Who Shot Callaway Manes? The End

"He that spilleth man's blood, by man shall his blood be spilt."(1)

Many people have asked what Callaway preached in his final sermon that so angered the Chitwood gang.   His text was Matthew 10:28.  "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." (12)  They had warned him to stop preaching or they would kill him. When he failed to heed their warning, they carried out their threat.

Callaway sold some cattle and kept his appointment to preach at the school house in Waynesville on Saturday, August 6, then returned home. Dr. James Titterington, who lived near Hazelgreen in neighboring Laclede County, rode to the Manes home, called Callaway to the fence, and warned him that he was in immediate danger of assassination and begged him to leave the country until the war was ended.(1)

Callaway's house was built with an inside door leading to the cellar and when the bushwhackers came, his family tried to get him to hide in it, but he said if his work was finished that he was ready to go home to his Lord.(1)

Two accounts of the murder follow:

On August 7th "some men rode up in the lane about forty yards from the house, stopped there, and five men came through the gate on to the house. One man knocked at the East door of the house. Pa was already in bed. He had taken some cattle to market at Waynesville, then filled his appointment to preach there. When he got home he took the gold he got from the cattle and buried it in a stone jar. When he heard the men, Pa got up and opened the door. Pa said, 'Come in, gentlemen.' One man asked, "Is this Callaway Manes?" When Pa said, 'I am,' the man pulled his pistol and shot him in the chest. Pa fell back against the stairs and Polly screamed. Pa whispered, 'Hush, hush, hush.' The same party that did the shooting called for a light and Polly got the candle. He made her hold a light so he could shoot Pa through the ear."(1)

"So, on the night of the following day, an unknown number of Chitwood’s Company G – some say 12, and some say 20 or more – rode to the Manes home and aroused him from his bed. As he approached the door he said, “Come in, gentlemen. To which the reply was a question, “Are you Callaway Manes?” He answered, “I am.” A shot followed. Stepping back to the bed, the stricken man let himself gently to the floor. Hush Hush Hush A light was made and one of his daughters was compelled to hold it over her father while the assassin shot him again through the head, although he was already dead. "(1)

Local family members passed down a tale of murder by bushwhackers; descendants on the East Coast told a story of execution by Union militia. Perhaps a descendant of the Chitwood family and a veteran Civil War researcher has the missing piece.  He believes that the Chitwoods led a squad of men that dressed up as bushwhackers to execute enemies during the Civil War.  Union military records detail the Chitwoods' use of disguises.

Samuel Jasper Manes

Two people were identified by Samuel Jasper Manes (Jap) as being involved: Josh Chitwood and a man named Thornton.  Jap didn't say whether any of the Chitwoods were at the house when Callaway was shot, but described the men as "a number of Chitwood's Company G."

"The man that did the shooting, his name was Thornton."  Archival research focused on men with a surname of Thornton, serving with Union forces in this area.

Four men named Thornton were members of the 1861 Osage Regiment Home Guards.  Three of those men were in Hickory County.  Only Milton Thornton served in a local unit, with Company E from Miller County.(3)

Two men with a surname of Thornton were members of the 8th MSM Cavalry - Thomas L. Thornton and Milton O. Thornton.  Thomas L. Thornton, who had been with the Hickory County Battalion, enlisted in the 8th MSM Cavalry in Captain Cassairt's Company I in Benton County.(3) He married in 1869 and lived in Benton County until his death on Christmas Day, 1875.

Milton Thornton enlisted in Captain Richard Chitwood's Company G of the 8th MSM Cavalry in October 1862.  He served with this unit until November 11, 1864, when he was transferred to Captain Burch's Company M in Springfield.(3)

Research also focused on the deaths of these individuals because Samuel Jasper Manes wrote an account of the death of Thornton. "Just about the close of the war, there was a family moving through the country and camped near the Tavern Creek about three miles from the Callaway Manes' place, and this same man, Thornton, ran onto the mover in the night while in his wagon, asleep, with his family. Robbery, I suppose. was Thornton's motive, and the mover shot him dead, hooked up and moved on and never was molested. The Bible says 'He that spilleth man's blood, by man shall his blood be spilt.'"(1)

One has to wonder how Jap knew what happened if "the mover hooked up moved on and never was molested."

Milton Thornton lived in northwestern Pulaski County near the Miller County line.(4)  His property was near a tributary of Tavern Creek.  He was murdered in Pulaski County on May 4, 1866.  The family history reported that Milton Thornton was hung or shot by ex-Confederate soldiers.  His five year old son, Steven A. Douglas Thornton was with him, and Milton convinced the murderers to let his son go home so he wouldn't have to watch his father die.(5)  All accounts I've found of these events contain the word "murderers" or "soldiers" indicating more than one person was present.

The focus on Milton Thornton developed because he served with the Chitwoods, lived in the area, and was murdered at the close of the war.  None of these facts prove that he shot Callaway Manes. Those men present that night who knew the murderer could correct me or concur, but they are long gone.

Callaway's son, Harrison Elliott Manes "earned the title of 'the Manes Family Avenger."  Rumors abounded at all the general stores and other usual meeting places of the near countryside.  Harrison's every movement was the subject of quiet speculation.  Rumor held that he followed and killed members of the Chitwood gang who so cruelly murdered his father.  The "lone-wolf" of the Callaway Manes family rarely divulged his aims or aspirations to anyone.  He died in Sherman, Texas at the age of forty- five.(1)

"The people at the house the night of the murder tried to hide their identities, but some of the men were close neighbors. One of the men at Grandfather Callaway's when he was murdered was Bourdoin Remington, a boy of an Ohio family.  He was a brother to Mrs. Hood who kept the hotel at Richland for many years."  Elisha B. Remington (Ely Bourdoin) was a Private in Captain Chitwood's Company G 8th MSM. (3)

A son of Callaway Manes, Christopher Columbus Manes, encountered Bourdoin "on a day sometime after the end of the war.  Uncle C.C. 'Lum' Manes came upon Bourdoin Remington in a store in Richland and, without saying a word, drew his revolver and fired. Remington had sensed the danger, already, however, and was running out the back door. The shot missed, narrowly. Uncle Jasper heard the shot and ran into the store and stopped further trouble, but Remington left the country and never returned."(1)  Bourdoin Remington moved to northeastern Missouri.(6) 

"Three or four parties that participated in the murder, as it began to leak out, has left the country for fear of the relatives and friends of the deceased, and I think they used good judgment in leaving."(1)   Richard Chitwood was in Kansas in 1866.(7)  He died near Boise, Idaho.(8)  Joshua and William Chitwood moved to Colorado and both are buried there.(8)(9)

Reuben Newton Maness

This story began in Moore County, North Carolina, so it seems fitting to end there.  The day after Callaway's murder, his relative, Reuben Newton Maness, from Moore County, North Carolina, was shot.   Reverend Maness, a chaplain in the Confederate Army, was shot through the neck by a Yankee sniper's bullet on August 8, 1864, while he was conducting services during the siege of Petersburg, Virginia.(10)

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Sources: 

(1)  Manuscript of family history and letters written by Samuel Jasper Manes and Jesse Gustin.  These pages are contained in the collection edited by E.V. Brezeale.  The collection is available on microfilm at the Springfield, Missouri Public Library or the microfilm may be requested at any LDS Family History Center.

