Martin Rice was a Union man in a predominantly Southern community. That he remained a prominent member of the community was a miracle. He was known for his poetry, publishing at least three versions of his poetry collections of “Rural Rhymes.” He was also well known for his work as a nurseryman. “What I Saw of Order #11” is not a poem but his actual account of the most horrific act against non-combatants during the entire War.
General Thomas Ewing’s famous Order No. 11 is one amongst the memorable events of the War of the Rebellion in 1861; especially is it memorable on the western borders of Missouri. That order, which commanded and required all
the citizens of three border counties, and a part of the fourth, to vacate their homes and remove into garrisoned towns, or from the military district, will ever be remembered by those citizens who were affected by its provisions. It is
often spoken of and referred to, and has been much condemned by some and strenuously defended by others; and while I shall not attempt to do one or the other, I will, as plainly, concisely, and impartially as I can, describe what I saw,
witnessed, and felt of its incidents, consequences, and results, without pretending to say or to know whether the consequences would have been better or worse if that order had never been made and enforced.
For several weeks during the summer of 1863, rumors were prevalent and common in the country that such an order was in contemplation. Scouting parties of Union soldiers declared that, unless the bushwhackers ceased from their system of guerrilla warfare, and the citizens ceased from harboring, aiding, and protecting them, an order would be made to depopulate the country infested by them. The threats, however, of the soldiers on either side were not
regarded by the citizens as evidence that the things threatened would be performed.
Experience has proved that, though threats of violence were often carried out, they were more often mere idle words of bravado.
That which gave more color to the rumor, and more alarmed that citizens than the threats of the common soldier, was the fact that the Union men who had taken refuge in Kansas City and Independence notified their friends in the
country to hold themselves in readiness to obey the order when it came; that unless a change for the better was made in regard to guerrilla warfare, such an order would most surely be issued.
The Sni Hills in Jackson County had the name of being the principal rendezvous of those guerrillas, and threats of vengeance were more frequently made against that part of the country than any other.
In Van Buren Township, embracing a part of those Sni Hills, a meeting was called and held on the 15th of August, 1863, to take into consideration those rumors and consult as to what was the best to be done.
A committee was appointed, resolutions were drawn up, adopted, and signed by nearly all present, reciting those rumors of depopulation, and representing the great hardship and ruin it would bring upon all classes, the loyal and disloyal alike, and that in all probability the end sought would not be accomplished by it; closing with the assurance that those whose names were signed to the paper had not willingly aided, encouraged, or harbored bushwhackers in the past, and that they would not in the future; but that each one, so far as he could in safety, would discountenance such a system of warfare and aid in suppressing it.
It was voted by the meeting that those resolutions should be sent by a special messenger to General Ewing’s office; but he was not present, having gone to Leavenworth. Our resolutions were shown to his secretary, or chief of staff
(Major Plumb, I think), and were read and criticized by him and others resent; amongst whom were two or three refugees from the county who claimed to know who of the subscribers were loyal and who were not, contending that a
majority were of disloyal tendencies and could not be depended upon. I remained in the office an hour or more, urging what I could in support of our resolutions and against the policy of the proposed order, the major promising to
lay the paper before the general on his return. I then left the office, feeling that the mission had been a failure. From all I could see and learn in Kansas City, from friends and others, I made up my mind to prepare as well as I could for
the worst and to leave home, if leave I must. I accordingly bought material to make a wagon-bed, as the only wagon I had was without one. We left for home on the afternoon of the 19th, where we arrived next evening. I was told that
about 300 bushwhackers had eaten supper the evening before on the farm of Benjamin Potter, an old gentleman living three-quarters of a mile from my house. My family said some of them came there and ordered half a bushel of bread, and that other neighbors were served with the same order. It afterwards turned out that these were Quantrell and his men on their way to Lawrence. Next day I carried material to the shops to have a wagon-box made, and commenced to make other arrangements to be better prepared to leave home, if I had it to do. In a few days the news of the tragedy at Lawrence arrived in the neighborhood, and was flashed over al the country; and on Sunday morning about forty of the retreating guerrillas passed my house, and scarcely a day passed that week but guerillas, or Federal soldiers in pursuit of them, were seen in the neighborhood.
