Martyrdom in Missouri, Volume 1 (of 2)

Ministers of Peace—Course Pursued by the St. Louis Christian Advocate—Rev. Dr. M‘Anally its Editor—Candid, Truthful, Honest—The Cause of its Suppression, and the Imprisonment of the Editor—Ministers of the M. E. Church, South. Labor and Pray Earnestly for Peace—Days of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer—Ministers who became Political Partisans had no use for such days-“Breathing out Threatening and Slaughter”—Spirit of the Northern Methodist Press—False Publications for a Purpose—One Mr. John Stearns and the Western Advocate—Glaring Falsehoods—Excitement in St. Louis and Throughout the State—Persecution of Ministers in Kansas and Reign of Terror along the Border—Rev. W. H. Mobly and Rev. John Monroe in Southwest Missouri—Systematic Efforts to Break up the M. E. Church, South, and Disperse her Ministers—Editorial in St. Louis Advocate—The Central Again—Impressions Abroad—Baptists and Presbyterians Implicated—“Religion in Missouri”—Missouri Conference at Glasgow—St. Louis Conference at Arrow Rock and Waverly—Conference Stampeded by the Rumor of a Gunboat—Author Arrested.

That the ministers of the gospel in Missouri did not commit themselves to the strife of war, but sought to promote peace and good order in the State, may be learned from the frequent counsel given to their congregations to remain at home, and “as much as lay in them live peaceably with all men.”

Many a young man was prevented from going to “Price’s army,” or any other, by the timely advice of these men of God, and many a wife and mother rejoice to-day in the life and love of husband and son only through the godly admonition of faithful pastors. Some few ministers, it is true, were led astray by popular excitement, or forced to quit their homes and flocks by causes heretofore mentioned, and then they preached privately what they practiced publicly. But such cases were too rare to involve the whole ministry as a class, even by the weakest implication. Neither were the ministers of the gospel as a whole, nor the ministers of any one Church in Missouri, disloyal to the Government of the United States or the Provisional Government of this State. But the very Churches and ministers that had to suffer the most direful penalties, in the destruction of property, the persecution, imprisonment and murder of ministers in the subsequent years of the war, were now doing more than any other in the State to prevent the war and promote the public peace and tranquillity.

The St. Louis Christian Advocate, edited by the Rev. D. R. M‘Anally, D. D., contained a series of very able editorials, running through April and a part of May, 1861, on “The Times,” “The Duty of Christian Men,” “The Time for Prayer,” “To the Ministers and Members of the M. E. Church, South, in Missouri and Kansas,” “The Times—A Word to our Patrons and Friends,” and kindred topics, in which the people were warned of the character of the danger that threatened, advised to remain at home, cultivate their lands and pursue the avocations of peace and piety in the fear of God, as the best means of promoting good order in the State, and at least mitigating the horrors of war.

That paper was candid and earnest in warning the public of the magnitude of the rebellion and the unprecedented unanimity and courage of the Southern people, and when the Northern press generally represented the boasted strength of the rebellion as too puerile and insignificant to involve the National Government in any serious trouble or protracted war, that paper sought truthfully and conscientiously to disabuse the public mind, and thereby prevent the many disastrous blunders committed by an underestimate of the military resources and strength of the South.

How much of suffering might have been prevented, and how many thousands of valuable lives might have been spared to the country, to say nothing of the millions of treasure, had the advice of that paper been taken and the timely warnings of its honored editor been heeded. But, like all gratuitous counsel that is unpalatable, because truthful, it was contemned, the motive of its author suspected, and the existence of its medium considered dangerous.

Very many of the religious papers of the border States had already been suspended, and the continuance of this one was a doubtful problem for many months before its suppression.

