WILLIAM C. QUANTRILL'S STRATEGY TO WIN

THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES: THE RICHMOND VISIT

Richmond did not have an overall guerrilla strategy for the national liberation of the Confederacy in 1861. Several newspapers in leading articles had proposed guerrilla warfare to meet the Yankee invaders. Also private citizens wrote to the Secretary of War and proposed arming bands of citizens for warfare behind Federal lines. 

(1) The result was the creation of the Confederate Partisan Corps, a half hearted measure that was
 not enough followed up by Confederate military authorities. In December 1862 Missouri Confederate guerrilla leader William C. Quantrill disappeared from the war scene in Missouri. It has been debated if he really went to Richmond, Virginia, in search of a commission as colonel in the Confederate States
Army. Underneath are two versions of the "possible" visit to Richmond.(2) Professor Albert Castel in his book on Quantrill (3) claims that in the middle of December 1862 the Missouri guerrilla leader left his command in Arkansas and traveled with Andy Blunt (4) to the Confederate capital. There Quantrill obtained an interview with Secretary of War James A. Seddon. There is according to Professor Castel only one source for what took place during the meeting: Major John N. Edwards. He in turn is to have
received the information from Texas Senator Louis T. Wigfall, who was present during the interview.

Underneath are excerpts from Edward's account:
"Quantrell asked to be commissioned as a Colonel under the Partisan Ranger Act, and to be so recognized by the Department...Never mind the question of men, he would have the complement required in a month after he reached Western Missouri. The warfare was desperate, he knew, the 
service desperate, everything connected with it was a desperate fight." (5) To structure the conversation I have made a few changes in the original manuscript in dialogue fashion: Seddon (S): "War had its amenities and its refinements. In the  nineteenth century it was simple barbarism to talk of a black flag." Quantrill (Q): "Barbarism ! Barbarism, Mr. Secretary,  means war and war means barbarism. Since you have touched on this subject, let us discuss it a little. Times have their crimes as well as men. For twenty years this cloud has been gathering; for twenty years...hates have been engendered and 
wrathful things laid up against the day of wrath. The cloud has burst. Do not condemn the thunderbolt."
(Seddon just bowed his head). "Who are these people you call Confederates ? Rebels, unless they succeed, outcasts, traitors, food for hemp and gunpowder.  There were no great statesmen in the South, or this war would have happened ten years ago; no inspired men, or it would have happened fifteen years ago. Today the odds are desperate...The ocean belongs to the Union navy. There is a
 recruiting officer in every foreign port. I have captured and killed many who did not know the English tongue. Mile by mile the cordon is being drawn about the granaries of the south,  Missouri will go first, next Kentucky, next Tennessee, by and by  Mississippi and Arkansas, and then what ? That we must put gloves on our hands, and honey in our mouths, and fight this war as Christ fought the wickedness of the world ?..." S: "What would you do, Captain Quantrell, were yours the power and opportunity ?"

Q: "Do, Mr. Secretary ? Why I would wage such a war and have such a war waged by land and sea as to make surrender forever impossible. I would cover the armies of the Confederacy all over with blood. I would break up foreign enlistments... I would win the independence of my people or I would find them graves. S: "And our prisoners, what of them ? Q: "Nothing of them; there would be no prisoners. Do they take any prisoners from me: Surrounded, I do not surrender; surprised, I do not give way to panic; outnumbered, I rely on common sense and stubborn fighting; proscribed, I answer
 proclamation with proclamation; outlawed, I feel through it my power; hunted, I hunt my hunters in turn; hated and made blacker than a dozen devils, I add to my hoofs the swiftness of the horse, and to my horns the terrors of a savage following....Meet the torch with the torch, pillage with pillage, slaughter with slaughter, subjugation with extermination. You have my ideas of war, Mr. Secretary, 
and I am sorry that they do not accord with your own, nor the ideas of the government you have the honor to represent so well."

Edwards states that Quantrill did not receive a colonel's commission. But Quantrill claimed he received a commission and signed dispatches with the title. He also had himself photographed in a
Confederate colonel's uniform. (6) But there is no documentary evidence of a promotion to colonel in the rolls. 
William E. Connelley
There is a very negative book on Quantrill but Connelley. (7) According to Connelley Quantrill left the unit behind the Confederate lines in northwestern Arkansas and handed over command to his 1st lieutenant, William H. Gregg. He wanted to be a colonel in the Confederate army, and, as Connelley puts it "rise in the Confederate world". He even dreamed of leading the Confederacy. Connelley calls Quantrill blood-mad, insane, a monster, a degenerate and depraved. The book is full of such invectives. According to Connelley Quantrill took with him Andy Blunt and Charles Higbee but accomplished little in Richmond. His call for a black flag for the Confederacy was rejected. Some say that he received a colonel's commission, others that he did not but anyway bought a colonel's uniform and had himself
photographed with it on. His Blue Springs report was signed "Colonel". But it is a fact that Quantrill's men fought in the conventional campaigns in northwestern Arkansas and southwestern Missouri during the winter of 1862 -1863.

Connelley claims that Quantrill returned from Richmond via Mississippi. He stopped there two or
three days at the camp of some Missouri troops on Black River twelve miles east of Vicksburg.
Quantrill came to his men, so Connelley, crestfallen and discouraged. He had hoped for promotions and honours and that he had well earned them. He was surprised that the eyes of the Confederacy were not fixed on him and his achievements. He wanted to be a hero and it hurt to think he was not so regarded. He should have been wined and dined in Richmond. But one must remember that Connelley was a harsh critic of Qantrill, and this seems to be part of the efforts  to portray Quantrill as negatively as possible.

One aspect of the material on Quantrill's visit to Richmond is the question of the reliability of Senator Wigfall as a witness. A South Carolinian, born in 1816, Wigfall entered the College of South Carolina but left to enlist at the outbreak of the Seminole War. Returning as a lieutenant he enrolled at the University of Virginia and studied law. Being admitted to the bar he moved to Texas and was elected to the house of representatives of the state and served 1849 - 1850. Later he was a state senator. When serving a second period he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1860. 

When the War Between the States started he became a member of the staff of General Beauregard and commanded the forces on Morris Island outside Fort Sumter. Wigfall was later instrumental in persuading the commander of Fort Sumter to surrender. In April 1861 Wigfall was commissioned colonel of the 2nd Confederate Texas Infantry and in October the same year made brigadier
 general. His service ended in February 1862, when he resigned to take a seat in the Confederate
Congress representing Texas. Wigfall served in the Confederate Senate until the close of the war, 
when he moved to England and remained there for several years. When returning in 1873 he settled
 in Baltimore, Maryland. While on a lecture tour he died in Galveston, Texas, on February 18, 1874. (8)

There is in my opinion in the biography of Senator Wigfall nothing to indicate that he would not be 
trustworthy as a witness. There was in all probability a Quantrill visit to Richmond. It is then another matter if maybe John N. Edwards made some additions or changes when he wrote his account of the interview with Secretary Seddon.  It is generally believed that Edwards used a flowery and romantic style and it is safe to assume that Quantrill did not use the phrasing suggested in the account.
Quantrill's Strategy
Quantrill's words might seem very tough, but compared to modern 20th century struggles for
 independence his views do not seem extreme.  A nation and its people really wanting 
independence must be prepared to fight a bitter struggle accepting large losses in dead (even 
greater then the actual losses of the Confederacy on the battle field). The Confederate decision 
to fight as a de-facto nation-state waging conventional war might well have been a critical
decision. Richmond could perhaps rather have waged the contest along the lines of national
liberation movements of our century. A protracted irregular war could have sapped the strength out
of the Union so superior in men, weapons and material. But perhaps Quantrill was a 100 years
before his time. His recommendation of a policy of taking no prisoners would have been a breach of the laws of war in the eyes not only of the Union but also of the civilized gentlemen in Richmond.