On Tuesday, the 25th of August, General Ewing issued his celebrated order from Kansas City, and rumor, with her thousand tongues, soon spread it over the ill-fated territory.
It was not, however, until Sunday, the 30th, that I saw in the Missouri Republican the document known as Order No. 11, reading as follows:
“1st. All persons living in Jackson, Cass, and Bates counties, Missouri, and in
that part of Vernon included in this district, except those living within one mile
of the limits of Independence, Hickman’s Mill, Pleasant Hill, and Harrisonville,
and except those living north of Brush Creek and west of the Big Blue, are
hereby ordered to remove from their present places of residence within fifteen
days from the date thereof. Those who, within that time, establish their
loyalty to the satisfaction of the commanding officer of the military station
nearest their present places of residence, will receive from him certificates
stating the fact of their loyalty, and the name of the witnesses by whom it can
be shown. All who receive such certificates will be permitted to remove to any
military station in the district, or to any part of the State of Kansas, except the
counties on the eastern border of the State. Al others shall move out of this
district. Officers commanding companies and detachments serving in the
counties named wills see that this paragraph is promptly obeyed.
2nd. All grain and hay in the fields or under shelter, in the district from
which the inhabitants are required to remove, in reach of military stations,
after the 9th day of September next, will be taken to such stations and turned
over to the proper officers there, and report of the amount so turned over
made to the district headquarters, specifying the names of all loyal owners,
and the amount of such produce taken from them. All grain and hay found in
such district after the 9th of September next, not convenient to such stations
will be destroyed.
3rd. The provisions of General Order No. 10, from these headquarters, will be
vigorously executed by officers commanding in parts of the district and at the
stations not subject to the operations of paragraph 1st of this order, and
especially in the towns of Independence, Westport, and Kansas City.
4th. Paragraph No. 3, General Order No. 10, is revoked as to all who have
borne arms against the Government in this district since the 20th of August,
1863.
By order of Brigadier-General Ewing.
H. Hannah, Adjutant.”
I thought I had witnessed and felt the hardships and privations of civil war and martial law before, but it was reserved for this, the last week in August and the first ones in September, 1863, to teach me and others how much the human
body and mind can bear up under and still survive. The 30th of August, instead of being a Sabbath of rest, was to all a busy day of care and labor, preparing to obey the stern mandate, and abandon the homes procured by many years of toil and labor, followed too, by other days of care, toil, and anxiety.
Previous to this, if one were brought into a strait, or got into trouble or difficulty, he could appeal to some friend or neighbor for help, and the appeal was seldom made in vain. But now all were in the same strait; the same weight
of sorrow and distress was pressing upon all; there was no exception, and none in our part of the district were exempt from the general hardship. Though none were well prepared to obey the order, some were much better prepared than
others. But whether well or ill prepared, there was no help for it; all must go. On Monday, the last of August, a number of citizens, myself amongst the number, repaired to Pleasant Hill, in order to prove loyalty and get certificates
or permits to remove to the military posts, or other parts of the district outside the doomed or proscribe territory.
Captain John Ballinger, of the 1st Regiment of the Missouri State Militia, was commanding the post, and to him was assigned the duty of taking proof of loyalty and granting certificates; but he had not yet been furnished with instructions from Gen. Ewing as to the manner or mode of proceeding, and after waiting till late in the afternoon, we returned home, a day of valuable time lost. I that day made up my mind to move to the post at Pleasant Hill and run the risk of getting permission afterward. My brother and I, having the promise of a house in the suburbs of the town, agreed to occupy it together with our families; and the next morning I started with a load of household articles to that place. About halfway I was overtaken by a messenger sent by my family to apprise me that my brother had changed his purpose, and was going to Clay County; and further, that it would not be safe for me to attempt moving to Pleasant Hill, as the bushwhackers would not permit me to do so. I accordingly turned back, and the same evening took my load to Wm. F. Snow’s, a brother –in-law, in Johnson County; and the next day hauled another load into Lafayette, as also did my neighbors, John Cave, David Hunter, and Thomas Bradley; which articles we stored away in the house, the bar, and the yard of a Mr. Galloway, near the present town of Odessa. During the whole of this week my neighbors and the citizens generally were removing necessary articles out of the county to places where they would be in some degree safe, until they could find a temporary home to which they could be removed. Having moved out two loads, I loaned my wagon and oxen to a brother-in-law and son-in-law to get a load each of their goods away from the ill-fated county.