Dr. M‘Anally’s ideas of right and wrong, of truth and error, of justice and righteousness, were derived from the old standards. He had no patience with the new standards of virtue that grew out of party fanaticism and war expediencies; new fangled notions, dissimulations, prevarication and moral travesty “he could not away with.” He had not so learned the responsibilities of public journalism, and hence his simple-hearted appreciation of right led him to expose the wrong wherever it existed. His honesty required him to denounce the wide-spread dishonesty of the times. His simple love of truth caused him to make honest and truthful reports of the “News of the Week” according to the actual facts, without reference to the interest of this party or that party, this army or that, this commanding officer or that. In this his paper presented such a contrast with the press generally that it was sought and read by thousands of both parties, and accepted by the unprejudiced as the most reliable paper then published.

But because it was truthful, and honest, and candid, and popular, and reliable, it was pronounced disloyal and dangerous; and because it would not serve the cause of cruelty, confiscation, conflagration, desolation and destruction, and with the venom of a viper hound on the barbarous hordes with fire and sword to the commission of the foulest deeds of war; nor with sanctimonious hypocrisy sanctify the implements and instruments of blood and death, and canonize the vilest thieves, and robbers, and murderers; for these reasons the paper was set down by the enemies of the M. E. Church, South, as in the interest of treason and rebellion, and by them the military authorities wore induced to suppress the paper and arrest and imprison its editor. Of his arrest and long confinement in the Myrtle Street Military Prison, St. Louis, the reader will be more fully informed hereafter.

That the ministers of the M. E. Church, South, who suffered more than others during the war in Missouri, did not provoke the strife nor enhance its malignity, but, on the contrary, labored earnestly and prayed fervently for the return of peace to our distracted country, take the following from the St. Louis Christian Advocate, of June 18, 1861:

“To the Ministers and Members of the M. E. Church, South, in the Missouri and St. Louis Conferences.

“Dear Brethren and Sisters: Whereas, our once happy and prosperous country is now involved in the calamities of civil war, which threatens ruin to all our cherished hopes and interests; and whereas, God alone, in the exercise of his sovereign and gracious dispensations, can avert the terrible evil; and as he has promised to be inquired of by those that fear him, and to interpose for those who reverently and submissively supplicate his mercy and seek his Divine interposition, it therefore becomes to every Christian community both a high privilege and a solemn duty, in such times of serious and alarming trials, humbly and reverently to prostrate themselves before the mercy seat and supplicate that aid and deliverance which God only can afford.

“And, as I have been requested by many ministers and laymen of both Conferences (in view of my seniority as a minister) to designate and recommend a day of fasting and prayer, I would, therefore, most respectfully recommend that Wednesday, the third day of July, be set apart and observed for this solemn purpose, and that appropriate religious services be held in all our places of worship; and, in accordance with the expressed wishes of many, and, as I think, in accordance with manifest propriety, I tender most cordially, in behalf of the whole Church, an invitation to all Christian people of the State to unite with us on that day, humbly and devoutly to supplicate, in behalf of our common country, that God, who can turn the hearts of men as the streams in the south, would forgive our sins and in his merciful providence hasten the return of peace to our country—our entire country.

“Fayette, Mo., June 5, 1861.

“The undersigned do most cordially approve the above proposition, and earnestly recommend its observance throughout the State.

“St. Louis, Mo., June 12, 1861.”

In compliance with this recommendation the churches of the State were generally well filled with devout worshipers, and the prayers of tens of thousands of earnest Christians ascended to the Lord of Hosts that his anger might be turned away, that “our country—our whole country”—might be spared the further calamities of war, and that “we might lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.”

These public calls to “humiliation, supplication and prayer” were frequent in occurrence and general and fervent in response; and the unpolitical ministry in those days presented a spectacle of touching moral sublimity, in their fidelity to the Church and their unselfish devotion to the cause of peace and righteousness in the midst of universal strife and war, that deserved a higher consideration and a better fate, while it prepared them for the scenes of suffering and the thrones of martyrdom that yet awaited them in the not distant future.

It has not escaped the observant, however, that the ministers who committed themselves and their pulpits to the purposes and prosecution of the war had more days of feasting than fasting; more seasons of glorification than humiliation; more days of thanksgiving than supplication; more banners and bonfires than confessions of sin and prayers for peace. If any of them observed a day of fasting, humiliation and prayer in the proper spirit, during the whole war in Missouri, the fact has wholly escaped the author’s mind. Their prayers, for the most part, consisted in “breathing out threatenings and slaughter,” and in inflaming the dangerous passions of men by the most unblushing blasphemies and the most envenomed imprecations.

