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| Marsh Foster, First Martyr of the Civil War? Killed Election Day 1861 Warrensburg, MO Old Courthouse on Main Street   Marsh Foster Killing 1861 Warrensburg, Missouri
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Historic Johnson County Courthouse, Warrensburg, Missouri
Stored 100 muskets for secession leaders...
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The Old Johnson County Courthouse was completed in 1842 and functioned as the County seat until 1871. The Courthouse was the site of a murder of the newly elected county clerk, Marsh Foster, by the former clerk's son William McCown on February 18, 1861. This was just before the official start of the war, but was based on the political sympathies of the two men. The men of Johnson County quickly formed troops both Union and Confederate. Local lore says that the two armies, the beginning of Cockrell's Brigade (Confederate) and Emory Foster's (Union) took turns drilling on the same parade ground. By the end of the war the town square had become a Union army camp. A hotel serving as a hospital and other buildings constructed for stables and barrackss
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| US Map 1861 Northern and Southern States |
MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVIEW.
(With Many References to Warrensburg and Johnson County)
VOL. 8 OCTOBER, 1913. NO. 1
CIVIL WAR IN MISSOURI
Commander, comrades, ladies, and gentlemen:
It has been well said, and that, too, by an American, that "We may build more splendid habitations. Fill our rooms with paintings and with sculptures, But we cannot buy with gold the old associations."
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| Battle of Wilson's Creek, Newell Convers Wyeth completed this mural, along with a companion depicting the 1864 Battle of Westport, in 1920. |
It is a comforting thought to many of us, for whom “life's shadows are growing long," that there yet remains, in this commercial age, a few things too precious by far to be estimated upon a money basis. And of these, the most priceless heritage of all, next to the love of a good woman, is the memory of the stirring days of 1861, when, in the springtime of youth and vigor, we wore the blue uniform of the volunteer army of the United States, and helped to destroy forever, upon her soil, the dogma of secession and the right of property in man. And what part or lot had the great commonwealth of Missouri in this memorable struggle? It is high time that her glorious history was better understood, especially by the generation which has come upon the stage of active life since that time.
In the census of 1860, the great states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts and Missouri ranked in the order named as to population, Missouri having the seventh place. It might be well, at the risk of exhausting your patience, to refer briefly to the slavery question, the real cause of our civil war.
We of America are indebted to England and Holland for the origin of this gigantic evil, as it was introduced upon this continent by these two maritime nations. It existed in New England, and in New York and Pennsylvania, as well as in the South, during the war of the Revolution, and no issue was then raised concerning it. But the Puritans in New England, the Holland Dutch in New York, and the Quakers in Pennsylvania, soon destroyed it within their respective boundaries after achieving their independence.
When the Northwestern Territory, now the states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin, was formed in 1787, after a bitter struggle, the proviso was inserted, and passed both houses of Congress, "that there should be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted" there. Thus those great states came into the Union free. By reason of the purchase from France, in 1803, of that vast domain then known as the Louisiana Territory, the question of the further continuation of slavery there, brought on the contest which terminated only in Lee's surrender at Appomattox, in 1865. The states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida came into the Union as slave territory; but in 1820, when Missouri applied for admission, the controversy as to whether she should be slave or free shook the nation from center to circumference. It was finally settled by a compromise, which inflicted the curse of slavery upon the great state of Missouri, but which admitted Iowa and Minnesota as Free states. Like all compromises, however, upon great moral questions, it satisfied nobody, and left wounds behind it which time could never heal. The annexation of Texas as slave territory then followed, with the admission of California and Oregon as Free states. Then came the struggle over Kansas and Nebraska. These two territories were fairly debatable ground, as they were both south of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes of latitude, the boundary fixed in the Missouri compromise as the "dead line" between freedom and slavery.
Emigrants from both North and South poured into these territories, especially into Kansas, and "chaos came again" upon that unhappy land between 1856 and 1861. The followers of freedom prevailed, and then the haughty Southern Oligarchy realized at last, what they had long feared, that slavery could not be maintained in the new territories beyond the Missouri river, and that its end was only a question of time. Then came the scheme of secession, to which the Democratic Party in the South was fully committed, as well as to the maintenance of slavery in the new territories as well as in the South. The northern democracy attempted to evade the question, by adopting the elusive theory of Stephen A. Douglas, then United States senator from Illinois, called popular sovereignty, which referred this issue to each territory to decide for itself. The Whig party attempted to ignore this issue, and perished ignobly in such attempt, for the brains and the conscience of that organization immediately deserted it, founding the Republican Party, which was pledged to the destruction of slavery.
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| Major General John C. Fremont |
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| President James Buchanan, 15th President |
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| Sen. Thomas Hart Benton 1782 - 1858 Father in Law of John C. Fremont |
In 1858 there arose to national prominence that wonderful statesman, whose name and career will illuminate the pages of history until time shall be no more, Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, whose masterly debate with Douglas foreshadowed his entrance into public life the following year. He became the Republican candidate for president in 1860, having been nominated at Chicago, as hereafter stated, and was supported with enthusiasm by Francis P. Blair and Edward Bates of Missouri, the latter afterwards entering the cabinet as attorney general. The Democratic Party divided at Charleston in 1860, both wings afterwards re-assembling at Baltimore, where Stephen A. Douglas was nominated by the northern and John C. Breckenridge by the southern faction. In the same year the remnant of the old Whig party, then calling themselves the Constitutional Union men, met at Baltimore, and nominated John Bell of Tennessee for president.
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| President Abraham Lincoln |
In the presidential contest of that year, Abraham Lincoln, a native of Kentucky, and citizen of Illinois, the greatest statesman America has yet produced, was the candidate of the Republican party; Stephen A. Douglas, the "Little Giant," of Illinois, then in the United States senate from that state, of the union wing of the Democratic party, John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky, of the secession wing of the same organization, and John Bell of Tennessee, of the Whig party.
In the Electoral College the entire vote of California, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, and four votes of New Jersey, one hundred and eighty votes in all, were cast for Lincoln.
Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas, seventy-two votes in all, were cast for Breckenridge.
Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia, thirty-nine votes in all, were cast for Bell. The entire vote of Missouri and three votes of New Jersey, twelve votes in all, were cast for Douglas. In the following year, by a majority of 80,000, the people of Missouri decided against secession. Not a single member of that party was returned to the convention called to determine that question, though there were a number of the delegates who were believers in the doctrine of state rights, or, as it is now termed, local self-government.
Of the whole number of members, eighty-one were born in the slave states, fourteen in the North, three in Europe, and one in the District of Columbia. This convention, when it assembled, adhered firmly to the Union from beginning to end, and when Claiborne F. Jackson, with a party of state officials, and a minority of the general assembly, fled from the state in 1861, Hamilton R. Gamble, an eminent lawyer and unswerving Union man, was appointed as provisional governor in his stead, and a legislature elected, which was as steadfastly devoted to the government of the United States as any corresponding body in the North.
