The state authorities of Missouri converted the mobs which had plundered the Saints, burned their homes and laid waste their lands, into the state militia, which gave the former mob a legal status, under which guise they plundered the Saints, compelled them to sign away their property and agree to leave the state. To resist this mob-militia was to be guilty of treason; but the people of western Missouri lived to see a like policy pursued towards them. They suffered much in Jackson and other western counties in the border war, previous to the opening of the Civil War, from the inroads of abolition "jayhawkers" in the interest of anti-slavery. For a time this was in part suppressed by the state militia under General Frost and by the permanent force stationed on the border under Lieutenant-Colonel Bowen. But later, and when the Civil War broke out, these old "jayhawking" leaders "now came with United States commissions in their pockets, and at the head of regularly enlisted troops, in which guise they carried on a system of robbery and murder that left a good portion of the frontier south of the Missouri river as perfect a waste as Germany was at the end of the Thirty Years' War."[[69]]
Such wretches as Generals Lane and Jennison, though Union officers, and denounced alike by Governor Robinson of Kansas—of course a strong Union man—and General Halleck,[[70]] commander-in-chief of the western armies of the Union, were permitted to disgrace alike the Union cause and our human nature by their unspeakable atrocities. But they were retained in office, nevertheless. It was the outrages committed by these men and their commands, and the Kansas "Red Legs" that led to the equally savage reprisals on the people of Kansas. In revenge for what western Missouri had suffered, outlawed Missourians sacked Lawrence, Kansas, a Union city, massacred one hundred and eighty-three of its inhabitants, and left it in flames. In justification of their act of savagery, they declared: "Jennison has laid waste our homes, and the 'Red Legs' have perpetrated unheard of crimes. Houses have been plundered and burned, defenseless men shot down, and women outraged. We are here for revenge—and we have got it."[[71]] How nearly this language of the Missourians—and there can be no question that it describes what had been done in Missouri by Lane, Jennison, and their commands, and the Kansas "Red Legs"[[72]]—follows the complaint justly made by the Latter-day Saints years before against the Missourians! But thank God, there is recorded against the Saints no such horrible deeds of reprisal.
The Missourians falsely charged that the Saints held illicit communication with the Indian tribes then assembled near the frontiers of the state, and pretended to an alarm that their state might be invaded by the savages, prompted thereto by "Mormon" fanaticism; but these same Missourians lived to see cause for real fear of such an invasion when the Governor of an adjoining state—Arkansas—authorize Brigadier General Albert Pike to raise two mounted regiments of Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians to actually invade the state. These regiments of savages were engaged in the battle of Pea Ridge, on the southwest borders of Missouri. General Pike, who led them in that battle, dressed himself in gaudy, savage costume, and wore a large plume on his head—a la Niel Gilliam at Far West—to please the Indians. It is also charged that before the battle of Pea Ridge, he maddened his Indians with liquor "that they might allow the savage nature of their race to have unchecked development. In their fury they respected none of the usages of civilized warfare, but scalped the helpless wounded, and committed atrocities too horrible to mention."[[73]] The "fear" expressed by the Missourians respecting the alleged illicit communication of the Saints with the Indians was mere feigning, but with this example before them, and knowing that there were many thousands of Indians on their frontiers that might be similarly induced to take up arms, their former feigned fears became real ones.
The Missourians instead of demanding the execution of the law in support of the liberties of the Saints, expressed the fear that the presence of the Saints would give rise to "Civil War," in which none could be neutrals, since their homes must be the theatre on which it would be fought,[[74]] so they drove the Saints away; but the Missourians lived to see the outbreak of a civil war in their state that was one of the most appalling men ever witnessed; and Missouri, when all things are considered, and especially western Missouri, suffered more than any other state of the Union. In other states the war lasted at most but four years; but counting her western border warfare in the struggle for Kansas, the war was waged in western Missouri from 1855 to 1865, ten years: and for many years after the close of the Civil War, a guerrilla warfare was intermittently carried on by bands of outlaws harbored in western Missouri—especially in Jackson, Ray, Caldwell and Clay counties—that terrorized the community and shocked the world by the daring and atrocity of their crimes—including bank robberies in open day, express train wrecking and robberies, and murders. Not until 1881 was this effectually stopped by the betrayal and murder of the outlaw chief of these bands.
