The events of 1861 had a very decided moral effect upon the public mind. Several severe battles were fought in the State during the year, and the armies and armed bodies of men were largely recruited. Men who, at the first, had no thought of entering either army found themselves forced, by circumstances, to take up arms in what was, by construction, called self-defense—that is, by constant annoyance from armed men, by harassing fears, from threats and rumors of mischief to person and property, frequent arrests, pillage, plunder, etc., many a peaceable, quiet, orderly citizen was tormented into the necessity of taking up arms.
Armed bands appeared in every part of the State—some on one side and some on the other, some with authority and some without, but all subsisting as they could, and but few caring how. These bands, many of which were irresponsible brigands and marauders, usually “foraged” on the citizens whose sympathies were on the opposite side. They did not always stop at the necessary supplies for subsistence, but were robbers of houses, and many of them indiscriminate and general thieves, taking horses, mules, cattle, wagons, corn, hay, flour, bacon, fruit, blankets, quilts, feather beds, carpets, clothing of every kind, from elegant silks, furs and shawls to children’s shoes and toys; money, watches and jewelry were often taken from the persons of ladies. These highwaymen would often put the torch to dwelling houses at night and take a fiendish pleasure in seeing the awakened inmates make their escape or perish in the flames. Men were shot down by them on the highway, in the fields, the woods and at the doors of their houses as though life was of little value, and its appreciation was about equal to the effect of one bootless, midnight murder upon the great question of Union or division. At all events, after the battle of Lexington, September 21, 1861, and the rapid movements of armies which followed, human life was at the caprice of the armed banditti that multiplied so rapidly over the State.
Many defenseless citizens suffered such indignities and insults from them, in addition to the loss of all they had on earth, that they fled to the army for protection, or to the brush and banded together for revenge. Men, whose houses were destroyed, and whose wives, and daughters, and sisters had been worse than insulted by inhuman ruffians, swore the direst vengeance, and with unsparing recklessness scattered desolation and death in their tortuous track. For their deeds military commanders of posts would hold defenseless communities responsible, levy black-mail upon them, sometimes to the full value of their property, and institute a system of espionage that would put an eavesdropper under nearly every man’s window and a detective in every social circle and public assembly. Property and life were thus put at the mercy of unprincipled detectives and spies, selected often from the lowest and most unscrupulous classes of men and women. With such a system of military despotism no man’s life was safe, and indeed many men were accused, arrested, imprisoned, tried, convicted and put to death without ever knowing the charges against them.
It is not difficult to conjecture the effect of this state of things upon the public mind. To say that the people in some whole counties along the borders of Iowa and Kansas were seized with panic and consternation is not more than the truth. Men and families broke up, and taking what they could with convenience and safety fled for life and protection, some North, some South, some to Canada, some to California, some to the army, some to the large cities, and some to the brush. Some men ordered and some frightened their neighbors away, and then, to furnish them means to travel, bought their stock and lands at a nominal price—in some instances for a mere song. What a farmer, or mechanic, or merchant left behind in his flight was seized as lawful prey by the first that found it and appropriated to private use. Indeed, in one instance a whole county was depopulated outside of the towns, by military order, and devoted to pillage and plunder, and that the third county of the State in population and wealth.
It was even worse, if possible, in the track of large armies and in those parts of the country upon which they subsisted.
No part of the State suffered more than the Southwest, extending from a line that would strike Rolla, Sedalia and Fort Scott, in Kansas, to the State of Arkansas. Many parts of that section of the State were literally laid waste, and made a desolation by fire and sword. The breath of war, like the simoon, swept over the country, leaving a wide waste of desolation and death, which the benignity of peace and the hand of industry can not reclaim and rebuild for many long years.
To say that public sentiment in the State was demoralized by such scenes before the end of 1861 is an expression too tame to reflect adequately the real fact. The moral forces of society were paralyzed, social restraints were broken down, and even religious character was powerless either for protection or public good. The old standards of virtue, integrity, honesty and right principle were borne down and swept away, and men became reckless of the laws of God and man. In the fury and fire of partisan strife, and amid the familiar scenes of blood and death, men trampled upon right, crucified truth, murdered innocence, loved vengeance, despised virtue, abandoned principle, forgot their loves, left their dead unburied and their buried uncoffined, and hung upon the bloody war path like avenging furies.
In the midst of such fearful and wide-spread demoralization God preserved only a few thousand who would not bow the knee to the bloody Moloch. Israel was not without an altar, and the altar was not without an acceptable sacrifice; but the spirit of anti-Christ seemed the more embittered and enraged by that fact, and the persecution became more general and unrelenting throughout the State.
Many congregations of quiet worshipers were dispersed; many societies were broken up and scattered; many churches were burned, and many ministers arrested, silenced or banished—not in the cities so much as in the country.
Amongst the first arrests was that of the Rev. J. Ditzler.