From Words to War

Mark Twain is credited with saying, “History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” As a fifty-year student of Howell County history, events of the past, in particular, the American Civil War, to me, have a familiar ring in the headlines we are seeing in today’s news. 

 

This article is neither an indictment of any party or “side” in the Civil War, then, nor now. It is not an accusation of any political party today or then.  I had ancestors on both sides. There was/is plenty of blame on both sides. There were heroes on both sides, too. It is merely my observation that we are going down the well-worn pathway of using violence to shut up an opponent, and using bullets instead of dialogue to settle our differences over ideas. No one benefits in these circumstances, and I think our beloved Howell County is the best example in Missouri of what happens when respectful discourse is replaced by violence.

 

The Civil War began in April 1861. One would think our setting in the wilderness should have precluded the populace from knowing much about the politics leading to war. In fact, mail ran regularly to all the small communities in the county. News traveled quickly, and the citizenry here was informed about what was happening at the national and state levels. A few newspapers from large cities circulated in the community. All the news was at least a week, usually two or three weeks old. I wonder, if they could get this worked up on so little information, where will the Internet lead us?

 

Over 3,600 souls inhabited Howell County, who primarily voted as Jacksonian Democrats—their platform in the election of 1860 espoused state rights, including the right to enslave people, and limited government. Howell County voted against secession in a countrywide referendum before the war, but gradually drifted toward leaving the Union by 1861. No one voted for Abraham Lincoln in Howell County in the pre-war election, but a small portion of the voting population was for the preservation of the Union. 

 

Preceding the Civil War and extending long beyond its formal conclusion, we find a record of rhetorical conflict in Howell County that raged for over a dozen years, ratcheted up violence, prompted overreaction on both sides, and hindered any peace that might have been possible in the Ozarks. Simply put, for the duration of the war and years beyond, spoken words could get you arrested, imprisoned, or killed here. Unionists and Confederates, while declaring their activities to be in defense of the principles of liberty, did their utmost to silence the other.

 

From the beginning of the Civil War in this part of the Ozarks, civil liberties and local government were nonexistent. Our Circuit Judge James McBride shut down the courts, joined the Confederate Army as a Brigadier General, and left Howell County to the tender mercies of military law. Under martial law, regular due process ceased, allowing arrests for an indefinite period without trial. In Howell County, you could not legally transfer land, probate a will, file a criminal charge or civil suit, or perform any of the functions of county government for a full five years. 

 

In many cases, on both sides, summary executions occurred based on flimsy evidence for verbal offenses that had been perfectly legal before the war. Howell County changed hands many times, and our towns were occupied by large numbers of troops on both sides throughout the war. In the earliest part of the War, between 1861 and 1862, freely speaking for the Union side got men hanged, shot, or imprisoned. 

In July 1861, being in the minority, avowed Unionists in South Central Missouri were persecuted for what they were saying - not for what they were doing. William Monks reminisced in his "History of Southern Missouri and Arkansas," that by early July of the first year of the war, "It was freely published throughout the country by the rebels that if any Union man attempted to open his mouth on that day (at a pro-Confederate rally around the 4th of July 1861) he would be shot as full of holes as a sifter bottom." A sifter bottom was the bottom of a sieve used to sift flour.

 

It was not an idle threat. Monks tested it by publicly advocating a pro-Union stance later that day. Mounting the rebel speaker's stand he told the crowd that, "they had been listening to Confederate speeches, but on the next Saturday, if they would meet him at Black's store, (Southfork) about ten miles west of West Plains, they could hear Union speeches and the Constitution of the United States would be read." Exiting the stage with several guns pointed at him, amidst "groans and hisses" Monks overheard someone in the crowd state, "we ought to shoot his black heart out now." A few days later, Monks was kidnapped at gunpoint from his home, and his family in the coming weeks was driven from Howell County by rebel sympathizers.

 

Throughout our county, in the coming months, severe reprisals were exacted on those who merely spoke out in opposition to secession. Here are a few of the hundreds of stories I’ve read from this period:  

William Monks recalled, "In the spring of 1862, there was a man by the name of Mawhinney (Monks' erroneous spelling of Mahoney) living about six miles below West Plains, in Howell Valley, a Union man, but who had taken no part either way, except to express an opinion. About fifteen men belonging to a rebel scout went to his house, called for their dinners, some of them had him shoe their horses, and after they had their horses shod and got their dinner, they told him that they wanted him to go with them. His wife said to them, "It ain't possible that after you have been treated as kindly as you have been, you are going to take Mr. Mawhinney prisoner; you men certainly will not hurt him." They made no reply, carried him about one half mile from his home, shot him off of his horse, took the horse, and went on, leaving the body on the side of the road. His wife, with what other help she could get, brought him in and had him buried." 

