Martyrdom in Missouri, Volume 1 (of 2)

Rev. R. N. T. Holliday—Statement of his Persecutions Furnished by Dr. Richmond, a Federal Officer—Could not War upon the Institutions of Heaven—Mr. Holliday aloof from Politics—Misconstrued—General W. P. Hall and his Militia Proclamation—General Hall and Mr. Holliday—General Bassett—Rev. Wm. Toole, Provost-Marshal, and Mr. Holliday—A Renegade—Platte City Burned by Jennison and Mr. H. Ordered to be Shot on Sight—He Escapes—Is Arrested in Clinton County—Again Ordered to be Shot—Escapes to Illinois—Returns in 1865—Goes to Shelbyville and is Indicted for Preaching Without Taking the Oath—Crimes of the War—Common Law Maxim Reversed—Prominent Ministers of the M. E. Church, South, Assumed to be Guilty of Treason—Murder of Rev. Green Woods—Birth, Early Ministry and General Character—Gives up his District—Retires to his Farm in Dent County—Affecting Account of his Murder given by his Daughter—Extract from a Letter Written by his Wife—Details Published in the St. Louis Advocate of June 13, 1866—Reflections.

Rev. R. N. T. Holliday.

The following account of the persecutions of this good and useful minister of the gospel is furnished by Dr. Oregon Richmond, “who was an officer in the Federal army, and always anxious for the triumph of the Union forces.” Upon that ground he properly claims the absence of undue bias from his statement. The whole case is so fully and minutely reported that it needs neither introduction nor comment to aid in a due appreciation of the facts:

“At the request of Rev. R. N. T. Holliday, I have consented to put together and transmit the somewhat remarkable events of that period of his life connected with the late war troubles. This request is the result of an antipathy on his part to acting the part of a self-eulogist. In my judgment no greater eulogy can be written of a minister of the gospel than that of a calm, unvarnished recital of the persecution to which that class of our citizens was subjected during the prevalence of, and immediately subsequent to, the late war.

“And perhaps, after all, it is but simple justice that these facts should be written by one who was an officer in the Federal army, and always anxious for the triumph of the Union forces. Though an officer in the Union army, he can thank God that his military life is unstained by a single act of cruelty or persecution; and, above all, is he thankful that he never made use of his military power to war against the institutions of Heaven or the chosen instruments ordained for their establishment amongst men. In other words, he was not attached to a Missouri regiment, is not a son of Missouri, and hence has never been instructed in the mysteries of that department of military tactics that teaches the wonderful doctrine that the truest patriotism consists in the abuse of defenseless women and children, and the subversion of the sublimest precepts of religion by the persecution and murder of its chosen apostles.

“In September, 1860, Rev. R. N. T. Holliday, the subject of this sketch, was appointed by the Missouri Conference of the M. E. Church, South, of which he has long been a member, to Rushville, in Buchanan county, Mo. In the ensuing spring the war commenced, but it was not until May, 1861, that he received the first intimation of the approaching trouble that would draw him into its clutches, and ultimately make him a wanderer and an exile from his chosen field of usefulness.

“About that time a Union meeting was held near Rushville, and addressed by Hon. Willard P. Hall and others from St. Joseph. Mr. Holliday was urged to be present and reply on behalf of the South; this he declined to do. He was not even present at the meeting, believing that ministers of the gospel should keep themselves unspotted from the political strifes of men. Yet his enemies said that he stayed away through personal fear, and he was henceforth the subject of various kinds of annoyances and petty persecutions.

“The Conference of September, 1861, returned Mr. Holliday to Rushville. He was not molested until March, 1862, when Brig.-General W. P. Hall issued a proclamation requiring all men subject to military duty to enroll themselves in the State militia. Mr. Holliday refused to enroll, upon the ground that ministers were exempt from military duty. Gen. Hall sent him word at once, that if he did not enroll he would have him arrested. Mr. Holliday replied that, being exempt from military duty by the laws of the State, he could but consider the demand extra-official, and if an arrest must be the result of non-compliance with an illegal demand, he preferred to be arrested. Upon this General Hall addressed a note to Mr. H. in the politest terms, requesting an interview to arrange the difficulty. Trusting the General’s honor, Mr. Holliday complied; but, upon presenting himself at headquarters, the General refused to see him, and ordered him taken to the Provost-Marshal’s office for enrollment. Gen. Bassett, the Provost-Marshal, had the entrance to his office securely guarded after Mr. H. was admitted, and informed him that he must enroll under Order 19, as a Union man, and submit to a physical examination, or under Order 24, as a rebel sympathize; and pay a commutation fee of $30. Finding submission inevitable, or something worse, Mr. H. registered under Order 24, but refused to pay the commutation as an unlawful and an unauthorized exaction, and demanded his exemption papers as a minister of the gospel, at the same time producing his ordination parchments. General Bassett, after some delay, gave him exemption papers, and, after considerable annoyance, he gave him a pass also, which enabled him to travel back and forth and fill his appointments without further molestation than an occasional petty persecution, the instigation of malice, and an occasional threat of being shot.

