Spunky Confederate Cooper County Girl 
Lucy Nickolson Lindsey

At the beginning of the Civil war shortly after the Battle of Wilson's creek and before the Battle of Pea Ridge, while Price occupied the City of Springfield¹ there was an underground road of communication that extended from Jefferson City to Springfield by which southerners would go from one point to another, and then were finally directed to Price's Army in Springfield.² They would come from Doctor Lewis' home to the Nickolson house and the Nickolson's would then direct them on to Versailles to Doctor James' home. 

One day during the time of the underground system someone knocked at the door. The ladies generally went to the door, for they were in the habit of shooting down the men. In response to the knock Lucy went to the door. Two men were standing there. One asked her if she was Miss Lucy Nickolson. She replied that she was Miss Nickolson. He then said they wished to see her privately. They gave her a messages from Mr. Harper,³ Mr. Thornton⁴ and also from General Price and reported that they were out of quinine and morphine, and they were very much in need of clothing. She told them she would help them. The following day she got into the carriage and went over to Dr. Ellis'.⁵ Mrs. Jim Ellis and her sister were there. After relating the conversation she had had with the two southern gentleman she finally said, "Well, I will go after these things if you (Mrs. Ellis and her sister) will go with me." I then went to Boonville. She went to Mr. Harper's store⁶ (his brother kept the general store, also a drug store there). She knew he was a southern man, so she called him aside, telling him what his brother George had said. Lucy then said, "now, you will have to supply me with quinine and morphine." "I can't do it," he said, "it would be the ruination of me; but here it is, I am compelled to go downtown." She took the hint, and when he had gone, she closed the door and helped herself. She got nearly all the quinine and morphine in the store. 

She then went to the dry goods store. She knew the owner quite well. she told him she wanted some gray flannel and some black velvet. She bought two pieces of gray flannel and told him "I am not going to pay for this now." He asked, "when are you going to pay for them?" She replied, "Oh, some of these days." He wrapped the flannel and velvet up for her and she left the store.

She and Mrs. Ellis cut the flannel in shirt lengths and made a skirt out of the whole two pieces. In those days skirts were made very full and plaited to the belt. She put twenty-two pair of home-knit socks in that skirt. It was the fashion to wear velvet rolls on the head; so she made two immense rolls of velvet and filled on with quinine and the other with morphine. She put one around the coil of her hair and the other around the crown of her head. When she put the skirt on her dress wouldn't touch the ground. Mrs. Ellis was very tall, so she gave her a loose wrappers and she put on a white apron. Her brother brought out the carriage and Mrs. Ellis let them have her horses. Dressed in that way she rode out of Boonville, Mrs. Ellis with them. When they had gone almost to Versailles they met a company of Federals. Her brother turned around to her and said, "Now, what are you going to do? They will search the carriage?" She said, "If you will hold your tongue and not speak a word, whether I tell a lie or not, I can get through all right."⁷ Mrs. Ellis commenced crying. Lucy said, "Now, that isn't any way to do; if you are going to cry I will just give up." The soldiers came up to where they had halted. One asked where we were going. Lucy replied, 'I have an aunt out there about twenty-five miles who is very ill; I want to get to see her before she dies. If you want to search the carriage, you may - there is my valise." They picked up the valise, saw it was very light - there was nothing in it - and put it down. The spokesman finally said, "you say your aunt is ill?" Lucy said, "Yes, sir; she is quite ill." So they let her pass. They got through the lines and went on out to Springfield where they stayed three weeks and made up the flannel skirt into shirts.⁸ 

On their way home they stopped at Dr. James' home in Versailles. While there it turned bitter cold. She had just gone to bed one night when Dr. James came in an said "Miss Nickolson, you will have to get up. There are three thousand Federals and home guards not five miles from here." So her brother got out the horses and carriage and off they rode. When they reached the creek it was just booming, and so bitter cold that they could scarcely breathe. Brother stopped right at the creek's edge and said, "Now, which will you do, go through the creek - 'look at it,' " he says, "or fall into the hands of the Federals or the home guards?" She replied, "go through the creek," and they went. The horses had to swim, the carriage rolled back and the water came up to her waist. They were dripping wet and rode three or four miles in that condition. Her brother's beard was just a sheet of ice. 

They rode on until they came to the house of Mr. Garrett. Her brother called him out and said, "We are just from the southern army and had to come through the creek, and my sister is nearly frozen" (One whole side of her face she could not move). They took her in and put her in a large tub of water where she remained one entire day and night. She was nigh frozen. Her big toenails came out.