(2) "Coon Thornton in the Newspapers" 
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~jrbakerjr/quantrill/thornton/coonthornton.htm

(3) Missouri State Archives online soldiers' database at  http://s1.sos.mo.gov/records/archives/archivesdb/soldiers/  

(4) General Land Office Records, Bureau of Land Managemenrt, U.S. Dept. of the Interior.  Online database of Early Land Patents at http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/details/patent/default.aspx?accession=MO2080__.322&docClass=STA&sid=vhwa15ak.c40

(5) History of the Thornton, Ash, Floyd, Luttrell Families. by Marcine Lohman.  Marcine is a veteran researcher of several area families.  This book can be reviewed at the Miller County Museum Reference Section in Tuscumbia, Missouri.  Several parts of her research are also available online. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~celticlady/thornton/Thornton_Family_History_of_Schuyler_Co_IL.pdf

(6) 1870 Missouri Census

(7) Kansas State Census Collection, 1855-1925

(8) Findagrave is an online database of burials.  http://www.findagrave.com/

(9) 1885 Colorado State Census, 

(10) U.S., Civil War Pension Files, 1861-1934

 (11) "The Wallace Family of Moore County, North Carolina."  http://moorecountywallaces.com/getperson.php?personID=I07236&tree=Wallace

(12) Memoirs of Herman Manes, property of Marcia Turner  

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***For my family members, there are as many of our ancestors on one side of this story - in the local Union regiments and companies - as there are on the other - in the Missouri State Guard and southern sympathizers.

***A month after Callaway Manes' murder, Wilson Tilley was also murdered in Pulaski County.  There are several similarities to Callaway's murder.
1) Some say Tilley was murdered by bushwhackers and others say by Federal militia.
2) Tilley and his son had a history of conflict with local Union authorities.
3) He had sold cattle that day.
4)He was purported to have buried gold.  Unlike the search for Callaway's gold, Tilley's gold was actually found during the construction of Fort Leonard Wood.

On September 5, 1864, Francis Marion Manes was appointed as a Union officer at Rolla, where Captain Chitwood's Company G was stationed.  Son and nephew of wealthy local pioneers, Francis Marion Manes had served in the Missouri State Guard, paid a Commutation Tax and worked as a teamster to avoid service in Union forces.  Five days later Wilson Tilley was murdered.

Who Shot Callaway Manes? Part 8

Ghost Soldier

In brief: The formation of the 48th Volunteer Infantry at Waynesville and the Order 107 militia at Linn Creek.  
Time period July to August, 1864.

"Finally, the people, to escape the raids and persecutions of the Chitwoods and their associates, called a meeting at Waynesville on Sunday, July 31, 1864, to organize a company of the 48th Missouri Volunteer Infantry."(2)   The Commanding Officer at Waynesville was so impressed by the response that he wrote to the Adjutant General in St. Louis. "The Citizens of Pulaski County are entitled to great credit for the promptness with which they have responded to the call of the Government for troops, and I would respectfully suggest that their action be made the subject of an order giving them praise for their promptness and willingness manifested to secure their country in time of need."(3) 

Family stories contend that Callaway Manes enlisted in the 48th Missouri Infantry and this photograph is purported to be Callaway Manes after being elected First Lieutenant at Waynesville.  No records exist in the Missouri state archives of his enlistment or appointment as an officer.  He was well beyond the age required to serve.  I believe this photograph is of a younger man, Francis Marion Manes, Callaway's nephew.  He was appointed Corporal of Company C of the 48th on September 5, 1864, a month after Callaway's murder.

Military service cards substantiate that many men enlisted in Company A of the 48th Regiment on July 31, 1864, at Waynesville, and were mustered into service on August 3.(4)   A report issued on August 3rd stated that 87 men were mustered in at Waynesville to Company A by Lt. Collins.

The men named in service records as officers for Company A all were noted as enlisted at Rolla. The service card for the Captain of Company A, William Wilson, was altered, changing both the date and place of enlistment.

Captain William Wilson's card

Missouri State Archives Soldiers Database

     

The First Lieutenant was Daniel E. Davis, a neighbor of Callaway's, and the grandson of William Gillespie, whom Callaway had worked with when he first came to Pulaski County.

Two weeks after Callaway's murder, a second company enlisted at Waynesville on August 20, including Seth's sons, Francis Marion and Jacob Newton Manes.

General Order 107 created yet another type of organization.  Commonly referred to as “Order 107 Militia” the organization was intended “to provide for local defense against bands of bushwhackers and other disturbers of the public peace, and for the maintenance of law and order more effectually than could be done by calling out the Enrolled Militia, as well as to engage all good citizens in the work.”(1) Residents of the individual counties were required to hold meetings to choose and organize one or two companies of “about 100 men each, selected for courage, energy, and willingness to serve for the protection of your respective counties.”

Unlike the MSM, EMM and PEMM, the companies that were formed under Order 107 were independent companies as opposed to being one company in a larger regiment.  An Order 107 militia company was organized in Camden County.  Joshua Chitwood enlisted and was appointed First Lieutenant in Captain Bollinger's Company on Monday, August 1, 1864.(4) 

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Sources:

(1) THE DISORDERS IN MISSOURI.; An Order from Gen. Rosecrans. [General Orders No. 107.] PEOPLE OF MISSOURI. New York Times. Published: July 3, 1864
http://www.nytimes.com/1864/07/03/news/disorders-missouri-order-gen-rosecrans-general-orders-no-107-people-missouri.html

(2) Manuscript of family history and letters written by Samuel Jasper Manes and Jesse Gustin.  These pages are contained in the collection edited by E.V. Brezeale.  The collection is available on microfilm at the Springfield, Missouri Public Library or the microfilm may be requested at any LDS Family History Center.

(3) Letter from Major Kaiser, Commanding Post at Waynesville, to Brig. Genl. J. B. Gray, Adjutant General, State of Missouri.  August 24, 1864.  Records of the 48th Volunteer Infantry, Company A at the Missouri State Archives.  Copies may be requested by mail, but it's difficult to determine which records have the desired information without going to Jefferson City and searching the folders.

(4)  Missouri State Archives online soldiers' database at http://s1.sos.mo.gov/records/archives/archivesdb/soldiers/  

Who Shot Callaway Manes? Part 7

Ready to Die

In brief:  An encounter between the Manes brothers and the Chitwood gang.  The targeting of preachers by Union forces.  A dire warning for Callaway to stop preaching.  This section ends with the family's plea to heed the warning.  
Time period 1862 - 1864.

