Rev. J. M. Breeding.
The following account of the persecution of this excellent and faithful local preacher of the M. E. Church, South, is quite an abridgement of the statement furnished, but is amply sufficient to show that very few men in these perilous times suffered more, and escaped more frequently, as “with the skin of his teeth.” How wonderful that special Providence which so often interposes to save the lives of his chosen servants!
In March, 1863, Mr. Breeding was residing on Barker’s creek, in Henry county, Mo. His wife was very ill—not able to raise her head from her pillow. When they were alone, and at midnight, three armed men opened the yard gate, rode rapidly up to the house, and called for Mr. B. to come out. This he declined to do, telling them that he could hear what they had to say where he was. He saw from the door, which he held ajar, that they held their pistols well in hand, as if awaiting an object to shoot. They ordered him to come out a second time, and in no genteel language. He refused, saying to them that if they would come to see him in the day time he would see and talk with them like neighbors.
They asked him if he was armed. He told them that he was a civil man, and had some plows with which he expected to cultivate the ground in the summer; and did not let them know that he was wholly unarmed. They asked his politics, and were informed that he never meddled with the politics of the country; that his only platform was “Repentance toward God, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.”
“You are a preacher, then?”
“Yes, I try to preach sometimes.”
“A Southern Methodist preacher?”
“Yes, I belong to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South?”
“Well, that is just what we have understood, and we don’t intend to let any such man live in this country. We have come with authority to order you to leave in six days, and if you are here at the expiration of that time it will not be well with you. We want to know whether you intend to leave or not.”
Mr. B. asked for their authority, which they declined to give; whereupon he told them as he had not meddled in any way with their political strife he did not think any sane officer would send them at such a time on such business. They remarked that he could either obey or risk the consequences, and turned and rode off.
The excitement and alarm of this midnight interview proved well nigh fatal to his wife. As soon as they were gone, and he could renew his attentions to his wife, he thought that she was already passing down into the shadow of death. The anxiety and agony of the remaining part of that dreadful night no tongue can tell, no pen describe. About daylight she began to revive, and then to rest. On his knees, at her bedside, he determined that he would not leave her, though they should kill him.
A few days after this occurrence, Mr. B. learned from the nearest military post, through a friend, that no such order had been issued; but that the commander of the post, Captain Gallihar, would not be responsible for what his men did from under his eye.
During the following summer there were very few nights when one or more of these lawless men was not seen prowling about the premises and keeping the preacher in constant dread of arson or assassination. He had no peace and felt no security.
They, doubtless, meditated midnight mischief, but had not the courage to attempt it. They changed their plans, and began to report to the military officers various things on Mr. Breeding, to influence them to interfere for them and have him put out of the way.
In July his appointment in Calhoun was attended one Sabbath by a Lieut. Combs, with his company of men, whom he stationed at convenient places about the church and along the road near the church, as though they expected to encounter a desperate enemy.
As he approached the church and began to comprehend the situation, he discovered what he afterward learned were signals. When these signals were made the whole force moved out to the road and advanced rapidly toward the preacher; he was halted and his name demanded.
“You pray for ‘Bushwhackers,’ I learn,” said the officer.
“No more than for other sinners,” the preacher answered.
“But,” said the officer, “some of the boys tell me they have heard you pray for the success of Bushwhackers. They say they have known you long, and that you are an original secessionist; that you have always believed in secession,” &c.
The preacher appealed to those who had known him the longest, if they ever heard him utter disloyal sentiments or knew him to attend a political meeting of any kind. He was no political partisan, and never had been. They finally told him that he was a Southern Methodist preacher and that was enough, as they were all rebels.
While this conversation was going on and the most of the company were in disorder, a squad of men were drawn up in line in front of the preacher with their guns ready for use. Lieut. Combs stepped up in front of these men, when the conversation closed with the preacher, and talked to them for some time in a subdued tone of voice. At the close of the interview one of the men said, in a low voice: “Well, if you will not let us shoot him, we will egg him,” and started off to a barn near by from which he soon returned with his hands full of eggs. The officer would not let him use the eggs, and after some further conversation he dismissed the preacher and took his company back to headquarters.
A few days after this Mr. Breeding had occasion to go to Windsor for medicine for his afflicted wife. There he again met these Calhoun soldiers. They were very annoying and insulting. A mounted squad of them started off before Mr. B. was ready and took the road leading to his house. When the preacher started home and had reached the forks of the road, he was minded to take the plainest and best road, but his horse pulled so obstinately for the other that he finally yielded and reached his home in safety. The next day a friend came to see if he was safe, and informed him that the squad of soldiers that left Windsor before him, waylaid the road to assassinate him. What a providential deliverance!
The next Sabbath Mr. Breeding had a regular appointment to preach at Windsor. With the Sabbath morning came a foraging party to his house demanding breakfast. They stayed and detained the preacher until it was too late to reach his appointment, and he had to remain at home. This detention saved him further trouble, and probably his life. He afterward learned that a band of twenty men were all that morning on the road that he was expected to pass. When it became so late that they supposed he had gone by some other way, they went to the church, surrounded it and entered, but to discover again their disappointment. The preacher was nowhere to be found; and in consultation some wanted to go immediately to his house and inflict summary punishment, but other counsels prevailed, and they determined to try him again the next Sabbath at his appointment at Moffat’s School house.
