Civil War Era New Madrid, Missouri

In 1862, New Madrid, Missouri, had 85
businesses and two hospitals.

When 1st Lt. Louis Boedicker, 2nd MO. Art., Army Engineer, drew this map in March 1862. The Confederates still controlled New Madrid and Island Number Ten. The town was the county seat of government, it had 85 active businesses, two hospitals, and a thriving Port of New Madrid, and its citizens enjoyed freedom from the Union troops. Few people understand that Missouri saw more than 1,200 engagements within its boundaries when you count minor actions and skirmishes. Only Virginia and Tennessee exceeded this total. The movie "Gone With the Wind" implies that the Civil War was only fought in the Deep South. Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee citizens suffered much throughout the war. In my opinion, the high action in these three states was primarily because of the intense loyalty of its people to both sides. Even those citizens who supported remaining in the Union resented the invasion of Union Troops into Missouri and other border states.

Missouri was essential to the Union and Confederacy because of its strategic location on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, natural resources, and manpower.

Missouri experienced some of the most violent conflicts of the Civil War, and its people came to symbolize the tragedy of the nation's divisive struggle. The fighting in Missouri was unique in the American Civil War. They experienced arson, murder, robbery, torture, and more from Bloomfield to Commerce, Cape Girardeau, and Jackson to Fredericktown, Benton, Bertrand, New Hamburg, and Sikeston. Citizens in Southern Missouri received more violence than other sections of the state, but the Kansas City area also suffered heavily. Often, local deaths were not among the numbers tallied as war deaths. All Missouri citizens experienced events from destructive guerrilla fighting, murders of neighbors, raids, and the pursuit of outlaws through their property, to the hunting down of Southern sympathizers. This was topped by citizens fearing Federal scouting parties across the state. Growing up in Southeast Missouri, I felt the recurring hatred of one generation to the next but failed to understand what I witnessed. Anger was prevalent toward the Germans in northern Scott County, above Benton Hill, who turned in Southern sympathizers, and Blacks just because of the color of their skin. Rebuilding and recovery were slow following the Civil War. After one hundred years, flames of passion still flared up from time to time. The divisiveness appears to be softening, but much healing is still needed.

This map shows a few of the battles
 fought around New Madrid, MO.

One minor battle in Southeast Missouri was near Belmont, across the Mississippi River from a Confederate stronghold at Columbus, Kentucky. November 6, 1961, Gen. Grant moved by riverboat from his base in Cairo, Illinois, to attack the small outpost near Belmont in Mississippi County, Missouri. (As information, Belmont is only 37 miles from Sikeston and 36 miles from New Madrid.)  Grant landed his men north of the camp and marched to Belmont. Grant's troops overran the surprised Confederate camp and destroyed it. However, the scattered Confederate forces quickly reorganized and were reinforced from Columbus, Kentucky. They were counterattacked, supported by heavy artillery fire from across the river. Grant retreated to his riverboats and took his men back to Paducah, Kentucky. Both sides declared victory. The battle was relatively unimportant, but with little happening elsewhere at the time, it received considerable attention in the press, and a Union General engaged the Confederates was well received in the North.

In mid-February 1862, some seventy miles south of Cario, Gen. Grant's Union troops captured Fort Henry on the Tennessee River. A week after winning Fort Henry, Grant marched his troupes twelve miles cross-country to Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. After five days of fighting, the Confederates asked for terms of surrender. Grant demanded "Unconditional Surrender" from the commanding officer, and he got it. Both these forts were near the Kentucky-Tennessee border, only 135 miles overland to New Madrid, and about 45 miles less using a ferry to cross the Mississippi  River. The solid wins for Union forces led to the promotion of Big. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant went from an obscure officer to the rank of Major General.

Once these forts fell to the Union, the town of New Madrid and Island Number Ten, which stood about ten feet above the Mississippi River water line and just north of New Madrid, became the confederate solid point for defending the Mississippi River. It was a long battle turned siege, lasting from February 28 to April 8, 1862. Unfortunately, there is not enough space on this Blog to address the critical role Island Number Ten and New Madrid played in the war. However, many books are available on Island Number Ten and New Madrid during the Civil War. I encourage you to read one or two to better understand their pivotal role in the American Civil War.  

After the Confederates surrendered New Madrid, its citizens left the town for anywhere they could find a family to house them or work to support their families. Businesses were forced to close their doors until the war was over. I read in a statement from the General who took New Madrid that the only people found in the town were old men, women, and a few public officials running the County Courthouse.

To conclude this segment, we look at what happened to William Cline's children, starting with the marriage of Elizabeth to Theopholis Verlaque in 1856.  

Crowley's Ridge Is An Important Landform in Missouri

Original 1861 Stars and Stripes Newspaper

The Stars and Stripes Museum and Library

Let us transition from the swamps to Crowley's Ridge.  Moving in time from the early 1800s to the Civil War between 1861 and 1865.   Crowley's Ridge is a major regional landform of hills in Southeast Missouri and Northeast Arkansas, made of loess mantle and underlain by loamy, sandy, or gravelly deposits.[1] This Ridge extends from Cape Girardeau, Missouri in a wide arc of over 150 miles down to Helena, Arkansas. The sloping 200 to 500-foot elevation contrasts sharply with the surrounding delta bottomland.  Early settlers were attracted to Crowley's Ridge as it offered pasture lands well above the adjacent swamps.  About ten years after the New Madrid Earthquake, the government built a road on the ridge, because it was impossible to travel through the thick timber and marshy swamps.  