“During the summer of 1862 Mr. Bassett was superseded in the office of Provost-Marshal by a Mr. W. Tool, who had been up to that period a minister in the M. E. Church, South. He had, however, apostatized, and joined the M. E. Church, North.

“Mr. Bassett’s brief apprenticeship in villainy fitted him for, and he was appointed to, a higher office. Mr. Holliday was requested to fill the pulpit made vacant by the military prohibition upon Rev. W. M. Rush, of St. Joseph, and the ladies of the church in which Mr. Rush had been silenced waited on Provost-Marshal Tool and requested permission for Mr. Holliday to fill the silent pulpit. Mr. Tool, who was acting in the interest of the North Methodists, refused to permit Mr. H. to come to St. Joseph to preach the gospel.

“In September, 1862, Mr. Holliday was sent to Platte City, and there remained unmolested until the following June, when soldiers from Kansas took his horse, which he never saw afterward. He borrowed another, which was also stolen and carried off. He thus lost two horses in as many weeks.

“About the middle of July, 1863, Col. Jennison, of Kansas, went to Platte City and burned the town. His men were ordered to shoot Mr. Holliday down at sight. Knowing the character of Jennison’s men, and being apprised of the order by a Union man, Mr. H. made good his escape, leaving his family at Mr. Redman’s. On the evening of his flight his house, containing all that he had in the world, except what the family had on, was given to the flames. His family were thus made destitute and reduced to beggary.

“The next day, at 3 P. M., Mr. Holliday was arrested, by order of a Clinton county militia captain, and taken to Plattsburg. He was there subject to some indignities, until Mr. Cockrell informed Captain Irvine, commander of the post, of the facts, who, being a gentleman and a Mason, ordered the instant release of Mr. Holliday.

“The next day Capt. Irvine was killed in an engagement with the rebels. This very much enraged the militia, and an order was issued again to shoot Mr. H. on sight. He again made his escape by flight and concealment. He remained ten days at the residence of Mr. Powell, of Clinton county, but upon hearing of the order to shoot him, he, with two other ministers, Messrs. Tarwater and Jones, took refuge in the woods, and made their way on foot to Osborn, where Mr. Holliday met his family, and all took the train to Quincy, Ill. They remained in Illinois until the war closed, in 1864, doing the best he could as a minister of the gospel. Returning to Missouri in 1865, he met the Conference at Hannibal, and was appointed to the Shelbyville circuit.

“By this time the New Constitution had been declared the fundamental law of the State, and under it all ministers of the gospel were required to take the iron-clad ‘test oath’ as a qualification for the work of the ministry, or subject themselves to arrest, indictment, fine or imprisonment.

“Actuated by the same motives of conscience that impelled all true ministers of the gospel, he promptly refused to take and subscribe said oath. He was, therefore, arrested and indicted by the grand jury of Shelby county for preaching and teaching as a minister of the gospel without having, under oath, attested his past and present loyalty to the Government of the United States. The said indictment bore the signatures of Wm. M. Boulware, Circuit Attorney, E. S. Holliday, Foreman of Grand Jury, and James Ralph, C. R. Colton and Wm. Colton as witnesses. A copy of the indictment is in Mr. Holliday’s possession, to be handed down to his children as a memento of his sufferings and triumphs in the cause of his Master. It will doubtless make their faith doubly strong in the principles of that holy religion for which he endured so much privation, persecution and personal danger.

“Mr. Holliday was subsequently indicted for the same offense, and held in a bond of $500 for appearance at the November term of the Shelby Court. Mr. M. C. Hawkins, a lawyer of Canton, made an able argument on a motion to quash the indictment, which motion was not sustained, and the case was continued to the ensuing May term, when a nolle pros equi was entered and Mr. Holliday released.

“The facts above narrated I have received from Mr. Holliday’s own lips. He was so reticent of matters concerning himself personally that I can not but regard this as a very meagre epitome of all that he was required to do and to suffer in the performance of the work his Master gave him to do. He evidently is already richly rewarded in the depths of his own consciousness, and justly decided that nothing man may say for him can serve in the smallest degree to increase that reward.

