Martyrdom in Missouri, Volume 1 (of 2)

by W. M. Leftwich

Between the “jayhawkers” of Kansas and the “bushwhackers” of Missouri some whole counties were plundered, some were desolated by fire and sword, and some were almost depopulated. Widows’ homes were pillaged and burned, delicate mothers and daughters were captured, taken to camp and compelled to cook and wash for ruffian bands of armed men, to say nothing of nameless indignities and the most horrible crimes. Churches and dwellings were seized, converted into barracks for soldiers, stables for horses, and often burned to the ground in wanton destruction.

It was often heard in boast that the track of armies, or more properly predatory bands, should be lighted through entire counties by the glare of burning buildings, and the threat was too often witnessed in all the midnight glare of faithful execution by the pallid and panic-stricken old men, women and children in mid-winter. But the heart sickens at the recital, as the enlightened conscience revolted then at the reality. These statements must suffice to recall the scenes which were enacted and the men who educated and then hardened the public conscience for the crimes committed during the war, against God and his chosen ministers and church, and for the subsequent legislative proscription of ministers of the gospel, as a class, and Christianity as an institution.

The attitude of ministers of the gospel in Missouri toward the issues of the war, and how far they participated, on the one side or the other, in its fatal scenes require notice here.

At the first, and, indeed, for two years and more after the war commenced, the sentiment of the State was so equally divided between the contending sections that ministers who did not propose to forsake their high calling and become active participants in the strife were very cautious in their expressions of sympathy. But as the Northern or Southern feeling predominated in any given locality it became so intolerant as to demand from ministers, as well as all others, an unequivocal avowal of sentiment, which always subjected the minister to the severest criticism and the most unsparing censure when he chanced to think differently from the majority. The people of opposite sentiments denied him access to them for good, withdrew their encouragement and support, and thus forced him either into the army or into exile. The people were so prejudiced and intolerant as to believe that a man of opposite political faith was unfitted, by that fact, to minister to them in holy things—that sectional sympathy disqualified men for the ministry, and that the men who would preach Christ must either dry up the fountains of human sympathy, surrender all the rights of citizenship, or subordinate the message of life and salvation to the dictum of the leaders and representatives of the intolerant spirit of anti-Christ that prevailed. In this shape the persecution of ministers of the gospel commenced in Missouri with the first breaking out of the war. Ministers were forced to give up their pulpits and abandon their congregations where the two were not in sympathy upon the issues of the war.

Many an old man who had been settled for years in one pastoral charge, where his children had grown up and some of them had died, and where all the tenderest and dearest associations known to the sacred relation of pastor and people had ripened and matured around the fireside, in the sick room, the funeral scene, the homes and hearts of grief, and around the bridal and sacramental altars, suddenly found himself and his family proscribed, maligned and friendless in the very homes and hearts in which aforetime their pre-eminence was unchallenged. A bitter necessity forced him often to give up his home and his pulpit, leave his flock in the wilderness and seek protection and support either in the army or among strangers. In this way many ministers, old and young, were driven to a course which they did not elect, and forced into a position which was neither of their own choosing nor consistent with their sense of ministerial propriety and ministerial obligation.

And yet for a position forced upon them by the proscriptive intolerance of their former friends they were held responsible, and even severely censured by the public.

Many went into both armies—not willingly, but by constraint—not of choice, but of necessity—not to fight the living with carnal weapons, but to save the dying with the power of salvation, and to fight the battles of the Lord of Hosts with the spiritual weapons that are “mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.”

Some ministers of the gospel entered the army as soldiers to fight the battles of the country, and no doubt did it conscientiously, believing it to be a high patriotic duty. They claimed nothing on the score of their profession, but accepted in good faith the issues of war and the arbitrament of the sword. Those who survived the war claim no undue credit, and those who sacrificed their lives for a principle and a cause deserve no censure.

Those who entered either army voluntarily, either as chaplains or soldiers, did it understandingly and, perhaps, conscientiously, and accepted the penalty or reward due to such a position only. As a soldier the preacher claimed no exceptional privileges, and as a preacher the soldier claimed no exemption from duty on the field or punishment at home. But it is a notorious fact that preachers who were in the Southern army as soldiers, and who survived the war and returned to their homes in Missouri, no matter how gladly, gracefully and loyally they accepted the situation, have not met the consideration nor received the treatment in all cases meted out to other Confederate soldiers; nor have preachers from the Union army in all instances been treated as other Federal soldiers who returned from the same regiments and to the same counties. Charity at least demands the belief that this is due rather to the instinctive disapprobation in the public mind of ministers bearing arms at all than to any studied maliciousness; and the belief is just as grateful as it is warranted by the facts. But if it should fall out in the subsequent facts to be presented in this book that a studied malice and a methodical madness have done more than the anti-war sentiment, then, however ungrateful, we must accept the facts as the best interpretation of the anti-christian spirit which has exhausted itself upon the ministers of the gospel in this State.

Under this kind of pressure many pastors were without churches and many churches without pastors; and, in many parts of the State, the churches were disorganized and broken up, and the flocks scattered in the wilderness, like sheep having no shepherd. It is true, some ministers refused to be driven, but remained faithful to their trust, in the midst of many discouragements, much threatening, much murmuring, and not a little persecution. Such men, pursuing the even tenor of their way, neither turning to the right or left, reviled, but reviling not again, “counting not their lives dear unto themselves,” nor “conferring with flesh and blood,” deserve the most honorable mention; and with those who know the pressure of sentiment brought to bear upon them they will ever be revered as the finest models of moral heroism and ministerial fidelity. This class of men were not confined to any one church, but have their representatives in all the churches which, by construction, were considered unfriendly to the ruling powers of the State. Many of them were faithful men of God—men of one work—seeking the souls of men, and continuing “steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord,” through all the storm and shock of war; and this, too, at no little cost.