The Battle of Glasgow*
by James M. Denny
Historian, Missouri Department of Natural Resources
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Maj.
Gen. Sterling Price
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But for, a rumor, Glasgow might have ridden out the
Civil War in relative peace and quiet. The way it happened was that Maj.
Gen. Sterling Price, "Pap," as he was affectionately known, was
in Boonville. in the seventh-inning stretch of his famous 1864 raid into
the state. Earlier plans to capture St. Louis had been shelved following a
disastrous, failed charge against Fort Davidson, at Pilot Knob, in late
September. The Fort Davidson debacle had taken the nerve out of the
invasion. There had been some thought of seizing the state capital,
Jefferson City, and installing a Confederate government there, but that
city, with its stout fortifications, bristling with cannon and determined
defenders, looked like it was going to be Fort Davidson all over again, so
Pap prudently decided to abandon that objective, as well, and skirted
around the city. With the raid now devoid of any real objective, Price's
great army lumbered westward while thousands of Yankees dogged his rear
and thousands more massed in his front-all waiting for the right
opportunity to pounce. By October 10, 1864, Price had reached the friendly
confines of the Boone's Lick country and was enjoying a brief respite
before continuing on toward Lexington, Independence, and a fateful
rendezvous with destiny (and about 20,000 Federals) at Westport.
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Gen. John B.
Clark, Jr.
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It was while staying over at Boonville that Pap heard
the rumor. Supposedly, someone told him, there was a huge cache of. rifles
stored at Glasgow--some 5,000 of them. Pap's ears perked up at this news.
Fully a third of his 12,000 man army had entered the state with no
weapons, and at Boonville 1,200 eager recruits had stepped forward to join
his ranks. These newcomers were weaponless as well. Orders were issued to
General John B. Clark, Jr., to march on Glasgow and to seize its trove of
rifles. Clark was a Howard Countian, the namesake of John B. Clark, a
prominent lawyer, politician, military man, and Confederate senator. The
junior Clark had earned a reputation in his own right as a hard fighter
and capable commander. His brigade had been badly cut up in the bloody
charge against Fort Davidson. Clark probably saw Glasgow as a comparative
walkover. His intelligence reported that there were no more than a
thousand soldiers defending the place. At Fort Davidson there had been a
moat and high earthen walls to scale and eleven booming cannon mowing his
men down as they advanced across the plain. The units at Glasgow had no
cannon and little by way of fortifications. For the assignment he was to
have his own brigade, about 1,200 strong, along with 500 men from General Joseph
Shelby's brigade, who would be under the command of Colonel Sidney
Jackman, another Howard Countian. Unlike the untested troops at Glasgow,
these men were all battle hardened veterans of many campaigns.
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Brig. Gen. Joseph O. Shelby
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To reach his objective, Clark would have to get his command across the
Missouri River at Arrow Rock and follow the Boonville Road to the southern
limits of Glasgow. Among Clark's concerns was a boat moored at the Glasgow
wharf, which he described as "tin-clad" pierced with openings
for six guns (actually there were no guns aboard). To deal with this
potential threat, Clark recommended that a force with a section of
artillery be sent up the west side of the Missouri River to a point
opposite the town. This force could neutralize the boat and help keep the
Yankees pinned down. Pap agreed with Clark and tapped his best officer,
Gen. Joe Shelby, to support the main attack. Shelby replied that he would
take two pieces of artillery and 125 men up the west bank and open fire on
Glasgow precisely at daybreak on the morning of October 15.