The persecutions in the early part of the war were not without a sharp discrimination in favor of the prominent ministers of the M. E. Church, South. Few were exempt. The exceptional cases were either in the large cities or under the protection of partisan loyalty. For some reason the leading ministers of the Church, South, were looked upon as the very ringleaders of the Southern revolt against the Government. So general was this belief amongst the officers of the Union army, that whoever escaped their surveillance had to prove a negative in the face of the most unwarranted and unfounded presumptions of guilt, supported and flanked by the deepest rooted prejudices and the most blinded passion. Nor is this putting the case too strongly. It is not in excess of the facts.

No matter how guarded, how prudent, how cautious in public or private life, the tongue of the accuser always reached the official ear before the accused was aware of his summons to the official bar.

That good old maxim of the English common law, that assumed a man to be innocent until he was proven to be guilty, was reversed. Men were assumed to be guilty, and they had to prove their innocence if they could, or suffer the penalty of assumed guilt.

And, indeed, the right of trial was granted to but few. Many, very many, suffered imprisonment and death without ever being so much as informed of the crime for which they suffered.

The day of eternity alone will reveal the nameless crimes which men in authority, and men without authority, committed during the late civil war. May a merciful Providence forever spare the country a repetition of the horrible scenes through which it has so recently passed. These reflections are suggested by the murder of the

Rev. Green Woods.

The subject of this sketch was born in Bellevue, Washington county, Missouri, Feb. 27, 1814, where he grew up on a farm in sight of Caledonia.

He was received on trial in the Missouri Annual Conference M. E. Church in the fall of 1836, when the Conference was held in St. Louis, and was appointed by Bishop Roberts, junior preacher on the Farmington Circuit, with George Smith as his senior.

The next year he was returned by Bishop Soule to Farmington, with Alvin Baird as his senior.

The next year his name does not appear in the minutes, nor does it appear again until the year 1853, when he rejoined the St. Louis Conference and was appointed by Bishop Andrew to Cape Girardeau and Jackson.

In 1854 he was appointed to Ste. Genevieve Circuit, and at the Conference of 1855, at Springfield, he was received into full connection, and returned to Ste. Genevieve Circuit, with J. H. Cumming as junior preacher.

It is needless to follow his appointments in the Conference further than to say that everywhere he was well received and always well reported of for good works. He was a diligent and faithful laborer in his Master’s vineyard, and few men stood higher in the estimation of the people or was more securely enthroned in their affections. He was a man of unblemished character, unswerving integrity, unwavering fidelity, deep and fervent piety, and of good preaching ability. He was unobtrusive, unostentatious, civil, courteous, gentle and kind to all; had many friends and few enemies—lived for his work, and attended strictly to his own business. The last man who would ever intermeddle with politics or make himself officious or offensive to any man or party of men. He had charity for all, and malice for none. This is written by one who knew him well, and loved him much, and was a member of the same class of undergraduates in the Conference.

When the war broke out Mr. Woods was Presiding Elder on the Greenville District, St. Louis Conference; was extensively known in Southern and Southeastern Missouri, and had been just as extensively useful. But the troubles thickened so fast and the country was so generally disturbed and distracted that with a heavy heart he gave up his regular work on the district and contented himself with such preaching as he could do near his home in Dent county, while he attended to the cultivation of his little farm.

The following account of the events of 1862, furnished by his eldest daughter, will be read with deep interest, as they culminate in the awful tragedy of his murder:

“In the spring of 1862 the excitement in the country became so intense that my father could no longer travel his district, so he thought he would stay at home and try to make enough to support his family on his farm. As the people in the neighborhood desired him to preach to them, he made an appointment to preach, about three miles from home, the second Sunday in May. He filled this appointment, and announced another at the same place for the second Sunday in June. Before that time arrived he was advised by some of his friends not to go to his appointment, as they believed that he would be taken prisoner, and perhaps killed, that day by the soldiers if he attempted to preach. But he told them that he would go and preach, and if the soldiers wished to arrest him they could do so; that if necessary he could go to jail. He said that he did not believe that they would kill him, as he had not done anything to be killed for.

A man by the name of Silas Hamby, a member of the Methodist Church, North, had said some time before that no Southern Methodist preacher should preach at Mount Pleasant again. But my father thought it was an idle threat, as he had heard of no preacher being killed because he was a preacher.

