T. J. Stiles

by Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War

  12. Thomas Riley Shouse, “My Father and Jesse James,” vol. 17, coll. 995, no. 464, 1939, WHMC. Thomas Shouse’s account is based on the writings of his father, John W. Shouse, who was a Confederate soldier and a neighbor and friend of Jesse James. Jesse reportedly claimed that this event occurred in the southern portion of Ray County, near the Carroll County line, which meant it must have taken place on the afternoon of August 13, according to reports on Anderson’s movements; see Settle, 27, and O.R. 1: XLI, part 1: 249–51. Jim Cummins later claimed that he helped carry him away from “Highsinger’s house”; Cummins, Jim Cummins, the Guerrilla, 49.

  13. Kansas City Star, June 30, 1902. Ridge recalled that he saw Jesse at John Mimms’s inn, across the river from Kansas City; it seems he conflated a later incident at the end of the war with this one (his account includes a few other inaccuracies), since it was highly unlikely that the suffering Jesse would have been shifted all the way across Ray and Clay Counties, with Union forces on the alert.

  14. For Clay County (and the weather) during this period, see Kate Watkins to A. C. Smith, August 16, 1864, Watkins Mill; Charles C. Curtiss Diary, Chicago Historical Society, Chicago, Illinois, entries for August 25 and 26.

  15. O.R. 1: XLI, part 1: 415–17, and part 3: 8; S. S. Eaton to Father, September 26, 1864, Civil War Collection, fold. 386, MHS; quote in Castel and Goodrich, 58–9.

  16. For the location of his wound, see photo insert 2, plate 36. Castel and Goodrich, 153n, and Thomas Fyfer, History of Boone County, Missouri (St. Louis: Western Historical Company, 1882), 462, doubt his presence with the guerrillas in September. An array of sources, however, convincingly place Jesse with them at this time. See especially Frank James’s emphatic insistence in the Columbia Herald, September 24, 1897; Dr. I. M. Ridge in Kansas City Star, June 30, 1902; Thomas Riley Shouse, “My Father and Jesse James,” vol. 17, coll. 995, no.464, 1939, WHMC; Cummins, Jim Cummins, the Guerrilla, 49; Edwards, 297; and W. B. Kemper to Col. Joseph Dann, Acting Provost Marshal General, December 2, 1864, record 13681, Provost-2.

  17. Castel and Goodrich, 59–60, seem to confuse the circumstances of the killing of the tax collectors with those of the six men on September 23; my account follows S. S. Eaton to Father, September 26, 1864, fold. 386, Civil War Collection, MHS. For Anderson’s horse, see testimony of Paris Bass, quoted in Fellman, 71.

  18. Castel and Goodrich, 60; Leslie, 315–17.

  19. Cummins, Jim Cummins, the Guerrilla, 49, states, “He [Jesse] and I, with Arch Clemmens [sic], were in advance of Anderson’s command when we went into Fayette”—a plausible statement from an unreliable source.

  20. O.R. 1: XLI, part 1: 415–17; S. S. Eaton to Father, September 26, 1864, fold. 386, Civil War Collection, MHS; Columbia Herald, September 24, 1897; Castel and Goodrich, 1–5, 60–1; Hemp B. Watts quoted in Leslie, 317–8; Yeatman, 54; John McCorkle, as told to O. S. Barton, Three Years with Quantrell: A True Story (Armstrong, Mo.: Armstrong Herald Print, n. d.), 111–12.

  21. McPherson, Battle Cry, 653, 664, 724, 744, 777. For a discussion of the guerrillas’ numbers, see Fyfer, 440, and Castel and Goodrich, 70.

  22. Robert W. Duffner, “Guerrilla Victory at Centralia, September 27, 1864,” Bulletin of the Missouri Historical Society 29, no. 3 (April 1973): 312–44; Brownlee, 216; Cummins, Jim Cummins, the Guerrilla, 6.

  23. Fyfer, 440–1; Castel and Goodrich, 70. Castel and Goodrich’s account of the ensuing events is very good, though it suffers from an overuse of ellipses.