The scenes and services which dishonored the gospel and disgraced the pulpits and those who occupied them in certain quarters during the war can not now be recalled without the most painful sense of humiliation and shame. It would be an outrage upon public decency and taste to reproduce even the best specimens of them in these pages. We have oblivion for the facts and pity for the fanatics; and if a faithful record of the sad history we have made should require any further allusion to such scenes, it will be made with mingled shame and commiseration.

While the ministers in Missouri were striving manfully and humbly to allay the bitterness of strife by frequent calls to public humiliation and prayer, and by wise and godly counsels of peace and quietness, designing men who had left the State, and some even who remained in the State, were at work, through the different media of reaching the public mind, trying to arouse the suspicions and inflame the passions of those in power against the only real “peace-makers” in the State. Specimen extracts have already been given from the Central Advocate of Missouri, and it may not be out of place to insert one from the Western Christian Advocate, of Cincinnati, of June 12, 1861:

“We had a call from Mr. John Stearns, late a resident of Miller county, Mo. He was formerly of Pennsylvania, but for some years had resided in Missouri, and has been a member of the M. E. Church over thirty-five years. He gave us the names of two of his neighbors who had, been hung for their Union sentiments, and for being members of the ‘so-called’ Northern Methodist Church. The leaders of the mob hanging these men were members of the M. E. Church, South. Mr. Stearns says further that he was informed through a friend that he himself was to be hung Saturday, June 1st, but that he defeated the attempt by escaping the previous night. The man who led on the mob of Jefferson City in riddling the Methodist Episcopal Church there, of which the expatriated Rev. Z. S. Weller was pastor, was the son of Claiborne Jackson, the Governor of Missouri. Mr. Stearns tells us that but for the M. E. Church, South, there would be no secessionism in the State. The preachers and members of that denomination see that the triumph of Unionism is their death knell, and hence the fury and despair which characterize their fight.”

It will not be unkind to say now that such stories were manufactured to order and published for effect. The war has come and gone, and passion and prejudice have been measurably displaced by peace and order; and yet, to this day, the hanging of two of Mr. Stearns’ neighbors, in Miller county, Mo., has only come to the knowledge of the people of Missouri through the Western Christian Advocate, and upon the authority of one Mr. Stearns, “formerly of Pennsylvania.”

But that this assertion is not made without good authority, read the following extracts from two letters, as only a sample of many others on hand:

“Mr. Editor: I see in your issue of June 20th a statement from one Mr. John Stearns, who says he has been a citizen of Miller county for some years, and that two of his neighbors were hung for their Union sentiments, and for being members of the M. E. Church, North; that he himself barely made his escape by starting the night before.

“Now, as to the hanging part, Mr. Stearns has grossly misrepresented the people of Miller county. There has never been any person hung in the bounds of the county, under any pretext whatever, much less for their political or religious creed; and Mr. Stearns knew when he made the statement that it was false. In fact, I doubt whether there has ever been such a man in Miller county, at least I have found no one who has ever known such a man, and I have inquired of the Sheriff of the county, and the Clerk of the County Court, as well as of a number of citizens who have lived here ever since before Miller county was organized, and none of them have ever known such a man as John Stearns; and if it were necessary I could get hundreds of the most reliable men of this county to bear testimony to the truth of the above, &c., &c.

Another letter, written by Wm. M. Lumpkin, July 2, 1861, says:

“I was born and raised in this (Miller) county, and can safely say there never was a man hung in this county to my knowledge. I have served a good time in this county in the capacity of Deputy Circuit and County Clerk, and County School Commissioner, and I have never heard of such a man before as Mr. John Stearns,” &c.