After a few days at Mr. Garrett's they started home. They had no more than reached home when Judge Baker, a Union man, came to their house and said to her mother, "You send Miss Lucy away, for Eppstein,⁹ provost marshal, knows that she has gotten home and he is going to arrest her. They found out that someone at Springfield, instead of keeping her visit to themselves, had written of it to their friends. We made all arrangements to leave; but that very evening Eppstein sent a party of men out and arrested Lucy and took her to Boonville. There she was called before him. He made a great many ugly remarks, and she did, too.¹⁰ However while she was there Colonel Crittenden¹¹, came through with his regiment. When he heard that Lucy was there he went to see her. He expressed a great many regrets that "that Dutchman," Eppstein, had had her arrested. Crittenden said, "If there is anything I can do to atone for this I will do it, for this is an outrage. I am not out to make war on women and children." Lucy told him, "They have my brother out at the fairgrounds, a prisoner likewise; he has just returned from California and had nothing in the world to do with this affair." So Colonel Crittenden set out and had him brought in and just turned them both loose.

She went out home again. She had not been home very long before they sent out to arrest her again for something - she never knew what, but she got off this time and went to Boone county, where she taught school the entire winter. She had a good many would be Confederate visitors, who were trying to get away. 

One day a note was handed her in the schoolhouse. It was from Colonel Jackman.¹² Lucy said, "very well, very well," and tore the note into small pieces. She met Colonel Jackman that evening and had a talk with him. The next Sunday Lucy went to church at Rocheport. As they came from church Colonel Connell said to her, "Why, there is a party of Federal Troops! What can they be doing out there? They have an ambulance." Lucy said jokingly, "They are after you; they know what a rascal you are." 

They went on home and had not been there long before the troops came up. Colonel Connell went out and they asked him if Miss Nickolson was there. There was a Lieutenant Wood commanding. He asked if Lucy could be seen immediately. She went out at once and said, "I am Miss Nickolson, what do you want?" He replied, "I have an order here from General Guitar¹³ to arrest you." What! arrest me? What for?" He said, "I cannot tell you what for, Miss Nickolson, but I have an ambulance here, and I would be glad if you would get in it and go with us without any fuss." She replied, "Well, you don't expect me to fight, do you?" He was very polite. She finally told Lieutenant Wood she would have to get her bonnet and wrap. He said, "You will not try to escape?" She said, "How can I escape? No; I am not going to escape; I will not get any one into trouble." 

She just took time to write a note to Mrs. Lintz, the lady with whom she was boarding and told her to get her trunk and burn every paper and everything she could find. Then she went out and got in the ambulance and drove twenty-five miles to Columbia, where she was left at the hotel for the night. There were two soldiers detailed to walk beside her everywhere she went. When she went up to her room to go to bed they went up and stood at her door. When she went down to breakfast next morning they stood at the back of her chair. She attracted a great deal of attention.

From there they went to Centralia. They sent an escort of one hundred men with her. She said to Lieutenant Wood, "What are you sending so many men for? Are you afraid I am going to try to escape? Well, now, you have better be careful, for Colonel Jackman is in this vicinity, and you will hear from him." At this he was much alarmed.

From there they sent her to St. Louis, where she was taken before Provost Marshal Dicks. They plied her with questions; and tried to get her to tell if they had taken the quinine and morphine. She never opened her mouth. They then sent her to Gratiot street prison.¹⁴ There were never but two women put in that prison¹⁵ - Mrs. Lowden was the other. 

Lieutenant Wood told Marshal Dicks to make her tell about the quinine and morphine, but she would not answer his questions. It would have gotten so many people into trouble. The drug store and everything would have been burned down, so of course she was not going to tell.

At the Gratiot street prison there was a man by the name of Masterson, who was the keeper. He was a horrid man! When she was escorted into his presence, he said: "Huh! southern aristocrat, dressed in silk! Wonder how she'll like prison fare?" When she was taken to her room this Masterson led the way; when he opened the door he said, "I hope you are not afraid of ghosts - this is Doctor McDowell's dissecting room, and the floor and table are covered with blood." Lucy said, "Well, I much prefer ghosts to Federals."