Another encounter heightened the tension between the Manes family and the Chitwoods. "During the Civil War Grandfather Callaway and Great Uncle Seth and Uncle Ben Clark went to Linn Creek at about wheat harvest time. On the way they passed near to the place of Major Thomas O'Halloran, where the Chitwood gang hung out. They were intercepted by some of the soldiers, bushwhackers, or militia, or whatever they were, and ordered to get out of the wagon and cut O'Halloran's wheat."(1)

"Grandfather said, 'Gentlemen, I am as ready to die as I ever expect to be. I propose that, when I do die, it shall be as a free man and not as a slave. I will cut no wheat and I will resist to the limit of my power any effort to force me to do anything against my will.' At this, he and Uncle Seth seized their guns which were in the wagon and, standing back to back in the wagon, Uncle Seth said, 'Now men, we don't want to die, but we will not cut your wheat while we are alive and we can't cut it when we are dead, so you can make nothing by killing us. You can kill us, but we will get some of you while you are at it, so do your worst.''"(1)

"Uncle Ben got out of the wagon,  got down on his knees and begged the Manes brothers to go with him to the wheat field, but they refused and continued to defy the crowd against them until they finally agreed that they might go. They refused to go without Clark and ordered him to get in the wagon. He drove off, while Grandfather and Uncle Seth faced the rear with their weapons in their hands."(1)

During this time Federal forces were systematically warning preachers out of the pulpit. The majority of Missouri churches were either Methodist Episcopal South or Southern Baptist, both organized in 1845.  An account from the Friendship Baptist Church founded by Callaway Manes relates that "One day during the war while they were at church, when services were over and they went outside, there was a man waiting who had ridden a little bay mare.  He got on a stump and demanded their attention and forbid them holding services any more."(2) 

"Federal military authorities in Missouri arrested, fined, imprisoned, or banished over sixty clergymen on general charges of disloyalty to the United States."(7)  The state legislature required ministers to take loyalty oaths to be able to conduct lawful marriages. A  St. Louis minister who baptized a baby named Sterling Price Robbins found himself embroiled in a conflict that eventually reached all the way to President Lincoln.  After months of conflict the minister chose the path of many other Missourians - he left the state.

Preachers that refused to leave or stop preaching were sometimes killed by Federal forces.  In 2012 the Methodist Church worked to place markers at unmarked graves of Missouri preachers killed during the Civil War.  "Reverend Green Woods was the Presiding Elder for the Salem area and had been warned not to preach because he belonged to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. In spite of the warning, he preached at a rural Methodist church in Dent County. The next day soldiers came to his farm where he was out in a field planting corn. The soldiers took him away. His body was found that evening with his tongue cut out and his hand cut off."(4)  

In a report to Headquarters from the 13th Cavalry MSM stationed at nearby Rolla, Major Tompkins wrote, "I arrested a minister and congregation at the place where the Reverend Wood, who was shot by Kansas Fifth, was to have preached, and preached first to the minister and then to the congregation. A more attentive audience never listened to man. I told them that they had to prove by acts that they loved our Government and we would protect them and their property. I drew more tears than the minister. Left my men (eighty) at Crows Station to bring in all who have made threats about Reverend Woods death."(5)

"Ordinary Missourians went to church to seek solace and hope.  As one church member said, 'We have the war all the week, and want the gospel on Sunday.' "(6)

Image from The Night Riders by Henry C. Wood.  Project Gutenberg ebook. June 21, 2011 [EBook #36487]

In the weeks leading up to his murder, Callaway Manes was ordered to stop preaching. After preaching next to his last sermon in Waynesville, a bunch of switches was laid at the door with a note saying that if he preached there again, they would kill him.(2)  The bundle of switches, an omen of a slicking, was a last dire warning used during this era. If the warning went unheeded,  the subject was drug out in the middle of the night and beaten with the switches until the entire bundle was exhausted.(3)  The first slicking took place in Camden County in 1832.(8)  The popularity of slickings spread from punishments administered to cheaters to become a method of intimidation.  

Callaway's wife and children begged him not to keep his next appointment.(2)

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Sources:

(1) Manuscript of family history and letters written by Samuel Jasper Manes and Jesse Gustin.  These pages are contained in the collection edited by E.V. Brezeale.  The collection is available on microfilm at the Springfield, Missouri Public Library or the microfilm may be requested at any LDS Family History Center.

(2) "Where there is no vision, the people perish" by Oma Hensley Willits.  Printed by Missouri Baptist Press in 1970.  The book is available through the Family History LIbrary in Salt Lake City, Utah, and the William Jewell College Library in Liberty, Missouri.

(3) "Bald Knobbers:  The Ozark Vigilantes"  by Gerry Darnell.  Bittersweet Summer 1979.  Issues are available online at http://thelibrary.org/lochist/periodicals/bittersweet/toc.htm.

(4) "Marker Dedicated to Methodist Minister Killed in the Civl War:" Salem, Missouri News Online. May 15, 2012.  http://www.thesalemnewsonline.com/news/local_news/article_a85ec98c-9ea3-11e1-8eeb-0019bb30f31a.html

(5)  The War Of the Rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies. United States. War Dept., John Sheldon Moody, Calvin Duvall Cowles, Frederick Caryton Ainsworth, Robert N. Scott, Henry Martyn Lazelle, George Breckenridge Davis, Leslie J. Perry, Joseph William Kirkle. Published by the Government Printing Office in Washington, 1894. These records are available online at http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/m/moa/,

(6) The Homefront in Civil War Missouri by James W. Erwin.  Copyright 2014.  The History Press.  

(7)  Missouri Historical Review Volume 106, No. 1 p. 14.

(8)  Beyond the Sabbath:  Missouri and Her Violent Heritage by Dick Steward.  Copyright 2005.  Vintage Publications.

Who Shot Callaway Manes:? Part 6

The Proper Authority

In brief:  Events at the Manes home and the McClurg mercantile.  A description of the duties, and accounts of events, of the Chitwood brothers in the 8th MSM and the 47th EMM.  A confrontation between Callaway Manes and Joshua Chitwood.  This section ends with the formation, and disbanding, of the PEMM units. 
Time period 1861 to 1863.

Soldiers from both sides of the conflict demanded that Missouri women provide sustenance for them. "During the Civil War, a posse of nine armed men rode up to Callaway's place and ordered the women to get their dinners for them. When the dinner was being placed on the table, Callaway returned home from some trip and entered the house by the kitchen door. Sitting in the corner of the room he saw a gun which he recognized as the property of Harrison Elliott, who was his warm friend. He suspected that the gang had killed Elliott. He picked up the rifle and said to the men, 'This looks like Elliott's gun.' One of them answered that Elliott would not need a gun anymore. Callaway then said, 'No man who will rob Elliott, or steal from him, or kill him, can eat at my table. Now, shake the dust of my ground off your feet before I forget the commandment and turn this gun on you.' And he forced them to leave, and when they had passed through the gate, he threw the gun after them."(1)

Conflicts were also affecting the mercantiles that were frequent targets of raiders.  Joseph McClurg, having lost his original partners, was a partner in the store of Torbert and Company at Linn Creek. While commanding the Osage Regiment of Home Guards, he wrote a letter to accompany prisoners he sent to St. Louis in November 1861.  "He has been a notorious robber and plunderer and a rebel captain. He was prominent in having goods taken from Torbert and Co. at this place and hauled off."(2)  

A second case involved Hugh Allison, arrested in January 1862, and charged with participating in a robbery at McClurg's store at Linn Creek.  Three of Hugh's nephews had been taken prisoner after the skirmishes at Monday's Hollow and Linn Creek. Another nephew was a member of the Union's Osage Regiment Home Guards. Hugh claimed innocence and said he was a victim of spite by a member of the Home Guard. He took the Oath of Allegiance and returned to his farm near the Benton/Camden County line.(3)  According to oral family history, "Hugh Allison, his wife, and some of his children were murdered at their farm in August 1863. The murderers tortured the wife and children to get Hugh to tell them where his money was hidden, but he had no money."