The statements were denied at the time, and means instituted to ascertain their truth or falsity, but up to this time no information of such hanging has come to light. But the article served its purpose, and, like one that appeared a short time before in the New York papers, about the hanging of a Rev. Mr. White near St. Charles, Mo., where no such man had ever been seen, known, or heard of, and many others of a similar style, character and purpose, it passed away much sooner than the prejudices and passions it excited, and which were left to expend their fury upon those who made no “fight,” and whose “death knell” was not heard in the triumph of Unionism, except only as it was uttered from the pulpits and pens of “false prophets.”

About this time there was intense excitement in St. Louis, especially over the capture of Camp Jackson, the burning of bridges on the Pacific Railroad, and the retreat of Governor Jackson and General Price from Jefferson City. This excitement was greatly increased by the soldiers firing into promiscuous crowds of citizens along the streets, in which a number of citizens, with some women and children, were killed and wounded; and also the battle of Boonville, in which it was reported in the Missouri State Journal and other papers that Gen. Lyon’s forces had been badly cut to pieces, but which the knowledge of the facts afterward modified to some extent. The small engagement between the Federal and State forces at Rock Creek, near Independence, Mo., about the same time, added somewhat to the general excitement, which by this time had spread throughout the State.

Along the border of Kansas the people of the State were kept in constant alarm by the depredations of what were called at that time “Kansas Jayhawkers.” Many families were robbed, houses burned and preachers forced to fly for safety, as the following extract from a letter to the St. Louis Christian Advocate, from the Rev. N. Scarritt, a highly esteemed minister and a presiding elder then laboring in Kansas, will show:

“In addition to this, some of our preachers in the southern portion of the Conference have been compelled to quit the field and leave their work for the present, on account of the violence of civil strife so prevalent in that section.

“Our preachers there have taken no part in the political questions that are involving the country in so much trouble. They have been peaceable, law-abiding citizens, leaving politics alone, and devoting themselves exclusively to the peaceable work of preaching the peace-making gospel of the Prince of peace.

“Yet, though this has been their known and acknowledged character, it has not been sufficient to protect them from the rage of fanaticism and outlawed violence. Several of them have had their horses stolen from them by the Jayhawkers. Repeated threats of hanging, shooting, &c., have been made against them by the jayhawking tribe, though no attempt, so far as we know, has been made in the form of any overt act to execute these threats.”

In Southwest Missouri several of the ministers of the M. E. Church, South, were robbed and otherwise maltreated, amongst them Rev. W. H. Mobley, now gone to rest, and Rev. John Monroe, one of the oldest ministers of any Church in Missouri. These occurrences began to attract attention by their frequency and atrocity, and it was soon discovered that a systematic effort was being made to so annoy, and harass, and persecute the Southern Methodist ministers that they would have to abandon the State, and leave their churches and flocks to be seized and absorbed by others.

The following editorial in the St. Louis Christian Advocate, of July 25th, indicates but too plainly the condition of things then being forced upon us at this early period of the war:

“Traveling Preachers.—We are sad, sad indeed, when we think of the privations and sufferings of many of the traveling preachers of our Church in Missouri during these troublous times. The treatment some of them have received has been severe, not to say cruel. Bad men have sought to implicate them in measures with which they had nothing to do, and have them annoyed and distressed merely that private piques and personal animosities might be gratified. A number have literally been driven from their work, either by the malice of their enemies or by pressing want. Some, it may be, have acted imprudently—have become partisans in the strifes now going on, and thus, in part at least, were the authors of their own troubles. We have, at present, only a word to say. We hope that the preachers will remain at their work as generally as possible, that they will devote themselves to their work to the fullest possible extent, reproving, exhorting, comforting, etc., with all long suffering and kindness. In these times we must all suffer, more or less, and let us suffer with our people, and be sure that we suffer for righteousness’ sake and not as evil-doers. God rules, and they that serve him in spirit and in truth shall find him a very present help in time of trouble.”