Such a policy would also most likely had complicated the efforts of the Confederate government for recognition by European powers. The leaders of the South were probably not prepared for a struggle more revolutionary in context. It might, in their view, have hurt the stability of Southern society. The Southern constitutional model did not allow for widespread all-out irregular warfare across all of the widespread territory of the Confederate States of America. But in reality, in some states the struggle
against Federal occupation did take on the structure of a popular war of resistance which could almost be compared to European armed resistance against Nazi occupation during World War II: western Missouri, parts of Arkansas, and the state of Kentucky in 1864. At least parts of the strategy recommended by Quantrill during his legendary visit to Richmond in December 1862 did in effect become reality, but it would have been needed a much larger effort to turn the tide.

Perhaps it would have been possible to achieve peace negotiations. Perhaps not. It would have
been a matter of how many dead the North would have find acceptable in ambushes, sneak
assassinations, and small engagements, in sabotage and how much destruction of property.
Notes
1) See my URL "Confederate Irregular Warfare 1861- 1865", http://www.algonet.se/~jman/csa/
2) I have not had access to any of the books published in the 1990s on Quantrill.
3) Albert Castel, William Clark Quantrill: HisLife and Times, New York: Frederick Fell Inc.,
Publishers, 1962.
4) Andrew "Andy" Blunt (Blount) was killed on 5 April, 1864, by Kansas cavalry. He was left
unburied. Blunt, in their view, was not worthy of burial. 5) Castel, p. 101.
6) A copy of the photo was published, when another version of this article was published in
"The Vanguard", Newsletter of the North Texas Brigade, SCV.
7) William E. Conelley, Quantrill and the BorderWars, New York: Pageant Book Co., 1956. Chapter
XXII, "Quantrill Goes to Richmond, Virginia".
8) For more on Senator Louis T. Wigfall see: Manuscripts The collection of Wigfall Family Papers in the
Library of Congress for letters to and from the Senator, his wife, and children during the period
1859 - 1874. The War Department Collection of Confederate Records contain the Staff Officer's File of
Brigadier General Louis T. Wigfall. The Compiled Service Record of Colonel Wigall is also in the
National Archives, Washington D.C. Official Records and Documents Senator Wigfall's career in the Confederate Congress can be followed in the Journal of the Confederate Congress and "Proceedings of the Confederate Congress". The latter has been published by the Southern Historical Society,
Papers, XLIV - LII (1923 - 59).
Contemporary Accounts
Louise Wigfall Wright, A Southern Girl in ´61 (New York: Doubleday, Page, 1905).
Special Studies
John T. Trezevant, The Trezevant Family in theUnited States, Columbia, South Carolina, 1914
(with information about Wigfall's family, 1685 -1914). Wilfred B. Yearns, Confederate Congress, Athens:
University of Georgia Press, 1960.
Articles
Sarah A. Wallace, editor, "Confederate Exiles in London, 1865 - 1870: The Wigfalls", South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, LII (Apriol, 1952, pp. 74 - 87. Alvy I. King, "Emergence of a Fire-eater: Louis T. Wigfall", Louisiana studies, VII (Spring, 1968), pp. 73 - 82. Clyde W. Lord, "Young Louis Wigfall: South Carolina Politician and Duelist", South Carolina Historical Magazine, LIX, April, 1958.
Thesis Clyde W. Lord, "Louis T. Wigfall", M.A. Thesis, University of Texas, 1925 (does not go beyond
Wigfall's election to the U.S. Senate). I have searched for a mention of Quantrill's interview with Secretary Seddon in December 1862 in Wigfall material but failed to find anything. Grateful for information from anybody who might have come across such material. Bertil Haggman©

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THE BLACK FLAG OF QUANTRILL

 

There are different views concerning the famous Black Flag of Quantrill. In March, 1863,

 Union General Halleck commanding in Missouri had declared Confederate guerrillas and 

guerrilla commands to be outside the laws of war.

A few days later while Quantrill's command was camped near Sni-a-Bar Township, 

Jackson County, Missouri, pickets reported Annie Fickle approaching the camp. Under

 her left arm was a bundle wrapped in a newspaper. Allowed into the camp she bowed 

to Quantrill and asked the men to gather around her. She unrolled the bundle and made

 a short speech:

 

It is a hard fate which awaits every brave Southern soul in Missouri fighting for a cause as

 sacred to every true man as is the love of God. To falter now, she said, is to betray the

 holier instincts of love and liberty, and in the peril which this infamous and bloody order 

(Halleck's order, note) imposes upon the noblest sons of Missouri, I can see shaking this 

oriflame, and she unrolled the Black Flag, which though black as death, is purified by the

 righteous cause it represents. Let the border ring with the cry of freedom, Quantrill and

 the sunny South, one and indivisible for ever, and to you, in whose hands I entrust this 

banner, let me nerve you with my prayers and entreaties never to lower it so long as there 

is a hand to clutch the staff, or until the principles of the Confederacy are decided by the 

sword and the bayonet, when there is no longer hope for appeal and ever let your 

battle-cry be Quantrill and Southern rights.

 

The flag was spread on the grass and she now produced hammer and nails. She fastened 

the flag to a hickory pole in a dozen places. The flag was made by herself of quilted 

Alpaca, for thickness, and the dimensions were three by five feet. In colored letters in the 

centre was the name "Quantrell" running endwise through the middle of the flag. The pole 

was eight feet in length.

The men lifted their hats and gave three cheers for Annie Fickle and Quantrill thanked her

 heartily and promised that the flag would be carried and protected. Jim Little, who was 

second lieutenant to Quantrill, was chosen color bearer. He was born 1844 in Jackson 

County and is buried in the Lobb Cemetery near where the flag was handed over.

Some say there was no flag. William H. Gregg, who wrote extensively on his Confederate

 guerrilla experiences, has stated that Quantrill's Confederate command never carried 

a Black Flag. Well known author and journalist John N. Edwards, on the other hand, said

 the flag was unfurled on the march to Lawrence, Kansas.

Information is from an article by Donald Hale, well known historian of Missouri's 

Confederate guerrilla war residing in Lee's Summit, Missouri, in "The Guerrilla War 

1861-1865", newsletter of the William Clarke Quantrill Society, Vol. 2, No.2, 1990.

Views and notes on the Black Flag are welcome.  Bertil Haggman©

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Confederate Guerrilla War in the North? – The Northwestern Confederacy

A leading expert on guerrilla warfare commented in 1972: “In the Southern regions of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and in Missouri there was a substantial number of people with Southern sympathies,…Here there was potential for guerrilla warfare which the Southern High Command exploited only superficially. If the Southern High Command had been able to exploit this potential fully, the success of the Union armies in the West could have been delayed or, perhaps, might never have taken place” (N.I. Klonis, Guerrilla Warfare – Analysis and Projections, p.8).

Not until the fall of 1863 an attempt was made to establish a Northwestern Confederacy. The plan was to send a Confederate strike force from Canada against the Union military prison on Johnson’s Island in Lake Erie near Sandusky, Ohio. The freed 3,500 Confederate prisoners would then head for Canada and from there attack the city of Buffalo.

A plan was made to secure four ships to be used for the strike and the return to Canada.
Someone, however, revealed the plan, and the British ambassador in Washington D.C. was notified. He in turn wrote the Union Secretary of War that groups hostile to the United States were plotting to invade and destroy the city of Buffalo. Furthermore he thought it prudent to watch the steamboats on Lake Erie.