In August 1863, Lt. Colonel T. A. Switzler, leader of the Union forces at the Battle of Monday's Hollow, had just taken command of the Union garrison at Warsaw in Benton County.  He wrote a report to Brigadier General Brown that:  "Our soldiery had committed six murders within the last ten or twelve days...There is a feeling of insecurity universally prevailing with the peaceable citizens...all in this place that can get conveyance express an intention of leaving.  There is no discipline whatever exercised over the soldiers here, which, added to the indiscriminate sale of liquor, renders the soldiers fiends rather than soldiers.  The best citizens here have been menaced with death by the soldiers."(9)

Joseph McClurg was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.  He resigned from the military and left for Washington, D.C. in 1863.  Back in Camden County, the mercantile continued to be a target.  G. B. Shubert, QuarterMaster of the 8th MSM Cavalry sent this statement: "I certify that on the night of the 28th February, 1863, the buildings of Torbert and Co. at Linn Creek, Missouri, were fired by an unknown hand, and burned to the ground, that there was stored in said buildings at the time of the fire and burned with them the following quartermaster's stores - one stitching horse, one set saddlers tools."(4) 

"By March of 1863, the mercantile's losses totaled more than $150,000. McClurg's business partner, E. B. Torbert fled to St. Louis with the remaining resources from the mercantile. It would take McClurg years to retire his debts and interest payments; and settle with Torbert's demands for financial compensation over merchandise that McClurg had given in support of the Union."(5)

Captain Richard Chitwood and First Lieutenant William T. Chitwood's Company G 8th MSM was stationed in Camden and nearby Laclede County.  They were tasked with scouting and gathering information, and protecting the telegraph lines, stagecoaches, and the wagon trains of supplies.(6) The supplies came by rail to Rolla, the end of the railroad line, for troops in southwest Missouri, northwest Arkansas, and the Kansas Territory.  "The Ozarks had been devastated, the product of a scorched earth policy pursued by both sides.  Homesteads, crops, and mills, and anything which might be useful to the enemy were routinely laid waste.  The devastation was so complete that there was not enough forage available to feed all the animals used by the military, and it had to be shipped via Rolla."(8) 

                   "Wheeler's Confederate Cavalry Capture a Supply Train"
                                          Illustration by J. T. E. Hillen.
                                                   New York Public Library Print Collection .       
                                  National Park Service Civil War Series:  The Battles for Chattanooga.

Captain Richard Chitwood and Lieutenant William Chitwood also led detachments to capture robbers and gather intelligence about the enemy. Three excerpts from Union reports follow:

"Lt. Chitwood, commanding detachment in pursuit of mail robbers, reports that he came upon the camp of the guerrillas near the headwaters of the Piney, and killed 4 of the party and wounded 1, and secured several of the articles taken from the stage passengers."

"Lieutenant Chitwood learned, by passing himself as a secessionist, that Captain Evans, a bushwhacker, had 5 or 6 men following him and watching his movements. He left a sergeant and 5 men on side of the road, and about 11 o'clock, 27th, 3 men passed along on his trail; they were fired upon, and 1 man killed, which proved to be Lieutenant Roberts, of Captain Evans Company; the other 2 made their escape. The lieutenant says that he learned, from what he considers reliable information, that Colonel Freeman's command, numbering 500 or 600 men, was near Pocahontas at the time; says that he could not obtain any forage of consequence in Oregon County; that his horses were broken down, several of them having to be abandoned; that he believed that after the fight on the 26th that all gangs of rebels in Oregon County made for Freeman's command, and that they would not return without a sufficient force to overpower him, and that he therefore returned; his command reached Gasconade last night."

"Captain Chitwood returned from a scout after robbers of merchandise trains on the Rolla road yesterday. He killed 2 of the robbers and recaptured 86 pounds of coffee and quite a large amount of dry goods and 2 horses."(6)

Union forces conducted a review of the leaders of the companies of the 8th Missouri State Militia.  Captain Chitwood of Company G was labeled "headstrong and careless."  Lieutenant Chitwood of Company G was labeled "very indifferent."  Lieutenant Murphy of Company G was labeled "good." (Source:  Missouri State Archives)

A third brother, Joshua Chitwood, was serving as First Lieutenant of Company G, 47th EMM. When asked about the duties of the 47th EMM by the House Committee investigating management of the militias, two members of the militia stated, "They arrested notoriously disloyal persons of this county, and required them to take the oath of allegiance to the United States Government, and acted as a guard for the welfare of the loyal citizens, and gathered up arms and ammunition when found in disloyal hands."(7)  

These duties led to a confrontation between Joshua Chitwood and Callaway Manes.  "One Josh Chitwood assumed the authority to get up six or eight men and go about the country administering the Oath of Allegiance to such as he wished to impose upon and, in this self-assumed business, he rode up on Callaway Manes plowing, or laying off corn ground in a field with one horse. Calling Callaway to the fence, Chitwood announced his business and asked him to be sworn. Callaway informed him that he was an American born, had not supported the secession movement and would not take the oath unless someone came with the proper authority to administer such an oath."

"Chitwood then said, 'You come go with me,' and crossed the fence and started to arrest Callaway. Callaway, stepping back to his plow, dropped the traces, took the single tree off the plow, and started after Chitwood who beat a hearty retreat and got out of the field barely in time to save his bacon."(1)

As explained by James Manes, Callaway's great-grandson.  "A single-tree is a wooden crossbar that balances between the horse and the plow. The wooden bar has metal hooks through which the traces, the straps which take the pull, are placed."  

"Chitwood and his friends made haste to a place of safety.  That went like wild-fire. The occurrence occasioned much excitement in the community and greatly embarrassed the Chitwoods and their adherents."(1)

The difficulties in managing units of soldiers with conflicting loyalties prompted the Missouri government to disband the EMM's, creating in their place a smaller force, the full-time Provisional Enrolled Missouri Militia. The goal was to select reliable Unionists from the old EMM regiments to form the PEMM units.  At least in Lieutenant Hammer's views this failed.

Lt. Hammer stated "Out of 21 commissioned officers only six were permitted to offer their services as commanders of those Provisional Regiments, one of them refusing to serve in such an organization, whereupon the authorities appointed a returned rebel from Price's army in his place, as Lt and Acting Quartermaster. The officers included three Conservatives, two Radicals, four Rebels, and three Copperheads."  Conservatives supported a return to the pre-war order as much as possible. Radicals demanded emancipation of slaves and punishment of secessionists - Joseph McClurg and the Chitwood brothers were Radical Republicans.  Rebels supported the Confederacy.  Copperheads were committed to restoring the Union with slavery.

The new full-time Provisional Enrolled Missouri Militia (PEMM) regiments were paid by the state, but were outfitted and supplied by the Federal government.  Joshua Chitwood enrolled as First Lieutenant of Company G of the 9th PEMM at Linn Creek in July 1863. The life of these PEMM regiments was short.