When Lucy entered the cell Mrs. Lowden commenced screaming and said "Oh, they haven't brought you here, have they?" Lucy said, "Why, this is a very good place." She cried and cried, saying "It is bad enough to bring me, a married woman, here, but to bring a young girl here!" Mr. Masterson then went out, closing and locking the door, and took the key with him.

Mrs. Lowden was almost dead with consumption. They had put her in prison because she would not tell where her husband was. He was a southern courier. They had taken her away from her children, one a six-months-old baby. 

Just above them was the hospital. Every time they brought their meals they would take the time to wash up the hospital, and down would come the water on the ladies. They would have starved if it had not been for the Sisters of Charity. Mrs. Lowden was a Catholic, so the sisters would come in with their baskets every day. They always brought plenty and the meals were good, but somehow or other that water didn't taste good.

The ladies had a straw pallet on the floor. One night Mrs. Lowden said, "Oh, there is something in this straw!" They ripped the tick and found there were just two mice in the straw. Mrs. Lowden was very frightened and began coughing and had a hemorrhage. Lucy went to the door and pounded on it, crying, "There is a lady in here who has a hemorrhage, and I want a doctor." "Damn her, let her die!" was the reply. So she did not get a doctor, but she lived through it.

Lucy was there about three weeks. One day one of the officers came in and said to Mrs. Lowden, "Can you stand trouble?" She sprang to her feet, thinking only of her children. "Oh," she said, "one of my children is dead." "Yes; your baby died last night of croup," was the reply. She commenced screaming and had another coughing fit. Lucy said to the officer, "there is not one word of truth in that; you know you are lying." She gave him a good tongue lashing. He laughed and said, "I just wanted to see how much grit she had." Lucy said, "Well, you knew before you came in that she is sick and has no grit." He then turned and walked out.

Masterson came in and brought Lucy one of those yellow envelops, saying, "Miss Nickolson, I have bad news for you." "I don't suppose you have," Lucy replied. Masterson continued, "Yes, I have; you brother was shot by Colonel Eppstein day before yesterday." Lucy said, "well, I know that isn't so. Colonel Eppstein had no right to shoot him; he would have been killed before night; my brother is not shot." "Well," he said, "you seem to know." With that remark he turned and walked out. Lucy's brother was not shot. At the end of three weeks the ladies were taken to Chestnut street prison where they stayed for two weeks.

Colonel Dicks then said all the women who had been in prison for disloyalty must be banished. They were Mrs. Frost, Mrs. Dr. Pallan, Mrs. McClure, Mrs. Clark, Mrs. Haines, Mrs. Sappington, Mrs. Smizer and others. They all had children and were obliged to leave them behind. When they got ready to start south the children were all brought to say good-bye. You never heard such screaming - two of the ladies fainted. 

Then they were all put into ambulances and carried down to the boat. Major McKinny had charge of the ladies, and they all went down as far as Memphis. They got in the ambulances and were sent to Mississippi. After they got into Mississippi they sent all the provisions back and said, "Now, you are in your own country; you will have to depend upon it for something to eat and something to drink."

Mrs. Frost, Mrs. McClure, Mrs. Clark, Mrs. Smizer and Lucy were all in the same ambulance. They didn't have a thing to eat from Sunday night until Wednesday night. One of the Federals who was with their company came up to Lucy with a cup of coffee and some of his hard tack, and asked her if she wouldn't eat it. He said, "It is dreadful; I have children of my own and I know what it is." Lucy drank the coffee, and that night they got into a farmhouse and they gave those in Lucy's ambulance a meal. They then went to Columbus, Mississippi and there they stayed awhile. General Frost hearing they were there, sent Colonel Smizer for them and they went to Arkansas. 

While in Arkansas, Lucy and Major Lindsay were married at General Frost's headquarters. General Price's division was there also. The evening before their wedding a lady in Pine Bluffs sent a large box with a note: "To the young lady who is to be married tomorrow eve." Upon opening the box Lucy found it contained a most elegant white satin dress, white slippers and white kid gloves, also a lovely bridal veil. Lucy said to Mrs. Frost, "It would be the height of folly for anybody to wear such beautiful garments at this distressing time when we are all nearly starving." Lucy returned the box with a not thanking the lady for her kindness, but told her under the circumstances she would much prefer being married in what she had. However, the lady sent back the white kid gloves, insisting that she wear them at least, so she did. Lucy was married in the year 1862. All the officers of the brigade were present at the wedding. 