In the spring of 1861 the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, the two Carolinas, Tennessee, Virginia and Texas, eleven in all, attempted to secede. And thus was born the ill-starred and ill-fated Southern Confederacy.
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| Southern States 1861 |
By this time Kansas was admitted into the Union and conspicuous among the loyal states, twenty-three in number, stood the grand old state of Missouri. This is clearly demonstrated by the number of Union soldiers furnished by each state in the four years beginning in 1861 and ending in 1865. I have taken pains to obtain this information from official sources, and the roll of honor down to and including Missouri, as follows:
New York, 445,959;
Pennsylvania, 338,155;
Ohio, 310,654;
Illinois, 258,162;
Indiana, 194,363;
Massachusetts, 146,467;
Missouri, 109,162;
Total 1,802,922.
Thus it is that Missouri, seventh among the Empire States in point of population in 1860, was seventh also among her sisters in the struggle for human freedom, although, unlike them, every mile of her territory almost was a battle ground over which armies marched and countermarched for four long years in the most gigantic civil war ever known in the world's history.
There is another fact well-nigh forgotten also, but also of record, as to this eventful period, and that is that while drafts were ordered and executed in all of the six states above named which exceeded Missouri in the number of soldiers furnished, Missouri alone of them all furnished her full quota in every call made by the president or his subordinates for troops to suppress the slaveholders' rebellion. And while it is true that a draft was ordered in Missouri in 1863, it is also a fact that the order was countermanded as soon as it was shown that Missouri's quota was full.
Nor is this all. The entire vote of Missouri for president in 1860 was 165,518 and sixty per cent of this number wore the blue uniform of the United States and lent efficient aid in the destruction of slavery forever on this continent.
This, too, when Missouri's quota in the Confederate army was also full, and while no official records survive from which the exact number of such troops can be obtained yet, it has been stated upon the best authority that at the close of the war there were more men from Missouri in the Confederate army than from any of the seceding states. This is further exemplified by the fact that the three presidential candidates in 1860, who stood distinctively for the Union, differing only on the question of further extension of slavery in the territories, Mr. Lincoln being opposed to such extension, Mr. Bell believing in the idea of non-interference, and Mr. Douglas being in favor of each territory determining that question for itself, those three candidates had, combined, in Missouri, a majority of 102,884, in a total vote of 165,518, over the followers of Breckenridge, who were dis-unionists and in favor of the absolute right of the slaveholder to take his slaves into the territories, and keep them there unaffected by any territorial legislation, the vote being as follows:
Abraham Lincoln, 17,028
Stephen Douglas, 58,801
John Bell, 58,372
134,201
John Breckenridge, 31,317
165,518
The accuracy of the foregoing statement as to the relative positions of the respective political parties in the campaign of 1860, is verified by the following quotations taken from those platforms, as they appear in the Political Text Book for 1860, compiled by Horace Greeley and John F. Cleveland, and published in New York by the Tribune Association in that year.
REPUBLICAN PLATFORM
On Which Lincoln Was Nominated, May 18, 1860.
3. "That to the Union of the states this nation owes its unprecedented increase in population, its surprising development of material resources, its rapid augmentation of wealth, its happiness at home and its honor abroad; and we hold in abhorrence all schemes for disunion, come from whatever source they may: And we congratulate the country that no Republican member of congress has uttered or countenanced the threats of disunion so often made by Democratic members, without rebuke and with applause from their political associates; and we denounce those threats of disunion, in case of a popular overthrow of their ascendency, as denying the vital principles of a free government, and as an avowal of contemplated treason, which it is the imperative duty of an indignant people sternly to rebuke and forever silence."
7. "That the new dogma, that the Constitution of its own force carries slavery into any or all of the territories of the United States, is a dangerous political heresy, at variance with the explicit provisions of that instrument itself, with contemporaneous exposition, and with legislative and judicial precedent: is revolutionary in its tendency, and subversive of the peace and harmony of the country."
8. “That the normal condition of the territory of the United States is that of freedom: That as our Republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in all our national territory, ordained that 'no person should be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without the process of law,' it becomes our duty, by legislation, whenever such legislation is necessary, to maintain this provision of the Constitution against all attempts to violate it: and we deny the authority of congress, of a territorial legislature, or of any individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any territory in the United States."
CONSTITUTIONAL UNION PLATFORM
On Which Bell Was Nominated, May 9, 1860.
"2. Resolved: That it is both the part of patriotism and of duty to recognize no political principle other than the Constitution of the country, the Union of the states, and the enforcement of the laws, and that, as representatives of the Constitutional Union men of the country in national convention assembled, we hereby pledge ourselves to maintain, protect and defend, separately and unitedly, these great principles of public liberty and national safety, against all enemies at home and abroad, believing that thereby peace may once more be restored to the country, the rights of the people and states
reestablished, and the government again placed in that condition of justice, fraternity and equality, which, under the example and Constitution of our fathers, has solemnly bound every citizen of the United States to maintain a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."
DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION, DOUGLAS WING
Platform Upon Which Douglas Was Nominated at Baltimore, Md., June 22, 1860.
1. "Resolved: That we, the Democracy of the Union, in convention assembled, hereby declare our affirmance of the resolutions unanimously adopted and declared as a platform of principles by the Democratic convention, at Cincinnati, in the year 1856, believing that Democratic principles are unchanging in their nature when applied to the same subject matters; and we recommend, as the only further resolution, the following:
Inasmuch as differences of opinion exist in the Democratic Party as to the nature and extent of the powers of a territorial legislature, and as to the powers and duties of congress, under the Constitution of the United States, over the institution of slavery within the territories:
2. Resolved: That the Democratic Party will abide by the decisions of the supreme court of the United States on the questions of constitutional law."
From Platform of 1856.
1. ”Resolved: That, claiming fellowship with and desiring the co-operation of all who regard the preservation of the Union under the Constitution as the paramount issue, and repudiating all sectional parties and platforms concerning domestic slavery, which seek to embroil the states and incite to treason and armed resistance to law in the territories, and whose avowed purpose, if consummated, must end in civil war and disunion, the American Democracy recognize and adopt the principles contained in the organic laws establishing the territories of Nebraska and Kansas, as embodying the only sound and safe solution of the slavery question, upon which the great national idea of the people of this whole country can repose in its determined conservation of the Union and non-interference of Congress with slavery in the territories or in the District of Columbia.
2. That this was the basis of the Compromise of 1850, confirmed by both the Democratic and the Whig parties in National Conventions, ratified by the people in the election of 1852, and rightly applied to the organization of the territories of 1854.
3. That by the uniform application of the Democratic principle to the organization of territories, and the admission of new states with or without domestic slavery, as they may elect, the equal rights of all the states will be preserved intact, the original compacts of the Constitution maintained inviolate, and the perpetuity and expansion of the Union insured to its utmost capacity of embracing, in peace and harmony, every future American state that may be constituted or annexed with a Republican form of government.
