Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded.
In the aftermath of the Union's capture of Little Rock, Ark., on Sept. 10, 1863, the Confederate general Sterling Price led 8,000 rebels on a dejected march toward the southwest corner of the state, near Arkadelphia. Once there, the soldiers settled into their camps with the enthusiasm of a chain gang. Out on the edge of town, on a near-empty creek bed, Col. Joseph Orville Shelby, known as Jo, his arm in a sling, staked out a fittingly bleak campsite.
It had been a star-crossed year for the dashing, 32-year-old cavalryman from Missouri. Since winning command of his own division — "Shelby's Iron Brigade" — the self-trained horseman had proved time and again that he was a gutsy fighter and inspiring leader. And what did he have to show for it? An endless series of retreats and now a painful injury, suffered at Helena, Ark., on July 4, just as Ulysses S. Grant was receiving the surrender at Vicksburg that Helena was supposed to forestall.
When not fighting battles, Shelby and his men enjoyed going on raids, wreaking havoc behind enemy lines. But it had been nearly six months since the last raid, and that one had not gone well. The Confederate general John S. Marmaduke, who was more experienced with infantry than cavalry, had ordered the raiders to lay siege to Cape Girardeau, Mo. Shelby spent five hours throwing men at a wall of federal artillery, a futile endeavor that showed why you don't bring a horse to a cannon fight.
Sitting outside Arkadelphia, Shelby had pondered the future under his commanders – and decided there wasn't one. With his adjutant and historian, John N. Edwards, at his side, Shelby met with Thomas C. Reynolds, the Confederate governor-in-exile of Missouri, and sought support for a new raid, one that he alone would lead. The objectives, Edwards wrote later, were "to penetrate Missouri as far as practicable, inflict what damage he could upon the enemy, and gather unto his friends the greatest advantage possible."
Where had Shelby dreamed up this quixotic venture? Was it from hearing of exploits of his boyhood friend John Hunt Morgan, whose two-week invasion of Indiana and Ohio in July had terrorized Northerners? Or was it the memory of his own 800-mile expedition behind Union lines to his home in Lafayette County, Mo., in the summer of 1862, from which he returned with 1,000 fresh recruits — the core of his Iron Brigade?
Whatever the inspiration for the raid, it lacked support from Shelby's military superiors. But Reynolds was excited. As good Missouri Confederates, he and Shelby shared a belief that under the right circumstances, the arrival of the Stars and Bars could foment an insurrection in the slave-owning Union state. Indeed, pro-Southern feeling in Missouri was high, thanks to oppressive measures taken by federal troops in four counties in the western part of the state.
Reynolds prevailed on Price and the new commander of Confederate forces in Arkansas, Theophilus H. Holmes, to give Shelby the go-ahead. Holmes, a mostly deaf, 59-year-old mediocrity known behind his back as Granny Holmes, may have assented to the raid to rid himself of an impetuous colonel who he assumed would be captured, as Morgan was. Like many professional military men, Holmes saw little difference between a raider and a bushwhacker.
On the eve of the raid, the general called Shelby to his tent. As soon as he entered, wrote Edwards, Holmes said, "Sir, your men are nothing but a set of thieves, and their thieving must be stopped."
Shelby demanded to know the general's source. "Everybody says so," replied Holmes.
"Do you believe a thing when everybody says it?"
Holmes replied that he did.
"Do you know what everybody says about you?"
Holmes said he did not.
"They say that you are a damned old fool."
And with that, on Sept. 22, 1863, Shelby and 800 men in four divisions rode out of Arkadelphia, to the cheers of soldiers and citizens. As they parted, Price told his colonel that if he returned safely from Missouri, a promotion to brigadier general would be awaiting him.
The raiders traveled light, with just two pieces of artillery and 12 wagons of ammunition. Along the way, Shelby scooped up men, munitions and materials in at least 23 lightning-quick actions on poorly manned depots and forts. Union officials sent scores of telegraph messages to one another during the three weeks when the raiding party was active, for as the historian Daniel O'Flaherty observed, "no one ever knew where Shelby was until after he had been there."
