It was the Walk from Civil War Missouri that Required Tremendous Bravery

When we went to Missouri/Arkansas I thought we would find the story of a civil war soldier but it rapidly became the story of a civil war woman who must have had the bravery of a lion.

Downtown Licking, MO

Living south of Beulah, Missouri, Thomas Logan Johnson, was about to prove up in 1862 on over 160 acres of land he had filed homestead patents on in addition to lands he proved up on in 1856.  In May, he married Julia Ann Dension, ten years younger than he was. Oral family history says Julia was a small, dark-haired woman.

Logan (as he always went by) was 29 years old.  There was a spacious well built house on his farm in Spring Creek Township, Phelps County, Missouri and he was a slave owner although I've not been able to find out how many.  Known for raising fine horses, the new Mrs. Johnson must have looked forward to a bright future.

It was not to be.  In August of 1862, both the Union and Confederate armies were conscripting soldiers.  Thomas Logan Johnson went with his neighbors to Oregon County, Missouri and wound up in Company C of the Missouri 8th Infantry CSA as a 2nd Lieutenant.  He would not see his wife, nor the new baby, Annie,  who arrived in the Spring of 1863, for three years.  He also would not see any paycheck the entire time he served.

Meanwhile, Julia endured I don't know what from both Confederate and Union raiders.  The Union Army had moved into the county seat, Rolla, with 10,000 soldiers after the defeat at Wilson's Creek.  In it's infinite wisdom, the government in Washington D.C. paid it's army in useless script with the result of turning 10,000 hungry soldiers into the county raiding for their daily bread.  It must have been horrific.

How long Julia managed to stay on the farm, I haven't discovered.  But in August of 1864, the Union Provost Marshall in Rolla began seizing all the Confederate farms for 'bushwhacking' activities.  By the time the war ended in the Trans-Mississippi Area in May of 1865:

a)  Thomas Logan Johnson had fought in 3 battles;  Prairie Grove in Northern Arkansas shortly after enlisting in December of 1862, Battle of Pleasant Hill south of Shreveport, Louisiana in early April of 1864, and at Jenkins Ferry in Central Arkansas in late April of 1864 where he was on the Confederate Roll of Honor.  He was also now 1st Lieutenant of Company C. 

b) Where was Julia by the end of the war?  Somewhere near Beulah, Missouri but she had no slaves, no farm, no horses and no home. At some point, the house had been burned.  Everything had been swept away by the war.  All she had was three year old Annie.  And where was her husband?

One of the released soldiers from the unit told her.  Logan was in a military camp, Camp Magruder, near Minden, Louisana, too ill to make it home.  Twenty odd miles from Shreveport, he had been too ill to even go to Shreveport to sign the oath of allegiance - a requirement for release.  She had to go get him -- almost 400 miles through wooded countryside with a military government and hundreds of bushwhackers.  She was going to have to depend upon the generosity of strangers to eat and for shelter.

And so she decided she WAS going to get him.  She didn't know if he would be alive when she got there.  And she was taking Annie with her.  

I questioned why she would take a 3 year old on such an ardous journey.  I decided it was because she didn't know what awaited her, perhaps a dead husband, perhaps a man who couldn't make it home, perhaps she couldn't make it back.  Leaving her child to an unknown fate was not a choice she wanted to make perhaps.

Starting from Beulah according to family oral history, she made her way to Licking, Missouri, where she managed to get a horse, albeit one that was old and barely servicable, from the Union Army in Licking.  Putting Annie on the horse (and maybe herself also) she started for Louisana.

A few traces of the Civil War or post war era remained in the architecture of Licking.  However I found out nothing about the post war occupation while there as the local museum was closed.  Perhaps the next trip.

Cornice of one of the buildings in Licking.

The railroad station to the left.  This had to be a post civil war station or perhaps even early 20th century as the railroad ended in Rolla during the war.

Next -- The trip

A Civil War Soldier's Promise is Kept

In the earlier post aout the journey home of Thomas Logan Johnson, I mentioned he had promised his wife, Julia, a home like they had had in Tenneesee.