On Saturday, September 5th, I repaired again to Pleasant Hill, and had no difficulty in getting a certificate of loyalty, which would authorize me to go to any part of the country, outside the three counties of Jackson, Cass, and Bates. I also assisted some others in getting certificates of like character, and returned home in better spirits than I had enjoyed for several days, and had a better night’s sleep than I had had for a week before, not even dreaming of what was in store for me, and the sorrow and suffering I was to witness and to bear the next day.
I had resolved now to cross over the line into Johnson County and stop in the vicinity of Basin Knob, about five or six miles from home, from which place I could occasionally see to my farm and what was left upon it, and removed things
at my leisure. But it was not to be. Most of my neighbors were gone, or were going that day, as I also intended to do. I had but one wagon and one yoke oxen with which to move my own family, my son-in-law, Wm. C. Tate, and his, and
such bedding and clothing as we could carry with that one team.
On the morning of the 6th of September, as we were making arrangements to leave, a squad of soldiers of the Kansas 9th Regiment came suddenly upon us, making prisoners of me, my son Isaac, and my son-in-law informing us that we
must go with them to where Col. Clark was stopping, on the Roupe farm, a mile or more away. They also had taken David Hunter, my near neighbor, and brought him along. We set out, hoping that under the circumstances we would not be detained long. As we neared the residence of old Mr. Hunter, his grandson, Andrew Ousely, a youth of 17, rode up to see about the arrangement for moving, and he, too, was taken into custody. The old gentleman, about 75 years of age, was not molested. A very short distance further, at the house of John S. Cave, he and his brother-in-law, Wm. Hunter, were added to the number; and a hundred yards further on, Benjamin Potter, 75 years of age, was met and also taken in charge. Eight of us now were marched on three-quarters of a mile to the place of encampment. Here Col. Clark, who had been scouting the country ever since the Lawrence massacre, met us and took down the name of each prisoner, and then retired into the underbrush nearby, where some of his men were stationed and we were permitted to sit down by the fence.
When first taken, I had shown the captain the certificate that Captain Ballinger had given me the day before; none of the others had any.
In a short time the colonel returned, and asked me which of the other persons was my son; and seeing that one of his young men had appropriated my son’s hat to his own use, in a menacing manner he bade him restore it. He retired again; and Barney Dempsy, an acquaintance of all, who was acting as pilot to the company, came and spoke a few friendly words, and left. During all this time, neither the officers nor any of the men spoke a harsh or menacing word to any of us. Captain Coleman who had first taken us prisoners, then came to me and said: “You will take your son and travel.” These words but more particularly the manner in which they were spoken, gave me the first alarm as to any real danger to any of the party. We immediately left as commanded, leaving our friends and neighbors behind, never to see them in life again; for in a very short time after reaching home, the report of several guns in quick succession alarmed us still more. I, however, persuaded myself, and tried to persuade the alarmed and distressed families, that it might be the soldiers shooting fowls on the Roupe farm for their breakfast. They would not, however, be so persuaded, and Miss Jane Cave heroically repaired to the spot, and found the company gone and the six prisoners all dead, some of them pierced with many balls.
About the time that this sad word was brought to us, another regiment, I believe the 11th Missouri, passed on its way to Kansas City, bringing to more of disappointment and distress. I had made arrangement with my sister in Johnson
County, and her husband, Wm. F. Snow, if I left the country, for them to receive my aged mother into their family, and they were expected to send after that day. But the regiment had him along as a prisoner.