Resolved: That we recognize the right of the people of all the territories, including Kansas and Nebraska, acting through the legally and fairly expressed will of the majority of the actual residents, and whenever the number of their inhabitants justifies it, to form a Constitution, with or without domestic slavery, and be admitted into the Union upon terms of perfect equality with the other states."
PLATFORM ON WHICH BRECKENRIDGE WAS NOMINATED
At Baltimore, June 28, 1860.
"Resolved: That the platform adopted at Cincinnati be affirmed, with the following resolutions:
That the National Democracy of the United States hold these cardinal principles on the subject of slavery in the territories: First, that congress has no power to abolish slavery in the territories; second, that the territorial legislature has no power to abolish slavery in the territories, nor to prohibit the introduction of slaves therein, nor any power to destroy or impair the right of property in slaves by any legislation whatever.
Resolved: That the enactments of state legislatures to defeat the faithful execution of the Fugitive Slave Law are hostile in character, subversive to the Constitution and revolutionary in their effects."
Thus it appears, that while the Republican Party was absolutely opposed to the extension of slavery, or to its further existence, it was as resolutely opposed to any scheme of disunion. And this was true also of the Douglas wing of the Democratic Party as well as the remnant of the Whig party, then known as the Constitutional Union party. While the Breckenridge wing of the Democratic party were not only disunionists, but resolved to force the institution of slavery upon the free people of the new states then forming in the West and Northwest, without the consent of the inhabitants of such territories. Failing in this, they drew the sword for the purpose of perpetuating the curse of slavery on this continent, and of upholding the dogma of secession, and in their case, for once, the Scriptures were fulfilled, for the adherents of this dogma, having drawn the sword, perished by it.
Indeed, if a line be drawn one county wide on the west side of the Mississippi from the northern to the southern boundary of the state of Missouri, and one county wide on each side of the Missouri river from the city of St. Louis to the northwestern boundary of this state, within that line of demarcation will be found the great recruiting ground for the Confederate army as well as the strongholds of both slavery and secession in Missouri; while outside of these lines the great heart of her people beat as firmly for the cause of the Union as it did in similar communities in any of the northern states. So that any claim now made by any one, whether in official life or out of it, that Missouri ever belonged in sentiment to the South is an unmerited slander, promulgated only by those who are totally unacquainted with the imperial resources and densely ignorant of the glorious history of our great commonwealth. "Poor Old Missouri" she is not and never was. Union Missouri she was, is and always will be. Brave Old Missouri she was in her heroic past. Great Old Missouri she is in her boundless present, and Rich Old Missouri she will be, as I fully believe, in her transcendent future.
There is no reason to doubt that if Thomas H. Benton, who represented Missouri in the United States senate for thirty consecutive years, had lived, his overshadowing influence and massive intellect would have been on the side of the Union, as the Democracy of Missouri was really divided on that issue, and that wing of it which bore the name of that great statesman, was opposed to slavery, and unconditionally and almost unanimously arrayed on the side of freedom. Two of Benton's most devoted lieutenants, Francis P. Blair, and B. Gratz Brown, were striking illustrations of this truth. Blair and Brown were cousins, both natives of Kentucky, both slaveholders by inheritance, both voluntarily manumitted their slaves, and at the beginning of the civil war, Blair was a free-soil or anti-slavery member of congress from the city of St. Louis, and Brown was the able editor of the Missouri Democrat, a Benton paper, whose owner, William McKee, was an ardent and outspoken Union man, and whose paper never once faltered in its support of the United States government in the darkest hours of its death-grapple with secession.
The lamented death of Stephen A. Douglas occurring as it did
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| Stephen A. Douglas |
early in the civil war, deprived the Union cause of a leader, who would have been a host in himself. It became apparent to the Union men of Missouri, before the end of the year 1860, that the desperate and unscrupulous secession minority, although defeated at the polls, would resort to extreme measures at any cost to enroll Missouri among the defenders of slavery and secession. So such men as Blair, Brown, Bates, Broadhead, Fletcher, Gamble, Glover, How, Filley, Krekel, Edwards, Dyer, Draper, Lovelace, Wagner, Rollins, Hall, Pretorious, McKee, Boyd, Phelps, McClurg, Guitar, Geo. R. Smith, and B. W. Grover, with many others in various portions of the state, resolved to keep Missouri in her proper place among the loyal states or perish in the effort.
Johnson County Situation
The people of Johnson County (Missouri) were almost evenly divided between the Whig and Democratic parties. The location of
the county was outside of the great slaveholding belt of the country along the Missouri river, and, therefore, there was a large number of substantial small farmers settled there from the mountain regions of East Tennessee, Kentucky and the Carolinas, as well as a small number from the free states, who refused to own slaves and who were at heart opposed to that institution. The majority of these men were uncompromising Whigs. On the other hand the Democrats were mainly large land owners and slaveholders, and were chiefly from Virginia, Kentucky, Georgia and the other slave states. The prestige of wealth and social position was largely on the Democratic and also the secession side, but the Whigs, and Union men as well, were an uncompromising and numerous body of men, whose undaunted spirit could be depended upon in any emergency.
In 1861, by a decisive majority, Johnson county elected the Union candidate, Aikman Welch,
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| Aikman Welch Was appointed by provisional Governor Gamble when Knott refused to take loyalty oath. 1827-1864 |
a native of Missouri, and one of the ablest lawyers then in the state, as a delegate to the constitutional convention. Welch soon so distinguished himself in that body, as to secure the appointment of attorney-general, and died in that office during the war. His opponent was M. C. Goodlett, a young man then, who had recently emigrated to the county from Tennessee, and a prominent secessionist. Among the Union men of the county Benjamin W. Grover
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| Col. Benjamin W. Grover, 1811-1861 |
was the recognized leader, as he was afterwards the representative Union soldier. A native of Ohio, of Welsh ancestry, he came to the county in 1844, and was a life-long Whig and opponent of both slavery and secession. He was a member of the state senate of Missouri from 1852 to 1856, and was one of the early directors of the Missouri Pacific Railroad, and, in furtherance of that enterprise, devoted many of the best years of his life. He took an active part in the election of Aikman Welch, whose intimate personal friend he was, and when the war clouds began to lower, gave early public notice of his intention to enter the military service of the United States on the first opportunity.
Among his intimate friends, all strong Union men, were Robert A. Foster, John L. Rogers, A. H. Gilkeson, W. B. Moody, Thomas Evans, William and David Marr, Geo. W. and Thos. D. Houts, D. W. Reed, John Brown, James K. Farr, Thomas Iiams, Robert, John and Baxter Morrow, John H. McCluney, William Parman, Samuel Maguire, William E. Applegate, William E. Chester, Thomas Foster, William Fisher, Andrew Granger, Samuel Workman, Henry Hays, Daniel Adams, James Shumate, Jacob Knaus, Leroy C. Duncan, Samuel Bird, Stephen J. Burnett, A. M. Christian, Ingram Starkey, James Isaminger, Brinkley Hornsby, John J. Welshans, Alfred Duffield, William Zoll, Jesse and Harvey Harrison, and many others, whom want of time and space alone prevent present mention.
