T. J. Stiles

by Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War

  Anderson tore off his hat and swung it around three times. Now it began, not with an instant gallop but a steady trot, as the guerrillas saved their horses for the final sprint. Up the slope they rode, as Johnston waved his arm and shouted a command. A rippling crackle of gunfire sounded, heavy black smoke lifting from the Union line—but scarcely a rider went down. The Federal infantry had fallen prey to one of the oldest problems in combat: when firing downhill, inexperienced soldiers often aim too high, as Johnston’s men did now.

  With wild screams, Jesse and the others spurred their mounts, competing to be the first to reach the enemy. From the right and left, Todd and the other commanders led their squads out of hiding and enveloped the Union troops, who were now desperately tearing open cartridges and ramming home bullets. In the center of Anderson’s line, Jesse bounded forward. He aimed right for Johnston, who shouted and snapped off shots. The boy aimed his revolver and fired. The Federal officer pitched to the ground. Then Jesse or another rider pulled up close, reached down with a pistol, and fired another round into his head.

  The guerrillas surged into the enemy, sweeping through scattered knots of infantrymen who swung their rifles like clubs, jabbed with bayonets, or desperately tried to surrender. All were gunned down. One Union officer grabbed a bushwhacker’s horse by the bridle, explaining, “I always spare prisoners.” The guerrilla aimed his pistol and said, “I never do.” Anderson’s men, true to their orders, kicked their mounts straight through, running down the horse-holders who were trying to save themselves.

  The chase continued into Centralia itself, where the rebels dispersed to track down hiding Federals. They shot them on the road, in bedrooms, even in an outhouse. One guerrilla rode up to a house and demanded a drink of water. As a woman came out with a cup, the guerrilla saw an infantryman jump over a fence and run. The bushwhacker quickly spurred forward, brought the man down with a quick shot, then trotted back, saying, “I’ll take that drink now.”45

  As evening approached, the guerrillas gradually drifted back to the meadow. Jesse was convinced that he had personally shot down Johnston. His older brother, meanwhile, had to wipe his boot clean of the blood of Frank Shepherd, an unusually tall guerrilla who had been one of only a handful of bushwhackers to catch a bullet that day. It was a small cost for having annihilated the Union force; only a few Federals had escaped to the town of Sturgeon, miles away.46

  The bushwhackers now celebrated, becoming “drunk on blood,” Goodman thought. Pool danced across a cluster of bodies, hopping from one to the other. “Counting ’em,” he explained. The rebels walked among the dead, crushing faces with rifle butts and shoving bayonets through the bodies, pinning them to the ground. Frank James bent down to loot one of the corpses, pulling free a sturdy leather belt. Others slid knives out of their sheaths and knelt down to work. One by one, they cut seventeen scalps loose, then carefully tied them to their saddles and bridles. At least one guerrilla carved the nose off a victim. Others sliced off ears, or sawed off heads and switched their bodies. Someone pulled the trousers off one corpse, cut off the penis, and shoved it in the dead man’s mouth.47

  In this blood-drunk crew, of course, stood Jesse James. It is impossible to imagine him shying away, let alone disapproving, as the knives slit the bodies. No record exists of what he did on the field of the dead that day, but if he cut the scalp off a victim or two, he would simply have been a typical member of Bloody Bill’s gang. In a very real sense, his education was complete.

  The dismemberment of enemy dead is hardly unknown in the history of American warfare. Just two months later, U.S. forces would carve up Southern Cheyenne victims at Sand Creek, Colorado; eight decades later, in a very different war, they would do much the same to dead Japanese. Anderson’s men were not simply “sadistic fiends,” as one historian has dubbed them. They merely proved that the peculiar social conditions of young men in a bitter war can create a culture of atrocity, as they cease to think of their enemies as human beings. What most shocked Americans was that, as at Lawrence, their victims were fellow white men—and at Centralia, they were fellow white Missourians.48

  Amid the laughter and cutting and celebratory whisky, Todd and Anderson had not forgotten their original purpose that day. Soon they hounded their men back to camp, giving orders for a mere three hours’ rest before they resumed their march. “The land will be swarming with blue coats by tomorrow eve,” one of Goodman’s guards explained. “Our late fight will only waken up a hornet’s nest about our ears.” More to the point was the news that Anderson had collected in Centralia: after all the rumors and promises, General Price was finally returning with his army. The Confederate liberation of Missouri, it appeared, was about to begin.49