After Lucy and Major Lindsay left Pine Bluffs they were tossed from pillar to post, first one place, then another. They would pack their trunk nearly every week and move; it would be only a short while till the Federals would be on us again. While going through Arkansas they came upon two women who were digging with spades along the side of the road. Upon making inquiry they found they were digging a grave for a child. Major Lindsay got out of the ambulance, took the spade, finished digging the grave, buried the child and said a prayer.

She was in Columbus the night after the battle when 800 of the confederates lay dead upon the field. Major Lindsay was commanding the post at Louisburg. There were three or four hundred women and their children at the post crying "Give us bread, give us bread!" Major Lindsay sent to the quartermaster's and ordered that everything that could be spared be given to the women and children. 

Source: "Reminiscences of Mrs. Lucy Nickolson Lindsay" written by Mrs. Tyler Floyd, Historian of the Robert E. Lee Chapter No. 1245, Kansas City Mo. from pages 105 - 113 in "Reminiscences of the Civil War."

¹ Price's army was in Springfield from December 22, 1861 to February 12, 1862.
² It doesn't sound like it was a straight path, so it may have wound up through Cooper County.
³ Probably Mr. George Harper, who later joined General Robert McCulloch's staff and who was one of his trusted officers. McCulloch commanded the 2nd Missouri Cavalry which was a part of the Missouri Brigade and at times fought under the command of Nathan Bedford Forrest who had a high opinion of that unit. See Phil Gottschalk, In Deadly Earnest, the Missouri Brigade. Page 506.
⁴ This could have been Lt. Col. John C. C. Thornton who was one of the officers in the third infantry regiment, fifth Division under Col. G. W. Thompson, since the other fellows who wrote really weren't youngsters. The following excerpt from page 3 of the Columbia Statesman of August 19, 1864 gives a little insight as to Thornton. "The Thornton who figures so conspicuously just now in the dispatches as a guerrilla chief in the Upper Missouri, is personally known to a good many people in this vicinity. He graduated at Bethany College in 1853, and he was then as he is now, a sort of a fire eating guerrilla, or rather gorilla, we should say, for he was gawky, ungainly, long armed and long legged affair, a good deal like a gorilla. He is a bother-in-law of the noted Colonel Doniphan of Missouri who figured conspicuously in the Chihuahua expedition during the Mexican war. He was known at Bethany, as he is now in the newspapers by the name of "Coon" Thornton, and was regarded as an eccentric desperado, his chief delight apparently being to wear tall boot legs outside of his pants, with a bowie knife stuck inside, and to use the biggest and oddest words he could glean from the dictionary. He was a quiet moody, pale-faced fellow, who drank a good deal of whiskey at times and had very few companions. He was a tolerable sort of a student and not without intellectual ambition."
⁵ Dr. H. N. Ells had come to Boonville from Louisiana about 1856 bringing with him a slave "Guinea Sam the Conjure man" from Assumption Parish Louisiana. Dr. Ellis was one of the prominent southern men who Colonel Eppstein ordered arrested and held as hostages before the second battle of Boonville, September 13, 1861. 
⁶ James Harper was a druggist in Boonville from the early 1850's until his death in 1867, whose brother and partner, George Harper, served the Confederacy throughout the war as one of General Robert McCulloch's most trusted officers. James was arrested by Colonel Eppstein before the second battle of Boonville. Robert L. Dyer, Boonville, an Illustrated History, page 114. For a picture of Harper's drug store see page 99. 
George B. Harper was one of the members of the Walnut Grove cemetery board of trustees in 1880. Robert L. Dyer, Boonville, an Illustrated History, page 72.
⁷ I guess that is called feminine guile.
⁸ That would have had to have been in January of 1862.
⁹ Joseph A. Eppstein was elected captain of a company of "Home Guards," consisting of 135 men which General Nathaniel Lyon mustered into service on June 20, 1861. Major Eppstein was the commander of the Boonville battalion which won the second battle of Boonville on September 13, 1861. On May 19, 1862 he was promoted to Lt. Col. of the 13th Cavalry, Missouri State Militia and on February 2, 1863 the 13th Cavalry was redesigned the 5th Cavalry, Missouri State Militia.
¹⁰ Daniel R. Smith, an Iowa private wrote home to his parents on August 28, 1861 about his responses to the "rampant secesher" women from Boonville. "They said the Iowa boys had conducted themselves more like gentlemen that any other troops that had been there. The women were the spunkiest I have ever seen and when a squad of us would visit house we would have to take a few broadsides but our orders were to do things a civil as possible and we had to stand it as best we could but I felt several times like if I could see them strangled." (Jefferson City, August 28, 1861, Daniel R. Smith Papers, Ill.SHL. Michael Fellman, Inside War, The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri during the American Civil War, pages 199, 200, 299 note 9. 