"There were two companies detailed from the 47th Regiment for the 9th Provisional Regiment. As for duty they did little of any kind save foraging and subsisting. " While the PEMM regiments were loyal, they were also composed largely of Radical Unionists opposed to Missouri Governor Gamble's Conservative Unionist administration. To prevent the Radical PEMM militia from influencing the November 1863 elections, the governor disbanded most of the PEMM regiments a few months after they were organized.

_________________________________________________________________

Sources:

(1) Manuscript of family history and letters written by Samuel Jasper Manes and Jesse Gustin.  These pages are contained in the collection edited by E.V. Brezeale.  The collection is available on microfilm at the Springfield, Missouri Public Library or the microfilm may be requested at any LDS Family History Center.

(2) Letter on November 12, 1861, from Joseph McClurg to Commander at Arsenal in St. Louis.  Copy can be requested by mail from the Missouri State Archives (on microfilm).

(3) Allison, Hugh. Online database of names from Provost Marshal records. Copies of records available by mail from the Missouri State Archives in Jefferson City, Missouri. http://s1.sos.mo.gov/records/archives/archivesdb/provost/default.aspx

(4) Records of the 8th MSM Company G at the Missouri State Archives.  Copies may be requested by mail, but it's difficult to determine which records have the desired information without going to Jefferson City and searching the folders.

(5) Joseph McClurg.  Dictionary of Missouri Biography edited by Lawrence O. Christensen, William E. Foley, Gary Kremer.  Published by University of Missouri Press 1999.  This book is available at several libraries or can be purchased online as an ebook.

(6) The War Of the Rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies. United States. War Dept., John Sheldon Moody, Calvin Duvall Cowles, Frederick Caryton Ainsworth, Robert N. Scott, Henry Martyn Lazelle, George Breckenridge Davis, Leslie J. Perry, Joseph William Kirkle. Published by the Government Printing Office in Washington, 1894. These records are available online at http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/m/moa/,


(7) "Report of the Committee: Majority and Minority Reports with the Evidence."  Missouri General Assembly House Committee to investigate the conduct and management of the Militia. W.A. Curry, 1864.
This report is available free online at google ebooks.

(8) Pioneer Times. July 1983.  Mid-Missouri Genealogical Society, Inc.  These publications are available at several libraries.

(9) Official Report August 11, 1863. Quoted in Inside War: The Guerilla Conflict in Missouri During the American Civil War by Michael Fellman. Copyright 1989.

Who Shot Callaway Manes? Part 5

 Brutal Awakening

In brief:  The effect of the Civil War on south central Missouri.  The introduction of the Provost Marshal system and Oaths of Allegiance.  The Battles of Wilson's Creek and Monday's Hollow.  Formation of the Missouri State Militia and the Enrolled Missouri Militia. 
Time period 1861 to 1863.

The Civil War disrupted the mercantile trade in Camden County and destroyed Missouri's economy. "Men who had been employed on the river loading and unloading cargos, men who hauled wagon loads over old salt roads to and from markets - all lolled on the streets or visited dram shops. Idle men sat on benches and whittled bass-wood."(1)  Many Missouri men who had leanings toward the southern cause often joined the Union because they knew they would receive their pay vouchers each month.  The Southern army was much poorer and did not always have the monetary means to support their soldiers.(2) 

The federal government developed a system to control Missouri citizens during the Civil War. The state was divided into military districts and civil authority was suspended in favor of military rule or martial law. To oversee the citizens a provost marshal system - the use of military personnel to preserve order - began in 1861. Travel and trade were restricted by military personnel and by civilian boards that regulated which civilians engaged in legal commercial activity. 

Loyalty Oath from 1862

http://genealogy.mohistory.org/images/genealogy/source_images/055_full.jpg

Civilians were required to take Oaths of Allegiance so that lists could be made of those "loyal" and "disloyal."  Oaths were used during the American Revolution for the same purpose.  Cavalry patrols regularly roamed the countryside on self-styled “scouts” looking for disloyalists, saboteurs, and guerrillas.  The oath created an atmosphere of suspicion that encouraged neighbors to spy on and accuse each other of disloyalty. Class resentments certainly drove many such complaints against prominent landowners. As one Missourian of moderate means later sneered, “the cry of ‘disloyal’ could be very easily raised against any man who happened to have a superabundance of property.”(3)  Civilian assessments were charged against citizens in the forms of levies, taxes, and bonds.  Those who refused such levies had their property confiscated.  In one military district alone, provost marshals required 612 persons to post bond in 1862, which ranged from one thousand to ten thousand dollars each. The provost in Palmyra, Missouri, reported taking in as much as $1 million in the same year."(3)

                                           Battle of Wilson's Creek
                              http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Battle_of_Wilsons_Creek.png

The Battle of Wilson's Creek near Springfield, Missouri on August 10, 1861, was the bloodiest battle in the West, with about 2,500 casualties. Two of Seth's sons were with the Missouri State Guard at Wilson's Creek.  Jacob Newton Manes was born August 11, 1843; he celebrated his 18th birthday at Wilson's Creek.(4) After the battle, Francis Marion Manes was in a Missouri State Guard hospital in Springfield with remittent fever.(5)

When word reached Pulaski County, "Callaway and Seth set off for Springfield. While the Manes brothers were in Springfield, the Union Army, commanded by General Franz Siegel, retreated from Springfield to Rolla, which was the end of the rail line at that time. The Union Army retreated right by the Manes homesteads and camped overnight on what was afterwards called the "Old Union Road." That night the soldiers burned all the rails in the fence on one side of the farm for firewood. A flock of sheep and all of the hogs and chickens were butchered for the army. General Siegel paid for the animals with script, but the Manes family was never able to collect any money for their stock."(4)  The beaten Federal army encumbered by a train of Government wagons and refugees was estimated at seven miles long.(6)  The men in the Osage Regiment Home Guard units joined the Union Army as it fell back to Jefferson City and remained in that area guarding and scouting up and down the railroad until October.

Francis Marion Manes was furloughed on September 12, 1861.(5)    Returning home brought little peace. A month later a skirmish was fought nearby in Camden County between Union forces and the Missouri State Guard. The Union soldiers prevailed in the Battle of Monday's Hollow.  An undetermined number of Missouri State Guard soldiers from Camden and surrounding counties were killed. Two days later the Union forces captured the town of Linn Creek. 

Many Missouri State Guard soldiers were taken prisoner.  On October 15, 1861, Colonel Wyman, Union officer, reported that he had several prisoners: "In closing this report I beg to say that I am much embarrassed with the prisoners I have now in keeping (88), all or nearly all of whom are guilty of high treason, and unless I soon receive orders from you I shall send then to Rolla with sufficient escort, with orders to Colonel Dodge to put them at work upon the fortifications there or send them to Saint Louis."(7) 

                                                         Rolla, Missouri in 1862
                         Property of the National Park Service.  Civil War Series:  Battle of Pea Ridge.             h                                   http://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/civil_war_series/19/sec2.htm

James Laughlin was believed to be one of the casualties.  His brother Henry Laughlin, brother-in-law of the Chitwood's, was taken prisoner.   Henry was involved in a federal prisoner exchange in November, then served with the Confederate Army in Arkansas.(8)  In December the remaining prisoners were transferred by rail car from Rolla to St. Louis.