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Exile

  THE MISSOURIANS were intensely loyal to their state. Tens of thousands of them chose to stay and fight at home as both Unionists and rebels—joining the various militia organizations or taking to the brush as guerrillas—rather than enlist in the primary armies across the Mississippi River. Many of those who entered the regular Confederate ranks still lingered just over the border to the south in Arkansas, a refugee army that kept its gaze fixed on the abandoned homeland. Each year, recruiting officers and raiding parties struck north. Each year, Major General Sterling Price pleaded with his superiors not to forget Missouri.

  After Price took command of the Confederate District of Arkansas, on March 14, 1864, he begged for a chance to free his home state. In July he reported that the people were ready to rise up against their Federal oppressors; if he personally could lead an invasion, he argued, thousands would flock to his army. On August 4, Price learned from Major General Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of Confederate forces west of the Mississippi, that he would have his chance.1

  “Make St. Louis the objective point,” Smith told him; capturing the great city “will do more toward rallying Missouri to your standard than the possession of any other point.”2 This was a grandiose objective indeed—but then Price’s invasion itself was an enormous gamble. “Old Pap” led barely twelve thousand men north through Arkansas in the last days of August, at least four thousand of them carrying no arms at all, hoping to equip themselves with captured Union weapons. Price’s three divisions consisted entirely of cavalry, with scant artillery—hardly the force to besiege one of the largest cities in the country. Swift marching, however, might make the plan work. Price’s spies told him that Union forces in Missouri were understrength, with only a handful of Federal regiments to back up the militia, and all were spread thinly across the state to cope with the guerrilla insurrection. Most important, the people would rise once they saw the rebel banner floating above a conquering army. Of that, Price was certain.

  Besides, what did they have to lose? Everywhere the Confederate situation looked desperate. In Virginia, Grant had pressed on against Richmond all spring, slipping around Lee after each bloody battle. Finally Grant had pinned down Lee in Petersburg, the main rail junction for the Confederate capital, reducing the campaign to the bloody stalemate of trench warfare. Sherman had reached Atlanta in July; in August, he marched around the city in a circle, destroying its rail links with the outside world, forcing the battered Confederates to abandon it on September 1. On the gulf coast, Admiral David Farragut dashed into Mobile Bay on August 5, closing down the most important rebel seaport. If Price managed to seize St. Louis—even if he simply sparked an uprising in Missouri—he might create a large enough diversion to allow the rebels to retake some of the lost ground.3

  On September 19, Price’s Army of Missouri crossed the Arkansas border. At the head of the three divisions rode Major General James Fleming Fagan, Brigadier General John Sappington Marmaduke, and perhaps the most famous Missouri horseman of all, Brigadier General Joseph Orville Shelby. This was the man who had led the epic raid of 1863. His swaggering troopers never failed to rile their fellow soldiers with the boast, “You’ve heard about Jeb Stuart’s ride around McClellan? Hell, brother, Jo Shelby
rode around Missouri!”4 A wealthy former hemp planter, rope maker, and border ruffian, Shelby affected the outsized look of a cavalier, with large round eyes, a large goatee, and a long black feather trailing from his hat. “There is about the man,” declared his adjutant, Major John Newman Edwards, “a subtle essence of chivalry—a dash of the daring and romantic, which will have him pictured only as leading his troops rapidly amid the wreck and roar of battle; his black plume guiding his men, and his own splendid example nerving them to deeds of immortal endeavor.”5

  But then, Edwards had more than a dash of the romantic in his pen. He had been born in Virginia in 1839, trained as a compositor, came to Lexington, Missouri, around 1854, took a job as a printer for a newspaper, befriended Shelby, and became his hunting and fishing crony. When war broke out, he rode with him as his aide. As the author of Shelby’s flowery official reports, he did more than anyone else to burnish the commander’s reputation. But Edwards, too, had his admirers. “I cannot speak of John Edwards without emotion,” said one wartime companion. “He was the noblest man of the many noble men who took part in the great struggle.… He soon became the hero of Shelby’s old brigade.” That unit—the Iron Brigade—now formed the core of Shelby’s division, a wild group of men that fought exceedingly well. “Shelby’s command was never in a high state of discipline, but reliable in battle,” thought Captain T. J. Mackey. “They were the right arm of the army.”6