“When Sunday morning came, father and my sister, younger than myself, went to Mount Pleasant, and he preached to a small congregation—the people being afraid to turn out on account of the soldiers—and returned home the same evening unmolested. The next morning he took my sister—just thirteen—and two little boys he had hired, and went out to a field one mile from home to finish planting corn. While they were at work the mother of the boys came by the field on her way to our house. She saw that they were nearly done, so she thought she would wait till they finished and come along with them. By this means there was one grown person present to witness his arrest. I think it was about the middle of the forenoon of that Monday, June 9, 1862, when sixteen men, armed and uniformed as Federal soldiers, came to our house and surrounded it. They inquired for father. Mother told them that he was not at home, but out in the field (father told her if they came and called for him, to tell them where he was). They made a general search, and then huddled up out in the yard and held a council a few minutes. Five of them were sent to the field, and while they were gone those at the house were stealing everything they could get their hands on that belonged to father, leaving very few things behind.

“When the five soldiers got to the field father was not quite done planting. They rode up and asked if his name was Green Woods; he told them it was. They told him that he was the man they were after, and ordered him to alight over the fence. He asked them if they would not wait until he could finish planting, as he had then but a few short rows; but they told him, with an oath, that they were in a hurry, and kept hurrying him while he was getting his horse ready to start. When they started from the field my sister asked them what they intended to do with father. They told her, with an oath, that it was uncertain where he would get to before he came back. They brought him to the house and allowed him to eat his dinner. But when he went to dress himself, he could not find a change of clothes, as the soldiers had taken all that he had, and would not even give him his pants and hat. They took him about three miles from home, to a man’s house by the name of Jones, and pretended to get evidence against him. (This was northwest from where we live). They then took him about three miles from home, to where a man lived named Peter Skiles, who kept a blacksmith’s shop. They stopped and staid there awhile, and searched the house, as Skiles was a Southern man. They then took father about half a mile and killed him, and left him lying out in the woods away from the road—no one knew where except those who placed him there. Two guns were heard after the soldiers left Skiles’.

“This was done on Monday, and his body was not found till the next Monday. We did not know that he was killed until his body was found. When found he was lying on his back with his overcoat spread on the ground under him; one arm was stretched out one way, and the other stretched out the other way, his hat drawn down over his face, his coat and vest and left glove lying on the ground near him, his right glove on, his left shirt sleeve torn off, and his left hand off and gone. He seemed to have been dragged some two or three hundred yards before he was shot, as there was but little blood along the trail, and was found as above described near a large tree and among some low bushes.

“We have heard several times that the Northern Methodist presiding elder, by the name of Ing, sent the men to kill my father. I have given you the substance of what we know of father’s death.

Mrs. Woods furnishes the following additional particulars:

“While eating his dinner the soldiers asked him if he did not think he ought to have taken the oath—meaning the oath of allegiance which all citizens were required to take. He replied that he would be candid with them, as he tried to be with all men; that it afforded no protection, as only the day before the soldiers had been taking the property and breaking the guns of those who had taken the oath, and he could not see that the oath had profited them any. They hurried him much to finish his dinner. He asked them for his hat, which they refused to give him. He said that he would then wear his old one, and be with his equals—meaning that he was about as near worn out as his hat.

“Thinking that it might have some good effect upon the soldiers, I reminded him, in their presence, that the meal was out, and asked what I must do, now that he was going away. He replied, ‘the Lord will provide.’ And, so far, it is literally true; the Lord has been merciful to give us our daily bread, as we have never had a single meal without bread.

“When he started he told me to do the best I could, and seemed to have a presentment that he would never return.

“On the way that evening he was stopped at the house of Dr. Boyd. While there he said to Mrs. Boyd, ‘Tell Mrs. Woods that you saw me here.’ Mrs. Boyd also heard him tell the soldiers to hurry up and take him wherever they intended to take him; that they would keep him in the hot sun till he would be down sick. They replied that they had a good doctor. He had been very sick only a short time before. It was his custom to hold family worship night and morning, no matter what else was to do. The last day of his life he read for the morning lesson the thirty-seventh Psalm.”

Strenuous efforts have been made to obtain the names of the guilty parties, with but little success. The following statement is the latest and most reliable:

“A man by the name of Dennis was the pilot, and it is said helped do the shooting. A man named Wells was in the company. We can not give the first names of either of these men now, but have the promise of them.

“A young man named Bill Fudge, the son of North Methodists who were once members of the Southern Methodist Church, and another named Harrison Ratliff, it is said, helped commit the murder.”

