08/26/2014
Arrow Rock is known for its charm and quaintness of its historic setting and Saline County as a whole is prosperous farm country coupled with light industry. However, this was not the condition of the area a mere 150 years ago.
During the Civil War, the cruelty and brutality of guerrilla warfare in Arrow Rock, Saline County and indeed much of Missouri matches almost anything you hear of in Iraq or Afghanistan. In July of 1862, two men from Miami named Walker and Ricehouse deserted from Confederate service. To curry favor with Union authorities, they reported that local Judge Robert Smart was harboring bushwhackers. Judge Smart was shot and killed by Federal troops when they went to his house.
A close friend of Judge Smarts’ named John Dickey rode into Miami in March of 1863 at the head of Andrew Blunt’s company of guerillas and promptly rounded up Walker and Ricehouse. Twelve miles east of Miami they ate dinner at a farmhouse and the farmer suspected nothing was wrong as they were all so cordial with each other. The party went to Edmondson Creek and the guerrillas tied nooses around the men’s necks, and drove their horses out from under them. They then used the dangling bodies for target practice. After the war the remains of Walker and Ricehouse were taken from the creek bank to the Miami cemetery. Blunt’s company went on to participate in Quantrill’s raid on Lawrence, Kansas in August of that year. John Dickey was later mortality wounded in a skirmish on the Saline – Lafayette County line but was credited with killing three or four soldiers before he expired.
The pillaging, looting and terrorizing of the rural population became truly unbearable. Sympathies made no difference, as Unionists and Confederates alike were victimized by bushwhackers or the state militia. By 1864, commerce in the county had come to a complete standstill, farmland sat fallow and banks were insolvent due to seizure of assets by Union authorities or robberies by guerrillas. Philip P. Thompson an old Santa Fe trader in Arrow Rock wrote to General William Rosecrans on June 20, 1864: “We are in a bad state of affairs.”
Lt. Bill Durrett of the "Saline Jackson Guards" was captured at a church northwest of Arrow Rock by the 1st Missouri State Militia and wounded in the ankle in the process. Durrett was summarily tried for burning the Marshall courthouse and for “being a bushwhacker generally.” Unable to stand from his wound, he was propped up against a picket fence and executed by firing squad. A Confederate mail courier carrying letters from soldiers to their families in north Missouri was captured near Sweet Springs in a Union uniform. He was summarily tried and shot as a spy.
Life was equally tenuous for civilians. No one could ever be sure who was riding up to their farm or knocking on the door regardless of their appearance. Armed men appearing to be guerrillas would demand provisions. Then they would ride into the brush, change into Federal uniforms, come back and arrest the individual for aiding and abetting the enemy. Executions following a military tribunal were not uncommon. Guerrillas employed the same tactics using captured Union uniforms but frequently hung or shot their victims on the spot. African-Americans, as if they had caused the war and invited federal intervention, were especially targeted and murdered with abandon by the guerrillas.
The war continued in Saline County long after General Lee’s surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865. Although the Confederacy lay in ruins many of the bushwhackers simply refused to give up. Captain James D. Eads of the 1st Cavalry Missouri State Militia (federal) was on patrol between Marshall and Arrow Rock and wrote on May 1, 1865: “I have today about 100 men in the brush, and will keep every efficient or available man in the brush until we kill or drive out every bushwhacker and murderer who infests this country. I hear of fifteen within three miles of Arrow Rock who took dinner at a Mrs. Scripture's, and her son went off with them. I shall endeavor to call on her soon.” Mrs. Scripture was at this time proprietress of the City Hotel (J. Huston Tavern).
In the spring of 1865 four guerrillas named Harris, Potter and the Wilhite brothers took breakfast at the home of Baltimore Thomas near Grand Pass. They were attacked by a company of Union soldiers. The Wilhite brothers were wounded but escaped. Harris was killed while hiding in a nearby house and Potter was eventually captured, taken to Marshall and executed by firing squad.
On May 7, General Grenville Dodge issued a general amnesty for all guerrillas in Missouri. “Nin” Wilhite declared that before he surrendered he would kill two black men whom he supposed had informed on them. He went back to the house of Baltimore Thomas and killed an aged black man known as “Uncle Ben” and wounded another black man named Harry. After shooting them, Wilhite surrendered himself to Federal troops in Lexington. As it turned out, neither Ben nor Harry had anything to do with informing on the bushwhackers.
Many bushwhackers had operated without Confederate sanction and were simply gangs feeding off the chaos of war. Civil and military authorities seemed incapable of stopping them and for a time, the violence actually seemed to get worse. It was not until the spring of 1866 that peace really came to Saline County.
Guerrillas seizing horses on a farm - Harper's Weekly December 24, 1864.
