The Missouri in the Civil War Message Board

Re: Actions relating to Price's Retreat

Brenda,

By the time Confederate General Sterling Price's force got to Lawrence County, it was broken up into parts, trying to get back south of the Arkansas River in Arkansas ahead of the pursuing Union cavalry units. Most of the larger pieces of Price's force crossed the Missouri State line into Arkansas by 30 October and 1 November, leaving smaller groups of isolated southern horsemen making their way south as best as they could, according to my reading. Therefore, it is entirely believable that your ancestor was captured by northern forces in Lawrence County on 30 October 1864.
You mentioned that John William Guthrie was a conscript. That meant that he was living somewhere along the route that Price's army went, in order that they would compel him to come along. For any Confederate captured by Union forces, it was very important that the prisoner had to state his status as a legal combatant, so as not to be named a guerrilla or bushwhacker, which would probably result in his execution. If your Guthrie had no status in any of the conventional or regular southern commands that made up Price's force, he could be in serious trouble, so many men captured under questionable circumstances claimed they were forced to join Price's army as it passed near them. This was true even for southern sympathizers who voluntarily joined Price's forces, because they had nothing with them to prove they were legal combatants, you see.

There was a John W. Guthrey who was a 2nd corporal in Colonel Robertson's Regiment mostly from Saline County that was captured nearly entirely (1,500 men) on 19 December 1861, sent to St. Louis to a makeshift prison, and processed and exchanged for Union prisoners, mostly during 1862. Therefore, that Guthrey had a record as a Rebel combatant back in 1861, showing that he may have a strong desire in October 1864 to join Price's army as it passed through Saline County. That Guthrey attended a reunion of Confederate veterans in Marshall, county seat of Saline County, in 1886, so we know he wasn't executed as a guerrilla. Maybe that is your ancestor. I don't have a record on this man being captured in Lawrence County in 1864, but the records of such things are incomplete.

I drew a blank on Armstrong's Company, but, then perhaps there was no Armstrong's Company, if you get my drift. The Union military would have little reason to research to see if there really was a company led by a company grade officer named Armstrong.

Does that help?
Bruce Nichols

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Actions relating to Price's Retreat
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Re: Actions relating to Price's Retreat