  This horde of cavaliers, romantics, and unarmed men clopped toward St. Louis through southeastern Missouri, covering barely eighteen miles a day—an excruciatingly slow pace. The word “cavalry” conjures up images of smartly trotting horsemen riding circles around plodding foot soldiers. This army, however, dragged along some three hundred wagons, including eighteen ponderous pontoon boats for bridge construction. In a symbolic abandonment of speed, General Price traveled in a carriage rather than on a horse. He was accompanied by a political entourage led by Thomas C. Reynolds, who was recognized by Confederates as governor of Missouri after the death of Claiborne F. Jackson. Reynolds hoped to be installed in an official ceremony after Price captured the state capital, Jefferson City.7

  Unknown to the rebels, their plans had already started to unravel. In St. Louis, Major General Rosecrans first received confirmation of an invasion on September 2. All through the month these reports multiplied with increasing accuracy, convincing him to prepare for the worst. And he had to prepare quickly: at the end of August, he had only eighteen thousand full-time troops in all of Missouri. The telegraph now clattered with a flurry of orders: supply depots were to be fortified, along with Jefferson City and St. Louis; inactive EMM units were mustered back into service; six thousand troops at Cairo under General Andrew Jackson Smith were requested and granted, along with nine regiments of one hundred–day volunteers from Illinois. Major General Samuel R. Curtis in Kansas also promised cooperation.8

  Rosecrans issued one order in particular that would prove decisive in the coming days. On September 24, he told Brigadier General Thomas Ewing, Jr., to concentrate a body of troops at Pilot Knob in southeastern Missouri. This little village was a strategic treasure: eighty-six miles below St. Louis, it was the southern terminus of the Iron Mountain Railroad and an important supply depot. Ewing—the same man who had issued General Order No. 11 a year earlier—arrived on September 26, taking command of Fort Davidson and its garrison of 1,051 men. When Price learned of the troops (and supplies) at Pilot Knob, he decided to attack; Ewing decided to stay and fight.9

  On September 27, the same day as the slaughter in Centralia, Price hurled his men against the Federals at Pilot Knob. He launched charge after charge into the curtain of rifle fire and exploding circle of shells erupting from Fort Davidson. One column of attackers finally succeeded in approaching the walls, then pulled up short: the Confederates were stunned to discover in front of them a ditch six feet deep and ten feet wide. Most turned and ran, and were shot in the back; others tumbled into the dry moat, where they were picked off. That night, as the wounded groaned and screamed, an enormous explosion lit the darkened town. Dawn revealed that Ewing had blown up his own magazine after evacuating his troops under the cover of darkness.

  When Shelby and Edwards looked over the torn-up field and abandoned fort, they could only shake their heads at Price’s stupidity. Shelby had warned against attacking Pilot Knob, but the commander had insisted, and now he had lost some fifteen hundred men—almost one out of five of his veteran troops. The outnumbered Union forces had suffered only twenty-eight dead, fifty-nine wounded, and perhaps one hundred taken as prisoners—and they had escaped through rebel lines. Even worse was the precious time the Confederates had lost. With every passing hour, Rosecrans further strengthened the defenses of St. Louis. To make matters worse, Price wasted three more days trying to catch Ewing’s retreating men. Speed was of the essence, Shelby knew, but now it was too late. The campaign had barely begun, and already it was headed for disaster.10

  ON OCTOBER 11, Jesse James proudly sat astride his horse, tugging on the reins to keep it neatly in the column led by Bill Anderson. This was a moment to be savored: a victory parade into Boonville, a swaggering trot past the awed faces of civilians and Confederate troops (whose ragged gray uniforms and old muzzle-loading rifles looked rather pathetic next to the bushwhackers’ smart guerrilla shirts and multiple revolvers). After Centralia, how could the guerrillas not feel boastful? Let the plodding regular soldiers worry about orders and logistics and the patience-breaking minutia of military life; the bushwhackers had taken matters in their own hands, fought on their own hook, and annihilated the Federals. The column reached the town square, where the stately, rotund figure of General Price stood waiting.11