Missouri sent into the Union Armies one hundred and nine thousand of her sons, including eight thousand negroes. About thirty thousand enlisted in the confederate army. According to official reports the percentage of troops to population in the western states and territories was 13.6 per cent, and in the New England states 12 per cent; whilst in Missouri, if there be added to her quota sent to the northern army the thirty thousand sent to the confederate army, her percentage was fourteen per cent, or sixty per cent of those who were subject to military duty. Of the deaths among these enlisted men, only approximate estimates may be made, since of the mortality among the Confederates no official records were kept. But of those who entered the Union service, thirteen thousand eight hundred and eighty-five deaths are officially reported. The rate of mortality in the Confederate forces, owing to the greater hardships they endured, and the lack of medical attendants to care for the wounded, was much higher, and is generally estimated at twelve thousand, (most of whom were from western Missouri), which added to the deaths of those in the Union army would aggregate the loss among the troops from Missouri to twenty-five thousand eight hundred and eighty-five. "This estimate," says Lucien Carr, "does not cover those who were killed in the skirmishes that took place between the home guards and the guerrillas; nor does it include those who were not in either army, but who were shot down by "bushwhackers" and "bushwhacking" Federal soldiers. Of these latter there is no record, though there were but few sections of the state in which such scenes were not more or less frequent. Assuming the deaths from these two sources to have been 1,200, and summing up the results, it will be found that the number of Missourians who were killed in the war and died from disease during their term of service amounted to not less than 27,000 men."[[75]]
The loss in treasure was in full proportion to the loss in blood. The state expended $7,000,000 in fitting out and maintaining her Union troops in the field.[[76]] She lost $40,000,000 in slave property; and four years after the close of the war—two of which, 1867-8, were remarkably prosperous—the taxable wealth of the state was $46,000,000 less than it was in 1860. "In many portions of the state," says the historian to whom I am indebted for so many of the facts relating to Missouri in these pages, "especially in the southern and western borders, whole counties had been devastated. The houses were burned, the fences destroyed, and the farms laid waste. Much of the live stock of the state had disappeared; and everywhere, even in those sections that were comparatively quiet and peaceful, the quantity of land in cultivation was much less than it had been at the outbreak of the war. Added to these sources of decline, and in some measure a cause of them, was the considerable emigration from the state which now took place, and particularly from those regions that lay in the pathway of the armies, or from those neighborhoods that were given over to the "bushwhackers." The amount of loss from these different sources cannot be accurately gauged, but some idea may be formed of it, and of the unsettled condition of affairs, from the fact that only 41 out of the 113 counties in the state receipted for the tax books for 1861; and in these counties, only $250,000 out of the $600,000 charged against them were collected."[[77]]
This only in a general way indicates the losses in property sustained by the state during the period under consideration, but it assists one to understand somewhat the enormity of those losses.
It is in no spirit of gloating exultation that these facts in Missouri's history are referred to here. It gives no gratification to the writer to recount the woes of Missouri, and his hope is that it will give none to the reader. These facts of history are set down only because they are valuable for the lesson they teach. It may be that visible retribution does not always follow in the wake of state or national wrong-doing; but it is well that it should sometimes do so, lest men should come to think that Eternal Justice sleeps, or may be thwarted, or, what would be worst of all, that she does not exist. I say it is well, therefore, that sometimes visible retribution should follow state and national as well as individual transgressions, that the truth of the great principle that "as men sow, so shall they reap," may be vindicated. Missouri in her treatment of the Latter-day Saints during the years 1833-9, sowed the wind; in the disastrous events which overtook her during the years 1855-65, she reaped the whirlwind. Let us hope that in those events Justice was fully vindicated so far as the state of Missouri is concerned; and that the lessons of her sad experience may not be lost to the world. May the awful and visible retribution visited upon Missouri teach all states and nations that when they feel power they must not forget Justice; may it teach all peoples that states and nations in their corporate capacity are such entities as may be held accountable before God and the world for their actions; that righteousness exalteth a nation, while injustice is a reproach to any people. May the retribution that was so palpably visited upon the state of Missouri satisfy and encourage the Latter-day Saints; not that I would see them rejoice in the suffering of the wicked; but rejoice rather in the evidence that Justice slumbereth not; that their wrongs are not hidden from the All-seeing eye of God; that they are within the circle of His love; that they cannot be unjustly assailed with impunity, however humble and weak they may be. From all these considerations may they be established in peace, hope, confidence and charity; knowing that God is their friend; that His arm is strong to protect; or, if in the course of God's economy in the management of the affairs of the world it must needs be that for a time they suffer at the hands of oppressors, that He will avenge them of their enemies; and amply reward them for their sufferings in His cause.
Footnotes.
[1]. See "American Commonwealths," Missouri, (Houghton, Mifflin & company, 1888), p. 181.