To the question, “What evidence have you that Ing, the North Methodist presiding elder, sent the men to commit the murder?” the following reply was furnished:

“All the evidence we have that Ing sent the men is, that he was their commander at the time; and it has been told, by those who said they saw it, that father’s hand was carried to Ing as proof that they had killed him, and that he still had it in his possession a year or two ago.

When Mr. Woods’ dead body was found, “his left hand was off and gone.” Common rumor in the community, and the statement of several reliable gentlemen—which may hereafter be given—go to confirm this horrible and savage report about the hand.

The following account of the affair was published in the St. Louis Christian Advocate, of June 18, 1866, and signed “R.,” of Crawford county:

“Rev. Green Woods.—Mr. Editor: In the letter of your California correspondent, in last week’s Advocate, the names of several ministers formerly connected with the St. Louis Conference are mentioned with that of the lamented Green Woods, who the writer too truly mentions as having been cruelly murdered in the summer of 1862. And, as the writer of this sketch had known the deceased for many years, and was living in an adjoining county at the time the cruel murder was committed, he may be able to furnish some facts relative thereto that would interest his many friends and acquaintances of by-gone days. He was at the time (1862) living at his home, in Dent county, Mo., on a little farm that he was quietly cultivating with his own hands, and had been guilty of no other offense that that of preaching through the county in which he lived every Sunday, and oftener as he found opportunity. And, at the time he was torn from his weeping wife and little ones, he was at home plowing in his field, when suddenly he was surrounded by men wearing the uniform of soldiers, and hailing from Kansas—regular ‘Jayhawkers.’ How many broken-hearted wives and mothers, and destitute orphan children, throughout Missouri will have cause to remember these cruel ‘Kansas Jayhawkers!’ The cruel assassination of loved husbands and fathers; the burnt and blasted homesteads, where lonely chimneys only are left to tell the tale of once happy and contented households now scattered and torn by the ruthless storm of war in the wake of these Kansas desperadoes. Truly the fate of Missouri has been hard; and of many it may be said they are strangers in their own land.

“When informed by them that he must go with them as a prisoner, and probably knowing from the fate of others what he might expect of them, he told them that he had violated no law, that he was a minister of the Methodist Church, South, and that if they intended to kill him, he was not afraid to die. Then taking, as he well believed, a sad and final farewell of his wife and little children, he started with his captors to the town of Salem, as he thought. But, alas! what must have been the agony of the fond wife when she learned, several days afterward, that he had not been taken to Salem at all! Diligent search but confirmed her worst fears. He had been taken about two miles from home by the road side and shot. There the mortal remains of Green Woods were found—a cold and lifeless corpse—with the fatal bullet shot through the head.

“In contemplating such a scene as this, how the heart saddens and sickens to know that humble and devoted ministers of the cross are put to death for no other cause than that of being ministers of the M. E. Church, South. Is it because that Church has been, and still is, in the way of those who profess to have all the piety, loyalty and religion in the land, that its members and ministers are specially denounced, proscribed and persecuted, and are the marks of special vengeance for every gang of raiding soldiers that chance to come into Missouri?

“I am credibly informed that the deceased had never taken any part in the excitement growing out of the war up to that time; that he had never mentioned politics in the pulpit, and had never left home on account of the troubles during all the dark days of ’61 and ’62.

“Rev. Green Woods was a native of Missouri, and through many portions of Southern and Southeastern Missouri will he be remembered, as his powerful and eloquent voice echoed and died away upon the gently murmuring breezes of his native hills and vales in calling sinners to repentance. But he now sleeps the long sleep of death. That clarion voice is now silent, and will no more be heard on earth proclaiming the good news and glad tidings of salvation which shall be unto all people. But we close, and drop a silent tear to his memory; knowing that He who holdeth the earth in the hollow of his hand, and who numbereth the very hairs of our heads, doeth all things well.

“We have good reason to believe that the religion he so long and faithfully preached to others sustained him in the last trying hour; and in the great day, when all mankind shall stand forth to be judged according to the deeds done in the body, many will rise up and call him blessed.

Thus passed away, by the hand of violence, one of the excellent of the earth, “of whom the world was not worthy.” A faithful witness for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus, having committed no offense against the laws of God or man, he fell a martyr to the truth; gave his life for a principle and a cause, and offered himself upon the service and sacrifice of his chosen Church, and the faith she vindicates in his death, and ascended the thrones of martyrdom, to await, with the martyrs of all ages, the final and glorious triumph of the Kingdom of Messiah, in whose service he counted not his life dear unto himself. It is a grand thought that Infinite Goodness and Power has ordained that “Christ must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet.” “Then cometh the end.” “Even so: come Lord Jesus.”