Two years ago when I was teaching the Doctrine and Covenants in seminary, I read this book, Inside War: Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri during the American Civil War written by Michael Fellman, Oxford University Press, (c) 1989.
This book is not written by a Mormon nor is it concerned at all with the treatment of Mormons in Missouri. It is a secular history book about the bad situation in Missouri during and after the Civil War. I typed notes from this book verbatim.
I especially typed the parts which pointed out how much worse Missouri fared than other states, and those quotes which concerned Jackson County, Clay County, and adjoining counties which would have been the places where Mormons were treated badly thirty years before the Civil War.
My goal was to find out, from contemporary sources, the devastation which occurred in this area subsequent to the prophecies and promises given in the Doctrine and Covenants. The following are verses which promise punishments to come upon this area:
Doctrine and Covenants Section 105 was a revelation given to Joseph Smith June 22, 1834. From the section heading: “Mob violence against the saints in Missouri had increased, and organized bodies from several counties had declared their intent to destroy the people.”
D&C 105:14-15 …I will fight your battles. Behold, the destroyer I have sent forth to destroy and lay waste mine enemies; and not many years hence they shall not be left to pollute mine heritage, and to blaspheme my name upon the lands which I have consecrated for the gathering together of my saints.
Doctrine and Covenants Section 121 was a prophecy from God written by Joseph Smith March 20, 1939, while he was a prisoner in the jail at Liberty, Missouri.
D&C 121:13-14, 20 (speaking of the Missourians) …because their hearts are corrupted, and the things which they are willing to bring upon others, and love to have others suffer, may come upon themselves to the very uttermost;
That they may be disappointed also, and their hopes may be cut off…
Their basket shall not be full, their houses, and their barns shall perish, and they themselves shall be despised by those that flattered them.
D&C 121:23-24 Wo unto all those that discomfort my people, and drive, and murder, and testify against them…I have in reserve a swift judgment in the season thereof, for them all…
I have highlighted in bold certain passages that were especially noteworthy, also the names of counties and cities which were previously the home of Mormons (or in close proximity). Clay Co is just north of Jackson Co, and Lafayette Co is just east of Jackson Co. Independence is now a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri.
Some definitions you might not know:
Guerrilla= A member of a band of irregular soldiers that harasses the enemy, as by surprise raids. In the Civil War, they were also called "bushwhackers".
Missouri was a Union state, with a large amount of Confederate sympathizers.
Jayhawking= raiding done by Kansas Union forces
Secesh=secessionist
(From Preface) “…guerrillas wandered the countryside striking terror in all those around them. I have chosen to discuss Missouri not because it was unique but because of all regions it produced the most widespread, longest-lived, and most destructive guerrilla war in the Civil War. Missouri provides a horrendous example of the nature of guerrilla war in the American heartland.
(Terror and a Sense of Justice: Civilians in Guerrilla War p. 23-24)
…These regions, of which Missouri was the most extreme example, were also bitterly divided internally. In this context, when regular troops were absent, the improvised war often assumed a deadly guerrilla nature as local citizens took up arms spontaneously against their neighbors. This was a war of stealth and raid, without a front, without formal organization, with almost no division between the civilian and the warrior.
In such a guerrilla war, terror was both a method and a goal. Guerrillas had a variety of ends--food, arms, horses, loot, information, ridding the region of enemy civilians, and above all, revenge. Through stealth and mobility, they sought to create moments when they were in total dominance and could exact what they wanted at the least possible risk to themselves. …it was thousands of brutal moments when small groups of men destroyed homes, food supplies, stray soldiers, and civilian lives and morale.
(Jayhawkers: p. 34-35)
"Jayhawkers" was the term applied to Kansas raiders, and "jayhawking" became a term widely applied to free-form foraging by Union troops in the state and eventually nationwide. On. Nov. 12, 1861, Margaret J. Hayes was jayhawked on her farm near Kansas City. Her home was stripped of all valuable goods, and her team and carriage were driven off with her eleven slaves in it. …Such actions were widespread in Jackson Co and drove men either into the Union army or into guerrilla bands as the only places of proximate safety. Mrs. Hayes wrote her mother in 1862, "Times here are very hard; robbing murdering, burning and every other kind of measure on every side. Every man has to join the Federal army or hide out in the country and have his property taken away from him. And if they are not shot on the spot they are banished from this country."
(p. 36) Kansas troops garrisoned in border towns would make frequent sweeps of the countryside, searching for guerrillas and punishing local residents who might have collaborated with the enemy--for them all Missourians were by nature traitors. This harrowing list of losses calculated by Daniel De Witt of Jackson Co gives a sense of the results of repeated raids. De Witt was raided six times between Jan. 1861 and Aug. 25, 1863, when he was burned out, the visits being paid by Missouri as well as Kansas Union troops. De Witt kept careful account of his losses (see below) which were typical in this region.
Jan. 1861 by Capt. Oliver's men (included household goods and clothing) Total $56.
1stSept 1862 by Union Command to Lieutenant Col Tompson 5th Regiment Missouri State Militia
(included 70 stacks hay, rail fence, calf, steer, 1500 bundles of oats, etc.) Total $224
13 April 1863 Damage by Fedrels under Major Randall
(included horse and mare) Total $90
May 1863 Damage by Col. Penick's command
16 days work on ditch at $2.00 per day Total $32
25 August 1863 Damage by Kansas troops under Lt. Green
(included burning barn, burning house and contents, 400 bushels corn, 5 tons hay, 2 horses, burning 2 fields of wheat, etc.)