Union leaders were shocked. The governors of the northwestern states were notified and troop reinforcements dispatched . Media was tipped off and wrote about the plan.

During the winter 1863-1864 new efforts were made. A group under the leadership of Captain Thomas C. Hines, one of the famed Morgan raiders, came to Canada to plan in cooperation with the Confederacy’s commissioners a rising in the northwestern states.
Order of the Sons of Liberty (OSL) was the leading anti-Unionist organization in the northwest. The military branch of OSL was headed by Dr. William A. Bowles, who was for an armed uprising.

In June, 1864, Captain Hines opened negotiations with the OSL. Primary targets in the new action plan was again Johnson’s Island and also Camp Morton at Indianapolis and Camp Douglas at Chicago. In addition the Union prison and arsenal at Rock Island, Illinois, was to be secured. After Confederate prisoners were released and provided with weapons from the arsenal Louisville, Kentucky, would be attacked and secured for the Northwestern Confederacy. The Kentucky river city was an important stronghold of the Union. A rising would cause, so was intended, Grant to relax his pressure on Petersburg and Sherman would have been forced to come to the aid of Federal forces in the northwest. The rising, first set for July and then August, 1864, was to be aided by a raid by General Nathan Bedford Forrest into Kentucky. On an earlier raid in that state Forrest had left officers and men to aid the coming uprising. It did not, however, take place and a new plan to be set in action before the November, 1864, elections failed because Federal spies had been infiltrated into the OSL.

Had the plans been successful the stage might have been set for future control of northern Illinois. Armed with federal weapons released Confederate prisoners could have moved south toward Kentucky to meet with General Forrest’s forces. Lincoln had lost the election in Kentucky and Confederate guerrilla warfare and opposition raged in the state. Had Kentucky been secured as a Confederate base a new front could have been opened in the back of Grant and Sherman. But the Confederacy was hard pressed at the time and the Southern High Command was probably reluctant to put money, troops and resources into what they might have thought to be a gamble. General Morgan’s Ohio and Indiana raid should have been combined with efforts to have the predecessor of OSL, the Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC), start guerrilla warfare in support of Morgan’s troops. For such efforts more active preparations with money, weapons and military training would have been necessary. Also the full potential of the Confederate guerrilla warfare in Missouri could have been used combined with a strike of General Price’s forces from Arkansas.

Bertil Haggman©

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General Thomas C. Hindman and Guerrilla Warfare

Major General Thomas C. Hindman was born in Arkansas. He had served in the Mexican War

and was an Arkansas Congressman when the war broke out. Later he became the Commander

of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department. Being a very able administrator with firm

views he soon acquired a number of high-placed enemies in Richmond. The draft was strictly

enforced in Arkansas, training facilities were many fold in the state and Major General Hindman

effectively supported guerrilla warfare in Missouri. He also had ambitious plans for opening a

third front west of the Mississippi River.

All this resulted in his demotion and transferal to the East. In December 1862 he led the

Confederate forces at the battle of Prairie Grove, Arkansas, and later commanded divisions at

Chickamauga and Chattanooga and took part in the Atlanta campaign. Always a staunch fighter

he joined other Confederate Generals in the exodus to Mexico after Appomattox. Returning to

live in Helena, Arkansas, his home town, he was assassinated on 27 September 1886 by

"unknown parties".

When leaving his command of the Trans-Mississippi Department he wrote in his report to the

Adjutant General in Richmond:

"With the view to revive the hopes of loyal men in Missouri and to get troops from that state

I gave authority to various persons to raise companies and regiments there and to operate as

guerrillas. They soon became exceedingly active and rendered important services, destroying

wagon trains and transports, tearing up railways, breaking telegraph lines, capturing towns,

and thus compelling the enemy to keep there a large force that might have been employed elsewhere."

Source: U.S. War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of

the Union and the Confederate Armies. Washington D.C. 1880 - 1902. Series 1, Vol. XIII, p. 33.

General Hindman's "independent companies consisted of men "not subject to

conscription" and were never intended to be full time soldiers. They were actually

to pursue their normal employment when not in service. But Hindman also employed

partisan ranger companies.

In the summer of 1862 the yankees planned to secure the Arkansas and White Rivers

to make it possible to transport supplies and reinforcements to the Union Army of the

Southwest under General Curtis. He ordered engineers to study how to obstruct the

rivers. Obstruction work started but Union gunboats slipped through before

obstructions could be placed in the river. To stop further advances Hindman now

ordered two Confederate ships sunk in the river that would not have been able to

stop the Union flotilla anyway. Before scuttling guns were removed to be used on land.

Sharpshooters were also ordered to man the river banks.

The Union flotilla raised anchor and moved slowly upriver. Confederates managed to

sink one ship, Mound City. After burying the dead the Union flotilla proceeded but

the convoy made little progress. Instead Curtis marched southward hoping to join

up with the flotilla. Hindman now ordered Brigadier General Albert Rust to blockade

roads, destroy crops, and pollute wells, traditional defensive guerrilla tactics.

Independent companies and partisan rangers were also deployed. The use of

obstacles was successful in preventing the Union to take Little Rock. Confederates

hiding in the underbrush along the river were constantly firing on Union soldiers

and sailors. The warfare was so successful that one Union commander stopped

the advance and warned citizens of Monroe County that they would be held

'responsible in person and property' if such warfare continued. Seizure and

destruction of personal property was threatened. But by now a campaign had

started in Arkansas to have Hindman removed and it happened on 30 June.

General Hindman had been a bold and daring military leader in the Trans-Mississippi,

who successfully employed irregular tactics to stop and irritate Union forces. Had he

been allowed to remain, the outcome of the struggle in his department might have

been quite different.     Bertil Haggman©

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Frank B. Gurley - The Heroic Alabama Captain

Confederate Captain Frank B. Gurley had been a cavalry officer

with Colonel N. B. Forrest ©  when he returned home to his North

Alabama home in the winter of 1862. After taken ill he was unable to rejoin the command, so he managed to receive a commission as Captain of Partisan Rangers. He recruited a handful of men
(named "The Immortal Seven"). In the summer Gurley's unit went searching for his old command, the Kelly Rangers. With his men and another Confederate officer Gurley fought the Yankees occupying northern Alabama. He learned about a Union transport on the Limestone and Winchester road but found the entire infantry brigade of Brig. General Robert L. McCook, a lawyer turned soldier from Ohio. 

The Confederates retreated and ambushed a unit of Union cavalry, actually McCook's personal bodyguard. A wagon was driven along the road and Gurley saw a Union officer in uniform and a person in his shirtsleeves in the wagon. He shouted to the driver of the wagon to stop, but it did not. The Confederates fired at the wagon. Pursuing and reaching the wagon Gurley saw that the man in
shirtsleeves had been wounded. General McCook was taken to a nearby house but later died of his wounds on August 6, 1862. The incident provoked bitter retaliation by McCook's regiment, the 9th Ohio, in the area. Northern newspapers cried murder and magazines published drawings of McCook in full uniform, on his knees begging for his life.

Meanwhile Gurley went on with his business and in October 1862 his men were mustered into Russell's 4th Alabama Cavalry as Company C. 

At the end of October 1863 Gurley was taken prisoner and brought to a penitentiary in Nashville. After a month in a cell he was tried for the "murder" of McCook. He was sentenced to death but the sentence was suspended to prison. In March 1865 Gurley was by mistake included in a prisoner
exchange and walked out a free man. After the war the McCook family continued a private war of
vengeance against Gurley. He was rearrested in late 1865. It was decided that he was to be hanged in Huntsville. Friends however intervened and the sentence was revoked. Frank Gurley was released in April 1866. Living longer than his persecutors he died at the age of 85 in 1920 at his home in Gurley, Alabama.

