 |
Kingdom of Callaway Civil War HeritageEducating about, protecting and preserving Callaway County heritage relative to the 1861-1865 War Between the States, in the nation's third-most-fought-over state. An affiliate of Missouri's Civil War Heritage Foundation, sponsor of the Gray Ghosts Trail. |
 |
Thursday, March 29, 2012
DEDICATION OF HISTORIC PANELS TO MARK CIVIL WAR BATTLE’S 150th ANNIVERSARY
FULTON, Mo. — The dedication this summer of two new historic panels on the Gray Ghosts Trail Civil War driving tour will coincide with the 150th anniversary of Callaway County, Missouri’s bloodiest battle.
The Battle of Moore’s Mill took place at Calwood, Missouri, about seven miles northeast of Fulton, on July 28, 1862. A pair of interpretive panels about the battle will be dedicated there at the property of Bryant Liddle at 11 a.m. Saturday, July 28. The dedication will feature historic talks, a period color guard and military demonstrations by Civil War re-enactors.
One panel will describe the battle in narrative form and include a description of the long campaign of which the battle was a part – the 1862 recruiting drive throughout northeast Missouri by Confederate cavalry Col. Joseph C. Porter that resulted in numerous other events, including the Battle of Kirksville and the so-called Palmyra Massacre.
The panel is being funded by Bryant Liddle and his family in the name of his late father, Ray Liddle. Liddle is co-chair of Kingdom of Callaway Civil War Heritage, sponsor of the Gray Ghosts Trail in Callaway County.
“We are very proud to support the Gray Ghosts Trail project,” says Liddle. “With the addition of these new panels, we will continue our stewardship of the land and help preserve our county’s rich heritage.”
The second panel will feature maps detailing the play-by-play progression of the battle. Funded by Bill and Genevieve Conner, the panel will also include brief biographies of late heritage colleagues Mark Douglas and Allen Conner, who investigated the battle for reenactments in 1995 and 1997. The Conners are the parents of Allen Conner, who died in 2000.
The Conners are also funding the panel on behalf of the Elijah Gates Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, of which Douglas and both male Conners were charter members.
The Battle of Moore’s Mill was a decisive victory by Union cavalry serving under Col. Odon Guitar. The battle initially went in the Confederates’ favor as they ambushed Guitar’s divided force near Moore’s Mill (now Calwood) before his reinforcements came up. When those reinforcements arrived, the proportion of troops engaged shifted dramatically in favor of the Union. Despite the heavy timber, the disparity in numbers and the Federals’ use of cannon resulted in heavy Confederate casualties.
The surviving Confederates fled the battlefield but the Federals were too exhausted to pursue. The Confederate wounded were left to the clemency of neighbors, while the wounded Union soldiers were loaded into wagons to receive medical attention in Fulton.
About two dozen dead Confederates are buried at an undisclosed location in Calwood. A Civil War “bitten bullet” found at the site of Old Auxvasse Presbyterian Church — strongly suggesting it was used to care for Rebel wounded — is on display at the Kingdom of Callaway Historical Society Museum in Fulton.
Privately funded Gray Ghosts Trail directional signs, intended to guide drivers from Kingdom City to the sites at Old Auxvasse Cemetery and Calwood, are to be installed this spring by Callaway County road crews.
The Gray Ghosts Trail encompassing Civil War sites all across central Missouri is sponsored by Missouri’s Civil War Heritage Foundation, Inc. The driving tour’s name is derived from Robert Brownlee’s seminal book about Missouri’s guerrilla war, “Gray Ghosts of the Confederacy.”
The sponsor of the Trail’s sites in Callaway County is the foundation’s local affiliate, Kingdom of Callaway Civil War Heritage. For information consult the Web site www.callawaycivilwar.org
 |
 |
Confederate partisan cavalry on the move in Missouri, from a period newspaper.
