Cassville Anniversary Tribute, Part Two: Divided by War
Sheila Harris
I first began researching Barry County’s Civil War history last January by tromping through cemeteries, wondering if I might find the graves of any Civil War veterans. Since then, I realize the question is not whether any cemeteries contain the graves of Civil War veterans, but whether any of them don’t.
I grew up with the idea that the Civil War was so far behind us that it didn’t hold much relevance to anyone still living. Thus, I was surprised when, some years back, a native of Barry County and descendant of a pioneer referred to northerners as “Yankees,” with the condemning “D” word used as a preface. Odd, I thought at the time, since the war was long past.
More recently, I had a chance encounter with another native son, this one the descendant of a Civil War veteran who had fought for the Union. He’d heard Civil War stories at his father’s knee of the (no-good, by implication) Confederate bushwhackers of the time.
The voices of those two gentlemen contained contempt in the retelling of stories long past, which made me realize the spirit of that war still lives below the surface in the Ozarks. As I began to delve into local history, I understood why.
Although no major battles were fought in Barry County, skirmishes, murder and destruction of property were constant, both during and many years after the war, especially the nearer one was to the Arkansas line. There was no safe haven to be found. Memories of such traumatic times live on in people who experienced them, and quite naturally are retold – often in the presence of children, who absorb the trauma as their own. I suspect such wounds become the heritage of the generations that follow. - SH
Less than 90 days after shots were fired on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, Federal troops clashed with Confederate troops in the Battle of Carthage, only 60 miles from Cassville. In spite of its interior location, southwest Missouri’s involvement in the Civil War was almost immediate.
The Battle of Carthage was followed by a large battle at Wilson’s Creek a month later.
Cassville became the capitol of Missouri in October of 1861 after Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson led a secessionist movement into the courthouse for an occupancy of one week’s duration. Federal troops moved in after Confederate forces left.
The destruction the war wrought on Cassville was inestimable. The city’s location on the Old Wire Road proved to a detriment for the town’s residents during war time. Both Confederate and Union troops used the road as a thoroughfare between Springfield and Fayetteville, so Cassville saw constant military traffic of men both on foot and horseback.
Lootings, murder and destruction of property were ongoing. Residents fled from their homes, in hopes of finding safety elsewhere. Based on the disappearance of courthouse records for a period of four years, civil government was apparently abandoned between 1861 and 1865 and it was each man and family for themselves.
Most sympathies in Cassville lay with the Confederacy. Barry County residents owned 248 slaves, although defending slavery wasn’t necessarily the impetus of landowners for fighting. Because they’d homesteaded in the county less than 30 years prior to the Civil War (many less than 20 years), defending their homes against what was viewed as northern aggression was probably the reason for taking up arms.
From the northern perspective, because President Lincoln’s goal was to preserve the Union, those who attempted to secede from it were viewed as traitors.
Beliefs separated neighbor from neighbor, and brother from brother, and sometimes not taking sides was even dangerous.
John S. Lee was killed in his home three miles south of Cassville by a Union lieutenant, after his brother let it be known that John was a Confederate sympathizer. A Confederate flag still flies over Lee’s grave, which lies in a pasture near where his home once stood.
A few miles farther south, another Lee Cemetery contains the graves of his Union-leaning family members who, according to history, were killed by Confederates.
History reveals that prior to the battle at Wilson’s Creek in August of 1861, some 12,000 soldiers and 6,000 horses were amassed in Cassville in preparation for the battle.
After the battle, Confederate troops were again strong in town, but a role reversal played out after the later battle at Pea Ridge, when it is said Union forces dominated for the duration of the war.
According to diary entries of Captain William P. Black, of the 37th Illinois Infantry, his unit set up camp across the top of the hill west of the Cassville square and fortified and defended it for several months while the wounded were recovering from the Battle of Pea Ridge. Union forces dubbed the hill “Camp Defiance,” while among Cassville residents, it was known as “Fort Hill” for decades to follow.
The diary entry of a Union soldier from another unit declared that the smell of dead horses permeated the town so strongly, after camping in Cassville for several days, all the men were happy to leave it. A temporary burial ground was used at the foot of cemetery hill along Mineral Springs Road for some 300 deceased federal troops whose bodies were later removed to the national cemetery in Springfield. Horses, however, were apparently not buried.
At war’s end, Cassville was left with a scant 150 residents and the ruin of most of its businesses and residences. In spite of a formal end to the Civil War, safety was hard to come by.
After the war, as during it, opposing sentiments were used as an excuse to plunder and pillage the belongings and lives of undefended residents. Murder was rampant. Property owners were dragged from their homes and lynched, or even shot from behind their plows, practices not conducive to reconciling a nation split initially over principle. Anarchy ruled in Barry County for many years.
However, some 178 cemetery rolls in Barry County give witness to the fact that, in spite of their differences while living, the bodies of both Union and Confederate soldiers are together in death in this beautiful place we call home.