The Sabbath came, and with its earliest rays came a messenger from a Mr. Owen, a Baptist friend, requesting Mr. Breeding to come to his house immediately as his son was at the point of death. Mr. B. went without delay several miles in a direction from the church. After detaining him as long as he could, Mr. Owen informed him of a trap set for him that day, and that he must remain at his house all day. The preacher was not aware of any evil designs, and only yielded to much earnest solicitation to keep out of harm’s way.
After having so often and so narrowly escaped, Mr. Breeding thought it best to seek greater safety elsewhere. Accordingly he disposed of his effects, packed up and journeyed to Macon county, in North Missouri, and settled down near the old Hebron Church. This move was attended with much privation, suffering, danger and pecuniary loss. He found at his new home a faithful little band of men and women who met every Sabbath where prayer was wont to be made. To these he gladly joined himself.
By this time religious privileges were few and religious liberty greatly abridged by the operation of the “new Constitution.” Ministers were afraid to preach, and the membership discouraged and depressed. The party in power were very vigilant in hunting out and dragging before the civil courts all non-juring ministers.
Mr. Breeding could not take the oath, and he contented himself for some time with an occasional exhortation to the faithful few who still kept the altar fires burning in a quiet way.
The meetings for prayer began to attract the attention of those in authority. They concluded that Mr. B. must be preaching, as the meetings were so regular and so well attended. The super-loyalists determined if such was the case they would take the law into their own hands and see what virtue there was in powder and ball.
The next Sabbath found eight armed men on the front seat to enforce the authority of the new Constitution. There appeared an equal number of orderly citizens prepared to protect the peaceful worship of the congregation. For a time matters wore quite a menacing aspect.
The usual prayer meeting exercises were had, and Mr. Breeding closed up with a warm and an earnest exhortation. The services were somewhat abbreviated, that the unfriendly parties might the sooner be separated.
The next Sabbath the same armed super-loyalists were present, but the friends of peace and order were absent. The preacher had great liberty in the service, and felt in no way intimidated by the presence of armed men on the front bench. During his earnest exhortation, founded upon a favorite text, the men became somewhat excited, but they had either not chosen a leader or the leader showed the white feather. They kept calling one upon the other to start—“You start, and I will follow.” “No, you start, and I will follow,” were expressions, though whispered, that could be distinctly heard by those near them. Such things did not deter the preacher. They could not browbeat him down, and finally, in their shame, they vented their pique on a luckless dog that lay stretched out on the floor near them.
After this fruitless attempt to frighten these faithful and devout men and women, and to get some pretext for adding another name to the list of Missouri Martyrs, they surceased their persecutions, modified their prejudices, toned down their spirit, and from enemies some of them have become the fast friends and even the zealous converts of the sect that was “everywhere spoken against.”
Such scenes of suffering, trial and danger, simply because the victim was a minister of the gospel, recalls the persecutions of other times, and re-enacts a history which we had vainly hoped would not darken the annals of the nineteenth century.
While the details of these dark scenes are stripped of all extra coloring that the naked facts may appear, the ever active imagination will, despite our soberest efforts, supply the want, and memory will be busy with the history of other times and other countries until Missouri is forgotten; the finest model of human government ever devised by man crumbles into dust; the much vaunted religious liberty expires upon its own desecrated altars; the light of a boasted civilization fades into darkness; the noblest and freest institutions go down in hopeless barbarism; a pure, non-political Christianity, with a non-juring ministry, are called upon to reproduce the agony of the Garden and the tragedy of Calvary without repeating the work and grace of atonement, and in memory we are living over the times of Charles the Fifth, Montmorenci and the Duke of Alva. The spirits of the French Huguenots, the Waldenses, Vaudois Martyrs and Bohemian Protestants have been reproduced in the ministry of Missouri. “Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his annointed, saying, ‘Let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us.’”
CHAPTER XIX.
REVS. R. N. T. HOLLIDAY AND GREEN WOODS.
Rev. R. N. T. Holliday—Statement of his Persecutions Furnished by Dr. Richmond, a Federal Officer—Could not War upon the Institutions of Heaven—Mr. Holliday aloof from Politics—Misconstrued—General W. P. Hall and his Militia Proclamation—General Hall and Mr. Holliday—General Bassett—Rev. Wm. Toole, Provost-Marshal, and Mr. Holliday—A Renegade—Platte City Burned by Jennison and Mr. H. Ordered to be Shot on Sight—He Escapes—Is Arrested in Clinton County—Again Ordered to be Shot—Escapes to Illinois—Returns in 1865—Goes to Shelbyville and is Indicted for Preaching Without Taking the Oath—Crimes of the War—Common Law Maxim Reversed—Prominent Ministers of the M. E. Church, South, Assumed to be Guilty of Treason—Murder of Rev. Green Woods—Birth, Early Ministry and General Character—Gives up his District—Retires to his Farm in Dent County—Affecting Account of his Murder given by his Daughter—Extract from a Letter Written by his Wife—Details Published in the St. Louis Advocate of June 13, 1866—Reflections.