Robert A. Foster was a minister of the Gospel, a Southern Methodist, and the only minister of that denomination in the state who was for the Union, and a native of South Carolina, but he early chose the Union side, though past the age of military service, entered the volunteer army of the United States with his three sons, and served four years, as hereinafter described. The sons of Henry Hays, Daniel Adams, James Shumate, Andrew Granger, A. M. Christian, Geo. W. Houts, William Marr, Brinkley Hornsby, John J. Welshans, John L. Rogers, the Harrison brothers, and many others, were afterwards gallant soldiers for the Union. Brinkley Hornsby, a native of East Tennessee, openly voted for Fremont in 1856, and for Lincoln in 1860, in Johnson county.
Marsh Foster, the eldest son of Robert A. Foster, was the ablest young man by long odds in Johnson County at that time. In 1860 he was an independent Democratic candidate for county clerk, and was elected after a remarkable canvass, defeating both the regular Democratic nominee, James McCown, and the Whig candidate, F. S. Poston, for that office. When secession became the issue, he supported the Union candidate, Welch, for delegate to the constitutional convention, and on the afternoon of Election Day, February 18, 1861, was assassinated in the most cowardly manner at the polls in Warrensburg by the two McCowns, father and son. Had his life been spared, Marsh Foster would soon have entered the Union army, and would undoubtedly have risen to a high rank in the service. As it was, he was the first martyr to the Union cause in Johnson County and also in the United States, and as such will ever be held in loving and tender remembrance.
(Incorporation.-Warrensburg was incorporated by the Legislature. November 23, 1855. On the first Monday of April, 1856, the first town election was held. The first council meeting was at the court house. April 9, 1856. Dr. William Calhoun was elected president pro tempore. Marsh Foster was appointed clerk and Paschal Cork, constable. "Western Missourian" newspaper Edited by Marsh Foster; important newspaper prior to the Civil War.)
After the unprovoked murder of Marsh Foster, Find a grave Link, the two McCowns fled to the jail for refuge, where they would have been hanged by a band of young men led by Thos. W. and W. L. Houts, but their lives were saved by B. W. Grover and Emory S. Foster,
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| Major Emory S. Foster (November 5, 1839-December 23, 1902) was a Major in the 7th Missouri State Militia Cavalry during the Civil War. Afterwards he was a St. Louis newspaper editor who fought a duel with rival editor and former Confederate John N. Edwards. Major Emory S. Foster of the 7th Missouri Cavalry was in command of the 740 pro-Union militiamen in lone Jack, Missouri when 3,000 Rebel guerillas attacked them in August 1862. Major Emory S Foster Link  |
the second son of R. A. Foster, who persuaded them to let the law take its course. A packed grand jury of secessionists afterwards refused to indict the McCowns for murder, which but intensified the feeling against them. Both of them served in the Confederate army, though not with credit either to themselves or to that cause.
(Although it was reported in the Sacramento Daily Union paper on March 19, 1861 that, "Colonel James LcCown, of Johnson county, Missouri, and his son William, who have been on examination for several days past in Warrensburg on the charge of killing Marsh Foster, the Clerk of the County Court, have both been found guilty by the examining Court of murder in the first degree. Bail being refused, they were committed to jail.")
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Col. James Madison McCown, was the the 5th Missouri Commader, in 1862. In 1861 he and his son murdered, in a cowardly, cold-blooded act, the Union supporter Marshall "Marsh" Foster at the Old Courthouse in Warrensburg, MO on election day, Feb. 18, 1861. Emory Foster, Marsh's brother, burned the McCown house down in part with help from the 7th Missouri Cavalry. And more than 20 years later, Billy "William" McCown was murdered, as further retaliation of Marsh Foster's murder. The son was later found to be the one shooting Foster to death.
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Early in 1861 an independent military company was organized in Warrensburg, for the avowed purpose of serving in the Union army. Emory S. Foster was the captain and Thos. W. Houts its first lieutenant. No military clothing was obtainable, and of necessity a uniform was adopted of red shirts and black pants, so the company was known as the "Red Shirt Company." At that time there was stored in a room in the courthouse at Warrensburg
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| Historic Johnson County Courthouse, Warrensburg, Missouri Stored 100 muskets for secession leaders... |
one hundred muskets belonging to the state, which had been furnished to the county under the militia law of 1857, then in force. These arms were intended by the secession leaders to be used in overawing the Union men. But Foster and his men secured possession of them, and stood guard over them day and night. A demand was made on Foster for these arms, and he was threatened with prosecution if it was not acceded to, but he kept them fully loaded all the time for the use of his company, and afterwards turned them over to Col. Grover, who used them in arming his regiment. At the same time F. M. Cockrell,
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| General and Senator Francis Marion Cockrell of Warrensburg, Missouri, 206 East Market Street. |
now our United States Senator, afterwards a brave and distinguished soldier, was recruiting a company for the Confederate army, which he soon afterwards entered. Foster's company drilled daily on the east side of town and Cockrell's on the west side. On several occasions Cockrell and his men drilled with Foster and Foster and his men with Cockrell. Cockrell went south before Foster could get mustered into the Union army, but the utmost good feeling always prevailed between the two commands until the last.
The legislature of Missouri was at that time controlled by the secession element, and passed a conscription law, known as the Harris Military Bill, with the avowed purpose of raising an army to force Missouri out of the Union, a plan successfully adopted in many of the slave states. As soon as the bill passed, B. W. Grover made arrangements to canvass Johnson County in opposition to it, with a view of organizing the Union men. In this work he was joined by (Capt.) James D. Eads, a life-long Democrat, who had recently removed to Missouri from Iowa, and was then the editor of the "Warrensburg Missourian," the Democratic organ. Eads was an educated physician and had served in the Mexican war.
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Col. James Douglas Eads 1813-1871, A founder of Warrensburg
Pastor, Physician, Politician, Veteran, Publisher, Editor,
Owned Bolton House and Eads House
Warrensburg, Johnson County, Missouri
Picture of JOCOMO Historical SocietyJames Douglas Eads (son of William Lavern Eads and Elizabeth Douglas ?) was born September 13, 1813, and died June 10, 1871 in Warrensburg, Missouri, Sunset Hill Cemetery. He marriedMinerva Foster on March 24, 1836.
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| Col. James D. Eads, Sunset Hill Cemetery, Warrensburg, Johnson County, Missouri |
But he was a follower of Douglas, and when the secession tendencies of Johnson county Democracy became apparent, he became an outspoken Union man, resigned his place on the paper, and joined Grover in the canvass of the county, speaking in every school district. For this both Eads and Grover were proscribed, and a reward of five hundred dollars offered to any man who would kill them. But Foster and Houts, with a picked guard of the red shirt company, escorted the speakers in safety from one end of the county to the other, and so overawed the secessionists, that after one feeble interruption at Chilhowee they relinquished all idea of either interruptions or assassination.