The killing of Brigadier General McCook clearly took place during a skirmish between Confederate Partisan Rangers and regular Union soldiers. Although the General's family and the Union military tried to make it into a guerrilla ambush, so that Gurley would not be protected by law, justice in the end prevailed.

Bertil Haggman©

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THE CONFEDERATE RAID ON ST. ALBANS, VERMONT

This is no doubt one of the most daring raids by Confederate forces during the WBTS. Leader
was famed Morgan raider Bennett H. Young, in 1864 21 years old. He escaped from prison
being interned after capture with Morgan in Ohio. Young arrived in Canada in the spring
of 1864. St. Albans is only 15 miles south of the Canadian border and the raid originated
in Canada. After the raid Young and his co-fighters were allowed to go free after a trial in
Canada where pro-Confederate sympathies dominated.

At 3 p.m. on 16 October 1864 the band was in the main street, stripping overcoats and showing
Confederate uniforms to the frightened inhabitants. They proclaimed that they took possession 
of St. Albans in the name of the Confederate States of America. All citizens were ordered to 
assemble in the town square. Buildings were then fired with Greek Fire and all banks robbed.
Federal soldiers arrived after a short while and firing started. Several members of Young's 
command were wounded. The devoted band escaped and reached the Canadian border around 
nine in the evening. They changed to civilian clothing and released the horses. They then 
dispersed and proceeded on foot.

A band of citizens, however, from St. Albans crossed the border and managed to capture Lt. 
Young on Canadian territory. He managed to escape and again on Canadian soil received
protection from the pursuers by a British officer. Five other captured Confederates including 
Young were taken to St. Johns and placed in jail there. The British regulars guarding the jail 
were very sympathetic to the Confederates expressing admiration with their raid. Also the 
citizens of St. John were very helpful.

The United States sought extradition but it was refused. Mr. Bertil Haggman, LL.M.© 59, is a 
European jurist and author residing in Sweden, who is preparing two book manuscripts on 
Confederate irregular warfare during the WBTS. He is an associate member of Europe Camp 
# 1612 of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Since 1971 he has published around ten books, 
but those mentioned above are the first related to the WBTS. Readers are invited to visit the 
virtual home of Confederate partisan rangers and guerrillas and join over 15,000 other visitors:
http://hem3.passagen.se/csa01

Bennett H. Young - He Kept the Faith

Having earlier written on Young in this section (the St.Albans Raid)
I think he is worth many articles. Before the raid he was involved
in two unsuccessful attempts to release Confederate prisoners
from Northern camps.

Young (a General in the UCV) lived until 1919, a constant encourager 
of his veteran compatriots. He settled later in Louisville, KY, and on 
Youngland Avenue in that city one can stop and read about him
on a marker:

"Youngland

Home of Bennett H. Young (1843-1919). Member of famed CSA unit,
Morgan's Raiders. Lt. B.H. Young led 21 soldiers in raid Oct. 19,
1864 on St. Albans, Vt., Civil War's northernmost action. Robbed three
banks of over $ 200,000 and attempted to burn town. Captured in
Canada, they were released. After war, he became a business and
civic leader in Louisville."

His house is still standing and he is buried in Cane Hill Cemetery
in Louisville. No wonder the inscription on his gravestone is
"I have kept the faith".

Bertil Haggman

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THE LAST CHARGE OF CAPTAIN JOHN H. MCNEILL, C.S.A.

Next to Col. Mosby McNeill certainly is the most famed Partisan Ranger of Virginia. His last charge is now remembered on a commemorative highway marker at the south end of the Shenandoah River Bridge on U.S. 11, the old Valley Pike. The text reads: MC NEILLS LAST CHARGE

In the predawn darkness of 3 Oct. 1864 Capt. John Hanson McNeill led thirty of his Partisan Rangers, including local resident Joseph I. Triplett, against a hundred-man detachment of the 8th Ohio Cavalry
Regiment that was guarding the Meems Bottom bridge on the Valley Turnpike. The attack ended in fifteen minutes with most of the guard captured and McNeill, among the best-known Confederate partisan commanders, mortally wounded. Taken first to the Rev. Anders R. Rude’s house a mile south. McNeill was moved on 20 Oct. to Hill’s Hotel (Stoneleigh) in Harrisonburg, where he died on 10 Nov. His
body was later reintered in Moorefield, W.Va, his home.

One of the Partisan Rangers the day of the attack was Anthony Wayne Cosner. It was his great-nephew, Lawrence Cosner, who unveiled the marker in September, 1999. Another marker was dedicated in June, 1999, for Capt. George W. Summers and Sgt. I. Newton Koontz, C.S.A., who were shot for robbing horses from federal cavalrymen at Rude’s Hill.The markers had been proposed already in 1961 by the Shenandoah County Civil War Centennial Commission, but the Board of Supervisors rejected the proposal. The man who finally persuaded the Authorities was D. Coiner Rosen Sr., trustee of Our Soldiers Cemetery, Mt. Jackson, who also participated in the ceremony with representatives
of SCV McNeill’s Rangers Camp 582 of Moorefield. Bertil Haggman©

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William T. Anderson Missouri – Capt. MO Guerrilla

Confederate States Army 1840 – 1864

He has been called "Bloody Bill". He had the highest qualities most admired by Missourians – horsemanship and marksmanship. The majority of guerrillas that fought under his leadership were 16 to 30 years. Only one was older than 40. Most of the Missouri guerrillas operated in commands of twenty to fifty men. This is the story about one of the captains of these commands.

His father had come with the family from Palmyra, Missouri, to Huntsville in 1847 or 1848. In 1850 Bill’s father went to California in search of gold leaving his family in Huntsville. Returning to Randolph County in 1854, the family moved to Breckinridge County, Kansas, in 1857. While living in Kansas Bill’s father was killed, and he later joined Quantrill’s command of guerrillas.

Two of the guerrilla’s sisters, Josephine and Mary Anderson, were among those Confederate women that were held by the Federals in a three story brick building located between Fourteenth and Fifteenth Streets on Grand Avenue in Kansas City. They were suspected of aiding the guerrillas. On August 13, 1863, the building collapsed killing for of the inmates, wounding one fatally and the rest were seriously injured. Among the dead was Josephine and Mary was badly injured.

It has been said that this incident was one of the major reasons for the raid on Lawrence on August 21. Bill is reported having said to a woman in Lawrence: "I’m here for revenge and I have got it."

In the fall of 1863 Quantrill’s guerrillas took up winter quarter in Texas. Here Bill Anderson married Miss Bush Smith. In June 1864 the guerrillas appeared again in Missouri and they made several raids. In July Bill sent letters to several newspapers. In one he wrote: "In reading…your papers I see you urge the policy of the citizens to take up arms to defend their persons and property. You are only asking them to sign their death warrants. Do you know, sirs, that you have some of Missouri’s proudest, best, and noblest sons to cope with?". He also wrote:

"Be careful how you act, for my eyes are upon you." One letter was signed "W. Anderson, Commanding Kansas First Guerrillas". If this wasn’t effective psychological warfare, what is?

On July 15, the Anderson guerrillas raided Bill’s old hometown, Huntsville. Seven days later a Union expedition of forty men were attacked near Allen. Union troops started hunting the command, but the guerrillas turned on the hunters. The result was a loss of six men, two horses and two men killed.