Ten years after their arrival home, the home was built on their farm 2 miles south of Beulah, Missouri.  There were no nails in the home, rather pegs were whittled by the boys to secure the home together.  My husband's great grandfather was ten years old at the time, so that would have put the year at 1877 when they built the home.

It was described to me 'as the style where the hall goes all the way through the house'.  That would mean it was a 'dog trot' which is reasonable since Tenneesee was known for it's dog trot cabins.

A single story dog-trot cabin located in Lincoln Parish, LA.  Photo from Wilkipedia

After the first winter, they had to close in the 'dog-trot' as it was too cold in Missouri in the winter to leave it completely open.  The house was also described as large so I've assumed it was a 2 story dogtrot which was quite rare.  Was this like the one they had in Tenneesee where Logan had grown up as a boy?  I don't know, but it's fun to surmise.

A two story dog-trot cabin that is in Alabama.  Also from Wilkipedia.

Sadly, the Johnson Dog-Trot cabin burned to the ground during the early days of the Great Depression.  Toledo Johnson's sister, known as Aunt Mattie, a daughter of Logan and Julia, was living in the home at the time.   It probably also explains why there are no known mementos of Logan's CSA service nor any photos of the family.  It must have all went up in flames.

The caption says this is a photo of Toledo Johnson, the baby conceived on the long journey home from war, holding his first great grandchild in 1942.  The lady is Florence, his wife, holding the same baby.  The photo was taken on their farm near Houston, Missouri.


I am glad that neither Logan nor Julia lived to see their fine cabin burned to the ground.  I think they would have found that very distressing.  I only wish I could find a picture of it. 

As I've mentioned, we are planning to go to the area and re-trace the steps home that Logan and Julia would have taken from Claiborne Parish, Louisana, back to Beulah, Missouri.  I just discovered that Road Scholar (used to be called Elderhostel) has a 5 day program in September of 2012 in Springfield, Missouri on "The Civil War West of the Mississippi River".  I think that sounds like a delightful way to start our journey and will check out the details.

A Most Despicable Act

More Civil War Family History from Missouri

Terror lasts but for brief moments in one's life during war; but the memory, sorrow, and hatred can go on for generations.....and that was certainly true for one branch of our family in Missouri.

Thomas Logan Johnson, the Confederate soldier in my previous post, was an ancestor on our "Nanny" maternal side of the family.  On Nanny's paternal side, this tale has survived the generations.   I believe the last name of the boy involved was Page but his first is unknown.   One of the mysteries I hope to solve at a cemetery on our upcoming trip.

Bloody Bill Anderson, one of the more famous Pro-Confederacy Raiders located in Misouri.

From Wilkipedia.

During the Civil War, and then for an extended period of time afterwards during reconstruction, Missouri bore the misery of frequent visitors to their homes called "Raiders" in our family.   The family never seemed to recognize any difference in the political leanings of the scourge and so lumped all together under the term Raiders.  Probably some were pro-Confedracy and some were pro-Union but all had Black Black Black hearts and were feared.  They would show up at your house and take what they wanted, heedless to the fact that perhaps you or your children were going to starve to death after they rode off.  While history says the Pro-Confederacy Raiders 'only' visited Pro-Union homes and visa versa, I think perhaps neither side was very picky.  If you had it and they wanted it, political leanings were damned.  They had an open license to steal and were making full use of it.

William Clarke Quantrill, another Pro-Confederacy Raider who gained noriety for being particularly ruthless and for hosting the James Brothers (Frank and Jesse) in his gang.

As I mentioned before, Phelps County, Missouri had a population of over 5,000 at the start of the war and less than 500 at the end.  This was the end result of the 'raids' on people's livestock and food stuffs and probably also included tools such as harnesses and wagons and anything else that wasn't nailed down.  Lack of cooperation while they were stealing you blind resulted in immediate punishment up to and including death.

On one such raid, as they were leading off the last remaining milk cow on the Page family farm, fourteen year old son whom I'll call Sam, called out from the front porch begging the Raiders to not take the cow as there was a young toddler in the home who needed the milk from her.  They shot him dead, on the porch, ..... in front of his mother.  And rode off with the cow.