  The ceremony was a welcome relief after the past few harrowing days. The double slaughter at Centralia had indeed cracked open a “hornet’s nest,” as one of the guerrillas put it. The rebels had hardly left the scene when, as they were feeding their horses in a cornfield, they discovered enemy soldiers doing the same thing on the far side. So the guerrillas had moved rapidly, winding through overgrown creek bottoms and thick woods, often traveling at night. At one point, they found themselves on a hill with columns of Federal troops in every direction, but the bushwhackers dispersed, meeting later at a prearranged rendezvous. After days and nights of hard riding and scant rest, they finally arrived at the Missouri River, where they ferried themselves to the southern bank in the darkness. In the confusion of the crossing, Sergeant Goodman managed to slip away, escaping to a Union outpost.12

  When Anderson and his men rode into Boonville, the Confederate troops gaped. What astounded them was not simply the fine dark suits worn by the irregulars, or their ease on their powerful horses, or even the rather odd trails of ribbons that many had dangling from their hats. It was the trophies they carried: human scalps, tied by the hair to their saddles and bridles, flaking off dried blood as the horses bounced along. As if to punctuate the impression, the guerrillas suddenly went wild when they saw a line of Union prisoners, captured by Shelby the day before. Wheeling their horses around the frightened bluecoats, they drew their pistols, whooping and screaming, “We had better shoot the sons of bitches!”

  Price’s face reddened. He rushed forward, shouting at them to get away from the prisoners. The bushwhackers reluctantly backed off. Now Anderson rode up to the general to offer a formal greeting, only to be cut off by the angry Confederate “governor”—Reynolds pointed a shaking finger at the display of scalps and lacerated Anderson for his barbarity. Price agreed and told Anderson to discard them. Bloody Bill could only have been amused at such delicate feelings as he waved to his men to throw away—or hide—the scalps. Then he presented Price with an ornate wooden box. Opening the lid, Price saw a pair of silver-plated pistols. Forgetting his earlier shock, the visibly delighted commander expressed his hearty thanks. “If I had 50,000 such men,” he rejoiced to the crowd, “I could hold Missouri forever.”13

  John Edwards nodded enthusiastically
at Price’s words. He had met the guerrillas before, when they had spent winters with the Confederate forces in Arkansas and Texas, but the arrival of Anderson’s conquering legion overwhelmed him. Edwards, of course, could not have been prouder of Shelby’s men, but there was something about the bushwhackers that warmed the darker side of his romantic heart. Just twenty-five years old himself, he thrilled to their wildly independent, freebooting ways. “The guerrilla organization of Missouri needs a word in its defense,” he wrote three years later, as he reflected on that day in Boonville, “although its warfare was pitiless, its banner the black flag, and its battle-cry the fearsome monosyllable Death. Composed of men driven to desperation by the unceasing persecutions of Federals and militia, they had been outlawed and hunted.… They accepted the black flag as an emblem, because it suited their ideas of murder—and having no hope themselves, they left none to their victims.”14

  What a sad contrast his own army made, he thought. The foolish, costly assault at Pilot Knob and the pursuit of General Ewing had made the capture of a now-reinforced St. Louis impossible. So Price had veered west, aiming at Jefferson City. But rapidly concentrating Union troops had filled the capital’s fortifications, and Pilot Knob had spoiled the rebels’ appetite for attacks on entrenched defenders. Slipping around the town, Price had moved into Boonville on October 10. Meanwhile, Confederate sympathizers had rushed to join what they saw as an army of liberation. This vast crowd of fair-weather friends, unarmed and ill-equipped, trailed behind the troops, a “rabble of deadheads, stragglers, and stolen negroes on stolen horses,” in Reynolds’s words. The soldiers themselves looted as they went, swelling the wagon train with scores of stolen carriages stuffed with booty. The invasion force, Reynolds complained, had begun to look like a barbarian “Calmuck horde.” Edwards fully agreed.15