Telegraph chatter often linked Shelby to Quantrill, and accused the independent cavalry of flouting the conventions of war. Early in the raid Shelby's men chased off 200 federal troops near the Arkansas River and plundered the supply wagons left behind. Like most rebel soldiers, they were desperately low on clothing and shoes, and when they captured Neosho, Mo., on Oct. 3, they were decked out mostly in Union blue.
Neosho would have fallen to the rebels regardless of what they wore. Another incident, however, was more troubling. Shelby, Edwards and others were riding past a German stronghold when a "tall, lank, kill-dee of a fellow" hopped into their path brandishing rifle and revolver.
"Well, boys, I'm glad to see you," said the young tough, who naturally assumed the column of bluecoats advancing toward him were Union men. "I heard Jo Shelby was coming this way," he continued, explaining that he had come out to "have a pop at him with this here weapon."
The colonel and his entourage, amused at this instance of mistaken identity, let him talk.
"Me and a parcel of the boys just formed a kind of guerrilla company for home service," he continued, "and only day afore yesterday we killed old man Beasly, Tom Mays and two of Price's men just home from the army."
At this, wrote Edwards, "Shelby's face hardened instantly, and his lips closed firm and ominous." He asked the man, "Did these men make resistance?"
"No, not exactly," came the reply, "but they were rebels, you know."
"Precisely just such rebels as you see before you!" Shelby thundered.
And with that, the Confederate soldier disguised as the enemy ordered the startled civilian taken away and shot.
On they went in a 1,500-mile gallop around Missouri and Arkansas, cutting telegraph lines, pulling up tracks, ambushing Union outposts, executing deserters and Jayhawkers, ordering escaped slaves back to their masters, pillaging storehouses, cheering the locals and constantly adding recruits.
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The Union Army finally caught up to them at Marshall, Mo., just down the road from Waverly, where a 21-year-old Jo Shelby had moved from Kentucky to grow hemp with slave labor. The raiding party now numbered 1,200, but thousands more federal troops ringed the town. Spiking one of the two rebel cannons, Shelby ordered a jailbreak straight through enemy lines — and it worked. Their force was split in two by Union cavalry, but many of Shelby's men knew this country well, and by the time they reached Warrensburg, 60 miles away, they had shaken off their pursuers and retaken the offensive.
The raid's final week was spent in a day-and-night retreat through downpours of rain and snow, occasionally interrupted by skirmishes in the rear. Cavalry raids are storied for the level of physical endurance they demand of the rider, but even by this measure the privations on Shelby's raid were extreme.
"To those unacquainted with the effects produced by loss of sleep, the sensations would be novel and almost incredible," Edwards later wrote. "Beyond the third night stolid stupor generally prevails, and an almost total insensibility to pain." Men "dropped from the saddle unawakened by the fall," or were poked by officers with sabers "until the blood spouted, without changing a muscle of their blotched, bloated faces."
Granny Holmes was no doubt astonished when, on Nov. 3, Shelby's exhausted brigade rode into Washington, Ark., larger and better equipped than when it left 41 days before. Shelby instantly became the most famous Confederate in the west. An epic poem was composed in his honor, along with a campfire song:
Ho boys! Make a noise!
The Yankees are afraid!
The river's up and hell's to pay —
Shelby's on a raid!
In his official report, the colonel — soon to be General Shelby — claimed to have caused $2 million in damage and killed or wounded 600 soldiers, while losing just 150 of his own. He also reported that Missourians remained "true to the South and her institutions, yet needing the strong presence of a Confederate army to make them volunteer."
This was one way of saying the hoped-for insurrection did not occur. And indeed, the Union Army soon repaired the damage from the raid and reinforced its grip on Confederate Missouri. Like everything the rebel army did west of the Mississippi, Shelby's moment of glory proved as fleeting as a gray ghost on a strong steed.
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Sources: "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies," Series 1, Vol. 22; John N. Edwards, "Shelby and His Men"; Daniel O'Flaherty, "General Jo Shelby: Undefeated Rebel"; Anthony Arthur, "General Jo Shelby's March"; Stephen B. Oates, "Confederate Cavalry West of the River." The authors wish to thank John F. Bradbury Jr. of the State Historical Society of Missouri and Jeremy Neely of Missouri State University for their assistance.
Aaron Barnhart and Diane Eickhoff are the authors of "The Big Divide: A Travel Guide to Historic and Civil War Sites in the Missouri-Kansas Border Region."