By this time the Union men in Johnson County were fully organized, and what was afterwards the Twenty-seventh regiment of Missouri Mounted Infantry, United States Volunteers, was formed. B. W. Grover was unanimously chosen colonel, but declined the place in favor of his friend, Jacob Knaus. Grover was then chosen lieutenant-colonel; major; Thomas W. Houts, quartermaster (then Major); and John J. Welshans, commissary.
Captains McGuire, Isaminger, M. U. Foster, Duncan, Applegate, Turley, Parker, Miller, McCluney, Ijams, Taylor, and Brown; and Lieuts. Shanks, Hall, Box, Starkey, Pease, W. L. Christian, Bird, Burnett, Gallaher, Keaton, Smiley, McCabe and Van Beek, with a thousand of the best and bravest young men in Johnson and Pettis counties, were organized into a regiment, which was called, for want of a better name, the Johnson County Home Guards. There were no United States mustering officers nearer than St. Louis, and no communication with them by rail nearer than Otterville, in Cooper county, with the state government in secession hands, so that nothing could be done but appoint rallying places and devise a code of signals, leaving each company in the neighborhood where it had been recruited. Captains McGuire and Applegate were, therefore, stationed in what is now Grover township, in the northeastern part of the county, Capt. M. U. Foster at Warrensburg, Capt. Duncan at Kingsville, Capt. Turley at Dunksburg, Capt. Parker at Sedalia, Capt. Miller at Windsor, Capt. McCluney at Fayetteville, Capt. Isaminger in the southeastern part of the county on Clear Fork south of Knob Noster, Capt. Iiams at Cornelia, and Capts. Taylor and Brown at Chilhowee and Rose Hill. Such was the situation when Fort Sumter fell and also when Camp Jackson was taken on the 10th of May, 1861, by General Nathaniel Lyon and Colonel Frank P. Blair.
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| General Nathaniel Lyon 1818-1861 |
Then came a change in affairs. The crisis had come, and the Union army found its general in Nathaniel Lyon, who, had his life been spared, would have ranked among the greatest soldiers of the war. After capturing Camp Jackson, Lyon immediately organized a small command in St. Louis, and proceeded with it up the Missouri river.
Claiborne F. Jackson, then Governor, a secessionist,
Claiborne F. Jackson, (1806-1862) Governor of Missouri, Jackson had been a hardline Missouri Democrat since the 1830s. The vast majority of those in the state wishing to secede were Democrats,
as those wishing to remain loyal were Republicans.
abandoned Jefferson City and fled south, first taking the precaution to empty the state treasury, and steal all the blankets from the state lunatic asylum at Fulton. On the 17th of June, 1861, General Lyon reached Boonville with a small infantry and artillery force recruited in St. Louis, and there attacked and defeated a large number of secessionists, who were commanded by John S. Marmaduke, afterwards a Confederate general.
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| General John Sappington Marmaduke Former Lt. General State of Missouri 1833-1867 Born West of Arrow Rock, Missouri Marmaduke Link |
By this time, though the Twenty-seventh regiment had been enrolled, organized, and in active service, since the latter part of April, it had not been mustered in by any one possessing any authority from the United States to perform that act. In order to get into the service properly and regularly. Col. Grover rode alone across the country from Warrensburg to Boonville, a distance of seventy-five miles, to meet Gen. Lyon and procure the necessary authority from him to muster in his command. He arrived in time to act as volunteer aide to Gen. Lyon in the battle of Boonville, and received authority from that officer to immediately muster the Twenty-seventh into the service of the United States. While he was thus absent. Gen. Sterling Price,
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| General Sterling Price, 1809-1867 |
then in command of the Missouri State Guards, as the secession troops were then called, arrived in Warrensburg on his way south from Lexington, retreating from Gen. Lyon's advance. Gen. Price was accompanied by only a small escort and was very sick, necessitating his riding in an ambulance. He remained in Warrensburg during the afternoon of June 18th, at the Bolton House in Old Town. Major Foster, Capt. Foster and Lieutenant Houts were in town that day with about twenty-eight men, but none of them had any legal authority to order the men. All matters were at that time submitted to a vote and the majority ruled, the ranking officer simply carrying out the will of the majority. The younger men in the command proposed to capture Price at dusk and hurry off with him to Lyon, but the older men would not agree to it, fearing reprisals from the large rebel force then retreating south. In the twilight, in the Colburn pasture in Old Town at Warrensburg, a vote was taken in Major Foster's hat. Thirteen voted yes, the three officers above named being among that number, and fifteen, no. Not long afterwards, Gen. Price and his escort left town in a hurry. Col. Grover arrived about midnight that night with ample authority, and at once ordered a pursuit. We chased that ambulance to the Henry county line, where, in the gray dawn of the 19th, it safely reached a rebel camp too large for our little squadron to attack. So passed away a great opportunity. As soon as the men could be collected from the various parts of the county, a work requiring nearly two weeks' time, the entire regiment assembled in New Town, at Warrensburg, in the grove east of where Land, Fike & Go's mill now stands, and there, on the 4th day of July, 1861, it was mustered into the United States service by Col. Grover, for "three years or during the war." It then marched to Lexington, thirty-five miles distant, to meet a detachment from St. Louis of Gen. Lyon's rear guard and procure arms. Upon arriving there, it was found that the troops then due had not arrived, so Col. Knaus encamped the regiment near the Fairgrounds south of town, and remained there several days, without tents or camp equipage, officers and men alike sleeping on the bare ground, in a drenching rain storm, with a scant supply of food, arms and ammunition. In the meantime the rebels in Lexington, who could still muster a large force, formed a plan to capture the camp, and did seize and hold Capt. Foster, James M. Shepherd and several others who had gone into town for supplies. But, upon the appearance of two squadrons galloping into town, on parallel streets, one led by Col. Grover and the other by
Major Foster, the prisoners were quickly released and their captors fled to the brush without firing a shot.
The storm, perhaps, prevented the attack on the camp that night, but on the next day Col. Chas. G. Stiefel arrived on a steamboat with a regiment of infantry from St. Louis, and supplied Col. Knaus with a lot of Belgian muskets, of an antiquated pattern, far more dangerous to the men using them than to the foe. A report was circulated over the rebel “grapevine telegraph" that Col. Knaus had received no arms, so when the command arrived the next day but one, at Atkinson's, fifteen miles from Lexington, on the Warrensburg road, it was fired on from the brush by a large rebel force, and several men wounded. But the line soon formed. Col. Knaus leading the center, Col. Grover the right, and Major Foster and Captain Fred. Neet, of the Fourteenth Missouri, the left. The rapid fire and spirited charge of Col. Knaus and his men soon dislodged the enemy, who broke and ran in all directions, closely pursued all that afternoon as far as Chapel Hill by Capt. Foster and Lieut. Box, with detachments of the mounted men. Upon arriving in Warrensburg the regiment went into camp at Camp Lyon, three miles southeast of town, in the Bear Creek valley, and there remained on active duty, scouting incessantly day and night until about August 20th, when it was ordered to Jefferson City. It marched to Sedalia, and there the main portion, under Col. Grover, went east by rail, while Col. Knaus followed with the mounted detachment via the wagon road. While passing Lookout Station, or Centretown, on the railroad, while the train was moving through a deep cut, a band of rebel guerrillas fired from behind piles of cordwood on the edges of the cut on both sides down upon the heads of the men who were closely packed in stock-cars. Several men were badly wounded, and one, Dan. Cecil, one of the best and bravest boys in Foster's Company, mortally.
