The Missouri Civil War on classic television

While searching through old movies on YouTube the other day, I saw the name of a familiar battle of the Missouri Civil War. Decision at Wilson's Creek was a 25 minute TV movie from the popular show Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater. The show ran from 1956-1961 and many of the episodes were based on stories written by Zane Grey, one of the most famous Western writers.

This episode aired in 1957. I'm not sure if it's a Grey story or not. I can't find a tale by that name although of course it could have been retitled. The story opens with a Confederate officer (played by John Forsythe, the voice from Charlie's Angels) in the army of General Sterling Price resigning his commission and returning to his wife in Springfield. His army buddies deride him for a coward, but it soon turns out he's on a secret mission to find out Union troop strengths before the Battle of Wilson's Creek.

Other than the fictional character, the episode sticks fairly close to history. The main error was showing the Confederates in beautiful new uniforms, when in fact many of Price's men had no uniforms at all, or pretty ragged ones. The acting is fairly good, the writing so-so, and it's worth seeing as a historical curio and for a bit of old-time TV nostalgia.

Civil War Photo Friday: Private Simeon J. Crews, 7th Texas Cavalry

This fearsome fellow is Private Simeon J. Crews of Co. F, 7th Texas Cavalry Regiment. He's carrying a revolver and a cavalry saber that he's cut down for some reason, making it more of a stabbing than slashing weapon.

The 7th Cavalry saw plenty of action, going with General Sibley on his ill-fated expedition into New Mexico and later fighting in Texas and Louisiana.

I can't get over this guy's weapon! It reminds me of another Confederate Texan I've featured here and some of the medieval weapons used in the Civil War. I would definitely try to shoot this guy before he got in close.


Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Civil War Photo Friday: John Wilson Vermillion, CSA

This is John Wilson Vermillion of Virginia, long thought to be Texas Jack Vermillion, a supporter of Wyatt Earp during the Tombstone fights. Actually that was a different man, as is thoroughly proven in an excellent new book I reviewed here.

While John Wilson Vermillion wasn't the famous Western gunslinger, he still had an interesting life. Here he is posing for a photo during his time serving in the Confederate army. He enlisted on August 12, 1861 in the 5th Battalion of Tennessee cavalry. He spent the war mostly in Tennessee and Kentucky and saw a great deal of combat. His service records are incomplete, but we know he was sent home at least once after being wounded.

Here he is with a cavalry saber and a rather unimpressive little pistol. This photo was probably taken when he enlisted. Men would often have their photos taken to mark that important event, and often posed with weapons supplied by the studio. So while he certainly carried a saber during the war, that little popgun may have been a studo prop!

On the other hand, many soldiers brought weapons and other equipment from home. Vermillion's war records show he was paid extra because he brought his own horse, so maybe he carried that pistol as a backup weapon to the saber, pistol, and possibly carbine that the army issued him.

Photo courtesy Wikipedia.

When you take away a cavalryman's horse, he ain't happy

In a previous post I talked about the 30th Arkansas Infantry, a Confederate unit. That name is a bit misleading because the regiment actually began life as cavalry.

There were chronic supply problems in the Trans-Mississippi Theater, however, and in June of 1863, Major General Hindman realized he didn't have enough fodder for all the horses under his command. In a letter dated June 19, 1863, he wrote, "The scarcity of supplies now caused great distress. Nearly two months must yet elapse before the new crop would ripen. To lessen the consumption of corn, I found it necessary to dismount four regiments of Texans and three of Arkansians. This produced much dissatisfaction, and there were many desertions in consequence."

One of those units was the 30th Arkansas, and the records show a spike of desertions at this time. Cavalry considered themselves superior to infantry, they fancied themselves knights riding into battle rather than commoners slogging through the mud. To lose one's horse was insulting, and many simply went home rather than be turned into infantry.

Civil War Photo Friday: Colonel Robert A. Hart, CSA

This dapper gentleman is Colonel Robert A. Hart.