Though a strong Union man, some of their scouts, by representing themselves and bushwhackers, had so alarmed him that, like many others, to escape them he had said something that condemned him in the eyes of the Union soldiers, and they came very near taking his life, and carried him to Kansas City, where he remained for several months. Of neighbors left in the county, there were none that I knew of, except the families of he men who had just been killed. Nobody was left to bury them but me and my son and my old neighbor, Mr. Hunter.
As soon as the last body of soldiers were gone, we repaired to the scene of death, to perform as well as we could the sad rites of sepulture. We found them on or near the spot where I had left them. Two of them appeared to have been shot as I left them, sitting by the fence, and the others but a few feet away. It was a sad and hurried burial, such as I hope never to see again.
It was the desire to get away before another night should close on us. A grave was dug, and the fallen friends were laid side by side, in their bloody clothes; blankets spread over them and covered with earth.
I had witnessed many burials, but this, I thought, was the saddest of them all. My aged friend and neighbor, at the age of three score and fifteen, helping me with his own hands to lay his two sons, his only sons, his grandson and son-in-
law, with two other relatives (one of whom was my son-in-law), in the rude and shallow grave that our own hands had dug for them.
It may, perhaps, be asked why or for what cause this bloody tragedy was enacted; why it was that these men were killed, and that I was spared. They were all quiet peaceable citizens; note of them had borne arms against the Government, except David Hunter a few days at the very first, at Camp Holloway, and he had afterwards done duty in the enrolled militia. True, they were all Southern men and Southern sympathizers; and some of them had sons in the Southern army. I thought then, and still think, the principal cause was that Quantrell and his raider, on their way to Lawrence, stopped and ate supper on the Potter farm, and that some of these men visited them while they were getting that supper.
The burial over, with heavy hearts we left the spot—a spot I can never visit without the saddest reflections; and on which the friends have erected a plain marble shaft, that tells a part of the tale that I have been telling. {See pictures of
grave and monument} We left the hastily buried friends, to make a hasty preparation for leaving them in their lonely sleep. Even while we were burying the dead, the women and children were loading up and making ready to leave.
The events of the morning had disarranged all our plans, rendering it impossible to drive off any of our livestock with us. Cattle, sheep, and hogs were left behind, besides many other things abandoned to go to waste and destruction. The growing crop of corn, corn in the crib, wheat in the granary and in the stack—all left behind. The soldiers, in passing, had thrown down the fence, and rode through the orchard, helping themselves to apples and peaches, and we had no time or inclination to put the fences up, knowing that it would not remain up.
Late in the afternoon such preparations as could be made in the time were made, and we all set off together. Our company consisted of John Hunter and his aged companion, and single daughter; his son David’s wife and child; his son William’s wife and several children; his daughter Nancy Cave, and her lately orphaned children; his daughter, Mrs. Ousely (whose husband fell in the Confederate army, and whose oldest son had fallen that morning), and her five
remaining children; Benjamin Potter’s daughter and three of his grandchildren; also a married daughter of Mrs. Cave (whose husband Jacob Bennett, was in Ohio), and her two children; myself and six children, besides my widowed
daughter and her three children, and my aged mother.
As we were preparing to leave, a neighboring lady from Johnson County, Mrs. Fulkerson (who is the sister to our present Senator Cockerell), came along with a wagon (for ladies drove wagons then), and she took my mother home with her that night, and sent her to my sister Snow’s the next day, for which act of kindness, at such a time, my gratitude will live as long as I shall live. We crossed the county line and left the county of our choice a little before sunset, and passed the night on the open prairie, southwest of Chapel Hill. My own reason, as well as the suggestions of friends convinced me that my life was now in more danger than it had yet been. The country was full of bushwhackers, some of them the personal friends of the men who had been killed in the morning; I had been taken with them; my life had been spared because I was a Union man; theirs had been taken because they were not, and retaliation was common on each side.
It was plain that I must go as my friends and neighbors did, or not go at all. I felt assured that if I abandoned them and sought a place of shelter and security, by taking some other road, my life would pay the forfeit; nor did I wish to
abandon them, so long as I could be of service to those who were now so much in need of help. I had two sons, one eighteen and one fourteen years old, able to drive and handle teams, while some of the others had none.