Col. Grover, who was on the engine, rallied and formed the men as soon as possible, but the guerrillas, being well mounted, escaped, with the exception of three, whose horses broke loose before they could mount. These three were captured and shot and several houses where the guerrillas had harbored were burned, and the train then moved on, reaching Jefferson City the same afternoon. On the next day but one, Col. Knaus arrived, not having been molested en route. Soon after his arrival in Jefferson City, Col. Knaus, then advanced in years, resigned and went home. Col. Grover succeeded to the command of the regiment and was again tendered the colonelcy by a unanimous vote, but declined it in favor of his friend, James D. Eads. Major Foster recruited a picked detachment from the regiment under the personal supervision of Gen. Grant, and called it the Fremont Scouts. He was ordered into active service with this detachment in western Missouri, and Capt. William Beck succeeded him as Major. Col. U. S. Grant was then in command of the post at Jefferson City, and to him Col. Grover reported for duty. A strong friendship sprang up between them and there was also a marked personal resemblance, as they were almost exactly the same size, with the same complexion and the same colored hair and eyes. So, when Col. Grant received notice of his promotion to Brigadier-General, he gave to Col. Grover his uniform coat, which he had never worn, which the latter wore all through the battle and siege of Lexington, and was afterwards buried in it. By order of Gen. Grant, the regiment was fully mounted, uniformed and equipped on the 1st day of September, 1861, and its proper name and number recorded, the Twenty-seventh Mounted Infantry Missouri Volunteers. It remained at Jefferson City, doing active and incessant service in the field as scouts, until Col. Mulligan, of the Twenty-third Illinois Infantry, who had succeeded Gen. Grant as post commander at Jefferson City, was ordered to Lexington by Gen. Fremont, who then commanded the department of Missouri. Col. Grover was detailed with parts of five companies, commanded by Capts. Maguire, Duncan, Applegate, Parker and McCluney, about three hundred men in all, to accompany Col. Mulligan to Lexington. On the march, about one hundred men were cut off from the command at Dunksburg, and were dispersed and a large number captured by an overpowering rebel force, so that less than two hundred of the Twenty-seventh actually participated in the battles and siege of Lexington from Sept. 12 to Sept. 20, 1861. These men, however, were at the front, and led by their brave officers, fought Price's advance, themselves forming Mulligan's rear guard all the way from Georgetown, via Warrensburg, to Lexington, a distance of sixty-five miles, without rest or rations, and without dismounting a man, except those who were killed and wounded in the repeated and sharp engagements. When the heroic Mulligan fortified Lexington in order to hold it, as he was directed to do, the Twenty-seventh were stationed, with the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Missouri and the First Illinois Cavalry, on the bluff overlooking the river, while the Twenty- third Illinois Infantry occupied the works surrounding the college. The most desperate hand-to-hand fighting then ensued around these works, between the little band of less than three thousand Union soldiers, every man a hero, and Price's army of more than twenty thousand men. For eight days and nights, without cessation, this unequal contest raged. It was terminated at last by the capture of the brave Mulligan and his devoted men, through the cowardice of an officer who did not belong to either the Twenty-seventh, Thirteenth or Fourteenth Missouri, the First Illinois Cavalry or the Twenty-third Illinois Infantry, who, without any orders, ran up a white flag, and let the enemy into a commanding position inside of the works. No better fighting was ever done by any soldiers, in any war, than by the Twenty-seventh at Lexington. Of its officers. Col. Grover and Capt. McCluney received mortal wounds, from which Col. Grover died in St. Louis on the 31st of October, 1861, and Capt. McCluney at his home in Johnson County afterwards. Captains Duncan, Maguire, Parker and
Applegate were all wounded, and about one-half of the command were either killed or wounded in this siege. Long before the surrender, the whole force had been completely surrounded and cut off from water, so that, when Col. Grover fell, never to rise again, in the thickest of the fight, on the afternoon of September 20, he had been continuously on duty and in the battle for sixty consecutive hours, during all of which time not a morsel of food nor a drop of water had passed his lips.
While their brave comrades were thus being overpowered at Lexington, Col. Eads, in command of the remaining seven companies of the Twenty-seventh, formed the advance guard of Veatch's brigade of Hovey's division of the army of the west, afterwards the frontier, then being organized, and marched to
Lamine Bridge, near Otterville, where it was encamped. Col. Eads was detailed as Post Commander at Syracuse, and Major Beck sent to Sedalia, leaving Capt. Isaminger in command of the regiment.
There were, at this time, two splendid divisions of Indiana Infantry with Cockfair's Battery of four twelve-pound Napoleon guns,
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| 12 Pound Napolen Gun |
all under the command of Col. Jeff. C. Davis, at the Lamine Bridge. The regimental officers were such men as Cols. Davis, Veatch, Hovey and Benton, who afterwards rose to high rank in the service. With these were the seven companies of the Twenty-seventh, under Col. Eads, well drilled, mounted and equipped, and thoroughly familiar with the country, the whole command numbering nearly eight thousand men. That these troops would have raised the siege at Lexington and defeated Price, there can be no question. So eager were they to go that their officers could scarcely restrain them. Major Foster, at the head of the Fremont Scouts, drove in the enemy's pickets on the Warrensburg road, close to Lexington, a week before the surrender, and sent one of his men, Frank Johnson, of Warrensburg, into the entrenchments with a message to Col. Mulligan concealed in the sole of his shoe. Johnson went in and out safely, and brought a message back in the same manner from Mulligan to Fremont, stating that he, Mulligan, was surrounded by an overwhelming force, but was “holding the fort," as ordered, and would do so until overpowered, and calling for immediate reinforcements.
Major Foster took that message to St. Louis, and was turned away from the door of Fremont's headquarters by his Hungarian guard, to whom the English language was an unknown tongue. He then hunted up Col. Frank P. Blair, who was an intimate friend of Col. Grover, and the two were finally admitted to Gen. Fremont's presence, and the whole situation laid before him.
Col. Davis, on the 16th, sent two scouting parties of the Twenty-seventh, under the command of Capt. Foster and Lieut. Box, from Lamine Bridge to see if the roads to Lexington were clear. Foster chased in the enemy's pickets five miles from Lexington, on the Sedalia road, and Box did the same thing on the River road, and both returned on the morning of the 18th to Sedalia, and reported those facts to Col. Davis. Davis almost burnt the telegraph wire down with repeated messages to Fremont, beseeching him for marching orders, yet they never came. Had they been issued as late as the 18th, the siege would have been raised, and Mulligan saved on the morning of the 20th beyond a doubt, as the surrender did not take place until late in the afternoon of that day. This useless sacrifice of these brave men at Lexington is a stain upon the military record of John C. Fremont that time will never efface.
