The Rev. James M. Proctor.
He says: “I was arrested by W. Hall, at Darby’s chapel, on Sabbath, July 6, 1862. Hall, with his company, reached the chapel before me, and had the ‘stars and stripes’ placed just above the church door. He said that he had been informed that I would not preach under the Union flag. After preaching, and just as I was coming out at the door, near which he had taken his position, he accosted me and said, ‘You are my prisoner.’ He trembled like an aspen leaf. I said to him, ‘Why this emotion, sir? Show yourself a man, and do your duty.’ He replied, ‘I hate to arrest you, but I am bound to do my duty.’ He said I must go with him to his father’s then, and the following morning he would take me to headquarters at Cape Girardeau. I could not well go with him that night, as I had been caught in the rain that morning, and had to borrow a dry suit on the road, which I was under obligations to return that evening.
“After some parley, he granted me permission to report at the Cape in a few days, which I did promptly, to Col. Ogden, then Provost-Marshal. Col. Ogden paroled me to report at his headquarters every two or three weeks. On the 29th of September, 1862, I reported to him the fifth and last time, when I was tongue-lashed at a fearful rate by Lieut.-Col. Peckham of the 29th Mo. regiment, and by him sent to the guard-house.
“I asked this irate Colonel if the front of my offending was not my connection with the M. E. Church, South. He replied, ‘Yes, sir; and the man who will belong to that Church, after she has done the way she has, ought to be in prison during the war; and I will imprison you, sir, during the war.’ ‘It is a hard sentence for such an offense,’ I said. He replied, ‘I can’t help it, sir; all such men as you are must be confined so that they can do no harm.’
“I remained in the guard-house at the Cape until Thursday, October 2, 1862, when—in company with thirteen other prisoners, three of whom died in a few weeks—I was sent to Gratiot street military prison, St. Louis. In this prison I met several very worthy ministers of different denominations, and also Brother J. S. Boogher and two of his brothers, nobler men than whom I have not found any where in the world.
“October 20, 1862, I was released on parole, there being no crime alleged against me. The little man who first arrested me was a Northern Methodist. He wrote out and preferred two charges against me, which were so frivolous that the officers in St. Louis would not investigate them. I furnish them here as items of curiosity, as follows:
“’1. He, the said J. M. Proctor, threatened to hang Mr. Lincoln.
“’2. He said that the Federal soldiers were horse thieves.’
“After my release from Gratiot street prison, St. Louis, I went to the town of Jackson, where I was again arrested at the special instigation of a Northern Methodist preacher named Liming. I continued to preach during and after my imprisonment. When the notorious test oath was inaugurated I continued to preach, and was indicted three times before Judge Albert Jackson, of Cape Girardeau county. Revs. D. H. Murphy and A. Munson were also indicted for the same offense.
“I never took the test oath, nor any oath of allegiance during the war. It was plain to all that the Northern Methodists were our worst enemies during that long and cruel war.”
It is only necessary to add that Mr. Proctor remained at home when permitted, attending to his legitimate calling during the war as a minister, and was no partisan in the strife—a peaceable, law-abiding citizen, and an humble, inoffensive minister of the gospel. As he was informed, “the front of his offending was his connection with the M. E. Church, South,” while it seems that both the instigators and instruments of his arrest and imprisonment were members of the M. E. Church, North. Proscription and persecution do not always hesitate in the presence of opportunity.