  24. The quotations given here appear in primary sources. Most cannot be considered literally accurate, but various sources affirm their general tone and content.

  25. Quotes from Fyfer, 441–4. The account that follows is based in particular on Castel and Goodrich, 73–86; Fyfer, 445–52; Goodman, 21–8; and the St. Louis Democrat, October 4, 1864.

  26. Fyfer, 446.

  27. Goodman, 22.

  28. Ibid.

  29. Fyfer, 447; Columbia Herald, September 24, 1897.

  30. Fyfer, 447.

  31. Goodman, 23.

  32. St. Louis Missouri Democrat, October 4, 1864.

  33. Fyfer, 449.

  34. St. Louis Missouri Democrat, October 4, 1864.

  35. Fyfer, 449; Goodman, 24. They also wrecked a construction train afterward.

  36. Sister Kate to My Dear Brother, September 25, 1864, Watkins Mill.

  37. Liberty Tribune, September 23, 1864; W. B. Kemper, Assistant Provost Marshal, to Col. Joseph Dann, Acting Provost Marshal General, December 2, 1864, file 13681, Provost-2. Kemper’s conclusions were endorsed by the ubiquitous Edward M. Samuel. Kemper’s assessment was grave indeed, considering Union soldiers’ wariness of secessionist women in general; see Michael Fellman, “Women and Guerrilla Warfare,” in Divided Houses: Gender and the Civil War, ed. Catherine Clinton and Nina Silber (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 147–65.

  38. Goodman, 26–30.

  39. Goodman, 31–2; Castel and Goodrich, 87–90.

  40. Castel and Goodrich, 70–2, 88–9; O.R. 1: XLI, part 1: 432–3. Johnston discussed the situation with leading citizens, who urged him to stay put (Fyfer, 545); Castel and Goodrich argue that the major had little choice but to pursue the guerrillas.

  41. Castel and Goodrich, 90–5; Fyfer, 454–65; see also Goodman, 31–2, McCorkle, 114–5, and Duffner, “Guerrilla Victory,” 131–44. Frank James was most emphatic about Jesse’s presence, Columbia Herald, September 24, 1897.

  42. McPherson, 471–7. They were also commonly called Springfield or Enfield rifles, after their manufacturing sites.

  43. Quote from Columbia Herald, September 24, 1897; Robert L. O’Connell, Of Arms and Men: A History of War, Weapons, and Aggression (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 199–200.

  44. Fyfer, 457–8.

  45. Johnston’s revolver was found with three empty chambers; Fyfer, 460–2; Goodman, 33–4.

  46. McCorkle, 115. Frank James insisted that his brother killed Johnston (Columbia Herald, September 24, 1897), a claim made earlier by John N. Edwards, Noted Guerrillas, 300. As Castel and Goodrich correctly argue, no one could be sure who shot him; but the James brothers clearly believed that Jesse did, indicating at the very least that Jesse was near the center of the line and aimed for Johnston. Fyfer, 461, describes Shepherd as nearly seven feet tall, which helps account for why he got hit (in the head) when the Federals fired high.

  47. Columbia Herald, September 24, 1897; O.R. 1: LXI, part 1: 440–1; Goodman, 33; Castel and Goodrich, 95; Fyfer, 462. In 1882, Frank James would display a belt he “captured” at Centralia, saying “it’s as good yet as the day I got it”; Nashville American, October 9, 1882.

  48. “Sadistic fiends” is from Castel, Quantrill, 192; see Fellman, 213–14; Eugene B. Sledge, With the Old Breed (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), an excellent memoir of the Marines in World War II. Both Fellman and Mark Grimsley argue that the ethnic, religious, and racial similarity of most combatants helped limit the severity of the war in general; see Grimsley, The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy Toward Southern Civilians, 1861–1865 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 224; and Michael Fellman, “At the Nihilist Edge: Reflections on Guerrilla Warfare During the American Civil War,” in On the Road to Total War: The American Civil War and the German Wars of Unification, 1861–1871, ed. Stig Forster and Jorg Nagler (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 519–40. This makes such incidents as Centralia all the more remarkable.

