Martyrdom in Missouri, Volume 1 (of 2)

by W. M. Leftwich

In 1854 he was appointed to Ste. Genevieve Circuit, and at the Conference of 1855, at Springfield, he was received into full connection, and returned to Ste. Genevieve Circuit, with J. H. Cumming as junior preacher.

It is needless to follow his appointments in the Conference further than to say that everywhere he was well received and always well reported of for good works. He was a diligent and faithful laborer in his Master’s vineyard, and few men stood higher in the estimation of the people or was more securely enthroned in their affections. He was a man of unblemished character, unswerving integrity, unwavering fidelity, deep and fervent piety, and of good preaching ability. He was unobtrusive, unostentatious, civil, courteous, gentle and kind to all; had many friends and few enemies—lived for his work, and attended strictly to his own business. The last man who would ever intermeddle with politics or make himself officious or offensive to any man or party of men. He had charity for all, and malice for none. This is written by one who knew him well, and loved him much, and was a member of the same class of undergraduates in the Conference.

When the war broke out Mr. Woods was Presiding Elder on the Greenville District, St. Louis Conference; was extensively known in Southern and Southeastern Missouri, and had been just as extensively useful. But the troubles thickened so fast and the country was so generally disturbed and distracted that with a heavy heart he gave up his regular work on the district and contented himself with such preaching as he could do near his home in Dent county, while he attended to the cultivation of his little farm.

The following account of the events of 1862, furnished by his eldest daughter, will be read with deep interest, as they culminate in the awful tragedy of his murder:

“In the spring of 1862 the excitement in the country became so intense that my father could no longer travel his district, so he thought he would stay at home and try to make enough to support his family on his farm. As the people in the neighborhood desired him to preach to them, he made an appointment to preach, about three miles from home, the second Sunday in May. He filled this appointment, and announced another at the same place for the second Sunday in June. Before that time arrived he was advised by some of his friends not to go to his appointment, as they believed that he would be taken prisoner, and perhaps killed, that day by the soldiers if he attempted to preach. But he told them that he would go and preach, and if the soldiers wished to arrest him they could do so; that if necessary he could go to jail. He said that he did not believe that they would kill him, as he had not done anything to be killed for.

A man by the name of Silas Hamby, a member of the Methodist Church, North, had said some time before that no Southern Methodist preacher should preach at Mount Pleasant again. But my father thought it was an idle threat, as he had heard of no preacher being killed because he was a preacher.

“When Sunday morning came, father and my sister, younger than myself, went to Mount Pleasant, and he preached to a small congregation—the people being afraid to turn out on account of the soldiers—and returned home the same evening unmolested. The next morning he took my sister—just thirteen—and two little boys he had hired, and went out to a field one mile from home to finish planting corn. While they were at work the mother of the boys came by the field on her way to our house. She saw that they were nearly done, so she thought she would wait till they finished and come along with them. By this means there was one grown person present to witness his arrest. I think it was about the middle of the forenoon of that Monday, June 9, 1862, when sixteen men, armed and uniformed as Federal soldiers, came to our house and surrounded it. They inquired for father. Mother told them that he was not at home, but out in the field (father told her if they came and called for him, to tell them where he was). They made a general search, and then huddled up out in the yard and held a council a few minutes. Five of them were sent to the field, and while they were gone those at the house were stealing everything they could get their hands on that belonged to father, leaving very few things behind.

“When the five soldiers got to the field father was not quite done planting. They rode up and asked if his name was Green Woods; he told them it was. They told him that he was the man they were after, and ordered him to alight over the fence. He asked them if they would not wait until he could finish planting, as he had then but a few short rows; but they told him, with an oath, that they were in a hurry, and kept hurrying him while he was getting his horse ready to start. When they started from the field my sister asked them what they intended to do with father. They told her, with an oath, that it was uncertain where he would get to before he came back. They brought him to the house and allowed him to eat his dinner. But when he went to dress himself, he could not find a change of clothes, as the soldiers had taken all that he had, and would not even give him his pants and hat. They took him about three miles from home, to a man’s house by the name of Jones, and pretended to get evidence against him. (This was northwest from where we live). They then took him about three miles from home, to where a man lived named Peter Skiles, who kept a blacksmith’s shop. They stopped and staid there awhile, and searched the house, as Skiles was a Southern man. They then took father about half a mile and killed him, and left him lying out in the woods away from the road—no one knew where except those who placed him there. Two guns were heard after the soldiers left Skiles’.

“This was done on Monday, and his body was not found till the next Monday. We did not know that he was killed until his body was found. When found he was lying on his back with his overcoat spread on the ground under him; one arm was stretched out one way, and the other stretched out the other way, his hat drawn down over his face, his coat and vest and left glove lying on the ground near him, his right glove on, his left shirt sleeve torn off, and his left hand off and gone. He seemed to have been dragged some two or three hundred yards before he was shot, as there was but little blood along the trail, and was found as above described near a large tree and among some low bushes.

“We have heard several times that the Northern Methodist presiding elder, by the name of Ing, sent the men to kill my father. I have given you the substance of what we know of father’s death.