SIGNS MARK GRAY GHOSTS TRAIL IN FULTON
Thursday, February 02, 2012
|
The Trail linking Civil War interpretive panels and historic sites from Danville and Williamsburg through Callaway, Boone, Cooper, Saline and Howard Counties is sponsored overall by Missouri's Civil War Heritage Foundation and derives its name from a landmark book on the guerrilla war in Missouri, Richard S. Brownlee's "Gray Ghosts of the Confederacy." The image on the Trail signs is of Capt. William T. "Bloody Bill" Anderson, one of the best-known Confederate guerrillas.
"These new street signs will lead residents and visitors alike to three Civil War interpretive panels in Fulton that are significant cultural assets," says Northway. "They represent three of our seven Gray Ghosts trail sites in Callaway County." Two of those -- Old Auxvasse Cemetery and the Battle of Moore's Mill at Calwood -- also will soon be marked by directional signs, leading east from the Heart of Missouri Tourism Center in Kingdom City.
The Fulton street signs are funded by one primary donor, Fulton Heritage Trust, and a secondary donor, the Callaway Bank. "We are most grateful to these donors," says Northway, "as well as to the cooperation and support of the Office of Mayor LeRoy Benton, the Fulton City Council and Traffic Commission and the municipal workers who are installing these signs so quickly and efficiently."
The signs guide drivers from US Business 54 (North Bluff Street) and St. Rd. F (West 4th Street) into the downtown area to three Fulton sites: Westminster College, with its interpretive panel on the college's role in the war and about Callaway County slaves who became Union soldiers; the county courthouse, where a panel "Callaway County Men at War" will be installed and dedicated later this year; and Hockaday Park, where the panel "Jeff Davis Comes to the Kingdom" tells of former Confederate President Jefferson Davis' 1875 speech in Fulton and overnight stay at the Italianate house owned by Bob and Dolores Holt.
That panel, also funded by Fulton Heritage Trust, also describes three local antebellum properties. The Westmister College panel was funded through donations by local alumni of the college.
Northway said several volunteers from the Callaway Civil War group have played key roles in the directional sign program, among them KoCCWH co-chairs Joe Holt and Bryant Liddle, Warren Hollrah, Barbara Huddleston and Vicki McDaniel. For more information on the group, consult the online Web site http://www.callawaycivilwar.org/
For information about the state foundation, see http://www.mocivilwar.org/ and an overall map of the Gray Ghosts trail, see http://mocivilwar.org/gray_ghosts_map.html
FALL MARKS 150 YEARS OF MISSOURI'S CIVIL WAR "KINGDOM"
By Kingdom of Callaway Civil War Heritage
FULTON, Mo. -This picturesque central Missouri town is known as the site of Sir Winston Churchill's epic 1946 "Iron Curtain" address and the National Churchill Museum, but the 2011-2015 sesquicentennial of the American Civil War is a reminder of an earlier history - when this county seat of rural Callaway County stood at the fracture of a deeply divided state.
In October 1861, the county stood eyeball to eyeball with Union militia and concluded a non-invasion agreement that appeared to be a separate "treaty" with the United States - securing an enduring nickname, the "Kingdom of Callaway."
Special events this fall will encourage visitors to share local Civil War heritage and history with residents. Visitors will also get a sneak preview at Callaway County's portion of the developing Gray Ghosts Trail driving tour of historical interpretive panels. It all gets under way Friday, Sept. 30, at 5 p.m., when blue-gray re-enactors will unveil a Civil War window display at the Kingdom of Callaway Historical Society, 513 Court St. in Fulton. Guests can tarry for talks, music, refreshments and a tour of the museum's exhibits.
Settled largely from the Upper South, and 26 percent slave, Callaway on the eve of war was deeply southern in sentiment. Citizens watched with trepidation at events playing out across the Missouri River to the south, as secessionist Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson and the elected legislature fled the capitol in Jefferson City ahead of advancing Union troops.
Many "Callawegians" did more than watch, joining Governor Jackson's Missouri State Guard - fighting in battles at Carthage, Wilson's Creek and Lexington - and then enlisting in the regular Confederate Army after Jackson's government declared for the Confederacy in late 1861.
"That whole region is thoroughly disloyal," concluded one Union general. "There are not 200 Union men in the county of Callaway."
