I'm having a problem with that Macon County history account of the hanging of a Confederate officer. I read it myself on page 865 of the National Historical Company's 1884 history of Randolph and Macon Counties. You recited correctly what it said, but I have problems with the account itself.

There is no date given for the hanging ("in the fall of 1864), and it says "the name of the Confederate officer is not recollected."

The source given is "From the True Democrat" which I infer is to be understood as "From the 'True Democrat'" as citing a newspaper source called the "True Democrat." I looked in the State Historical Society's list of MO newspapers, and I cannot find that one. This is not to say it doesn't exist, just that I can't find it. Just the name itself tends to tell me this newspaper was named during the "Lost Cause" movement as it appeared in Missouri during about the late 1870's and early 1880's just before the county history was put together and published in 1884. Can anybody find a newspaper called "The True Democrat"?

Regarding hanging of a Confederate Officer, this was rare, even in Missouri. The Federals WERE going to execute a Confederate major, allegedly selected at random among all Confederate POW's held in St. Louis in revenge for the field execution of Union Major James Wilson by Confederate Colonel Tim Reeves in Franklin County on 3 October 1864 during Price's great raid after the bodies of Wilson and the six privates were discovered about 25 October 1864. Sadly, the Federals did randomly select and execute six Confederate POW's for the six Union POW's Reeves had shot (their graves are in a vertical line at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery), but calmer heads prevailed and the selected Confederate major was spared. However, the execution was to have been in St. Louis, certainly not the Union district headquarters at Macon City. There would have been no reason NOT to hold that execution in St. Louis where the department headquarters was located, since that execution would have been under the auspices of the Union Major General commanding the Dept. of the Missouri.

Now about Macon City. If I recall my reading correctly, General Fisk's district headquarters during fall 1864 were I think in St. Joseph, and he moved it to Macon City during the winter of 1864-1865, since after the defeat of Price's great raid in late October 1864 and a few other events things cooled off in NW MO but remained heated in NE MO. Both NW and NE MO were in Fisk's District of North Missouri. General Fisk publicly executed guerrillas convicted by military tribunal at Macon City a number of times in the winter of 64-65 through about April 1865, and he stopped it when talks of Confederate surrenders began getting serious in April 1865. A number of these executions were held publicly beginning about January or February 1865 to try to discourage bushwhackers. Before that, many of the Federal executions were held behind closed doors and press was not always invited. I read about a number of those Macon City executions in early 1865, and I would recall if they killed a Confederate officer. I would think that would stick in my mind, but my wife might say otherwise.

With the exception I mentioned above, Confederate officers were rarely executed by the Federals, and only for gross acts of inhumanity or some such. They were kept in prison in the St. Louis area unless transferred to others of the Federal military prisons around the country. Executing an officer that late in the war invited a like response from the other side. Both sides played games like binding certain prisoners or cutting their food rations in response to a real or imagined like treatment by the other side. It got ugly, but not to the point of executing one of them, except in the case I mentioned above.

I also have problems with a Major McKay being the provost marshal. The department's PM general was Colonel J. P. Sanderson until he died of stress and exhaustion. His temporary replacement as PM gen. was Joseph Darr, Jr. I cannot offhand recall from reading who BG Clinton B. Fisk's PM was, but it wasn't a guy named McKay. I looked in the O.R. volumes for Missouri about the fall of 1864 on Fisk's list in the index and no such name is given.

Yeah, I have problems with that article in the 1884 Macon County history. I think it is bogus, and it even bothers my why somebody would put it in the county history.

Well, I hope that helps.

Bruce Nichols