Glasgow was a prosperous Missouri River port that had been settled
almost three decades earlier by transplanted Kentuckians. The small,
150-man Federal garrison stationed there was only vaguely aware of the
peril that was about to befall them. Pap's huge army was not the only
rebel threat in the Boonslick country. For a couple of months, the whole
region had been convulsed in a vicious guerrilla warfare. When not
ambushing and slaughtering Union patrols or attacking garrisons, the
bushwhackers kept themselves busy cutting telegraph lines and disrupting
the mail. With communication to their headquarters cut off, Yankee
garrisons in the area had only a dim idea of what the enemy was up to. The
ever-looming specter of guerrilla attack weighed heavily on the minds of
the troops stationed at Glasgow. Three weeks earlier, a band of screaming
guerrillas, led by "Bloody Bill" Anderson and George Todd, had
thrown themselves against a blockhouse in Fayette. The following week,
Anderson, Todd, and their guerrillas had savagely annihilated three
companies of Union troops at Centralia, in neighboring Boone County,
killing 124 of the 147 troops involved. And now, in addition to these
disturbing and horrifying events, was added the report that Price and his
entire army were at Boonville, just 20 miles away. A sense of foreboding
settled over the small garrison at Glasgow. It didn't help that the last
orders received by the post commander, Capt. J. E. Mayo, were to hold the
town at all costs.
Captain Mayo's worries were somewhat lifted by the arrival, on October
13, of two steamboats, the West Wind
(the "tin clad" referred to
by Clark) and the Benton. These boats, with their cargo and troops, had
been sent to Jefferson City as part of the wide-spread mobilization to
defend the capital city against Price. The downstream journey had been
plagued by frequent groundings, caused by low water, and by guerrillas
lurking on the shore. Aboard these boats were six companies of the 43rd
Missouri Volunteers, approximately 550 troops commanded by Col. Chester
Handing, Jr., and a load of quartermaster stores that included 1,000
cavalry uniforms sent down river from Lexington for safekeeping.
Intelligence had filtered in that Price's army was at that moment
bivouacked along a six-mile stretch of the river south of Boonville
creating a deadly gauntlet for any Union steamboats daring enough to
proceed downstream, so the Benton unloaded its cargo on the town wharf and
headed back upriver while the West Wind, which was more prone to
grounding, remained at Glasgow.
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Col. Chester
Harding, Jr. |
Colonel Harding was aware of the fact that Price had already bypassed
Jefferson City and moved onto Boonville. Harding obviously could not
fulfill his original mission of reporting to Jefferson City, nor could he
communicate with his superiors concerning what his next move should be.
After listening to Captain Mayo's predicament, Harding concluded that the
greatest need for his command was at Glasgow.
Harding and his officers were still not convinced that the main danger
of attack would come from Price. They were laboring under the erroneous
impression that the Confederates had no transports with which to move
troops across the river. Instead, they suspected that an attack would more
likely come from guerrillas or bands of deserters who would see in the
lightly defended town a prize ripe for plunder. Union preparations for
defense proceeded from that assumption.
Sometime earlier, the local Home Guard had dug out two small earthwork
fortifications on top of a high hill above the town business district.
More recently, Capt. Mayo had improved on these works by setting his men
to work digging a connecting rifle pit between the two fortifications.
This pit was further extended around the Herreford residence. Even without
artillery, resolute defenders protected by this fortification could
probably withstand an assault by even a large band of bushwhackers, but
the result might be different if the attackers were a superior force of
disciplined combat veterans with several pieces of cannon. This question
was about to be put to the test, for General Clark and his men were
already crossing the Missouri River on a captured ferry and would soon be
marching on Glasgow.
Shelby, true to his word, arrived with his force on the river bank
opposite Glasgow well before daybreak, on the morning of October 15,
unlimbered his two artillery pieces, and, at the appointed time of 5:00
am., commenced shelling the town and the steamer, West Wind. In addition to creating a general panic
among the townspeople, the fire of Shelby's artillery and sharpshooters
effectively kept Federal troopers from reaching the West Wind and the mound of
supplies stacked on the city wharf beside it, and prevented any free movement of
soldiers across streets that ran at right angles to the river.
By this time scouts had reported to Colonel Harding that a large
Confederate force was headed his way, so Harding set to work to prepare a
fitting reception for them. His foremost goal was to delay the
Confederates as long as possible by making a stand on the north bank of a
stream, known as Greggs Creek, that flowed along the southern margins of
the town. He ordered Captain Mayo and one company of the 43rd to take up a
position at the Boonville Road bridge; to Mayo's left he placed Capt.