 

In another recollection of Monks, he stated, "About two weeks afterwards, in the spring of 1862, there was a man by the name of Bacon who lived near West Plains. He was a Union man but had taken no part either way, except to express himself openly in favor of the Union. There came a scout of about twenty men and arrested him, started west with him in the direction of South Fork, and on reaching the vicinity where Homeland is located, left the road a short distance, shot him off of his horse. Went on to a house about one mile distant, called for their dinner. The woman, in preparing dinner, fried some bacon; after they were seated at the table, she passed the bacon to them; several of them remarked that they didn't want any, that they had had some bacon, but had just disposed of it a short time before they reached the house. After Bacon had laid where he fell dead for two or three days he was found, and being considerably decomposed, a hole was dug and the body placed into it and covered up, where his dust remains until the present day."

 

Following the hanging of two Union sympathizer civilians in early 1862, on the western edge of Howell County in what is today Douglas County, elderly Henry Rhodes of Howell County was murdered for what he was saying. Again from Monks' recollections, "A short time after this hanging, there was a man by the name of Rhodes, who resided on the head of Bennett's Bayou in Howell County. He was about eighty years of age and had been a soldier under General Jackson (War of 1812). His head was perfectly white, and he was very feeble. When he heard of the hanging of Brown and James, he said openly that there was no civil war in that, and that the men who did it were guilty of murder.” (The James mentioned was Jesse James, ancestor of former Howell County resident and Missouri Department of Public Safety Director Mark James.)

 

“Some two weeks from the date of the hanging of Brown and James, about twenty-five men, hearing of what he had said, organized themselves and commanded by Dr. Nunley and William Sapp, proceeded to the house of Rhodes, where he and his aged wife resided alone, called him out and told him they wanted him to go with them. His aged wife came out, and being acquainted with a part of the men, and knowing that they had participated in the hanging and shooting of a number of union men, talked with them and asked: 'You are not going to hurt my old man?' They said: 'We just want him to go a piece with us over there.' Ordering the old man to come along, they went over to a point about one quarter from the house and informed him of what he had said. There they shot him, cut his ears off, and his heart out. Dr. Nunley remarked that he was going to take the heart home with him, pickle it, and keep it so people could see how a black republican's heart looked."

 

As the tide of war shifted in the second year to favor the Union, Confederate sympathizers found the tables turned and themselves persecuted for what they had been saying and doing. Though federal troops initially occupied themselves with hunting down discharged enemy soldiers returning home on furlough, civilians were also at risk for saying the wrong thing. The Union side had also declared martial law, and Abraham Lincoln had suspended the writ of habeas corpus, allowing long-term arrest without trial since April 1861. Idle comments to neighbors or indiscreet statements made in any public setting often came back to haunt you.

 

In April 1862, Ruben Harlow, owner of Harlow’s Mill, living along the Jack's Fork was arrested by Union authorities on the testimony of a neighbor, James Curry, who stated that he had heard him say in regard to taking the oath of allegiance to the United States, though he remained a Confederate supporter, "That it was a d-----d poor man that couldn't swear to one lie. The Lieutenant who arrested him continued, "being asked how he swore he said, 'Oh by God they swore me till I was black as the ace of spades.'" Upon this testimony, Harlow was imprisoned.

 

When the war ended in 1865, Howell County was depopulated. I’ve not been able to identify 100 people clinging to life here. Very few farms remained intact; their buildings and fences were burned.  West Plains had 150 citizens when the war started. Two years later, the town was totally abandoned, and in the fall of 1863, every building was burned to the ground.

 

Both sides, former neighbors, persecuted each other during and after the war for merely expressing their opinions. President George Washington prophetically told a group of his officers in 1783, "If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” 

 

I hope and pray that in the coming months and years, we find a way to avoid rhyming with the past and refrain from violence and perhaps respectfully talk to each other, instead of at each other.