Next day we resumed our journey; passed Chapel Hill and Mount Hope, and camped at night near William Hall’s, near Little Sni, and where we overtook or fell in with several of our neighbor acquaintances, who were also encamped there. Here Mr. Hunter and some of the others concluded to remain in camp a few days, and look round for shelter. I left them; and with my family and my daughter’s went on, and crossed the river at Lexington, intending to seek a home in Ray or Clay County.
During those two or three days I saw much of the incidents and the fruits of Order No. 11. Before and behind was seen the long, moving train of sorrowing exiles: wagons and vehicles of every shape and size and of all kinds, drawn by teams of every sort, except good ones; a cloud of dust rising from the road almost the whole day, while ever and anon we would meet a neighbor going back to get a way a few more of the necessaries of life before the 9th of September should come; and the further we proceeded, the greater became the moving column of wretched fugitives. On ever road that led eastward from the county of Jackson came the moving mass of humanity, seeking an asylum they knew not where; some driving their flocks and herd along with them; others, again, as I was, with nothing but a makeshift of a wagon and team—some not even that. Women were seen walking the crowded and dusty road, carrying in a
little bundle their all, or at least all that they could carry. Others, again, driving or leading a cow or a skeleton horse, with a bundle or pack fastened upon it, or a pack-horse, on which the feebler members of the family rode by turns.
The ferry-boat at Lexington, a substantial steamer, was kept busy from morning till night conveying the banished ones to the north of that turbid stream; and perhaps that ferryman saw more of the exodus than any other one man; and the owners of that ferry-boat, perhaps, realized a great profit from that Order No. 11 than anybody else, except those persons who appropriated to their own use what the citizens, for want of transportation, left behind them.
The number which crossed at Lexington—great as that number was—was but a small part of those who, under the operations of that Order No. 11, were made homeless, and scattered, as it were, to the four winds. Some crossed above and some below; some went into Kansas and Nebraska; some stopped in Johnson, Lafayette, Henry, and other counties further east; some went to Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, and other States.
Another trouble and difficulty with those fugitives was to get permission to stop and locate in places of their own choosing. The Federal authorities and the Union citizens of other counties argued that if the loyal element of Jackson,
Cass, and Bates repaired, as they were permitted to do, to Kansas and to the military posts, and the disloyal ones, who, it was said, had harbored and aided bushwhackers, and on whose account the order had been made, repaired in such
numbers to other counties, the same state of things would soon take place there; and the provost-marshal and the Federal authorities were importuned, day after day, for permission to stop in Lafayette, Johnson, and other counties.
Those who had certificates of loyalty, as prescribed by the order, had no difficulty in getting permits, and many other, who could establish a reputation for honesty, quietness, and good citizenship, were also granted permits to stop;
while others took their chances and stopped without permission, and were suffered to remain during good behavior.
Of the several families in whose company I left home, old Mr. Hunter and family, Mrs. Cave and hers, Mrs. Ousley and hers, and Wm. Hunter’s family stopped in the eastern part of Lafayette. David Hunter’s wife and her father’s (Mr. Potter’s) family went on to Indiana, and Mrs. Bennett and her children went to her husband in Ohio, and from there to Wisconsin.
After crossing the river at Lexington, we were met by another discouragement. Notices or proclamations were posted up by the roadside, forbidding all persons banished from the counties south of the river, to stop in the county of Ray,
without permission from the military authorities of that county; and I was told that it was the same in other counties further north.
The hundreds or thousands who crossed the river at Lexington worked their weary way in different directions on different roads. Some turned westward into Clay County, some east into Carroll, Chariton, Howard, Boone, and others;
while some took the northern road to Caldwell and Clinton, or still further north.
It has been said that misery loves company. If so the miserable ones had enough of it then; scarcely any one was so poorly provided with the means of transportation but some other would be met or passed who was as poorly
provided, or even worse off than himself.