Major Clark Wright wrote to his wife after arriving in St. Louis with the prisoners.: "I brought down 58 of those Fellows that I captured at Wet Glaze & Linn creek, we had a Fancy time with them. they were disperate creatures, and had an arrangement to make a stampede when we arrived at St Louis. I had but 25 Sentinals and arrived here at 8 oclock, and verry dark, and they supposed they could make good their escape Some of them at least but the Poor D__ls did not know who they Had to deal with. before arriving at the Depot, I ordered the sentinals, & Prisnors all locked up in the car. Ordered another line of Sentinals around the outside the car, while I took a carriage, and repaired to the military Prison, & brought up 27 Braces of Steel wristlets with a line chain. after getting the Jewelry properly adjusted, we marched the gentlemen out in pairs to the tune of the Rogues March, and deposited them for Safe Keeping in the Hands of the Military."(7) 

Some of the prisoners took the Oath of Allegiance in early 1862, posted bonds, and returned home in time to plant crops.(9)  They had survived brutal conditions in overcrowded prisons, and their families had struggled through a fall and winter without their labor and support. 

Union men of the Osage Regiment Home Guards were mustered out - discharged from service - in December.  The provisional government in Missouri had little money to pay and arm troops. In 1862 Union forces in Missouri "formed a new full-time state militia equipped and financed by the federal government, but under the control of Missouri's provisional governor. The new Missouri State Militia (MSM) would not serve outside the state except when necessary to directly defend it. The MSM was primarily a mounted force.  Cavalry were necessary to pursue and confront fast moving mounted guerrillas, Confederate recruiters, and raiders."(10)

By order of Colonel McClurg, commander of the 8th Missouri State Militia Cavalry, Company G marched from Jefferson City to Linn Creek to establish a recruiting station there. Richard Chitwood was commissioned as Captain of the Eighth MSM Cavalry Company G with his brother William as FIrst Lieutenant.  Colonel McClurg's brothers-in-law, Dubert E. Murphy and William B. Murphy, were Second Lieutenant and Sergeant of Company G.  One of Harrison Elliott's sons was a Corporal and two others were Privates.(11)  The Regiments of the MSM were equipped with a variety of weapons, some with muzzle-loading rifles. The men of the 8th Regiment were better armed; they carried Savage revolvers, as well as some Colts Army revolvers.(12) 

                              http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Colt-arme-1860-p1030159.jpg

Union forces needed more troops. On July 22 General Schofield issued General Order 19 requiring every able-bodied man in Missouri to report to the nearest military post to become a member of the Enrolled Missouri Militia (EMM). "Over 18 and under 46 had to enroll in six days from the date of the order."

                                       Property of  Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield

The next day, Colonel McClurg issued Special Order 26 transferring Captain Richard Chitwood from his assignment in Maries County back to Linn Creek. In response to General Order 19, the 47th Regiment Enrolled Missouri Militia (EMM) was organized at Linn Creek. The men serving in the 8th MSM were working full-time for the Army.  The men enrolled in the 47th EMM were "on call" as needed in their local counties.

The purpose of the EMM was to provide protection in local counties. "These units were untrained and lacked even the lax discipline of the MSM.  A distressing number of men took advantage of their newfound military authority to harass, or even rob or kill, neighbors against whom they bore grudges or whom they suspected or knew to be Southern sympathizers."(18)  

The 47th Regiment's Adjutant, Louis Chalfant, worked for Joseph McClurg as a steamboat engineer.  The Lt. Colonel was Thomas O'Halloran, an Irish immigrant who worked as a meat cutter in St. Louis, then came to Camden County to work for Joseph McClurg. The Manes folk "always hated old man O'Halloran with a hatred that was akin to poison, and he was always afraid of the Manes men."(4)  Joshua Chitwood served as First Lieutenant of the 47th EMM Company G.(11)

The commanders of the Missouri State Guard merged with Confederate troops in Arkansas. The men were forced to choose between leaving Missouri to join the Confederate Army or returning to their homes.  Jacob Newton Manes was furloughed from the Missouri State Guard at 19.(4)  

General Order 24, issued in August 1862, required all disloyal men and those who had sympathized with the rebellion to report to the nearest military post or enrolling station, be enrolled, surrender their arms and return to their homes where they would be permitted to remain as long as they attended to their ordinary business and in no way gave aid or comfort to the enemy.(13)  Neutrality was no longer an option.

The mixed loyalties of the men in the EMM units led to conflicts.  In response to an investigation of militia management by the Missouri House of Representatives, Simon Hammer, Lieutenant of Company C, gave the following report about the 47th EMM:  "One company was filled with rebels and rebel sympathizers, they at first having refused to serve but finding they had no promise of protection from the Federal authorities, afterwards organized into a company.  Of the remaining eight companies, about three-fourths were strictly loyal."(14)  Units suspected of Southern sympathies were nicknamed Paw Paws.(15)

J. D. Hurst, Captain of Company A reported: "There were seven companies of EMM raised in Camden County. They scouted Camden and Miller and Dallas counties and captured a good many rebels and a considerable quantity of property. At the time we were organized we were ordered to subsist off of rebels. The five companies that were loyal selected loyal men for their officers. The other two companies, G and F, elected some loyal and some disloyal. Company F was made mostly of men who had first joined the enemy. This regiment did no service than to remain at home, and keep order and peace. The 47th Regiment was called into active service on April 27th and kept in for thirty days, and there was but little corn raised in this county."(14)  Many of the men that had been imprisoned in St. Louis over the past winter were enrolled in Company F.

Callaway's older sons, Albert and Sylvester, died before the war began. Seth's son, Francis Marion Manes, paid $300 in Commutation Tax in 1862, exempting him from service in Company G of the 47th EMM. "Each person liable to perform military service shall be exempt from service during each year on the annual payment of a commutation tax equal to ten (soon modified to thirty) dollars each, and one percent of the assessed value of his property."  He was listed as "rebel" on the Muster Roll.  The following year he was listed exempt as a teamster employed by the government.  Callaway's younger son, William, served 100+ days in Company G, then the Muster Roll in 1863 listed him as absent without leave.(16)

Disarmed citizens quickly reported concerns.  In July 1863, residents of Camden County met to form the Wet Glaize Union Patrol Guards because "stealing, robbing, and other crimes and misdemeanors are enacted in our midst with impunity."  A detailed set of rules and regulations for the new organization was sent to General Brown.  The letter requested that General Brown "order the Colonel at Linn Creek to give us our shotguns and rifles again."(17)
_________________________________________________________________

Sources:

(1) "A Place to Remember" Camden County History by Lucille Keller Harpham.  Self-published in the 1980's.  This book is available at several libraries.

(2) "Miller County in the Civil War" by Peggy Smith Hake.  The article is available online at http://www.millercountymuseum.org/civilwar/cw_04.html.

(3) "Shadow War:  Federal Military Authority and Loyalty Oaths in Civil War Missouri" by Christopher Phillips at the University of Cincinnati.  The complete essay is available online at http://www.civilwaronthewesternborder.org/essay/shadow-war-federal-military-authority-and-loyalty-oaths-civil-war-missouri.