  49. Goodman, 36.

  CHAPTER EIGHT: Exile

  1. Stephen B. Oates, Confederate Cavalry West of the River (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1961), 140–4; Joseph Conan Thompson, “The Great-Little Battle of Pilot Knob,” part 1, MHR 83, no. 2 (January 1989): 139–60; Albert Castel, General Sterling Price and the Civil War in the West (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968), 190–207; O.R. 1: XXXIV, part 2: 1029, and 1: XLI, part 2: 1023–4, 1040–1.

  2. O.R. 1: XLI, part 2: 1040.

  3. Ja
mes M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 756–61, 774, 786–8. It should be noted that Price’s campaign only became possible after Major General Richard Taylor defeated a Union force on the Red River in Louisiana in April; Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., The Civil War in the American West (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991), 191–224.

  4. Josephy, 375.

  5. John N. Edwards, Shelby and His Men: or, The War in the West (Cincinnati: Miami Printing and Publishing, 1867), 11.

  6. Major J. F. Stonestreet, quoted in Rev. George Plattenburg, “John Newman Edwards: Biographical Sketch,” in John N. Edwards: Biography, Memoirs, Reminiscences, and Recollections, ed. Jennie Edwards (Kansas City: Jennie Edwards, 1889), 15, also 9–11; Castel, Price, 205; O.R. 1: XLI, part 1: 718; F. Y. Hedley, “John Newman Edwards,” in Encyclopedia of the History of Missouri, ed. Howard L. Conard (St. Louis: Southern History Company, 1901), 2: 354–6; Dan Saults, “Let Us Discuss a Man: A Study of John Newman Edwards,” Bulletin of the Missouri Historical Society 19, no. 2 (January 1963): 150–60.

  7. Oates, 144; Thompson, 141–3.

  8. Thompson, 147; O.R. 1: XLI, part 2: 967.

  9. Thompson, 148–60.

  10. Joseph Conan Thompson, “The Great-Little Battle of Pilot Knob,” part 2, MHR 83, no. 2 (January 1989): 169–94; Castel, Price, 208–21; O.R. 1: XLI, part 1: 307–9.

  11. Albert Castel, William Clarke Quantrill: His Life and Times (New York: Frederick Fell, 1962), 196.

  12. O.R. 1: XLI, part 1: 415–18; St. Joseph Herald & Tribune, October 14, 1864; Thomas M. Goodman, A Thrilling Record (Des Moines: Mills & Co., 1868), 36–53; John McCorkle, as told to O. S. Barton, Three Years with Quantrell: A True Story (Armstrong, Mo.: Armstrong Herald, n. d.), 116.

  13. Fellman, 111; Castel, Quantrill, 196; Albert Castel and Thomas Goodrich, Bloody Bill Anderson: The Short, Savage Life of a Civil War Guerrilla (Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1998), 113–14.

  14. Edwards, Shelby, 398. This passage does not seem much of a defense, of course, but its acceptance of “murder” underscores Missouri’s bitter divisions.

  15. Castel, Price, 222–8; Edwards, Shelby, 471; O.R. 1: XLI, part 1: 419. See also John N. Edwards and R. I. Laurence to Thomas C. Reynolds, May 17, 1866, typescript copy, Reynolds Collection, MHS.

  16. Oates, 142, 146; O.R. 1: XLI, part 2: 1040; Robert E. Miller, “ ‘One of the Ruling Class’: Thomas Caute Reynolds, Second Confederate Governor of Missouri,” MHR 80, no. 4 (July 1986): 422–48.

  17. O.R. 1: XLI, part4: 354.

  18. O.R. 1: XLI, part 1: 432, 659–62, and part 3: 893; Richard S. Brownlee, Gray Ghosts of the Confederacy: Guerrilla Warfare in the West, 1861–1865 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1958), 225; Castel and Goodrich, 114–22; Richmond Missourian, June 6, 1938.