But it was a curious drama occurring right inside the county in October 1861 that established the county's enduring reputation as a "kingdom" somehow concluding a "separate peace" with the Union.
Except for a week's span, Callaway had gone unoccupied by Union troops when reports circulated that Union militia from Pike County were entering homes in the northeastern prairie area. Many able-bodied men were in the field elsewhere in Missouri but local secessionist political leader, lawyer and slaveholder Col. Jefferson Franklin Jones called for volunteers to resist the incipient invasion.
Many of the 300 to 600 who responded were younger or older men, but being agrarians most had a facility with firearms; some were veterans of past community militia "musters." Initially they gathered for drilling and organizing at Brown's Spring on Auxvasse Creek northwest of today's Kingdom City. They moved eastward, Colonel Jones establishing a headquarters in northeastern Callaway County. The Unionists had established headquarters at Wellsville in neighboring Montgomery County.
While the "rebels" made their best show of force with campfires, fake "Quaker" cannon and even a homemade wooden artillery piece, Colonel Jones exchanged indignant letters with Union Brig. Gen. John B. Henderson, another attorney. Henderson bristled at the informal Callaway force's presumption it could tell him and his militia what to do, but assured Jones they would not detain anyone who had not violated the law. Reassured that Henderson would thus not invade Callaway County, Jones declared victory and sent his men home on October 27, the day before Governor Jackson's government in southwest Missouri voted Missouri out of the Union. From that day forward, the state had both Union and Confederate governments.
Alas, Callaway was very soon occupied by Union troops, but not before its status as the "Kingdom" of Callaway was widely acknowledged. The "treaty" Henderson had made was such an embarrassment to him that he frequently denied it, but it did not impede him from rising to the U.S. Senate from 1862 - 1869, coauthoring the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery.
Jones served many months in Union prison for his southern sympathies but after the war emerged again as a political leader. In the General Assembly he coauthored a joint resolution to pardon outlaws Frank and Jesse James for their activities as guerrillas during the war, but the measure narrowly failed to achieve the required two-thirds' majorities.
Jones' volunteers often recalled their experience nostalgically. They had camped out during Indian Summer and were well fed by farm wives. "None of us suffered," recounted Judge Solomon Gilbert. "There was no discipline and the whole experience was really a good lark."
"The Kingdom Comes to Callaway," a historic panel on the Gray Ghosts Trail in front of the Heart of Missouri Tourism Center in Kingdom City - seven miles north of Fulton at the junction of Interstate 70 and US 54 - is sited right along the sweep of the 1861 drama. Either the tourism center or Fulton make excellent jumping-off points for Callaway adventures.
Fall visitors can enjoy many special events. The window display at the Historical Society will feature local model maker Larry Languell's scale replica of the grand brick home of Col. Jefferson Jones, the colorful central figure of the drama of the "Kingdom." The home is now long gone, but at least one can visualize its grandeur.
Other scheduled programs include: Oct. 8, Fulton, Fall Muster, Elijah Gates Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans; Oct. 9, Kingdom City, 15th Anniversary of the Restoration of the Cemetery of Col. Jefferson Jones; Oct. 22, Williamsburg, celebration of the community's Civil War panel on the Gray Ghosts Trail (its Boone's Lick Road carried early settlers westwards and, during the war, soldiers and guerrillas); Oct. 27, Fulton, Historical Society's Annual Meeting.
Meanwhile, Callaway County's segment of the Gray Ghosts Trail driving tour offers an opportunity for Civil War buffs who really want to "dig in." Besides the sites noted, one can visit scenic Old Auxvasse Cemetery with its numerous Civil War burials, as well as the nearby site of the July 28, 1862, Battle of Moore's Mill; and in Fulton, there's a marker at Westminster College noting the heroism of its students during the war, and also telling of Callaway slaves who served as Union soldiers.