The distance between Lamine Bridge and Lexington was only sixty-five miles. The roads were in good condition, and the country abounded with ample supply of both food and forage. Blair, who up to this time had been the friend of Fremont, now became his relentless foe. The speech of Blair in Congress, entitled: "Fremont's one hundred days in Missouri," aroused the country and drove Fremont from power. It has no rival in English literature, except the great arraignment of Warren Hastings, by Edward Burke, in the English Parliament. The survivors at Lexington in the Twenty-seventh could not be exchanged at that early day, so their services were lost to that regiment.
Col. Eads was then assigned to duty as Post Commander at Georgetown, and the regiment remained in the field under Major Beck and Capt. Isaminger, taking part in the vain-glorious march and inglorious retreat of Fremont from Sedalia to Springfield and return. No one in the army or out of it were more heartily rejoiced over the downfall of Fremont than the remnant of the gallant Twenty-seventh, when that news reached them on the road between those two places.
The Fremont Scouts were engaged in a number of brilliant fights with the enemy in the Fall of 1861. They met the Whitley family of guerrillas, in a hand-to-hand set to, on Clear Fork, and completely routed them, driving them into
Henry County in wild confusion. In this fight Morris Foster's horse ran away with him, causing him to outrun his comrades, and overtake and capture the Rebel Captain, who was acting as rear guard for his retreating companions. They went to the relief of Col. Hough at the California ford, west of Warrensburg, riding the forty-two miles from Sedalia to that place in less than six hours, and rescued that brave officer, after he had received a disabling wound and had been completely surrounded by a superior force. Foster, with ten of them, captured Col. Lewis, a Confederate officer on recruiting service, and fifteen of his men, at Holden, and brought the whole party safely into our lines. They joined forces with a squadron of the First Missouri Cavalry under Major Henry J. Stierlein, and recaptured 1,200 cattle belonging to a government train, the wagons having been burned before their arrival, rescued the guard, put the guerrillas engaged in the affair to flight after a sharp encounter, in which Dave Greenlee, a former resident of Warrensburg, was killed, and drove the herd overland to Fort Leavenworth, there turning over to the United States quartermaster at that post 1440 head of work oxen in tip-top condition.
The remainder of the regiment fought guerrillas, from the Missouri to the Osage rivers, almost every day in the week. In December, 1861, it took part in the Pope expedition, and participated in the engagement at Milford (Valley City, Johnson County, Missouri, north of Knob Noster), where a part of two of its companies (Isaminger's and Foster's), with four companies of regular United States Cavalry, under Col. J. C. Davis, and without either infantry or artillery support, surprised and captured a recruiting camp of 1300 rebels, under
Col. Alexander, and marched the whole of that long line under guard to Sedalia, sleeping most of the time on the bare ground in the snow, with the temperature near zero.
In this campaign Capt. Foster, with seventeen men of Company C of the Twenty-seventh, attacked a picket of thirty-three Confederates near Bear Creek, on the Sedalia road, one night, and chased them more than three miles to the
Out skirts of Warrensburg, killing five and wounding several more, without the loss of a man. He surprised the “Johnnies" around their camp fire, and they fled pell-mell into town at the first fire, with the report that Pope's whole army was coming and not far away.
Col. Clarkson (Confederate) had 1500 men at
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| Col. James G. Clarkson Castigated for his own ruthless bushwhacking tactics, Clarkson himself died at the hands of bushwhackers JamesClarkson |
Warrensburg, but he immediately struck out for Rose Hill, and thus escaped capture by Pope's advance guard, who were moving up the Fort Scott road, some twelve miles south of Warrensburg. Instead of receiving any credit for this exploit, Foster was sharply reprimanded for flushing the game before it could be bagged. But if the First Cavalry on the Fort Scott road had moved as promptly according to orders as Foster did, Clarkson would have been surely captured at Warrensburg.
Upon its return to Sedalia the regiment was ordered to Benton Barracks, St. Louis. Upon its arrival there it found Gen. W. T. Sherman in command.
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| General William Tecumseh Sherman, mid-December 1861, Sherman returned to service in Missouri and was assigned rear-echelon commands. Major General W. T. Sherman |
This great soldier was temporarily shelved, because in an unguarded moment he had said that it would require a force of 600,000 men to suppress the rebellion. There, on the 27th of January, 1862, the remnant of the Twenty-seventh Missouri was mustered out. So continuous and severe had been its service since April, 1861, that only 469 men answered to their names on the muster-out roll, as the remaining 531 had been killed, wounded or captured while serving in the field and at the front.
The subsequent military history of the men who formed this splendid regiment is worthy of note. Four full companies, all from the Twenty-seventh, were recruited by Major Foster at Warrensburg, in January, February and March, 1862 and commanded by Capts. T. W. Houts, M. U. Foster, Maguire and Box, and Lieuts. Jewell, Peak, W. L. and A. W. Christian, Marr, Maguire and Daly, served in the Seventh Cavalry M. S. M. for three years, fighting constantly and bravely in the field. Part of them, led by the heroic Foster, were at Lone Jack in August, 1862, in one of the bloodiest and hardest fights, for the numbers engaged, of the whole war.
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| Battle of Lone Jack, Missouri 1862 Battle of Lone Jack link |
Capt. Duncan and Lieuts. Shanks and Chester recruited another detachment from the Twenty-seventh, which enlisted in the Fiftieth E. M. M. and did good service. Lieuts. Van Beek and Burnett, afterwards Major Van Beek and Capt. Burnett, with another portion, entered Company A, of the Thirty-third Mo. Volunteers, and served with distinction in the Sixteenth Army Corps, under Gen. A. J. Smith, at Vicksburg, Helena, Red River Expedition, Franklin, Nashville, and finally at the capture of Mobile in 1865. Capt. or Col. Isaminger of the Sixty-third Illinois, as he was then, was in Libby Prison when Richmond fell, in April, 1865, and was one of the last officers set free there by Gen. Weitzel. With him marched to the sea, Capts. Starkey and Short and many brave boys of the old Twenty-seventh.
Other large detachments served on the plains in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Mo. Cavalry, under Capt. Turley and Lieut. W. L. Christian, until 1866, and others in Tennessee in the Forty-fifth and Forty-eighth Mo. Infantry, under Capt. Faulke and Col. Blodgett, in 1865.
Another large detachment, after having served for three years from the Cumberland to the Gulf, returned to Warrensburg in 1864 in time to enlist in Foster's Cavalry Battalion, then recruited there, and under Capts. Foster, Grover, Parman and Fisher, and Lieuts. Creek, Bird, Reavis, Allen, Marshall, Bondurant and Fisher, joined Jennison's Brigade of Blunt's Division of the Army of the Border, and served in that historic campaign and aided in driving their ancient enemy, Gen. Sterling Price, from the state, and in the defeat and capture of Gen. Marmaduke's Division at Mine Creek, and thus once more received honorable mention for "coolness under fire and bravery in action."
