The persecutions in the early part of the war were not without a sharp discrimination in favor of the prominent ministers of the M. E. Church, South. Few were exempt. The exceptional cases were either in the large cities or under the protection of partisan loyalty. For some reason the leading ministers of the Church, South, were looked upon as the very ringleaders of the Southern revolt against the Government. So general was this belief amongst the officers of the Union army, that whoever escaped their surveillance had to prove a negative in the face of the most unwarranted and unfounded presumptions of guilt, supported and flanked by the deepest rooted prejudices and the most blinded passion. Nor is this putting the case too strongly. It is not in excess of the facts.
No matter how guarded, how prudent, how cautious in public or private life, the tongue of the accuser always reached the official ear before the accused was aware of his summons to the official bar.
That good old maxim of the English common law, that assumed a man to be innocent until he was proven to be guilty, was reversed. Men were assumed to be guilty, and they had to prove their innocence if they could, or suffer the penalty of assumed guilt.
And, indeed, the right of trial was granted to but few. Many, very many, suffered imprisonment and death without ever being so much as informed of the crime for which they suffered.
The day of eternity alone will reveal the nameless crimes which men in authority, and men without authority, committed during the late civil war. May a merciful Providence forever spare the country a repetition of the horrible scenes through which it has so recently passed. These reflections are suggested by the murder of the
Rev. Green Woods.
The subject of this sketch was born in Bellevue, Washington county, Missouri, Feb. 27, 1814, where he grew up on a farm in sight of Caledonia.
He was received on trial in the Missouri Annual Conference M. E. Church in the fall of 1836, when the Conference was held in St. Louis, and was appointed by Bishop Roberts, junior preacher on the Farmington Circuit, with George Smith as his senior.
The next year he was returned by Bishop Soule to Farmington, with Alvin Baird as his senior.
The next year his name does not appear in the minutes, nor does it appear again until the year 1853, when he rejoined the St. Louis Conference and was appointed by Bishop Andrew to Cape Girardeau and Jackson.