Anderson had eighty men when on July 23 a squad from the 17^th Illinois Cavalry was attacked. Later in July Anderson and his men burned the 150 foot Shelbina and Salt River bridge on the Hannibal and Saint Joseph Railroad. August was to be a bloody month for Missouri. In the beginning of August the raids intensified so much that Union orders were to chase and kill the command. Anderson was to be followed "until he was dead". The interest was not so much in the other Confederate bushwackers. It was more an Anderson exterminating party. On the 19^th of August it was reported that Anderson had joined with several other Confederate guerrilla commands, with leaders such as Caleb Perkins and Clifton Holtzclaw and that the number now totalled nearly 1,000 men in Boone County. In this county alone it is said that by this time there were from twenty to eighty guerrilla commands.

Saint Catherine was now attacked, resulting in the death of three Union militiamen and on September 20 the battle of Fayette took place. It resulted in the death of six members of the command and only one Federal was killed. The guerrillas had made a fatal error. Armed only with pistols they attacked a well defended blockhouse. Had the Federals been better marksmen a large number of guerrillas would have been killed.

But Anderson soon got revenge. A baggage train was attacked on September 23. Twelve Federals were killed and the whole train with quartermaster, commissary stores and all ammunition was captured. By joining with Todd’s and Gooch’s guerrilla commands Anderson was now up to the strength of 300 men.

Not much later Anderson had a victory that would secure a place in the history books, the one at Centralia. After stopping a train with Federal soldiers on leave and killing a number of passengers, Anderson’s guerrillas were chased by a company of Federal soldiers arriving at the scene (38^th Missouri Infantry, USA) led by Major A.V.E. Johnson. Thought outnumbered Johnson decided to follow the guerrillas, a foolhardy decision, as he had only little trained infantry against fastriding Confederate guerrillas. Later the guerrillas were warned of the approaching Federals and decided to set a trap. Bill Anderson’s company was assigned to the center. Behind and partly overlapping was Dave Poole’s guerrillas. Major Johnson called out: "Wait for us, you damned cowards". Johnson was on horseback in front of his infantry. It was four in the afternoon and the sun was setting, as it turned out also setting on the Federals.

Johnson’s Federal infantry started moving forward and he commanded the men to fix bayonets. The fight was opened by Bill Anderson. Major Johnson had left every fifth man to hold the horses of his men so Anderson’s order was to charge, break through the line and go for the horses. The Federal infantry fired as the guerrillas attacked. Two of them was killed. Before the Federal infantry could reload the guerrillas were upon the line, shooting left and right with deadly accuracy. Some tried to reload, others used their bayonets, while others attempted to surrender. Now Poole’s guerrillas joined. The fight lasted only three minutes after Major Johnson gave the orders to fire. After a while the Federal soldiers started to run. Later the guerrillas could count 130 dead bodies in a square large as a city block. The others lay strewn along a distance from the battlefield of ten miles or more.

In October Anderson, Quantrill and Todd met with General Sterling Price in Booneville and an order was issued to Anderson:

"Special Order Headquarters Army of Missouri

Booneville, October 11, 1864

Captain Anderson with his command, will at once proceed to the north side of the Missouri river and permanently destroy the North Missouri Railroad, going as far east as practicable. He will report his operations at least every two days.

By order of General Sterling Price:

MacLean

Lieutenant Colonel and Assistant Adjutant General"

In September General Price invaded Missouri for the last time during the war. He was being constantly attecked and on 23^rd October he made his final stand against an overwhelming Federal force at Westport. It has been called the Gettysburg of the West and it was the last large scale battle in Missouri. Only Confederate guerrillas would now remain active against the Federals in the State of Missouri.

The end for Bill Anderson came on October 26, 1864, in Ray County, near the present town of Orrick. Major Samuel P. Cox is credited with killing Anderson. He was in charge of a local unit of Missouri State Militia. There are many descriptions of the event. A woman had told him where Anderson’s command was camping. Here is part of Cox’s own story:

"Lieutenant Baker was sent ahead to reconnoiter and bring on the fight, and then retreat through our line….Baker dashed up to where Anderson and his men camped and opened fire. Instantly Anderson and his men were in their saddles and gave chase to Baker, who retreated under instructions and came dashing through our line. Anderson and some twenty of his men came on, a revolver in each hand. When my men opened fire many of Anderson’s command went down, others turned and fled, but Anderson and two of his men went right through the line shooting and yelling, and it was as Anderson and one of his men turned back that both of them were killed.

When Bill Anderson fell from his horse I took one of his pistols, and Adolph Vogel, who was bugler of my command, took six pistols from around his body. We also took $600 in money, one gold and one silver watch from his clothing and one of these watches, two of the pistols and the fine gray mare Anderson rode were afterwards give me by Brigadier General James Craig." (Donald R. Hale, _They Called Him Bloody Bill_ , 1975, p. 77).

The body was taken to Richmond, where now famous pictures were taken of the body of Bloody Bill. He was shot through the body and not the head and at the time described as of middle height, and weighing around 160 pounds. Anderson’s body was put in a coffin, dumped into a wagon and driven north. At a cemetery on the edge of town it was nailed shut and dumped in a hole in the ground with no markings. Later the grave was marked provisionally.

In 1908 Cole Younger, ex-guerrilla, who was in town as a manager of a street carnival, arranged for a service at Bill’s grave and in 1967 a U.S. government marker was placed at the grave with the text that is the headline of this article. The year of birth should be, though, 1839.

Unfortunately there is a lack of diaries, letters, and Confederate sources on the Missouri guerrillas. Therefore Federal sources to a great extent have to be used. No doubt William T. Anderson, using a policy of no quarter, was one of the most effective Confederate guerrilla leaders in Missouri. The Federals initiated a no quarter policy against the guerrillas, they in turn answered with the same policy, which made for a vicious war in Missouri.

The best account of William T. Anderson’s life and an war record, no doubt, is Donald R. Hale’s book mentioned in this text above

Bertil Haggman

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"FLAT TOP COPPERHEADS" /151^ST VIRGINIA MILITIA, CO. F

This unit was organized by Richard B. Foley of Flat Top in August 1861 in Mercer County of what is now West Virginia. This Home Guard unit also known as Co. F of the 151^st Confederate Virginia Militia, scouted for the Confederate States Army and participated in the Battle of Clark House, Mercer County, on May 1, 1862, in which Captain Foley was wounded in the shoulder. This wound never healed properly and eventually was the cause of his death.

The Confederate force in that battle was led by Major Henry Fitzhugh. The Federal forces were part of General Jacob B. Cox Ohio command. In the Federal forces Lt. Col. Rutherford B. Hayes (the future 19^th President of the United States, 1877-1881) was commanding.

When reorganized in March 1862 the men of Captain Foley took this oath:

"We, the undersigned do hereby constitute ourselves into a company of guerrillas, known by the name of Flattop Copperheads, for the purpose of defending our immediate country, and western Va., against the invasion of the Yankeys (sic). We bind our selves by every obligation of honor and paternage, to obey the command of our officers, and be true and faithful to the Confederate States of America, and to be true to our selves and families, and serve for the during term of six months except sooner discharged. March 28^th 1862."

Before the Clark House battle the Flat Top Copperheads were hidden in the forest at Camp Creek and protected by darkness they before sunup converged with other companies on the Clark House, where Yankees under Lt. Botsford of the 23^rd Ohio had barricaded themselves. His force was part of a Yankee regiment originally stationed in Raleigh County, but now on the offensive. After some fighting the Confederates gained the upper hand and were preparing to storm when Yankee reinforcements appeared led by Lt. Col. Hayes and opened fire. The Confederates had to retreat.