(4) Manuscript of family history and letters written by Samuel Jasper Manes and Jesse Gustin.  These pages are contained in the collection edited by E.V. Brezeale.  The collection is available on microfilm at the Springfield, Missouri Public Library or the microfilm may be requested at any LDS Family History Center.

(5) Missouri State Guard Hospital Registers July 5 - December 25, 1861.  Civil War Collection at the Missouri History Museum.  Online database of names.  Pages from hospital registers can be requested online or by mail.

(6) Pioneer Times. July 1983.  Mid-Missouri Genealogical Society, Inc.  These publications are available at several libraries.

(7) The War Of the Rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies. United States. War Dept., John Sheldon Moody, Calvin Duvall Cowles, Frederick Caryton Ainsworth, Robert N. Scott, Henry Martyn Lazelle, George Breckenridge Davis, Leslie J. Perry, Joseph William Kirkle. Published by the Government Printing Office in Washington, 1894. These records are available online at http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/m/moa/,

(8)  Order 484 from Office of Provost Marshal General.  November 9, 1861.  Online database of names. Copies of records available by mail from the Missouri State Archives in Jefferson City, Missouri. 
http://s1.sos.mo.gov/records/archives/archivesdb/provost/default.aspx

(9) Oath of Allegiance. Online database of names. Copies of records available by mail from the Missouri State Archives in Jefferson City, Missouri. http://s1.sos.mo.gov/records/archives/archivesdb/provost/default.aspx

(10) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri_State_Militia_%28Union%29 

(11) Missouri State Archives online soldiers' database at http://s1.sos.mo.gov/records/archives/archivesdb/soldiers/  

(12) The History Museum for Springfield,
http://www.springfieldhistorymuseum.org/archives/detail.php?AccessionNumber=1998-440-1&Q=Hickory%20Barren

(13)  http://www.civilwarvirtualmuseum.org/guerrilla-warfare/anti-guerrilla-actions/enrolled-missouri-militia-broadside.php

(14) "Report of the Committee: Majority and Minority Reports with the Evidence."  Missouri General Assembly House Committee to investigate the conduct and management of the Militia. W.A. Curry, 1864.
This report is available free online at google ebooks.

(15) Missouri Historical Review. October 2011. Published by the State Historical Society of Missouri and available at several libraries.

(16) Records of the 47th EMM Company G at the Missouri State Archives.  Copies may be requested by mail, but it's difficult to determine which records have the desired information without going to Jefferson City and searching the folders.

(17) Letter written by A. Y. Carlton on July 31, 1863, at Wet Glaze, Camden County, Missouri, to General E. B. Brown.  A copy of the letter can be requested by mail from the State Historical Society of Missouri.


(18) The Homefront in Civil War Missouri by James W. Erwin.  Copyright 2014.  The History Press.  

Who Shot Callaway Manes? Part 4

Divided Loyalties / Divided Stories

In brief:  The Chitwood family history from the Battle of King's Mountain to Camden County, Missouri, and their ties to Joseph McClurg.  The Chitwood and Manes families at the outset of the Civil War.  This section ends with the formation of the opposing forces of the Missouri State Guard and the Osage Regiment Home Guard as the Civil War begins. 
Time period 1780 to 1861.

"Local neighborhoods were checkerboards of divided loyalties.  Citizens lived an uneasy day-by-day existence, never being sure of their neighbors' intentions."(1) Like the families and communities of Missouri in the 1860's, this part of the tale is divided - the story of the Manes family in Pulaski County and the story of the Union forces of Camden County led by Colonel McClurg and the Chitwood brothers.  The focus on the Chitwood brothers was guided by the writings of Samuel Jasper Manes who named "the Chitwood gang" or "Chitwood's Company G" as the group of men at Callaway Manes' murder.(2)

The Chitwood family traced their ancestry to the family of a Tory hung after the Battle of King's Mountain in 1780. "Captain James Chitwood was a Loyalist who was taken prisoner at the Battle of King's Mountain. The victorious patriots were itching for revenge, and decided to stop and hold what was termed a 'drum head trial' the first night the prisoners were being marched from the battle site. A score of local folks who had taken the loyalists side were convicted and sentenced to die. Nine were indeed hung, when high officers interrupted the proceedings and put a halt to the executions. His sons were arrested by patriot forces and given several choices - take their father's political side and face exile or take the Oath of Allegiance to the patriot cause and be on their way. They chose to take the Oath and left North Carolina for lands further west."(3)

                                                          Battle of King's Mountain 
                                                 Image is from a painting by F. C. Yohn 
                     http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AYohn_Battle_of_Kings_Mountain.jpg 

Elizabeth Chitwood was born in St. Louis in 1802, a year before the Louisiana Purchase. There were less than five thousand white residents in the area, mostly along the Mississippi River.  The population of St. Louis was 925.  Elizabeth married her cousin, James Chitwood, in St. Louis in 1818.  Their daughter Americus married Henry Laughlin about 1836 in the area that would become Camden County.

Several men from Camden County traveled to California during the Gold Rush, including Americus' brother Richard Chitwood and Joseph McClurg.  Joseph McClurg, son of an Irish immigrant, came to Camden County from St. Louis as a partner with his brother-in-law John Jones and his wife's stepfather, William Murphy, in a mercantile near Linn Creek.  The business transported merchandise to Linn Creek by water and then shipped it by wagon to southwestern Missouri, northern Arkansas and eastern Kansas, areas being settled at the time. As payment was usually in goods produced, the process of payment to the company involved the wagons and steamboats reversing their paths in order to bring the wares to the St. Louis market.  J. W. McClurg and his company, for a succession of years, sold over half a million dollars' worth of goods annually."(4)  By the 1860's McClurg had opened a mercantile branch in Lebanon.

                                                              Photo property of Ann Erdman      
                              http://annerdman.blogspot.com/2012/10/my-ancestors-of-old-linn-creek.html

In 1860 brothers Richard, Joshua, and William Chitwood were living in Warren Township in south central Camden County.  Their older sister Americus and her husband, Henry Laughlin, were living in Auglaize Township.  Auglaize Township in southeast Camden County borders Liberty Township in southwest Pulaski County.  Callaway and Seth Manes were living in Liberty Township near the Camden/Pulaski County line.(5)                                                   

            

                     Camden and Pulaski Counties with Townships

University of Missouri Library

http://digital.library.umsystem.edu/cgi/i/image/image-idx?page=index;c=platic 

"Callaway and his brother Seth had plenty of good land, large herds of cattle, and were considered prosperous for that day.  Callaway was a Baptist minister while Seth was a judge and held some political offices. Both men had large families and the children of both families were as brothers and sisters to each other."(2)  In the election of 1860 Abraham Lincoln received only seven votes in Pulaski County.(6)  When the election came to a vote on whether or not the state was to secede from the Union, Callaway voted to stay in the Union, yet his sympathies were with the South.(2)  These sentiments were mirrored by the majority of citizens in Pulaski County. "Though their sympathies were with the South, they still felt that the Union should be preserved at any cost. They could not forget that their grandfathers had fought for the Stars and Stripes in the Revolution and therefore were opposed to secession."(7)  "Callaway was outspoken in his opinions and was generally put down by the Union partisans as a 'rebel.'"(2)