And five generations later, our family remembers.  And is passing it on to the sixth.   A stain on the land, a strike in the heart.  No punishment is great enough for such men as those.  May they rot in the depths of hell forever.

Missouri has healed from the civil war.  And her families have endured.  May God keep us united and forever from seeing such horrors in our homeland again.

A Family's Struggles in Missouri during the Civil War

When I originally started this blog, I wanted to preserve some family history in it.  So far I haven't done that but since it's the 150th anniversary of the start of the War Between the States I am going to share this:

Laying railroad track into Phelps County, Missouri, 1860

The Phelps County Courthouse in Rolla, Missouri was built in 1860 and used as a Union Hospital during the civil war.

This story was told to me by my mother-in-law.  Thomas Logan Johnson was her great grandfather.

Missouri suffered horribly during the civil war, probably as much as the states that actually did secede from the union.  Because Missouri never seceded from the Union, it became sharply divided.  Most of the State north of the Missouri River was Pro-Union while those South of the river were Pro-Confederacy.  Brother was pitted against brother quite often.  This is the tale of one family who lived in the southern county of Phelps.

In 1859, Thomas Logan Johnson (who always went by the name of Logan) took out a patent for a homestead on 40 acres 2 miles south of Beulah, Missouri in Phelps County. Probably 40-50 acres was all a man could farm by himself with a horse or mule or ox. Since this was also in the heart of the Ozarks the entire 40 acres would have been timbered so he needed to clear his fields. He was 26 years old.

It must have taken a few years to get his farm to be productive, but in April 1862, he married Julia Ann Denison. All I know of her was that she was said to be a small dark-haired woman. Genealogy records show she was born in Kentucky while Logan came from Tennessee. Both had moved to Missouri when children with their parents.

In the summer of 1862, the Confederate General who presided over Arkansas and Missouri declared that all able-bodied men must join the CSA or face conscription (draft). This declaration forced the men to make a choice - Union or Confederate. Logan, like most of his neighbors, traveled to Oregon County, Missouri which bordered Arkansas to join the CSA near present-day Thomasville. His enlistment date was August 4, 1862. He was 29 years old--not exactly a young man for that time period.

At first Logan was placed in the First Missouri Cavalry, but 3 days later most of the men, including him, were transferred to the 8th Missouri Infantry. Logan was placed into Company C under the command of a Captain Pinnell. Fortunately for our family, the wartime dairy of Captain Pinnell was recently published and I can trace Logan's path day by day throughout the entire war.

Logan fought in several battles and was in the Camden Expedition which was commanded by General Sterling Price. Conditions were brutal. The men were ill-clothed and ill-fed. Their unit did not participate in the battle of Poison Spring because 80% of them had no shoes. They went into the winter with no shoes. Logan was elected 2nd Lt August 7 of 1862 (3 days after enlistment) and 1st Lt Oct 22, 1863 which was his final rank.

Desertion and illness took a heavy toll on the recruits. The Diary mentions men going to the hospital in Little Rock and then weeks or days later noting they died. A few recovered and returned. Most died from either water-borne or food-borne illnesses like typhoid and dysentery. Pinnell's diary mentions how badly he felt having to raid Arkansas homes for provisions as the country was so 'poor'. They had little to spare. At one point they took farm wagons from the population and used the iron from the wheels to make horseshoes for their horses as they were becoming crippled from the rocky terrain in the Arkansas Mountains.

Meanwhile back home, Logan had a daughter born in March, 1863. Captain Pinnell notes in his diary that Logan was 'ill at Little Rock' in July of 1863 and no mention is made of his return back to the unit. His military records state he was absent sick in July and August of 1863. Therefore I have wondered if perhaps Julia hadn't gotten word to him of the new baby's arrival and he went home but perhaps not. He is mentioned 3 times in Pinnell's diary after his illness so I know he was still with Company C.