Few people today realize that of the 10,000 battles and scrimmages fought in the American Civil War, over 2,000 of those were fought in Missouri.  There is an invisible line in Scott County that separates not only the lay of the land, but also the thinking of the people who live there.  You experience a rather steep drop in the elevation at the end of the Benton Hills.  That is where the land flattens.  The land remains flat until you reach Memphis.  Where the land flattens, is the Mason-Dixon Line.   As a child, my father took me up to a point around Morley, where he showed me a metal stake with words on its side buried in the ground.  He announced, "This, Margaret, is the Mason-Dixon Line.  It divides people far more than it divides the land."  His statement meant little to me at the time; however, I now understand his statement completely. 

 In 1861, the state legislature passed an act authorizing the Missouri State Guards. The statue divided the state into military districts; Southeast Missouri was District One with N. W. Watkins of Cape Girardeau appointed by the Governor as Brigadier General to command the district.  Finding the work distasteful after his  Jackson home was pillaged and burned, by Col. Charles T. Marsh and his troops on Aug. 30, 1861. Watkins resigned shortly after than and moved to his Beechwood Plantation in Scott County.  He was replaced by M. Jeff Thompson who temporarily made his headquarters at Bloomfield.

Northern sympathizers who didn’t join the Union Army joined the “Home Guard.”   Between the Home Guard and the “Confederate State Guard,” there was constant hostility and warfare throughout the state.  The Bootheel was strongly pro-Southern, therefore, hostility was especially strong in Southeast Missouri.  I have a personal account of individuals who wrote their experiences in journals, similar to those written about the New Madrid Earthquake.  Sometime in the future, I will tell their stories.

The once pro-southern town of Bloomfield is the county seat of Stoddard County.  It is located on Crowley's Ridge, where it offers an excellent vantage point in all directions.  Both the Union and Confederate forces traveled through the town on their way to various battles.  From time to time, there was fighting between the two armies.  The town is famous for one particular event.  Three Illinois Union units camped in Bloomfield on November 9, 1861.  A few of the soldier went for a walk in the town and came to the local newspaper office.  The office was unattended so they decided to publish their own newspaper.  They wrote on their military activities and sent it back home to their family.  They named the paper The Stars and Stripes newspaper.  Although it is not directly associated with the current United States’ military newspaper, the title "The Stars and Stripes" came from that first newspaper published in Bloomfield.  Today, Bloomfield proudly houses the Stars and Stripes Museum and Library. [1]  One of the three original 1861 issues of that first paper is on display in the museum.

 My friend Doris Jean Arnold of Cape Girardeau, formerly of Dexter, sent me an article published in The Dexter Statesman.[2]  The story was based on her cousin Kathy Mooney Skelton’s presentation on the History of Evan’s Pottery to the Stoddard County Historical Society in 2014.   Missouri's first known pottery business started in Stoddard County by the Jacob Semmimon family between 1850 and 1858.  Jacob was a potter in Georgia who sent his son Thomas from there to Arkansas in search of clay soil suitable for the potter's trade.  On the advice of friendly Indians, Thomas Semmimon continued to the Bloomfield area.  He was joined later by his then-widowed mother and other family members, and they established themselves as “Jug Makers.”  They blasted clay soil out of the ground, then hit with a hammer until pieces were small enough to be ground up.  The pottery method and items produced were primitive and utilitarian.  Finished pottery included fruit jars, kraut crocks, milk pitchers, and whiskey jugs. The business was expanded by loading oxen-drawn wagons with pottery and peddling them along the Bloomfield to Cape Road. Upon arriving in Cape Girardeau, the family set up shop at a livery stable.  After they sold their pottery, the family then bought goods coming into Cape on steamboats.  They resold the goods on their return trip back to Bloomfield.

In 1882, Hugh Evans was working for Jacob Semmimon and married his daughter Lucinda.  Following the death of Thomas Semmimon, Evans took over the operation of the business.  Evans' son Randall also learned the potter's trade and continued the business under the name of Evans Pottery.  Evans Pottery ended production in the 1960's, and the last building was demolished for the widening of Highway 25 between Bloomfield and Dexter.  Family members in Nevada have remained interested in pottery, and Charles Randall Evans Jr. works part-time creating pieces in the Desert Sands style pottery.  Doris Jean Arnold, Charles Randall Evans, and Kathy Money Skelton are descendants of Hugh Evans.  The following is a summary of Ms. Skelton’s presentation on the history of Evan's History.

Although Bloomfield was burned three times during the Civil War, the pottery business was always spared, possibly because none of those involved wanted to see a shortage of whiskey jugs!

 There are many stories I could tell about the people and events in Bloomfield.  I will write about the Confederate Cemetery there next week.  I hope to have answers to requests about the Miller House in Bloomfield.  If I receive an answer to my query, I will tell the story of the Miller House next week.  If not, we will look at more of my family history.  Look for a combination of my family history and general history of the Southeast Missouri region in the future.  Thank you for joining me on this Blog.

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 [1] https://mdc.mo.gov/resource/current-river-geology-and-geomorphology
                [2] The Dexter Statesman, Dexter, Missouri, August 6, 2014, By Karen Peters