Citizens of Missouri held a unique position during the Civil War. "Three weeks after Abraham Lincoln's inauguration, Missouri became the only state to hold a secession convention and then vote to remain in the Union. Still, the convention soundly rejected coercion along with secession. The delegates called for federal troops to be removed from southern forts, and they expressed support for slavery where it already existed.  The convention made it clear Missouri would not accept harsh federal measures against any state. Thus, Missouri assumed the position of an armed neutral, committed to the Union, but ready to defend itself against federal abuses."(8) 

On April 15, President Lincoln requested that Missouri supply just over 3,000 men.  Missouri's Governor Jackson, famously replied, "Sir—Your requisition is illegal, unconstitutional and revolutionary; in its object inhuman & diabolical. Not one man will Missouri furnish to carry on any such unholy crusade against her Southern sisters.”(8)

Governor Claiborne Jackson

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Claiborne_fox_jackson.jpg

In St. Louis Captain Lyon of the U.S. Army took over the arsenal and captured the men at the Missouri militia training camp.  As Lyon marched his prisoners away, a riot erupted during which Union soldiers fired upon civilians, killing more than two dozen of them, including women and children.  Hundreds crowded the streets of Jefferson City to enlist and protest. The Missouri legislature granted Governor Jackson sweeping control over state funds and a newly reorganized militia, the Missouri State Guard.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_the_Missouri_State_Guard.svg

On June 12, 1861, Governor Jackson issued a proclamation pleading for men to take up arms against the U.S. "Your first allegiance is due to your own State, and you are under no obligation whatever to obey the unconstitutional edicts of the military despotism which has introduced itself at Washington, nor submit to the infamous and degrading sway of its minions in this State. No brave hearted Missourian will obey the one and submit to the other. Rise, then, and drive out ignominiously the invaders who have dared to desecrate the soil which your labors have made fruitful and which is consecrated by your home."(9)

Missouri settlers were accustomed to participating in local militias. After Missouri became a state in 1821 the Legislature enacted a law for organizing a militia. "All men over 18 and under 45 were enrolled as state soldiers to prepare for Indian wars or other emergencies. On the first Saturday of April each year, the citizens of each township came together to be organized into companies and drilled for soldiers. This was called Muster Day. Then in May the companies came together and were organized into battalions, drilled and paraded for several days. In October drills were had by regiments and brigades.  Muster Day became when debts were paid, loans made, and trading done."(10)

                             Sketch of Muster Day in Miller County, Missouri
               Judge Jenkins' History of Miller County, Missouri. by Clyde Lee Jenkins. Tuscumbia, MO, 1971

The Missouri State Guard formed in response to Governor Jackson's plea in June 1861.  These young men had lived in relatively isolated settings. When they gathered in camps with hundreds of other men, they were exposed to many diseases.   Less than a month after joining up, Seth and Becky's oldest son, Thomas Callaway Manes, contracted measles, died, and was buried in an unrecorded grave near Joplin, Missouri.  His widow, Nancy York Manes, and her two young daughters came to live with Seth and Becky.(2) 

Few records remain from the early days of the Missouri State Guard.  It was "a delightfully informal army, which rarely bothered with paperwork.  Even when it did, because of its limited resources and habit of being self-sufficient, the morning muster-rolls were likely to be used in the evening as cartridge paper."(11)  Although the men were enlisted only in the service of their state, some displayed Confederate banners. This was forbidden under Price's standing orders. "These people, were not all rebels nor disunionists, but believed that they were serving the lawfully constituted authorities of the State, in repelling invasion and in protecting their homes."(12)  

Governor Jackson was driven from the capital city as Federal forces set up a provisional state government under Governor Gamble.  Missouri citizens who supported the federal authority formed six-month Home Guard units. The men were mounted and armed at their own expense. They were never mustered into the U.S. Army, but were paid by the U.S. government. The Osage Regiment of Home Guards organized companies of local men at Linn Creek in Camden County and at Camp Union in Miller County, led by Colonel Joseph McClurg, the mercantile owner.(12)  Organized in Camden County, Captain Richard Chitwood's Company C included 93 men with his younger brother, William T. Chitwood, serving as Second Lieutenant.  Privates in Company C included their brother Joshua Chitwood, and the sons of Callaway's best friend, Harrison Elliott.(13)

_________________________________________________________________

Sources: 

(1) "The Arnhold Family" by Neta Pope.  Camden County Historian 1992. Published by the Camden County Historical Society.  Past volumes can be purchased by mail from the Camden County Historical Society.

(2) Manuscript of family history and letters written by Samuel Jasper Manes and Jesse Gustin.  These pages are contained in the collection edited by E.V. Brezeale.  The collection is available on microfilm at the Springfield, Missouri Public Library or the microfilm may be requested at any LDS Family History Center.

(3) King's Mountain and Its Heroes: History of the Battle of King's Mountain, October 7th, 1780, and the Events which Led to it   By Lyman Copeland Draper, Anthony Allaire, Isaac Shelby. Published by P. G. Thomson, 1881.  This book is available online at google ebooks.

(4) History of Laclede, Camden, Dallas, Webster, Wright, Texas, Pulaski, Phelps and Dent Counties, Missouri.  Southern Historical Press, 1889.  This book is available free online at google ebooks.

(5) 1860 Census of Camden and Pulaski Counties

(6) "Civil War Comes To Pulaski County."  Old Settlers Gazette 2012.  http://www.oldstagecoachstop.org/webgeezer/Gazette12/pages%2032-40%20Civil%20War%20Comes%20to%20Pulaski.pdf

(7) A History of Pulaski County, Missouri.  Pulaski County Historical Society.  1982.  This book is available at several libraries, or can be purchased from the Pulaski County Historical Society.  I reviewed it at the Midwest Genealogy Center in Independence, Missouri - a great place to do historical research.

(8) Missouri's Confederate:  Claiborne Fox Jackson and the Creation of Southern Identity in the Border West by Christopher Phillips.  University of Missouri 2000.  This book is available at several libraries, or can be purchased online as an ebook.

(9) This proclamation can be viewed in its entirety at the Missouri History Museum website.   http://collections.mohistory.org/resourceMgr/172680.html


(10) Civil Government and History of Missouri by Perry Scott Rader.  Published by Hugh Stephens Printing.  1922.  (Several earlier publications are also available.)  This book is available free online at  google ebooks.

(11) Wilson's Creek: The Second Battle of the Civil War and the Men Who Fought It by William Garrett Piston an Richard w. Hatcher, III.  Univ. of North Carolina Press, Aug 1, 2004.  This book is widely available at libraries or may be purchased online.

(12)  Wilson's Creek: The Second Battle of the Civil War and the Men Who Fought It by William Garrett Piston an Richard w. Hatcher, III.  Univ. of North Carolina Press, Aug 1, 2004.  This book is widely available at libraries or may be purchased online.

(13) "Miller County in the Civil War" by Peggy Smith Hake.  The article is available online at http://www.millercountymuseum.org/civilwar/cw_04.html.

(13)  Missouri State Archives online soldiers' database at http://s1.sos.mo.gov/records/archives/archivesdb/soldiers/