He was born in Ireland and immigrated to Arkansas before the war. On August 1, 1862, Hart joined the Confederate army and was commissioned the lieutenant colonel of the newly formed 30th Arkansas Infantry. On November 12, he was promoted to colonel and assumed command of the entire regiment.

The 30th Arkansas saw lots of action in the Trans-Mississippi Theater, taking part in most of the major battles as well as the 1864 invasion of Missouri that serves as a backdrop to my novel A Fine Likeness. On July 4, 1863, the regiment was part of a Confederate attack on the Mississippi river town of Helena. This was an attempt to relieve pressure on the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg, which ironically surrendered that very same day. Helena was well fortified and the Confederates were repulsed with heavy losses. Hart was wounded in the leg and taken prisoner. He died of his wounds on August 6, 1863.

The 30th Arkansas suffered 8 killed, 46 wounded, and 39 missing at the Battle of Helena. Lieutenant Colonel J.W. Rogan assumed command and led the regiment until the end of the war. The 30th got into some exciting adventures. More on those in later posts. Also check out Captain Richards Miniature Civil War for some great model soldiers he's made of this regiment!

Civil War Photo Friday: Unidentified Confederate soldier from the 11th Virginia

I love these old portraits. Most of the ones I've featured here have names. This one, however, has been lost to history. From the uniform we can tell this fellow was in the 11th Virginia, but that's all we know.

One interesting detail that you don't often get with these studio portraits is the knapsack and bedroll. Perhaps he was about to go on a big march? You can also see a knife and what looks like a pistol holster stuck into his belt, so he was ready for action once he got where he was going.

Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Speculating on Confederate land

As I mentioned in my post about the Baldknobbers vigilante group in the Ozarks, when Confederate veterans returned home, many found their land had been confiscated for failure to pay taxes during the war and was now occupied by Union men.

Speculation in land skyrocketed in Missouri and many border and Southern states after the war as monied Northerners hurried in to grab cheap plots. One of the was Daniel Fogle, who in a letter from 1867 observed that he couldn't even get off the train without being offered land for sale, "There are a great many that are thronging the railroad stations, exceedingly anxious to sell lands."

The best deals were to be had from county governments, who had seized rebel farms when the taxes weren't paid. Fogle reported, "These lands sell for near nothing--but it is considered very hazardous to buy and occupy them as they mostly belong to men who went into the Southern army and dare not return, and there is a large band of them sworn together, and unknown to authorities, who will and do kill every man who attempts to occupy their former homes."

The enduring bitterness of displaced and disenfranchised Southerners led to many outlaw groups (often made up of former bushwhackers) and well as larger organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan. The legacy of the war continued long after the last battle was over.

Flintlocks in the American Civil War

This is a sketch of a flintlock musket, the height of weapons technology in the late 18th century. When the trigger was pulled, the lock snapped down, bringing a piece of flint against a plate of steel. This made sparks fly into a pan filled with gunpowder. A hole between the pan and the inside of the barrel set off a larger charge of powder that shot the bullet out the barrel.

By 1861, the flintlock was old tech. All modern armies used the percussion cap, an explosive cap struck by a hammer that replaced the unwieldy and often unreliable flint and pan. The problem was, many people hadn't caught up. Underfunded local militias, who hadn't heard a shot fired in anger in a generation, often still carried flintlocks. Many rural farmers also had flintlocks as family heirlooms. Modern guns were pricey and the flintlock was still good enough for hunting.

But not good enough for the modern battlefield. Armies on both sides scrambled to supply enough percussion lock rifles for their troops. The industrial North soon had this sorted out, and government contractors got rich selling modern weapons or refitting flintlocks into percussion locks.

The South, however, lagged behind. Many regiments required individuals to bring their own guns and were thus a motley collection of flintlocks, shotguns, and percussion rifles scrounged from dead Yankees.

An account of the 1861 Battle of Lexington, Missouri tells how one old farmer approached the Union fortification every morning with a flintlock and a lunch his wife had packed him. He'd sit behind a tree and take potshots at the Union troops all morning, take a break for lunch, then fire at them all afternoon before going home to his wife. He doesn't appear to have hit anyone!