Captain Richard B. Foley was born in Patrick County, Virginia, in 1818. In 1848 he married Parshandatha McAlexander and they had ten children. The family moved to Flat Top, Mercer County, where they had purchased land. After the WBTS Foley was Mercer County Clerk from 1873 to 1879. He died in 1882 and is buried on his home place on Flat Top Mountain. A military marker was erected in 1988.

Information on this little known Confederate unit for protection of home and land (designating themselves guerrillas) has been provided by 1^st Lt. Commander Richard D. Lockhart of SCV "Flat Top Copperheads" Camp # 1694, who is related to Captain Foley via his daughter.  Bertil Haggman©

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CONFEDERATE MARTYR 
HENRY C. MAGRUDER
(1843 - 1865)

Henry C. Magruder, he was born 1843 in Lebanon 
Junction, Bullitt Co., Kentucky, by Amy Magruder. 

Magruder's great-grandfather was the Revolutionary War veteran 
Archibald Magruder. A Brass Placque over his gravestone indicates: 
Pvt, 4th Co., 29th Battalion of the State Militia of Maryland, 1778.
He is buried in a Magruder cemetery at Bernheim Forest.

Magruder's grandfather was Ezekiel Magruder (1790 - 1863).

Joining the Confederate States Army when 17 and serving in General 
Simon B. Buckner's command Magruder took part in the battle of Fort 
Donelson in February, 1862. Fort Donelson on Cumberland River was 
targeted by the Union in an effort to cut the Confederacy in two by moving 
via the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers down the Mississippi River 
to the Gulf.

Magruder belonged to those 13,000 Confederates captured at Fort 
Donelson by the Union forces of General Ulysses S. Grant.

Escaping from Fort Donelson he became a member of Confederate 
General Albert Sidney Johnston's bodyguard. Gen. Johnston, born in 
Kentucky but a Republic of Texas war veteran and Secretary of War 
of the Republic, had been assigned command of the Western 
Department by President Jefferson Davis. After the Confederate 
defeats at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson he moved his line of defense 
to the vicinity of Nashville, Tennessee, and later to Corinth, Mississippi. 
He was killed in the Battle of Shiloh on 6 April, 1862, leading his forces. 
Once more Henry C. Magruder had to seek a new Confederate 
command. He joined as a soldier in General John Morgan's command. 

Taking part in General Morgan's Great Ohio raid he escaped capture. 
The raid began when General Morgan with 2,500 men in the beginning 
of July 1863 crossed the Ohio River. The forces struck to the northeast 
across Indiana into Ohio but had to surrender at Salineville, Ohio, in face 
of large Union forces. 

Returning to Kentucky Magruder formed a guerrilla command that was 
active during 1864 in the area south of Louisville.

In February, 1865, Magruder and other Confederate guerrillas including 
Jerome Clarke (Sue Mundy), a famous Kentucky irregular, were southeast 
of Hawesville, Hancock County, when ambushed by Unionist Home 
Guardsmen. They fired at the guerrillas with .44-caliber Ballard repeaters. 
Magruder charged them on horseback but was hit in the right arm and the 
bullet lodged in his lower chest or abdomen. 

Retreating and riding off toward Cloverport, the guerrilla command was 
ambushed a second time. Now Magruder was wounded by a bullet in 
the right lung. The wounded Magruder with Clarke and Henry Metcalfe, 
a Ohio County guerrilla, managed to avoid Union troops for two weeks. 
Magruder was treated by a doctor in Breckinridge County. Acting on a 
tip of an informer Union soldiers found the guerrillas in a barn near the 
doctor's residence. Surrounded they were captured on March 12, 1865.

Clarke was tried, sentenced to death and hanged on March 15, while 
Magruder was kept alive by the Federals in a Louisville prison to be 
tried, sentenced to death and executed by hanging on the 20th of October, 
1865, over six months after the surrender at Appomattox. He reached the 
age of 22 years.

By coincidence Missouri Confederate guerrilla Colonel William C. 
Quantrill for a few weeks came to languish in the same Federal prison 
in Louisville as Magruder. Quantrill, on his final Kentucky raid, was 
captured and mortally wounded on 10th May, 1865, at Wakefield, 
Kentucky, and brought to the military prison hospital at Tenth Street 
and Broadway in Louisville. There Quantrill lay dying until just before 
he expired he was transported to a Catholic Hospital. He passed 
away on June 6th and his last words has been said to be: "Boys, get 
ready, steady". Quantrill was 27 years old.

The reason the Missourian Quantrill and Marcellus Jerome Clarke 
(alias Sue Mundy) are so well known is that they both had 
newspapermen, who wrote about them, but Magruder had no sponsor 
in the media. As you all know Quantrill was made famous by John 
Edwards, who fought in Jo Shelby's Iron Brigade and then followed 
Shelby to Mexico after the war. Edwards was the historian of this 
unique expedition and chronicler of the activities of Shelby's Iron 
Brigade. In the last twenty years of Edward's life he wrote about 
Quantrill and his men in daily newspapers in Missouri and in 1877 
the book Noted Guerrillas was published.

In the case of Clarke it was, as you all know, George Prentice, 
editor of the Louisville Daily Journal, that made the Kentucky 
guerrilla captain famous, but for the wrong reasons. He claimed 
Clarke was a female guerrilla named Sue Mundy, and the readers 
were fascinated.

 

February 2000  Bertil Haggman©

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LT. COL. JOHN M. MILLEN AND HIS PARTISAN RANGER BATTALION

John M. Millen (1828 – 1864) commanded the 20^th Battalion Georgia Partisan Rangers. He was born in Chester Co., Delaware, but early settled in Savannah, Georgia, to become an attorney. In 1852 he associated with Hon. Wiliam Bennet Flemming in a law practice.

The year after he married Elizabeth A. Hayward (1831 – 1861) of Tallahassee, Florida, and they had four children. From 1856 to 1861 Millen was Judge of the City Court in Savannah. His wife died in Jauary 1861 and is buried in the Laurel Grove Cemetery in the city.

In May Millen joined the Pulaski Guards (Company K, 10^th Regiment Georgia Infantry). He fought in Virginia with the unit but resigned in March 1862 to raise Millen’s Battalion Partisan Rangers, of which unit he was appointed major that month.

In the summer of 1863 the unit comprised seven companies and Millen was promoted Lt. Colonel in September 1863. The 20^th Georgia Partisan Rangers served on the Georgia coast until the spring of 1864, when it was ordered first to Florida and then to Virginia.

Millen was killed in May 1864 at Haw’s Shop, Virginia, taking part in Stuart’s raid. He is buried in the Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia.

20th Battalion Georgia Partisan Rangers (also named 20^th Battalion Georgia Cavalry) was organized 15 May 1862 starting with three companies and later expanding to seven. This battalion served on the Georgia coast until early spring of 1864 when it was assigned to General P.M.B. Young’s Brigade, Army of Northern Virginia. From there the rangers participated in the Wilderness Campaign and the battles about Cold Harbor Virginia and several actions south of the James River.

The Organization

In July1864, the 20^th Georgia Battalion was ordered to disband by Special Order #161, however this order was not completed until 25 October 1864. Three companies united with seven from the 62nd regiment to form the 8^th Georgia Cavalry. Three other companies were called to form the new 10^th Georgia Cavalry. Still another company (Company B), which had been added to the battalion, was placed in the Jeff Davis Mississippi Cavalry Legion as Company G.