(To be continued)
I first began researching Barry County’s Civil War history last January by tromping through cemeteries, wondering if I might find the graves of any Civil War veterans. Since then, I realize the question is not whether any cemeteries contain the graves of Civil War veterans, but whether any of them don’t.
I grew up with the idea that the Civil War was so far behind us that it didn’t hold much relevance to anyone still living. Thus, I was surprised when, some years back, a native of Barry County and descendant of a pioneer referred to northerners as “Yankees,” with the condemning “D” word used as a preface. Odd, I thought at the time, since the war was long past.
More recently, I had a chance encounter with another native son, this one the descendant of a Civil War veteran who had fought for the Union. He’d heard Civil War stories at his father’s knee of the (no-good, by implication) Confederate bushwhackers of the time.
The voices of those two gentlemen contained contempt in the retelling of stories long past, which made me realize the spirit of that war still lives below the surface in the Ozarks. As I began to delve into local history, I understood why.
Although no major battles were fought in Barry County, skirmishes, murder and destruction of property were constant, both during and many years after the war, especially the nearer one was to the Arkansas line. There was no safe haven to be found. Memories of such traumatic times live on in people who experienced them, and quite naturally are retold – often in the presence of children, who absorb the trauma as their own. I suspect such wounds become the heritage of the generations that follow. - SH
Less than 90 days after shots were fired on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, Federal troops clashed with Confederate troops in the Battle of Carthage, only 60 miles from Cassville. In spite of its interior location, southwest Missouri’s involvement in the Civil War was almost immediate.
The Battle of Carthage was followed by a large battle at Wilson’s Creek a month later.
Cassville became the capitol of Missouri in October of 1861 after Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson led a secessionist movement into the courthouse for an occupancy of one week’s duration. Federal troops moved in after Confederate forces left.
The destruction the war wrought on Cassville was inestimable. The city’s location on the Old Wire Road proved to a detriment for the town’s residents during war time. Both Confederate and Union troops used the road as a thoroughfare between Springfield and Fayetteville, so Cassville saw constant military traffic of men both on foot and horseback.
Lootings, murder and destruction of property were ongoing. Residents fled from their homes, in hopes of finding safety elsewhere. Based on the disappearance of courthouse records for a period of four years, civil government was apparently abandoned between 1861 and 1865 and it was each man and family for themselves.
Most sympathies in Cassville lay with the Confederacy. Barry County residents owned 248 slaves, although defending slavery wasn’t necessarily the impetus of landowners for fighting. Because they’d homesteaded in the county less than 30 years prior to the Civil War (many less than 20 years), defending their homes against what was viewed as northern aggression was probably the reason for taking up arms.
From the northern perspective, because President Lincoln’s goal was to preserve the Union, those who attempted to secede from it were viewed as traitors.
Beliefs separated neighbor from neighbor, and brother from brother, and sometimes not taking sides was even dangerous.
John S. Lee was killed in his home three miles south of Cassville by a Union lieutenant, after his brother let it be known that John was a Confederate sympathizer. A Confederate flag still flies over Lee’s grave, which lies in a pasture near where his home once stood.
A few miles farther south, another Lee Cemetery contains the graves of his Union-leaning family members who, according to history, were killed by Confederates.
History reveals that prior to the battle at Wilson’s Creek in August of 1861, some 12,000 soldiers and 6,000 horses were amassed in Cassville in preparation for the battle.
After the battle, Confederate troops were again strong in town, but a role reversal played out after the later battle at Pea Ridge, when it is said Union forces dominated for the duration of the war.
According to diary entries of Captain William P. Black, of the 37th Illinois Infantry, his unit set up camp across the top of the hill west of the Cassville square and fortified and defended it for several months while the wounded were recovering from the Battle of Pea Ridge. Union forces dubbed the hill “Camp Defiance,” while among Cassville residents, it was known as “Fort Hill” for decades to follow.
The diary entry of a Union soldier from another unit declared that the smell of dead horses permeated the town so strongly, after camping in Cassville for several days, all the men were happy to leave it. A temporary burial ground was used at the foot of cemetery hill along Mineral Springs Road for some 300 deceased federal troops whose bodies were later removed to the national cemetery in Springfield. Horses, however, were apparently not buried.
At war’s end, Cassville was left with a scant 150 residents and the ruin of most of its businesses and residences. In spite of a formal end to the Civil War, safety was hard to come by.
After the war, as during it, opposing sentiments were used as an excuse to plunder and pillage the belongings and lives of undefended residents. Murder was rampant. Property owners were dragged from their homes and lynched, or even shot from behind their plows, practices not conducive to reconciling a nation split initially over principle. Anarchy ruled in Barry County for many years.
However, some 178 cemetery rolls in Barry County give witness to the fact that, in spite of their differences while living, the bodies of both Union and Confederate soldiers are together in death in this beautiful place we call home.
(To be continued)
Tyler Oxford, of Monett, walks among slave graves in Washburn Prairie Cemetery in Barry County. According to historical accounts, city fathers voted to allow landowners to bury their family slaves in the public cemetery if their graves were marked differently, and if they were buried at the rear of the cemetery.