  19. O.R. 1: XLI, part 1: 423–4; Castel and Goodrich, 120; Brownlee, 225–8.

  20. Diary of Thomas Hankins, excerpted in Richmond Missourian, June 6 and 13, 1938.

  21. S. Harlan to Mother and Father, November 1, 1864, Bond-Fentriss Family Papers, UNC.

  22. Brownlee, 227–8.

  23. Ibid.; diary of Thomas Hankins, Richmond Missourian, June 20, 1938.

  24. O.R. 1: XLI, part 1: 52–5; Kansas City Star, August 13, 1913; Castel and Goodrich, 124.

  25. O.R. 1: XLI, Part 1: 442; Yeatman, 57–8; diary of Thomas Hankins, Richmond Missourian, June 20 and 27, 1938.

  26. Castel and Goodrich, 125–30; Kansas City Star, August 13, 1913; Brownlee, 227–30; Yeatman, 57–8.

  27. Oates, 148–52; Castel, Price, 229–49; McPherson, 787–8.

  28. Edward E. Leslie, The Devil Knows How to Ride: The True Story of William Clarke Quantrill and His Confederate Raiders (New York: Da Capo Press, 1998), 334; Castel, Quantrill, 197–8; Robert W. Frizzell, “ ‘Killed by Rebels’: A Civil War Massacre and its Aftermath,” MHR 71, no. 4 (July 1977): 369–95.

  29. S. Harlan to Mother and Father, November 1, 1864, Bond-Fentriss Family Papers, UNC; Fellman, 28–9, cites this same letter, but mistakenly places these events in Chariton County. See also History of Clay, 254, 256; and E. M. Samuel to Col. Jos. Dann, Jr., Acting Provost Marshal General, November 29, 1864, record 1209, and E. M. Samuel to Col. Joseph Dann, Jr., December 10, 1864, Provost-1.

  30. It is generally believed that the brothers parted ways after both met Quantrill in December, an idea contradicted somewhat by Faucett’s account; Statement of Ralph Faucett, January 20, 1865, file 21428, Provost-2; McCorkle, 128–35; Leslie, 341–4; Castel, Quantrill, 201–7; Yeatman, 59–61.

  31. W. B. Kemper, Assistant Provost Marshal, to Col. Joseph Dann, Acting Provost Marshal General, December 2, 1864, E. M. Samuel and James M. Jones to Col. Jos. Dann, Jr., December 2, 1864, File 13681, J. W. Barnes to Brig. Genl. C. B. Fisk, January 9, 1865, and General Order No. 9, file 14504, Provost-2.

  32. Liberty Tribune, February 5, 1865; Settle, 30; Yeatman, 63.

  33. William Lamb, “The Defense of Fort Fisher,” in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, ed. Clarence Clough Buel and Robert Underwood Johnson (New York: Century Co., 1887), 4: 642–54; McPherson, 820. The most comprehensive work on the battle for Fort Fisher is Rod Gragg, Confederate Goliath: The Battle of Fort Fisher (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991). Unfortunately, Gragg unquestioningly accepts the criticisms of Colonel Newton Curtis, Ames’s subordinate and personal rival, who was knocked unconscious an hour into the battle yet claimed credit for crafting the final victory. See also Adelbert Ames, “The Capture of Fort Fisher,” in Civil War Papers (Boston: The Commandery, 1890), and O.R. 1: XLVI, part I: 393–425.

  34. Letter dated February 9, 1865, quoted in Blanche Ames Ames, Adelbert Ames, 1835–1933: General, Senator, Governor (London: MacDonald, 1964), 68–88, 201.

  35. Stephen W. Sears, To the Gates of Richmond: The Peninsula Campaign (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992), 325; John J. Pullen, The Twentieth Maine: A Volunteer Regiment in the Civil War (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1957), 3–4, 18–9, 37–8, 131, 170; Chronicles from the Nineteenth Century: Family Letters of Blanche Butler and Adelbert Ames, comp. Blanche Butler Ames (Clinton, Mass.: n. p., 1957), 1: 10–20; Harry W. Pfanz, Gettysburg: Culp’s Hill and Cemetery Hill (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), 248–9, 252–62, 268–75; Charles P. Hamblen, Connecticut Yankees at Gettysburg (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1993), 18; A. Wilson Greene, “From Chancellorsville to Cemetery Hill: O. O. Howard and Eleventh Corps Leadership,” in The First Day at Gettysburg: Essays on Confederate and Union Leadership, ed. Gary W. Gallagher (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1992), 77–81; Allan Nevins, ed., A Diary of Battle: The Personal Journals of Colonel Charles S. Wainwright, 1861–1865 (New York: Da Capo, 1998), 242; New York. Herald, February 6, 1897. The assault on Fort Wagner was memorialized in the movie Glory.

