of Missouri from 1885-1887. His father was Missouri’s eighth Governor, Meredith Miles Marmaduke in 1844. John S. Marmaduke was captured October 25, 1864 at Marais des Cygnes River in Western Missouri. He was a prisoner at Fort Warren, Massachusetts until the summer of 1865. He died December 28, 1887. This information was obtained from the 1963-64 Official Manual of Missouri.
Elisha Franklin Oldham died January 25, 1936 at the age of 90.
Lois Gladish Farmer
Kennett, Missouri
February 1971
The following appears in the news clipping relating the death of Elisha Franklin Oldham 25 January 1936: “In a letter to L. E. Jenkins of Vandergrift, Pa., written Jan. 17, 1928, a copy of which the family has, Mr. Oldham recalled his army service. He wrote: “I am the only one left as far as I know, in the country in Co. F under Col. Jeffries. I was a lad of 18 years, making my home at John Fulenwider’s, when Gen. Price made his last raid in Jackson in ‘64, visiting his home, pulling me out of bed, thinking I was one of the older boys. I went with them to Kansas City, down Arkansas, through the Indian Nation, through Texas and disbanded at Shrevesport, La. Had a fight at Pilot Knob, one at Glasgow; stampeded us at Big Prairie, where they captured Bill Jeffries; took him to Alton. Had skirmishes every day and night.”
Addendum:
Elisha Franklin Oldham was one of three Confederate veterans in attendance at the dedication of the Confederate memorial in November of 1931 on Morgan Oak Street in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. My mother, Lois (L.) Gladish Farmer, was one of 2 little girls (great grand daughters of Confederate Veterans in attendance) who assisted Marjorie Ann Bierschwal, in unveiling the monument.
Mark E. Farmer
10/21/95