The 10th had the following officers: Lieutenant-Colonel John M. Millen, Major Samuel B. Spencer, and William G. Thompson, Adjutant M. E. Williams, Assistant Quartermaster L. S. Varnedoe. The captains by company were:

Company A- Moses J. Smith

Company B- William G. Thompson

Company C- J. G. Cress

Company D- William A. Lane

Company E- A. J. Love and later Thomas L. Paine

Company F- J. B. Peacock and later M. E. Williams

(Company F was referred to as Liberty Mounted Rangers or Liberty Dragoons)

Another source mentions that the 1st Battalion Georgia Cavalry #2 Partisan Rangers as being part of this regiment. It was composed of companies commanded by Captain O. G. Cameron, Captain John Shawhah, Captain James M. Thomas, Captain Ezekiel F. Clay, Captain John B. Holliday, Captain R.G. Stoner, and Captain P.M. Millen. This battalion later became part of the 20^th Battalion Georgia Partisan Rangers. It was later designated the 15^th Battalion of Georgia Cavalry Partisan Rangers organized with six companies on 18 June 1862, then increased to a regiment and designated as the 62^nd Georgia Partisan Rangers Regiment on 1 August 1862. Major, then Lieutenant Colonel Joel R. Griffin was its first commander.

The 62^nd regiment of Georgia volunteers also are part of the 20^th Battalion Georgia Cavalry’s history. The 62^nd regiment was organized with the following field officers: Colonel Joel R. Griffin, Lieutenant.-Colonel Randolph Towns, Major John T. Kennedy, Commissary T. Meara, Adjutant B. B. Bowers. The captains by company were:

Company A- John P. Davis

Company B- James W. Nichols

Company C- W. L. A. Ellis

Company D- William H. Faucett

Company E- W. A. Thompson

Company F- S. B. Jones

Company G- Pat Gray

Company H- Thomas A. Jones

Company I- John A. Richardson

Company K- E. W. Westbrook

L- Theodore T. Barham.

Seven companies of the 62nd regiment united with three of the 20th Cavalry Battalion to form a cavalry command identified sometimes in the reports the 62^nd Georgia, and in the last year of the war, as the 8^th Georgia Cavalry.

The 62^nd Georgia served for a time in Georgia and North Carolina, then in the brigade of General James Dearing, at Petersburg, VA in 1864. The 62^nd regiment was originally formed in part from the 15th Battalion Georgia Partisan Rangers. The following are some of the officers who succeeded those first named: Lieutenant-Colonel John T. Kennedy, Major W. L. A. Ellis, Commissary W. R. Baldwin, Adjutant W. A. Holson; The captains by company that have been found are:

Company B- B. B. Bower

Company D- R. Duvall

Company H- A. P. Newhart

Company K- S. L. Turner.

The 8th Georgia Cavalry regiment was organized with the following officers: Colonel Joel R. Griffin, Lieutenant-Colonel J. M. Millen, Major J. M. Millen, Adjutant T. J. Pond; and the captains by company were:

Company A- J.P. Davis

Company B- B. B. Bower

Company C- W. L. A. Ellis

Company D- T. R. Duval

Company E- W. H. Thompson

Company F- S. B. Jones

Company G- P. Gray

Company H- T. A. James

Company I- A. J. Love

Company K- S. L. Turner

Company L- T. G. Barham.

The 8^th Georgia Cavalry regiment was formed of seven companies of the 62^nd Georgia, and the first three companies of the 20^th Battalion Georgia Calvary. The 62^nd Georgia had been serving in North Carolina and Virginia, and the 20^th Battalion had served in Georgia and Virginia. The 8^th regiment was formed in July 1864, and served in Virginia until the end of the war. Some of the officers who succeeded those in command at the organization were: Majors. W. G. Thomas and S. B. Spencer, Adjutant M. E. Williams; and the captains by company were:

Company A- T. S. Paine, H. L. Norfleet and R. Towns

Company B- B. L. Screven, W. G. Thompson and J. N. Nichols

Company C- J. C. Smith

Company D-M. J. Smith, S. B. Spencer and W. H. Harrett

Company E- J. G. Cress, J. M. Turpin and W. J. Deas

Company F- M. E. Williams

Company G- J. R. Harper

Company I- J. B. Edgerton, J. A. Richardson, W. A. Lamand and J. T. Kennedy

Company K- E. W. Westbrook.

 

Assignments

From June 1862 to February 1864 Millen’s battalion was assigned to the Military District of Georgia, Department of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.

Later it was stationed at Camp Millen, Chatham County, GA, located on a bluff one half mile towards Fort Jackson from Causton’s Bluff.

From December 1862 to 20 March 1863 the battalion base of operations was Camp Bonna Bella , Chatham County, GA, which was located on the Plantation of the same name about seven miles below Savannah.

From March 1863 to September 1863 Companies A-D were at Camp Jackson in McIntosh Co, GA, located about one mile from South Newport Church on the road to Harris Neck.

Company A is noted as being at Camp South Newport in April 1863 while

Company E is noted as being at Camp Lucas, Georgetown County SC 15 June 1863 to February 1864. This camp was on the North Santee River one mile below Managualt’s Ferry.

Company C was at Camp Brighton, McIntosh County, GA located near Darien from June to August 1863.

Headquarters from August to October 1863 with Company A, B, E, F present is listed as Camp Palmyra in Liberty County, GA. The camp was located at the Palmyra plantation on the banks of Dickerson Creek, eight and a half miles from Riceboro post office.

During September to December 1863 Company C is listed at Camp Price in McIntosh County, GA located near Darien.

Finally from May to October 1864 the battalion was assigned to General Young’s brigade, Hampton’s-Butler’s Division, Cavalry Corps, Army of Northern Virginia.

Battle Participation

Darien- 11 June 1863

The Wilderness- 5-6 May 1864

Battles around Spotsylvania Court House- 8-21 May 1864

North Anna- 23-26 May 1864

Haw’s Shop- 28 May 1864

Cold Harbor 1-3 June 1864

Siege of Petersburg June-October 1864

Williamsburg Road 27 October 1864

This Confederate correspondence identifies the 20^th Battalion as part of the Department guarding the Georgia Coast.

This article could not have been written without the detailed research of John Griffin, who had four ancestors in Millen’s battalion.

Bertil Haggman  ©

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GUERRILLA FIGHTING FOR THE CONFEDERACY IN NORTH GEORGIA

There was opposition to secession among Unionists in North Georgia and it went as far as the formation of USA units, one being the 1st Georgia Infantry, USA, which welcomed in its ranks draft evaders and deserters from the Confederate forces. The state of Georgia fought back by forming Home Guard units from the state militia authorized to deal with the problem of desertion and evasion. Among the leading Home Guard units were the Picken's Co. Home Guard commanded by Captain Benjamin F. Jordon, the Cherokee Co. Home Guard commanded by Lt. Col. Benjamin F. McCollum and the Lumpkin Co. Home Guard (also 1st Georgia State Cavalry Home Guards) commanded by Col. James F. Findley.

When General Sherman invaded North Georgia in 1864 he found that the Unionists there could be used as spies and guides. Thus in 1864 there was a brutal war in the area between local Unionists supported by regular Union forces and the Confederate Home Guards. Canton, Georgia, was for instance burned by Union forces as an act of retaliation.

A leading Union spy was James G. Brown, civilian chief of scouts for Union General George H. Thomas. Brown raised the 1st Georgia and by August 1864 he had around 300 enlistees with himself as colonel. But the unit was never accepted into the US Army, because the precondition was that it would only serve in Georgia. But probably the real reason was their bad reputation.

It was Col. Findley who saw to it that Brown's unit suffered a major defeat in November 1864. A detachment led by Brown's next in command, Lt. Colonel Ashworth, was on a raid to steal horses and mules at Bucktown in Gilmer Co., when they met with Col. Findley and his unit. Col. Findley and his men captured Ashworth, a Captain McCrary and nineteen members of Brown's unit. Three others were wounded and four were killed. On the captured men were papers that gave away the names of local Union supporters, which later led to their arrest by the Confederate Home Guard.