The purpose to destroy the M. E. Church, South, in Missouri, was not only formed, but expressed also, and the Northern Methodist papers were then earnestly engaged in the effort to convince those in authority, and to fasten it upon the public mind, that but for the Southern Methodists treason and rebellion could not exist in Missouri. Such declarations as the following, taken from the Central Christian Advocate, of August 7, ’61, were of weekly publication in the most conspicuous places in their papers, and industriously circulated in the centres of military power:

“A Ruined Church.—An excellent brother, for the present a local elder of the M. E. Church, South, in Missouri, under date of July 27th, writes to us as follows: ‘I shall endeavor to advance the interests of the Central; I have no Christian fellowship with traitors and treason. Dr. M‘Anally has ruined the Church in this country, and I hope to see the time when a loyal Church will occupy this entire ground.’”

This, also, may be of a piece with the Gardner, the Miller and the Stearns stories, but it was none the less effective in its object on that account; and the license given to bad men to commit worse crimes by such publications was only equaled by the malicious motive that conceived it, and its influence upon the army, officers and men.

To further show what impressions were made at home and abroad upon the public mind by false publications, let the following item, taken from the Philadelphia Banner of the Covenant, of nearly the same date, be noted:

“Religion in Missouri.—The Baptists in Missouri, the largest denomination, are about unanimous in favor of secession. The M. E. Church, South, the same, with but few exceptions. The Presbyterians, the third in numbers, are about equally divided. The M. E. Church, North, the fourth in size, are unanimous and earnest in favor of the Union. Half of their membership and one-third of their ministers have been driven from the State.”

But for the exceptions in the M. E. Church, South, another paragraph in the same paper would reveal the author of the above information. It is as follows:

“Rev. Mr. Shumate, of Missouri, having been appointed to the chaplaincy of a regiment, asked leave of absence for a few days, made a flying visit to Indiana, and returned with two companies which he had recruited for the regiment.”

The papers were filled with statements designed to prejudice the authorities and the public against the old ministers of Missouri, which had much to do in bringing upon the ministry and Church the peculiar character of persecution which distinguishes the history of those times. Henceforth the Baptist ministers of the State will have to share largely in the persecutions and trials of their less fortunate Southern Methodist brethren, and not a few of the Presbyterian ministers were implicated in the same way, and had to suffer for being in Missouri.

Tho Missouri Annual Conference, M. E. Church, South, had been appointed to meet in Hannibal, Mo., in September, 1861, but on account of the general excitement in that portion of the State, and the deep prejudices created by false statements against the ministers of that Church throughout the State, it was deemed by them unsafe to attempt to hold the Conference session in Hannibal, and it was removed to Glasgow, on the Missouri river.

This Conference, by formal resolution, deprecated the calamities of civil war, and affirmed its loyalty to the Government of the United States and the Provisional Government of Missouri, attended to its regular minute business, with Rev. W. G. Caples presiding in the absence of a bishop, made the appointments of the preachers and separated to their several fields of labor, all with as much dignity, quietness and decorum as ever characterized a body of consecrated divines. Many of them met in Conference, worshiped and wept together for the last time. Before they could convene again a number of them had ceased at once to suffer and to live, and had gone to mingle with the blood-washed and white-robed beyond the flood.

The parting scenes of the preachers at this Conference were truly touching and solemn. Many of them seemed to be impressed that the trying scenes through which they were yet to pass would not only “try men’s souls,” but consign many of their bodies to the grave and send their souls “under the altar.” What names were on the “death roll” no one could divine, and yet the general fact was scarcely concealed from them, “that in every city bonds and afflictions awaited them.”

The St. Louis Annual Conference had been appointed to meet in Warrensburg, but for the same reasons that influenced the Missouri brethren to go to Glasgow the St. Louis Conference session was moved to Arrow Rock, Saline county. The Conference convened September 25, 1861. After organizing, with D. A. Leeper in the Chair and W. M. Prottsman Secretary, and transacting some little committee business, the Conference adjourned to Waverly, believing that more preachers would meet them there, and that they would be less likely to be disturbed in their deliberations. How much the report of a gunboat coming up the Missouri river, or a military transport with reinforcements for the army at Lexington, influenced this movement to Waverly, statements differ. A Methodist Conference stampeded by a rumor, and fleeing for very life across a whole county, scattering Bibles, hymn books and saddle-bags in their flight, was quite a novelty; and whether it occurred or not the report of it was enough for the malicious on the one hand and the mischievous on the other. The very thought of it was so novel and ridiculous that it inspired some youthful poet to immortalize the scene in song, and his failure was due rather to the absence of the genuine muse than to the existence of some basis and a persistent attempt at clever rhyme.