The unit participated in the Battle at Camp Pleasant, Louisiana, traveled north and fought in the battle at Jenkins Ferry, Arkansas. The diary says that the men were fighting in water up to their knees at Jenkins Ferry. Imagine trying to keep your powder dry in those conditions? And the snakes!! Cottonmouths, water moccasins, coral snakes are all common and prolific! Thomas Logan Johnson was listed on the Roll of Honor for the Confederacy for his actions at Jenkins Ferry. It was their equivalent of the Medal of Honor today. Unfortunately Pinnell's diary does not detail exactly what he did to achieve this.

The Union actually lost in the Trans-Mississippi area. It was one of the few places the Confederacy was successful and whipped the yanks. After the surrender at Appomattox it took several months for the news to reach Arkansas and Louisiana. In June of 1865, the Confederacy surrendered at Shreveport, Louisiana. Logan's dismissal is different than the other men's; his service records stating he was paroled from Shreveport, LA (Claiborne Parish). Shreveport is not in Claiborne Parish. After some sleuthing I discovered that most of the CSA was camped at a huge encampment near present-day Minden which was in Claiborne Parish.

And now as they say, the rest of the story. 

Back home, Julia Denison must have been very enterprising. For the entire 3 years Logan was in the army, he had received not one single paycheck. Phelps county had a population of 5300 at the beginning of the war. It's county seat, Rolla, however, became headquarters for the Union Army because it had a railroad.

Union troops raided the countryside for food and animals. Julia lost all her livestock to the Union troops and it can only be guessed at how much food she had 'put by' for the winter they confiscated from her. By the end of the civil war, due to the hardships caused by Union troops, less than 500 people remained in Phelps County and most of them were in Rolla. Julia Denison Johnson and her 3 year old daughter, Annie Lee, were still on the farm that Logan had established.

Company C was pardoned and placed on a train for home near the end of June, 1865. By July 1st they were all home--except for Logan, which states he was not paroled until July of 1865 from Shreveport , La (Claiborne Parish). Sometime after arriving home, one of Logan's friends came to the farm and told Julia Logan was very ill. Too ill to travel. And he remained in the Union Prison Camp at Minden, Louisiana, 475 miles as the crow flies from his home. (Captain Pinnells dairy noted in at the end of March someone had gone for supplies, beef and water, both bad. Did he have dystentery or typoid? Perhaps but I think it was something else).

Julia probably grabbed what provisions she had and could carry, and taking little Annie by the hand, walked 8 miles to nearby Licking where she was able to get a very poor old horse. Probably her story melted the heart of some Union officer who allowed her to have it. She and Annie rode to Minden, Louisiana, where they found Logan. I figure it probably took her about 3 weeks. It was probably close to the first of August when she arrived.

She built a travois, placed Annie and Logan on it and leading their poor horse, headed back to Missouri. She must have had superb nursing skills as Logan not only survived the brutal trip, but by the time Julia arrived back to Missouri, she was pregnant with her second child, Toledo Lorraine Johnson (my mother-in-laws grandfather), who arrived at the farm on May 3, 1867.

The dates mean it took them over a year to arrive back home and family oral history definitely stated she became pregnant while traveling. Then we come to the name of the child - Toledo. It was not a common family name although Lorraine was. Why Toledo? Two possibilities, there is a Toledo Bend near Pleasantville, LA where Logan had fought. Had something occurred there that the child's name commemorated? Or more likely, near Pine Bluffs, Arkansas lies the small town of Toledo, 150 miles from Minden, Louisana and 300 miles from Beulah, Missouri.

I surmise Logan was so ill they could not get far before winter set in and they had to stop and wait for him to recover his health, which took a long time. I also suspect his illness was tuberculosis as his obituary stated he died from a 'smothering disease'. Several things point to this -- the length of time he was ill and the extended time needed for him to recover plus how he died. Logan died at the age of 59 in 1893 and Julia followed him in 1895 at the age of 52.  They had a total of nine of children, five sons and four daughters.

Shafer Cementary near Licking, Missouri

The cabin they lived in and built burned about 1930 

when one of their daughters was living there. 

There are no known photos of him or Julia and no 

known mementos from the war that survived. 

There is an interesting story about this house which

 I'll tell on the next post.   

Oral histories like this usually only survive two or three

generations UNLESS they are written down. 

I am fortunate that my mother-in-law, the 
fourth generation, told this to me and I wrote it down.