We crossed the Missouri on Tuesday, the 8th of September; and the next day, having joined a company with Wm. C. Estes, Moses Bailey, and my brother, E.N. Rice, all of Cass County, we arrived in Richmond, and repaired to the office of
the post commander, Major King, a son, I think, of Austin A. King, our then member in Congress. Estes and I had certificates given by Ballinger, and upon these certificates and our statements as to the character of the other members
of our company, we were all given permission to stop anywhere in Ray or Clay counties; but the next thing was to find a place of shelter to stop in. The country was full of refugees seeking shelter and homes, and empty houses were hard to find. Estes and Bailey had friends and relatives in Clay, and they proceeded on there. I and my brother parted company with them on the 10th, near Elkhorn, and proceeded toward Knoxville.
While moving slowing along in quest of a stopping place, I was both vexed and amused at the way in which I saw we were looked upon by some good people of Ray. It was something hard to buy feed for our poor team, so fearful were they of giving aid and comfort to the enemies of the Government. One good man said he had no corn or cabbage to sell, and if he had, he would not sell to us. Another said he had corn plenty, and for me to help myself to it; but refused to set a price, as he said he was not allowed to sell to rebels.
On Friday afternoon we stopped at a Baptist church, south of Knoxville, and I set out to seek a place of shelter. I found nearby an old school-mate that I had not seen since about 1827, in the person of Alfred Kinkaid, who gave me some
friendly directions; and next evening we were fortunate enough to get into a small house with two small rooms; three families of us together, but we were thankful for the accommodation; and my gratitude to Mr. Reuben Holman has not dies out yet. Here we remained together until my brother found another cabin for himself and family, and there I remained during the winter.
It may be asked whether the order prohibited us from going back to our homes and bringing away the goods left behind us. I do not know that the order in express terms either permitted or prohibited it; but to some extent it was done by those who dared to venture back into what very properly might have been called “the dark and bloody ground”; and I must say that the authorities were more lenient in carrying out the order than the general was in making it. The cause which declared that all grain and hay at a distance from garrisons should be destroyed, I think was never carried out.
About a week after locating on Crooked River in Ray County, I and my brother and daughter (Mrs. Tate) returned to the vicinity of Mount Hope (Odessa) and carried to our temporary home what goods we had stored there; and about a
week later I and my daughter returned to Chapel Hill and obtained hers.
About the first of November I returned with my son and daughter to my farm and collected together as many of our cattle and hogs as were not too wild and unruly to drive, and drove them out of the doomed and wasting territory; sold the hogs near Lexington, and drove the cattle to Ray. On all of these trips I saw men in arms, on each side; the guerillas by twos and threes, and the Union soldiers in larger bodies; but fortunately, I was not molested by either party. Many other refugees, also, ventured back as I did, to seek and to save some of the necessaries of life. Most of those who did so were women and small boys, they being less liable to suffer violence than men.
When I arrived in sight of my home, after leaving it under such disagreeable circumstances, I was agreeably surprised to meet with some of the women and boys that I had left in company with on the memorable 6th of September.
Some of Mr. Hunter’s, Cave’s, and Ousley’s families were there for the purpose of driving off the livestock that had been abandoned or left behind. And again I was, perhaps, of some help to them, and I know they were a great help to me, as we drove out stock off together.
Those who have never witnessed a similar scene cannot realize how lonely and how desolate everything appeared. While the presence of domestic animals, the crowing of domestic fowls, would indicate that the country was inhabited,
everything else spoke of desolation and ruin. Dogs appeared to have transformed themselves into wolves; a calf had been killed in my door-yard and they were feasting upon its body.
The winter passed, and the scattered exiles banished by Order No. 11, though exempted from many of the alarms and annoyances to which they had been subjected at home by the depredations of men in arms and the bloody deeds of
violence so often occurring, were nevertheless exiles and sojourners in a land of strangers, and away from the scenes of former happiness and cherished homes, which they could not and did not wish to forget.