The author himself was spared the novelty and notoriety of the occasion only by the untimely interference of a small detachment of Colonel Nugent’s command, then posted at Kansas City.

I had announced on Sabbath to my congregation that I would start to Conference the next day, stating where it would be held, and about how long I expected to be absent.

On Monday morning early, in company with Mr. H. B. Conwell, a brother-in-law and a steward in the Church, I started for Conference. Just as we were passing out of the city on the main road to Independence we discovered a small squad of soldiers riding slowly about half a mile ahead of us. To avoid molestation and detention we took a by-road that would intersect the Westport and Independence road, on reaching which we discovered the soldiers still ahead of us, and began at once to conjecture some designs upon us. They had halted by a peach orchard and were helping themselves when we drove up. They very politely gave us of their peaches and requested us not to go ahead of them.

We traveled on behind them for some distance, when the officer in command stopped to talk with a farmer by the road side who knew me well, and asked when we drove up if I was on my way to Conference.

“What Conference?” asked the officer.

“The Conference of the M. E. Church, South, at Arrow Rock,” I replied, quite indifferently.

“What, that secesh concern? I’ll see to that. No such body of traitors can meet in this State.” And with the last words he spurred his horse up with his command and detailed four men to put us under arrest and guard us to Independence.

With “two behind and two before” we were ordered to “drive.” Thus we traveled until we reached Rock Creek, two miles from Independence, when an orderly was sent back who dismounted and ordered us to “halt.”

“I want you men to get out of this,” he said.

“For what,” I asked, mildly protesting against the proceedings.

“I want to send this buggy and horse back to camp,” he replied. “We have use for such things sometimes to ride our wives and children out a little.”

“Where is your camp?” was asked by Mr. Conwell, at the same time declaring that the horse and buggy belonged to him. And when informed that their camp was in Kansas City, at Col. Nugent’s headquarters, he asked—

“Then why can’t you send us back to Kansas City in the buggy, under guard if you like? We live in Kansas City.”

“No,” said he; “no use talking. If you are loyal men you can afford to walk ten miles for the sake of the Government; and if you are disloyal, we are not round hauling rebels. Get out!”

We did not wait for another invitation, but got out; and when we found that it was not us but our’s they wanted we felt somewhat relieved, took a luncheon to stay the appetite, and then the roof of the stage an hour after, which safely landed us back whence we started.

Mr. Conwell soon obtained his horse and buggy, and a message to me, that if I would stay at home and attend to my own business I would not be molested; but it would not be well for me to make another attempt to go to Conference.

The preachers in the city of St. Louis and in Southeast Missouri could not reach the Conference. The session was short, the minute business only receiving attention, and the presiding elders left to make the best disposition of the preachers in their respective districts that the circumstances would allow. The preachers separated to their several homes and fields of labor with about the same feelings and in about the same spirit that characterized the parting scenes at Glasgow two weeks before. Many of them to pass through scenes of trial, persecution, suffering, desolation, blood, and fire, and death, ere another Conference could be held.

Looking back now upon those perilous times, it is “marvelous in our eyes” how that these faithful men of God “endured hardness as good soldiers,” “not counting their lives dear unto themselves so that they might finish their course with joy, and the ministry which they had received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.” The history of the Church furnishes few such instances of moral heroism as these men exhibited, even in that early period of the war troubles; and when, afterward, the Baptists, Presbyterians and Catholic priests became our fellow-sufferers, and augmented our moral strength, the moral heroism was complete, sublime. The spirit of consecration to Christ and his cause was equal to the extremest perils of property, health and life.