But Brown's unit, armed and organized, took revenge and it led to a mercilous guerrilla war in the area. Brown's unit was disbanded on 15 December, 1864, receiving no pay, bounty or compensation. North Georgia was however plagued by revenge killings long after the WBTS and for forty years the men of the 1st Georgia tried to receive financial compensation without success. Their leaders died early, Ashworth during the war, Brown in 1866 and McCrary was ironically killed by Confederate guerrillas in early November 1864 not in Georgia but in Tennessee.

Bertil Haggman     ©

A German Confederate Partisan Ranger

Robert August Valentin Albert Reinhold von Massow (Robert
von Massow), was born in Gumbin in 1839. In 1857, after officer 
school, he was appointed second lieutenant in the Prussian 1. 
Garde-Ulanen Regiment in Potsdam. Later he was transferred to 
the 12th Infantry Regiment stationed in Posen. Von Massow was 
allowed to emigrate in 1863 to America. In July, 1863, he arrived 
in New York with the intention to join the C.S.A. It was not until
the fall that year he managed to cross the Potomac. He received
a recommendation of Col. Heros von Borcke, another Prussian in
Confederate service, who was a friend of General Stuart. Thus
von Massow was able to join the 43rd Virginia Battalion, Partisan
Rangers, of Col. John S. Mosby. On February 22, 1864, he was
wounded by a shot in the lung. After six months of recuperation von Massow
returned to Germany in the spring of 1865.

Robert von Massow was to reach the highest echelons of the
German army after the return. In 1866 he was lieutenant of the
newly established Pommeranian Dragoon Regiment No. 11.
In 1869 he moved to Stettin as Adjutant of the Third Cavalry
Brigade. In 1868 he had married Martha von Loeper. During
the French-German War that followed he took part as Adjutant
of the First Cavalry Division and received the Iron Cross.

He moved after the war to Oldenburg. Here his wife died
in 1872 and von Massow married a second time (Elisabeth
von Throtha). He had two children from his first marriage
and his new wife, a war widow, brought two children into the
family. In 1877 von Massow was promoted to Captain in the
Great General Staff, and soon became Major. After serving
on several regimental staffs he in 1884 returned to the
Great General Staff in Berlin. Soon he was promoted to Lt. Colonel
and received command of a regiment of his own. In 1888 he was
commanding Colonel of 2. Garde-Ulanen-Regiment. In 1890
he was Major General of the German cavalry, 1894 Lieutenant 
General and in 1899 General. In 1903 he was appointed President
of the Military Court of the Reich and soon received in the Order of
the Black Eagle through the emperor. After this exceptional
career he left the military in 1906. First he settled in Oldenburg
to later move to Wiesbaden, where he passed away in 1927.

Robert von Massow was one of the leading members of his family.
His wife died in 1919. Germany had suffered the great
defeat in 1918 and her passing away made the experience
even harder for the old General.

Bertil Haggman ©

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A Partisan Ranger Hero – Brig. General Adam R. Johnson, CSA

Adam Rankin Johnson was a Kentuckian but made a name for himself before the WBTS in Texas. Born in Henderson, KY, in 1834 he went to Texas in his 20s and settled in Burnet County not far from Austin. Starting as a surveyor he was also an Indian fighter and was for some time in charge of several stations on the Overland Mail Route. In January, 1861, he married and when Texas seceded, he made his wife comfortable in Burnet and decided to go back to Kentucky. Meeting with Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest he enlisted as scout with Forrest and came to serve with Forrest’s later Chief of Scouts, Colonel Robert M. Martin.

It was with Martin that Johnson in 1862 was to infiltrate Kentucky and form the later famous Breckinridge Guards. Johnson rose to form the 10^th (Johnson’s) Kentucky Cavalry, Partisan Rangers, CSA. After Fort Donelson Forrest sent Johnson and Martin to Texas with secret dispatches for Confederate Governor Lubbock. Returning they were sent by General John C. Breckinridge, a fellow Kentuckian, with dispatches in cipher too important to be put on paper. Thus Johnson and Martin had to carry memorized cipher dispatches to Henderson, Johnson’s home town.

Johnson commanded a brigade during Morgan’s Indiana and Ohio raid. Escaping and returning to northern Kentucky, he organized his own command. With only a few of these men he captured Newburgh, Indiana. In November, 1862, Johnson asked the War Department to form his men into a regiment, which was authorized. In September, 1864, he was promoted to Brig. General to rank from June 1, 1864. In all Johnson was responsible for recruiting 3,000 men fighting and operating effectively against transportation by river and rail to Sherman’s army.

Late in August, 1864, Johnson was wounded by a bullet that destroyed both his eyes. Captured he was nursed back to health but was now blind. First sent to Louisville, KY, he was later transferred to Fort Warren, Boston Harbor. Refusing to sign Union paper for his swapping against Union general officers he remained in prison until February, 1865. During that time he also fell into the basement of the prison and was seriously crippled.

In Partisan Rangers of the Confederate States Army (1904) Johnson wrote on his POW time:

" At Fort Warren there were about four hundred Confederates confined; there were nine general officers in our barracks – Generals Trimble, of Maryland; Ed. Johnson, Cabell and Jones, of Virginia; Marmaduke, of Missouri; Henry Jackson, of Georgia; G. W. Gordon and Smith of Tennessee. Smith had been severely wounded, after he had surrendered, by a Federal colonel, who cut him over the head with his word several times, and so injured his brain that he never recovered…We had eleven ounces of bread and about the same amount of cold beef issued to us daily, with an abundance…of water " (p. 198). His co-prisoners, if they could, were very helpful.

Released via New York and Fortress Monroe he was in Richmond received by Governor Lubbock of Texas. The Confederate authorities tried to have him resign, but Johnson refused.

After a while he was given orders and transportation. He wanted to go to north Missisippi to join his men from the 10^th. After a dangerous journey often threatened by a new Federal capture, Johnson with escort arrived at Macon, Mississippi. Here were around 150 of his men under command of Captain Shanks of the 10^th. They declared themselves ready to return to fight in Kentucky but receiving the news of Lee’s surrender, Johnson collapsed. He wrote that this was the blackest day of his life. He was contacted by some of his men in Kentucky, who complained that the yankees were attempting to charge them with horse stealing during the war. Johnson returned to Kentucky and testified that they were enlisted men and under orders to impress horses. The cases were dismissed. Johnson in September, 1865, returned to Texas intent on continuing his work from before the war.

For the next years he, his wife and children lived in Burnet. Being blind, temporarily crippled, stripped of his property, in debt and his health generally shattered Johnson came back. His son drove him around and Johnson established himself buying land. He even founded a town at a place he had first seen in 1854. It was named Marble Falls because water was pouring over a marble ledge into a river. In 1887 lots were on sale in Marble Falls. Johnson purchased and established a cotton factory. The community now became known also as "The Blind Man’s Town".

Outside the town is Granite Mountain, a 866 feet high dome of pink granite, a site chosen to provide granite for the Texas capitol in Austin. But there was no transportation and that threatened to halt the deal. Johnson now traveled to Austin and offered to provide right-of-way if a railroad was built from Burnet to Granite Mountain. Others provided the same right, a narrow gauge railway was built, and with the coming of the railroad business picked up in Marble Falls.

In his autobiography Johnson declared that he was at peace and content with his life. He died in 1922. He and his wife rest in the Texas State Cemetery in Austin. Johnson was one of the greatest Confederate Partisan Ranger heroes and belongs both to Kentucky and Texas.

Bertil Haggman©