Total $4453.
For all raids: $4855
(Note from Amy- For my seminary students' benefit, I tried to figure this out in modern money. His house and contents was worth $1000. If we multiply that by 200, we get a house and contents worth $200,000, which could be today's price. In that case, his total today's losses would be $971,000.
Or, His barn was worth $500. If we say a barn today is worth $50,000, that is 100 times as much. If we multiply all his prices by 100, his total today's losses might be $485,500.)
(p 43)
On the Kansas border, many Missourians believed with good reason that they were the objects not of a random distribution of justice but of a concerted policy of plunder and destruction at the hand of Kansas and Missouri troops and from thieves invited into the state by Union forces. Such is the gist of a letter Austin A. King of Independence wrote to General John M. Schofield in St. Louis in 1863. Whereas the Kansas colonel in charge of Independence had reported to Schofield that he had killed 30 guerrillas during a recent sweep of Lafayette, Co,, King wrote "truthful and loyal" Union men of that county all knew that only unarmed civilians had been killed. 150 horses reported confiscated from secessionists were in fact stolen from peaceful, law abiding citizens.
(p. 55)
Frequently troops were garrisoned in civilian houses or just took them over, often from citizens who had fled. In Dec. 1863, the Eleventh Kansas Cavalry occupied Independence---to them the very center of secessionist sentiment which had spawned the Lawrence massacre a few months earlier. The Kansas troops used most of the good business blocks as horse stables and stayed in local homes, which they proceeded to tear up.
(p. 74)
It was fearsome to flee, especially for those who had no kin to join elsewhere. One could carry little,…If they were without kin or good friends or a great deal of liquid capital, these refugees remained propertyless and homeless. Very large numbers spent weeks and months wandering the countryside with insufficient food, shelter, and clothing. The towns and farms they left behind quickly became wastelands.
(p 76)
John A. Martin, a Kansas officer originally from Pennsylvania, wrote his sister about one town near Kansas City, "Westport was once a thriving town, with large stores, elegant private dwellings and a fine large hotel. Now soldiers are quartered in the dwellings and horses occupy the staterooms. The hotel was burned down three days ago. The houses are torn to pieces, plastering off. the mantles used to build fires, and doors unhinged. I presume the place will be burned as soon as the troops leave." Marching out of town, Martin observed the countryside, "crops ungathered, houses deserted, barns and stables falling to pieces, fences torn down and stock running loose and uncared for, are all around...I have been all over the country about here without meeting with a half dozen habital dwelllings."
(p. 77)
As humans had built, so had they destroyed....J. Freeman wrote in 1864 about Clay County, a long burned-over Kansas-Missouri border region, "this once beautiful and peacable land is forsaken and desolated, ruined, and only fit to bats, owls, and cockralls to inhabit."
(p. 95)
In response to the furious public opinion aroused by Quantrill's raid on Lawrence Kansas Aug. 21, 1863, the Union army tried a more drastic antiguerrilla policy along the western border of Missouri. Issued in Kansas City by Brig. General Thomas E. Ewing on Aug. 25 as General Orders #11, this policy called for the depopulation within 15 days of the northern half of Vernon Co, and all of Bates, Cass, and Jackson Counties, the strong guerrilla areas from which the Lawrence raid had been lauched. Residents had either to leave the area or move to within one mile of the Union military posts in the region. Approximately 20,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes, almost all of which then were burned by Kansas troops. In the face of a huge public outcry, execution of this order was suspended by November, and those who could obtain certificates of loyalty were permitted to return home the following March. Most did not come back until the war was over.
This was the most drastic measure taken against civilians during the Civil War prior to General Sherman's march to the sea. But unlike Sherman's action in Georgia, this policy was implemented in a Union state. General Orders #11 did not distinguish between the loyal and the disloyal---all became war refugees.
Vengeance became an everyday matter-of-fact. George Wolz of Newton City in southwestern Missouri wrote his brother in 1863, "The bushwhackers burn a house and then we burn two houses."
p. 190
As sergeant in the Eleventh Kansas Cavalry in 1862 and 1863, (Sergeant Sherman Bodwell) rode with his regiment on punitive expeditions into Jackson Co, that seccessionist stronghold around Independence. From his diary....On July 13, 1863, Bodwell's unit heard that the Widow Holly had warned guerrillas of the coming of the Kansans. "We put fire to her house". ...Down the road, Bodwell's platoon found "strong indications of (guerrillas) sojourning" at the Alderman house. "Alderman ...attempted to escape, and was killed
On Aug. 2, three Union families which had been made homeless by guerrillas appealed to Bodwell's unit for help. The guerrillas had burned them out in the middle of the night, "not giving the women and children time to dress even.
p. 224
(correspondence of Phineas M. Savery and his wife, Amanda. He was a soldier)
Many of her Clay Co neighbors had been banished, some had been killed, some had moved away. All had been looted. ...The Feds did call on her for supper frequently, and if she was not at home, they "would break the doors open and help their selves. Last fall they took my bed clothes. It was nothing to have the house searched and get a cursing from the officers." Furthermore, though officially over, she warned him that the "civil war is still in force" and that southern soldiers were being shot "as fast as they were coming home".
These paragraphs from the book (and many others I did not include here) strengthen my testimony that the Lord does punish wickedness. Even though it took thirty years, the Lord did repay those Missourians, giving back to them the the same hardships, death and destruction that they had so readily inflicted upon the Mormons.
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