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- [S456] Ancestry.com, North Carolina, Wills and Probate Records, 1665-1998, (Name: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.; Location: Provo, UT ; Date: 2015;), Wills and Estate Papers (Bertie County), 1663-1978; Author: North Carolina. Division of Archives and History (Raleigh, North Carolina); Probate Place: Bertie, North Carolina.
- [S1605] Jerry Ponder, Between Missourians - Civil War in Ripley County, (Name: OzarksWatch; Location: Springfield, Green County, Missouri;), Part I: The Wilson Massacre.
An unusual group assembled at the Pulliam farm in southwestern Ripley County, Missouri for Christ-mas in 1863. Nearly 150 officers and men of the Missouri State Guard's 15th Cavalry Regiment (Con-federate); at least sixty civilians, many of them women and children; and 102 prisoners, officers and men of Company C, Missouri State Militia (Union).
The civilians were family members, friends, and neighbors. Confederate "hosts" and Union "guests" were all Missourians; but they were divided by perhaps the bitterest of all enmities--those of civil war.
The day's activity was to begin with religious services conducted by the Reverend Colonel Timothy Reeves, commanding officer of the 15th Cavalry and a Baptist preacher of Ripley County. Then would follow Christmas dinner in the afternoon. The group at Pulliam' s farm numbered above three hundred at the very least, if the figures on the record are to be believed. It was too many for a mere religious service and holiday dinner. Pulliam's was one of Reeves's regimental camps.1
What began as a festive occasion ended in horror and tragedy. As the celebrants sat at dinner, their arms stacked, they were surprised by two companies of the Union Missouri State Militia, more than 200 mounted cavalrymen. Only those guarding the prisoners, about 35 men, were armed. The Militia attacked without warning, shooting into the crowd, attacking with sabers, and killing at least thirty of the Confederate men instantly and mortally wounding several more. According to local tradition, many--perhaps most---of the civilians were killed or wounded as well.2
The Union force had no casualties, suggesting the possibility that the Confederates may not have fired a shot. The survivors--some 112 officers and men, with their horses, arms, and equipment--were captured and taken out of the War for good, some to die in prison. Colonel Reeves, however, escaped.3
The official report of the Union Commander, Major James Wilson, confirms the quick, bloody character of the event: "I divided my men into two columns and charged upon them with my whole force. The enemy fired, turned, and threw down their arms and fled, with the exception of 30 or 35 and they were riddled with bullets or pierced through with the saber almost instantly." Wilson's account did not explain why, if the enemy fired, no bullet shot at point-blank range found its mark; nor, if the rest "fled," why they were all captured. Neither did Wilson mention the presence of civilians, nor harm done to them.4
The Union force was a quick-moving raiding party, sent out on December 23 from the Union stronghold at Pilot Knob in Iron County, some eighty miles to the north. Their purpose: recapture of the Union prisoners. They retired the next morning taking the freed personnel of Company C, MSM, and the new Confederate captives of the 15th Cavalry, MSG.
The stunned survivors were left to bury the dead and reflect on the carnage. About half of those killed, both soldiers and civilians, were taken to Doniphan and buried in the Old Doniphan Cemetery south of the courthouse. Tradition is that the graves were dug by a few Negro men, and the bodies were wrapped for burial by town women. Other bodies were buried near where they fell in the Ponder and Union Grove Cemeteries .5
In Ripley County, well seasoned to the war, the incident was no doubt taken in stride. But it was not forgotten, and not forgiven. It remains in the collective memory as the Wilson Massacre, memorializing in infamy the commanding officer of the Union force. It became part of the vengeful guerrilla warfare in the eastern Ozarks.
The Wilson Massacre exemplifies the fact that the Civil War in Missouri was often a war between Missourians themselves. Major James Wilson was from Lincoln County on the Mississippi River just above St Louis. The Union State Militia and the Confederate State Guard were both Missouri forces drawn from and fighting in behalf of the divided populous. The events leading up to the Wilson Massacre provide insight into that internal war.
Union sentiment was strong in St Louis, especially among Germans and Irish. It was also strong in the river counties where Germans were numerous, and across much of the Missouri Ozarks. Confederate sentiment was strong in the Arkansas Ozarks; and Missouri counties close to the state line tended to have more Confederate sentiment than those farther north. Especially was this true in the southeast Missouri Ozarks.
Ripley County was on the Arkansas border, and its historic trade and travel routes ran south to Arkansas and the lower Mississippi Valley. Ripley County was a Confederate place. The Pulliam farm was but a few miles from the state line.
https://thelibrary.org/lochist/periodicals/ozarkswatch/ow404i.htm
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History-The Wilson Massacre
The Wilso Massacre - Between Missourians - Civil War in Ripley County Based on Jerry Ponder, "The Wilson Massacre," and "The Burning of Doniphan" previously unpublished articles submitted to OzarksWatch. -- https://thelibrary.org/lochist/periodicalsn |
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1709 - 1753 (44 years)