Smith was proud to be though an Iowa gentleman; he stayed cool when provoked, from obedience to orders concerning civility. In a backhanded way he admired that "spunkiness" of the pro-southern women but he also permitted himself to express homicidal fantasies toward them.
¹¹ Col. Crittenden was well connected. He probably knew Lucy and her family before the war. In addition, Lucy may have been a very animated and right pretty girl. Crittenden later became Governor of Missouri. He was a close field of United States Colonel Frank Blair and of Confederate General Joseph Shelby. He led his troops up the Missouri River to Boonville on steamships at the time of Shelby's raid in October of 1863, but remained on the Howard County (north) side of the river with Major Reeves Leonard until Shelby's forces had abandoned Boonville and started down the road toward Marshall.
¹² Sidney Drake Jackman was a Confederate Colonel who moved his wife to southeastern Howard County in 1862. He then returned to Arkansas and was elected Colonel of a regiment. He resigned his position and left Arkansas the middle of November 1862 and had come with a body of southern recruiting officers to the Rocheport area to enroll recruits for the southern cause. If Lucy was married in 1862, as she reported, this incident probably took place at the time Jackman was settling his family in Howard County in early 1862. He may have been seeking information on the best route for him to return to Arkansas.
¹³ Col. Odem Guitar at the outbreak of the war was Boone County attorney. He issued a call for volunteers in Mid-February of 1862. On May 6, 1862, after organizing, training and equipping his regiment he was commissioned as Colonel and given command of the 9th Cavalry regiment of the Missouri State Militia. This regiment was initially stationed in Camp Totten on the outskirts of Jefferson City. 
John C. Crighton, A History of Columbia and Boone County, pages 158, 159.
¹⁴ It was erected in 1847 for the use of the Missouri Medical College, the medical department of "Kemper College." It was an octagonal building of gray stone, surmounted by an odd-shaped cupola; it had two wings, one extending on the south to Gratiot street, and the other north to building of the Christian Brothers' College. The building had the appearance of a fortress. During the "Know-nothing" political troubles before the Civil war, Doctor Ware, who was a man of strong prejudices and hated Catholics, made many intemperate speeches denouncing Catholics and especially the Jesuit Fathers, and it is said, fearing an attack on the college building because of his conduct, he had stored in the basement of his building about fifteen hundred muskets , several cannon and other military supplies. After the breaking out of the war he shipped these supplies to Memphis for the use of the southern army. Doctor McDowell, following shortly afterwards, and became a surgeon and medical director. Bernard J. Reilly of  St. Louis was very young when he was placed as a boarder in 1860 at the College of Christian Brothers. It was confiscated by the U.S. Government in the fall of 1861 after Doctor McDowell had gone south and was converted into a military prison known as "Gratiot Street Military Prison." The extensive and varied museum collection, of physiological and pathological specimens and medical apparatus, the accumulation of years of toil and study, were rudely scattered and destroyed. The prisoners confined there from time to time included many persons of distinction, ministers of the gospel, United States Senators, legislators, leading officer of the Confederate Army , influential citizens of  St. Louis and Missouri, also many female prisoners. A great deal of excitement as caused by the arrival of about twelve hundred prisoners a few days before Christmas day, 1861. They were followed by a large crowd who cheered them, and this greatly angered the soldiers. The building was inadequate to accommodate the great number of prisoners kept there (it is said there were as many as seventeen hundred at one time confined within the walls of the prison), and was dark and unsanitary. It was also said that the prisoners were starved, frozen and brutally treated, that many of them were unable to lay down for sleep. Many escapes occurred through the stone wall dividing the two buildings and through the grounds of the Christian Brothers. It became a custom of the ladies of the city with southern affiliations and sympathies to visit the neighborhood of the prison on fine days, passing to and fro in front of the building in view of the prisoners. These daily occurrence were looked forward to by the inmates with a great deal of joy and satisfaction, especially by those who were so fortunate as to be confined to the Eighth street front of the building. Reminiscences of the Women of Missouri during the 1860's, (Civil War), pages 69 - 71.
¹⁵ This was Lucy's report, but it may not have been completely accurate. Lucy Nickolson

 

 

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