  36. Merlin E. Sumner, ed., The Diary of Cyrus B. Comstock (Dayton, Ohio: Morningside, 1987), 303; Adelbert Ames, “The Capture of Fort Fisher,” 283; quote in Ames, 191–2; Lamb, 650.

  37. Sumner, 304; O.R., 1: XLIV, part 2: 410–11, 414–15.

  38. Ames Ames, 200; George Rawick, ed., The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1979), 11: 379–82; Becky Carlson, “ ‘Manumitted and Forever Set Free’: The Children of Charles Lee Younger and Elizabeth, a Woman of Color,” MHR 96, no. 1 (October 2001): 16–31. It should be noted that emancipation had just been declared in Missouri; see chap. 9.

  39. McPherson, 810–5, 825–30, 844–9.

  40. Andrew Rolle, The Lost Cause: The Confederate Exodus to Mexico (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1965), 15–20.

  PART THREE: DEFIANCE

  CHAPTER NINE: A Year of Bitterness

  1. James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 852–3.

  2. S. P. Harlan to Brother, April 12, 1865, Bond-Fentriss Family Papers, UNC.

  3. Sarah P. Harlan to Sister, April 19, 1865, Bo
nd-Fentriss Family Papers, UNC.

  4. O.R. 1: XLVIII, part 2: 215.

  5. O.R. 1: XLVIII, part 2: 323–5.

  6. John N. Edwards, Noted Guerrillas, or the Warfare of the Border (St. Louis: H. W. Brand & Co., 1879), 332; Albert Castel and Thomas Goodrich, Bloody Bill Anderson: The Short, Savage Life of a Civil War Guerrilla (Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1998), 133; Albert Castel, William Clarke Quantrill: His Life and Times (New York: Frederick Fell, 1962), 217; Yeatman, 72–3.

  7. St. Louis Globe-Democrat, August 24, 1876.

  8. Kansas City Daily Journal of Commerce, May 12, 1865; O.R. 1: XLVIII, part 2: 410–1; Castel, Quantrill, 217; Yeatman, 74; Kansas City Daily Journal of Commerce, May 13, 1865; Nathan H. Parker, Missouri as it is in 1867 (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1867), 63.

  9. Kansas City Daily Journal of Commerce, May 10–12, 1865; O.R. 1: XLVIII, part 2: 323–5; Castel and Goodrich, 133–4; Yeatman, 73–4; Edwards, 332–3.

  10. O.R. 1: XLVIII, part 2: 323–5, 404–5, 410–1, 420–2.

  11. The military offered full amnesty, but this did not extend to any civil charges that might be filed. Edwards, 333, describes an intense debate in the guerrilla camp; though his narrative is often questionable, this particular claim rings true.

  12. O.R. 1: XLVIII, part 2: 420–2, 470.

  13. Thomas Riley Shouse, “My Father and Jesse James,” manuscript dated 1939, vol. 17, coll. 995, no. 464, WHMC; St. Louis Republican, April 27, 1882; Yeatman, 75–6; Settle, 30. Yeatman, 76, presents evidence that the man who shot Jesse James was Private John J. Jones, a twenty-one-year-old Welsh immigrant in Company I.

  14. The bullet was found in Jesse James’s remains when his body was exhumed, July to September 1995; see Yeatman, 371–6; Kearney Courier, special edition (n.d.); quote from Shouse manuscript.

  15. John N. Edwards, “A Terrible Quintet,” special supplement to the St. Louis Dispatch, November 23, 1873, vol. 34, coll. 1424, Walter B. Stevens Scrapbook, WHMC; St. Louis Republican, April 27, 1882; Yeatman, 77.