Across town on Hockaday Hill stands the home where former Confederate President Jefferson Davis stayed for a landmark 1875 address to more than 10,000 people. As a panel nearby notes, Davis declared Callaway was a place where the "people" were king, and he was roundly cheered when he announced "if I ever move to a kingdom it shall be to the Kingdom of Callaway."
A visit to the Hockaday Park panel honoring the gorgeous Italianate house where Davis stayed makes a fittingly royal conclusion to a visit to Missouri's only Civil War "kingdom."
Information: www.callawaycivilwar.org or call Kingdom of Callaway Historical Society, (573) 642-0570 (www.kchsoc.org).
TRAVEL/ACCOMMODATIONS
Ample accommodations exist in Kingdom City, Holts Summit and Fulton, which features two Victorian-era bed and breakfasts. Consult www.visitfulton.com or call the Heart of Missouri Tourism Center, (573) 642-7692; or the Kingdom of Callaway Chamber of Commerce, (573) 642-3055. (www.callawaychamber.com).
OTHER HISTORIC ATTRACTIONS
-Fulton: Kingdom of Callaway Historical Museum, 513 Court Street: Local history organized by decade, many artifacts, Civil War displays including diorama of the Battle of Moore's Mill, genealogical materials, gift shop. www.kchsoc.org; (573) 642-0570.
-Fulton: National Churchill Museum, Westminster College, Westminster Ave. & W. 7th St.: Near the site of Churchill's famous 1946 address, state-of-the art exhibits on Churchill, World War II and the Cold War, housed at the stunningly restored Church of St. Mary, Aldermanbury, relocated from London. www.churchillmemorial.org; (573) 592-5369.
-Fulton: Auto World Museum, 200 Peacock Drive, just off the State Road HH (east) exit from US 54: Nearly 100 vintage automobiles, with historic information, displayed in designed period streetscapes. www.autoworldmuseum.com; (573) 642-2080.
-Williamsburg: Crane's Museum & Shoppes, 10665 Old Hwy. 40: Regional History Museum, restaurant and gift shop near historic Boone's Lick Road that carried settlers into this part of Missouri; (after Oct. 22) Gray Ghosts Trail historic panel. www.cranesmuseum.org; (877) 254-3356.
Kingdom of Callaway Civil War Heritage is a local affiliate of Missouri's Civil War Heritage Foundation, sponsor of the Gray Ghosts Trail.
|
Kingdom Notes- April 10, 2011
The Fulton Weekly Gazette of June 16, 1905 ran a very interesting article about "Westminster College During the Civil War". The editor of the newspaper was Ovid Bell, the son of John P. Bell who was a student at Westminster College in the spring of 1861. On April 16th, Dr. William Parrish, former History Professor at Westminster, will share the story of the six students who left college just before graduation to form the Callaway Guards. In the newspaper article we learn their names are Daniel H. McIntyre, Joseph S. Laurie, W.S. Duncan, Joseph C. Watkins, George Davis and John P. Bell. Fulton during the war was a town of around a thousand people. The county was home to 17,449 residents of which 26% were slaves. The greater part of the town lived south of what is known as Fifth or Asylum Street. The northern portion of the town was scantily populated with woods and other parts used for farming. The collegian of the civil war period was primarily a student. He had few sports. Football was unknown here, intercollegiate athletic contests were not even remotely considered. A form of what would become baseball was played on the field across Stinson Creek behind the college. Diversion in student life was found chiefly in the literary societies. Debates were held, essays were read and orations were performed with the public invited to attend. The article states: "The faculty forbade the discussion of political questions in the literacy societies and frowned on manifestations of enthusiasm for either side; consequently there were no encounters between the students on account of the war." Perhaps this restriction had an effect on what the six students did that spring of 1861. U.S. Army Major General Byron Bagby, will also return to his home town on Saturday, April 16th, to share with us the often unheard of story of the black solider. A number of slaves from Callaway County served in the U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War. The commemoration of these events are occurring not to refight the war, although some still do, but to honor those soldiers and civilians of both the white and black communities which were all a part of those difficult times. For information about this event and those being planned for this year, stop by the museum at 513 Court Street, call us at 573-642-0570 or checkout the website |