Time has thinned and is thinning the ranks of this noble command, so that few now remain, and those few are scattered far and wide, and may never all meet again on earth.
Cols. Eads and Grover, Capts. Duncan, McCluney, Applegate and Parker, and Lieuts. Van Beek, Jewell, Daly and many others have long ago crossed the "shining river, "and now await their reunion with their brave and beloved comrades of the Twenty-seventh in heaven, to part nevermore.
Comrades of the Potomac, we share with you your just pride in your glorious achievements, but may we not remind you that your last and greatest Commander, U. S. Grant, served with us in Missouri long before you followed him to victory. While Ohio claims the world's greatest soldier as her son, and Illinois as her citizen, may we not all say,
“When asked what State he hails from,
Our sole reply will be,
He comes from Appomattox,
And its famous apple tree.”
Comrades of the Cumberland, the names of some of Missouri's best and bravest are on your rolls, and we revere with you the name of Geo. H. Thomas, Virginia's greatest soldier since Washington, the one Union general who never disobeyed an order, or made a mistake, whose fame will ever increase,
“ ‘Till the sun grows cold,
'Till the stars are old.
And the leaves of the judgment book unfold."
Comrades of the Tennessee, we are of near "kin" to you.
Our own matchless Sherman was a Missouri soldier, for his first volunteer command, the Thirteenth Regulars, was recruited in St. Louis and accredited to this state. He sleeps his last sleep in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis, overlooking the "Father of Waters," surrounded by all that is mortal of Blair, Harding, Hassendeubel, Boomer, Cornyn, and a host of other Missouri heroes, who followed him from Donelson to the sea.
Comrades of the Gulf, the Stonewall Jackson of the Union army, brave old A. J. Smith, still lives, an honored citizen of St. Louis, his eye still as bright and his step as firm, despite the weight of seventy-five years, as when he checked the rebel advance with a Missouri brigade, and saved the day at Pleasant Hill. Comrades of the Shenandoah, your beloved Sheridan, the greatest cavalry commander the world has yet seen, served with us in the army of the frontier before you knew him and ere his star had risen. Comrades of the Frontier and the Border, we of the Missouri Cavalry belong to you ever more, as side by side with you, under Curtis, Blunt, Herron, Steele, and Davidson, we fought with Hindman, Price, Van Dorn, Marmaduke, Shelby, Fagan and Standwatie, for four long and weary years, until all the pathways between the Missouri and the Arkansas rivers were as familiar to us as the bronzed faces in our lines.
Comrades of the regular army, your present heroic commander, John M. Schofield, entered the volunteer service from Missouri in 1861, and won his first promotion by gallant service, as Major of the immortal First Missouri Light Artillery, on the battle field of Wilson's Creek.
Comrades of the navy, it was that noble patriot, James B. Eads, of St. Louis, the great engineer, who built the gunboats Osage, Carondelet and St. Louis, whose timely aid turned defeat into victory at Shiloh, and who met the dauntless Farragut at Port Hudson, and thus opened the Mississippi to the Gulf.
Survivors of the Twenty-seventh, so near and dear to me, let us, sometime in the near future, form a regimental organization to perpetuate forever the memory of the heroes who served with us, and to whom it was not given to see the glorious end of our struggle.
“Theirs the cross and ours the crown."
Ladies, in my dreams I sometimes see a marble shaft arise in the beautiful cemetery in this city, bearing an inscription like this:
“To the memory of the Union soldiers of Johnson County, Missouri, who died that this nation might live forever free."
I believe that someday you will build it, and that then will be said of it, as was so fitly spoken long ago of a similar monument, "Let it rise till it meet the sun in his coming; let the earliest rays of the morning gild it, and parting day linger and play on its summit."
Geneaology Link Marsh Foster
Marshall McCord Foster
M, b. circa 1837, d. 18 February 1861
Family Explorer
Father*
Robert A Foster b. 9 May 1812, d. 10 Mar 1881
Mother*
Jane L Headlee b. c 1813, d. c 1893
Relationship
Great-grandfather of Frances Marie Dunham
Charts
Ancestors: Dunham, Frances
Birth* circa 1837
Marshall was born circa 1837 in Missouri.4,5
He was the son of Robert A Foster and Jane L Headlee.
(household member) Census 1850
10 August 1850
On the 1850 census, Robert A Foster's household included Jane, Arminus, Caleb, Emery, Margaret, Marshall, Mary and Melville in District 71, Polk County, Missouri.5
Employment*
9 April 1856
Marshall was employed by Clerk of the Court Warrensburg, Johnson County, Missouri, 9 April 1856. Johnson County.
Marriage*
1 June 1856
He married Eliza J Patrick on 1 June 1856 in Johnson County, Missouri.3,8
Employment
1857
Marshall was employed by Editor Warrensburg, Johnson County, Missouri, 1857. The Western Missourian.7
Census1860*
15 August 1860
On the 1860 Census in Warrensburg, Johnson County, Missouri, Marshall was listed as the head of a family.4
Death*
18 February 1861
Marshall died on 18 February 1861 in Warrensburg, Johnson County, Missouri. "At the close of the polls in Warrensburg on Monday, an altercation took place to which Col. James McCown, Clerk of the Johnson Circuit Court, shot Mr. Marsh Foster, Clerk of the County Court. Foster died immediately.".
Geneaology Link Marsh Foster
Marshall McCord Foster
M, b. circa 1837, d. 18 February 1861
Family Explorer
Father*
Robert A Foster b. 9 May 1812, d. 10 Mar 1881
Mother*
Jane L Headlee b. c 1813, d. c 1893
Relationship
Great-grandfather of Frances Marie Dunham
Charts
Ancestors: Dunham, Frances
Birth* circa 1837
Marshall was born circa 1837 in Missouri.4,5
He was the son of Robert A Foster and Jane L Headlee.
(household member) Census 1850
10 August 1850
On the 1850 census, Robert A Foster's household included Jane, Arminus, Caleb, Emery, Margaret, Marshall, Mary and Melville in District 71, Polk County, Missouri.5
Employment*
9 April 1856
Marshall was employed by Clerk of the Court Warrensburg, Johnson County, Missouri, 9 April 1856. Johnson County.
Marriage*
1 June 1856
He married Eliza J Patrick on 1 June 1856 in Johnson County, Missouri.3,8
Employment
1857
Marshall was employed by Editor Warrensburg, Johnson County, Missouri, 1857. The Western Missourian.7
Census1860*
15 August 1860
On the 1860 Census in Warrensburg, Johnson County, Missouri, Marshall was listed as the head of a family.4
Death*
18 February 1861
Marshall died on 18 February 1861 in Warrensburg, Johnson County, Missouri. "At the close of the polls in Warrensburg on Monday, an altercation took place to which Col. James McCown, Clerk of the Johnson Circuit Court, shot Mr. Marsh Foster, Clerk of the County Court. Foster died immediately.".
Probate*
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27 February
1861
|