Even more primitive weapons appeared on the battlefield. Check out my post on Medieval weapons in the Civil War.

Images courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Civil War Photo Friday: All Quiet on the Potomac

OK, so it's an engraving and not a photo. Sue me. I like the image, though. It's an illustration from a book of war lyrics, this one illustrating 'All Quiet along the Potomac'. Here we have a sleepy Union soldier nodding off in the moonlight. There hasn't been a peep from the Rebs for days.

But wait, what's that behind him? They say war is long stretches of boredom interrupted by moments of extreme terror. I think this guy is about to experience a sudden shift from one to the other.

Skirmishes probably killed more troops in the Civil War than the big battles. They were a constant fact of life for an army on campaign, and even when in winter quarters an army could expect probes and patrols at the edges of their protected territory that would lead to casualties. As this guy is about to learn, there's no such thing as an insignificant skirmish.

Check the original page of this old book for a grim little poem.

Civil War Photo Friday: Taking the Oath of Loyalty

This week's image shows a group of Confederate prisoners taking the Loyalty Oath in 1864. This was an option given to most rebel prisoners. The deal was that if they swore loyalty to the United States, they'd be given a certificate proving they'd done so and could return to civilian life. If their home was in Union-occupied territory, they could even go home.

Most prisoners honored the oath. Some were sick of the war, while others were draftees who had never wanted to be in it in the first place. The temptation of a return to civilian life was a strong one. The Confederate armies in all theaters of the war were plagued with desertions.

Not everyone honored the oath, however. Sometimes a rebel would be captured and would take the oath in order to get out of prison. They considered the oath to have been taken under duress and therefore invalid. Often these guys would become bushwhackers. The Union Military correspondence in Missouri and Arkansas is filled with reports of bushwhackers being killed and having the loyalty oath paper being found on their persons.

Right at the bottom of the form was a line that said that if you broke the oath by acting in support of the Confederacy, the punishment was death. Sometimes oath breakers were taken alive. They nearly always faced execution.

In my next post I'll be talking about the oath of loyalty two Confederate bushwhackers named Frank and Jesse James took.

OK, so this isn't a photo, but hey, it's a photo of a drawing, right?

Image courtesy Library of Congress.

"Cut your hair, soldier!"

I'm reading The Civil War on the Border by Wiley Britton, a 1000-page magnum opus on the Trans-Mississippi Theater written by a Union veteran in the 1890s. It was one of the earliest books to exhaustively cover the war west of the Mississippi and contains lots of interesting anecdotes.

This one comes from early 1863. The First Arkansas Union Infantry at Fayetteville was a new unit and was filling up rapidly. Many were Arkansas Unionists who had been in hiding from Confederate recruiters or who had been conscripted into the rebel army and had deserted. When they joined the Union army they found life a little different.

"Long hair was the fashion in the South, in that section, and among Southern soldiers, and there was at least one instance where one of these Arkansas recruits refused to have his hair cut and had to be caught and held until the operation was performed, and where one man was sent to the guardhouse because he refused to serve as one of the detail to catch and hold the comrade for shearing."


Photo of unidentified Confederate First Lieutenant courtesy Cowan Auctions.

Civil War Photo Friday: William T. Biedler, 16 years old

This young rebel is William T. Biedler, who had his picture taken at just sixteen years of age. He was in Company C of Mosby's Virginia Cavalry Regiment.

I suspect this was taken at the beginning of the war because he's armed with an antiquated flintlock musket. Both sides, especially the rebels, had chronic supply problems and some men had to go to battle with inferior weapons or no weapons at all. They picked up better weapons from the dead or captured as soon as possible and it's doubtful that Biedler would have carried his flintlock beyond the first year of the war.

Compare this with the photo of Jesse James as a Confederate bushwhacker at the same age. There's quite a difference!


Photo courtesy Library of Congress.