In March, 1864, General Brown, then in command of the district, issued another general order, which was also numbered 11, proclaiming that loyal men and families, by making proof of loyalty and getting permits for commanding officers at certain posts, might return to their homes. A limited number did so, and returned with much fear and trembling; but by far the greater number felt that it would be unsafe to trust themselves back again where they had experienced so much of bitter partisan strife and so many scenes of blood, and where some had personal and political enemies. Only a few families returned to any neighborhood and in some localities none.
On the 5th of April, with my family, including my daughter and her children, I arrived at my home, having been absent seven months. Enough corn and wheat remained unconsumed to subsist on until a crop could be made; some few hogs were also left. My farm, too, remained, the buildings and fencing much less damaged than I had expected. Such, however, was not the case with all; for hundreds of farms, or at least the building and fencing upon them, in the western part of the county and on the large prairies, were entirely consumed by the prairie fires of the preceding autumn. Some, on their return, found nothing but the naked land—buildings, orchards, fences all gone.
Of those neighbors who left in company with me, none returned until the war was nearly over and tranquility was partially restored. They all, however, ultimately returned; some of them are now living on their former homes. Old
Mr. Hunter, now in his 94th year, the oldest man in the township, and with one or two exceptions the oldest man in the county, is still alive (1882), on his old farm, on which he located in 1836. His daughter, Mrs. Cave, owns a part of it
and lives there also, and Mrs. Owsley is on her former home.
My then nearest neighbor, Jacob Bennett, who was in Ohio when the order was promulgated, and whose family left with us, is still my nearest neighbor, each of on the same farm occupied before the war. When he read, while in Ohio, the famous Order No. 11 (issued by one of Ohio’s favorite sons), requiring that all person in Jackson County should leave it, and knowing, as he did, how hard it would be to get transportation, and unwilling to trust himself back in a country from which he had fled to avoid compulsory service on one or the other side of the struggle, he employed a brother-in-law to start at once and convey his family to him in Ohio. I met with that gentleman quite recently, and had from his own lips an account of what he saw and witnessed of Order No. 11 while on that errand; which account, or a synopsis of it, I give, in connections with my own, as near as I can in his own language. Speaking of the occurrences of the 6th of September, he said:
“I came very near being with you in that tragedy and if I had been left to myself and had had my own way, no doubt would have been.
“When my brother-in-law employed me to repair to Missouri and escort his wife and children to him in Ohio, I obtained from the military authorities at Cleveland papers of protection that would pass me safely through the Federal
lines to Missouri. Arriving at Hamilton, on the Hannibal & St. Joe Railroad, I obtained passage to Lexington; and on arriving there, and even before, the effects and the consequences of Order No. 11 were apparent in the moving
masses of wretched fugitives. The roads were full of them, and the ferry-boat was crowded with them, passing to the north of the river; and the streets of the town were scarcely ever clear of them. I arrived in Lexington on Friday, the
4th, intending to go to Lone Jack the next day, make my preparations on Sunday, and start back on Monday; but Providence ordered otherwise. Ongoing to the office of the provost of the place, whose name I think was Johnson, and telling him my business and asking for a passport to your part of the country, he told me he could give me what I asked for, but that it would do me no good; and he dissuaded me from what he called the foolhardy attempt to
reach Lone Jack at that time. ‘The country’ said he, ‘up there is full of guerrillas, and a Federal passport in your pocket would insure your death from them. Besides, there are numerous scouting parties of Union soldiers, and you will not know one from the other, and will not be able to tell whose company you are in, as they are so much in the habit of playing off the citizens and on strangers.”
“I told him that mine was an urgent case of necessity; that I had come for my sister-in-law and her family; that time was short; that she could not remain long where she was, and that in a few days I would not know where to find her; and that though my path might be full of danger, I must pursue that path. After a few more dissuasions, he gave me the required pass, and I left the office to seek some mode of conveyance. In a short time I met the provost on the street, and he again cautioned me as to the danger I was running into. I asked him if he thought, in the event of my going on, I stood an even chance for life. ‘No,’ said he, ‘not one chance in fifty. The country is full of our enemies; this town is full of spies, who give them information. Your business here is already known. You are a Northern man, and hence obnoxious to the guerillas. You are attempting to retrieve those who by our men are regarded as rebels, and hence an object of suspicion by them. And again, a man of your appearance and on your business is reasonably supposed to have money with him; and there are men in our army and in our service, as well as on the other side, who, when from under the eye of their officer, would murder you for five dollars or less. Take my advice,’ said he, ‘and remain here. There are citizen refugees passing to and from that neighborhood almost every day. You can send word to your sister that you are here prepared to take her to her husband, and she will find some way to get here; and then you will be in no danger. She can come to you, when you cannot go to her.’
