In 1860 and ’61 Rev. J. Ditzler was stationed in Jefferson City, in charge of the M. E. Church, South. He was also chaplain to the lower House of the General Assembly.
After Governor Jackson and General Price had evacuated the State capital and the United States forces under General Lyon had taken possession, Mr. Ditzler remained as a non-combatant, supposing that he would not be molested. In this he was mistaken. He was not allowed long to remain in his quiet study at the Ferguson House or to attend to his pastoral duties. An “orderly,” with a guard of seven men, called on him at the Ferguson House, arrested and marched him through the city, and put him with others in an old meat (smoke) house. He was taunted and sneered at by his guard—the Dutch—through the cracks of the old log house. Mr. Ditzler talked back at them in German, Italian, Spanish, French, Greek and Hebrew, quoting freely from Schiller, Goethe and other German authors of note, for his own relief and their amusement, until he was reported to Col. Boernstein, Post Commander, and by him unconditionally released, solely upon literary grounds. No charges were preferred against him, nor could he ever find out why he was imprisoned. His father fought at Tippecanoe, in 1812, and his grandfather at Valley Forge, under Washington, and this treatment was not borne without some little indignation.
Brigadier-General Brown succeeded Col. Boernstein, and Mr. Ditzler was apprised of the purpose to re-arrest him. He was advised by his friends to flee, and accordingly took the train late Saturday night for St. Louis; and at noon the next day (Sabbath) a posse of ten armed soldiers entered his church to arrest him, but he was gone. They followed him to St. Louis only to find that he had taken a train on the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad and made his escape.
The Rev. J. B. H. Wooldridge, the Rev. D. J. Marquis, and other ministers, were arrested and imprisoned about the same time, and without cause. Indeed, it became so common for ministers to be arrested that by the last of the year 1861 it ceased to be a matter of surprise to any. The only novelty was in finding a minister out of the army who had not been arrested by one party or the other, and the most that could be hoped was that life and liberty to non-political and non-juring ministers would be exceptional.
If he lived out of the track of large armies, he would not escape the marauding bands; and if his home should be so secluded and retired that he could not be reached by the public highway, or easily found, there were always unprincipled men in every neighborhood who, to seek revenge, gain favor with the authorities, or to make an opportunity to pillage and plunder from the sheer love of it, would go to the nearest military post, inform on the quiet “parson,” and volunteer their services to guide the ruffian soldiers to the home of the innocent victim. From such causes many an innocent man suffered both in property and person.
When ministers of the gospel happened to fall into the hands of regular army officers or those lawless brigands they were treated with a severity and cruelty that was not often visited upon others, and which indicated with alarming certainty the policy that would be pursued toward the enemies of all unrighteousness.
Amongst the many instances of cruelty to ministers of the gospel who had committed no offense whatever against the peace and dignity of the State, it is sufficient here to mention the case of the Rev. James Fewel.
This venerable servant of the regular Baptist Church, who had lived and labored in Henry county, Mo., for many years—known, respected and honored as a peaceable, upright, good and useful citizen—was found and arrested near his own residence and taken off as a political prisoner to Sedalia, thence to St. Louis, where he lay in prison more than a month, and until death came to his relief.
His death was due solely to the cruel treatment he received from his captors and persecutors. He had never taken up arms against his country, had never committed a crime of any sort—not even what irresponsible persons call treason—and had never been engaged in lawless acts of any kind; but, then, he was a minister of the gospel, and the parties who arrested him, and those who afterward guarded him, had commiseration neither for his profession nor gray hairs. He lacked only three days of being seventy-two years old when he died.
He was arrested by Capt. Foster’s company of Col. Hubbard’s regiment, Missouri State Militia, in the latter part of December, 1861, near his own residence, in Henry county. The weather was cold, and when the old man found that he would be taken off he begged permission to go to his house for more and warmer clothing. This was refused him. He then asked the natural privilege of sending a message to his aged companion, to inform her of his condition and obtain at least a blanket to protect him from the weather. Even this poor boon was denied the old man, and he was torn from his home and hurried away to Sedalia. The weather turned bitterly cold, and the freezing December blasts swept mercilessly across the extended prairie the livelong night, while this old man was kept in an open railroad car, shelterless, bedless, blanketless and comfortless. His very prayers and tears seemed to freeze on the chilly night air as he thought of home and his long years spent in the service of God for the good of his race. But he had to suffer this cruel treatment and trust the God of Elijah to prepare him for what was still in store for him. The morrow came, and with it still further and severer trials. The weather did not moderate, neither did the severity of his persecutors. With others he was placed in a common stock car and sent to St. Louis. With no better protection, no better accommodations, than the horned beasts who had been temporarily displaced by them, and even with insufficient supplies of food, they were kept traveling and stopping all that day and night. Chilled through and through, hungry and half dead, this old man reached St. Louis and was hurried off to the military prison, in which he soon fell a victim to pneumonia, and lingered—without accusation, without trial, and without even permission to be seen by his friends—until February 1, 1862, when death came to his release and found him ready to “depart and be with Christ, which was far better.”