“In a few minutes I met your neighbor, Mr. Ambers Graham, and he told me he was well acquainted with Mr. Bennett and wife, and could send her word immediately, that he knew she would hail the news with joy and come at once. I
accordingly took the advice given, and remained in Lexington and vicinity some days; and while there I experienced more of the horrors of war than I had done in all the years of the war in Ohio. A constant stream of emigrants or fugitives—men, women, and children were constantly passing through the town and down to the ferry-boat; and I spent hours in assisting women and children who had no man with them down the steep river bank and onto the ferry-boat, with their crazy vehicles and their few cattle and sheep; and heard them hurriedly recount their sufferings and hardships during the war, and of this, the greatest hardship of all.
“A Mr. Shaw, a short distance south of town, who was acquainted in your vicinity, having heard of me and my mission, sent me an invitation to make his house my home until Mrs. Bennett arrived, which I did; and on the first night had an
experience which I suppose was common at that time in your part of the country. About nine or ten o’clock, the house was surrounded by about twenty men, supposed, but not certainly known, to be guerrillas, and Mr. Shaw was called for. After some remonstrance from me and another gentleman present, he went out; buy the men, whoever they were, hand encountered a Negro man, who informed them that there were several men in the house well armed, and when
Mr. Shaw went out they were in the act of leaving.
“In the forenoon of Monday, I, as well as the whole town, was startled with the news of the tragedy at Lone Jack, and learned that my sister-in-law’s father, her two uncles, a cousin, and two other near neighbors and relatives had been killed; and later in the day, that Mrs. Bennett, in company with you and the other survivors, was on the way to Lexington—and the rest you know.”
Taking up the thread of my narrative now where I left off: It was about twelve o’clock, on Monday, when near Mount Hope, we met my neighbor, Jacob Yankee, whose farm joined mine on the north, who informed Mrs. Bennett that her
brother-in-law was at Lexington waiting for her, and that he was prepared to escort her to her husband. My neighbor had heard, before meeting us, of the bloody scenes of the day before, and was very much distressed. I thought he had
left with his family on Saturday, but such was not the case; he had left with a load of goods himself, to convey them to a home that he had secured near Lexington, but his wife, with a niece, was yet at home, the only persons then
remaining in that part of the county; and he was returning alone to carry them to a place of more security. Weighed down with anxiety on their account, as well as fear for his own safety, he then and there appealed to Mrs. Bennett to return with him as a kind of life-guard (as women were called in those days, men thinking that their lives would be more secure if accompanied by women and children; promising that if she would do so, he would then carry her and hers to where her brother-in-law was in waiting and assist her in taking care of or shipping her property to Ohio.
She accordingly returned with him to his home, where they arrived late in the afternoon, and found Mrs. Yankee and her niece in their loneliness, entirely ignorant of all that occurred in the vicinity during the last forty-eight hours, not
having seen a single person since Saturday. That lady afterwards told me that she and her niece spent that Sunday and part of Monday in removing farming and other implements, a large lot of pine and other lumber, and other articles
stored in the barn, as well as some things from the dwelling, to a safe distance away, so that in the event of those buildings being burned, as she expected would be done, that all would not be burned together.
And so it was with almost all of us; we left our homes with the expectation that when we should return (if ever we did) they would be in ashes; and with many such was the case. I have given this imperfect sketch, not as a history of the
celebrated order and its varied incidents in those three counties, but only as a remembrance of what I saw of that order and its consequences; and as much as I saw and suffered, other may have seen and suffered much more; and all, perhaps, will concur in saying that this was on of the dark pages in their life’s history