Samuel Steinmetz and his company of the local citizen militia; still
farther to the left, extending to the Fayette Road bridge, were three
additional companies of the 43rd, commanded by Maj. B. K. Davis. On the
east side of Glasgow, where the Huntsville Plank Road entered town,
Harding posted two companies of the 43rd. Captain Hunter and two companies
were sent to take up a position on the north side of Glasgow, above Bear
Creek, where they were to contest any attempt by the Confederates to enter
the town from above on the Keytesville Road.
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Map showing
approximate deployment of various troops during the Battle of
Glasgow. |
The Confederate attack, meanwhile, was not going according to plan.
Clark had encountered unexpected delays in getting his men across the
river at Arrow Rock and was well behind schedule by the time the march to
Glasgow was taken up. His force was still three miles from Glasgow when
the boom of Shelby's cannons reached his ears. When Clark's columns at
last came in sight of Glasgow, Shelby's bombardment had been in progress
for some two hours. As the troops moved up along the Boonville Road,
General Clark deployed them opposite the town on the slope of a hill that
ran down to Greggs Creek. Astride the Boonville Road was the brigade of
Sidney Jackman. On his right Clark's five regiments were arrayed while the
extreme right was occupied by Col. Richard Lawther's regiment. Clark's
three cannons were positioned atop the ridge above his army.
Once the brigades of Jackman and Clark began their advance, the line
of Federals along the creek, outnumbered at better than two to one, stood
little chance of repulsing the attack.
"The troops along the creek
resisted the passage of [the enemy] manfully, but soon had to be ordered
back, as the enemy's force was so great that he was enabled not only to
pass around both flanks, but to pour through the long intervals which
necessarily existed in the line,"
wrote Colonel Handing in his report
of the action. With the advancing Confederates attacking from the south
and east the Union defenders yielded ground grudgingly as they fell back
slowly toward their entrenchments on the hill, availing themselves of
every fence, building, or tree that might offer cover. As they fell back
the Confederates began to envelop them:
Lawther's regiment turned in the most lackluster performance of the
battle. Lawther had been ordered to circle around to the north of Glasgow
and attack along the Keytesville Road. But here his advance stalled in
face of the fierce resistance of Hunter's two companies. Unable to move
forward, Lawther's men remained bogged down in a fire-fight with Hunter
for the rest of the battle. They lost a good opportunity to fall on
Harding's rear and relieve pressure on the remaining Confederate
regiments, who were discovering that the Yankee soldiers had a surprising
amount of fight in them.
One of the Glasgow defenders, John Henry Frick, described the
hard-fought retreat to the Union entrenchments:
"The bullets were
flying thick as hail. There was a house on the right. I ran thru the front
gate and around behind the house. Several bullets struck the gate post as
I ran thru. As I passed a window...every glass seemed to fall out."
After two hours of determined resistance, the defenders were finally
driven into their meager and crowded fortifications. The enemy, meanwhile,
continued to inch forward.
Colonel Handing now found his small command trapped in a desperate
situation. Rifle pits designed to hold perhaps 250 men were crammed to
maximum capacity with Federals who were forced out of adjoining houses by
enemy artillery. As the Federals fled from the houses, they quickly filled
with Rebel snipers. Jesse Harrold recalled:
"I was at the west end of the south [rifle] ditch and my
right hand man, a home guard captain [Steinmetz], was killed. On my left,
another man was wounded and there was a Rebel in a two story building
across the street south of where I was and he was breaking the window with
his gun and I raised up to shoot him and he fired at me first. There was a
two by eight inch plank sit up on edge on the ridge of the bank of the
ditch and his ball went in it. He dodged back and I shot through
the side of the window and we shot four shots apiece. Three of his went in
the bank and the fourth one cut my hat rim off."
While the battle raged, Shelby's guns swept the streets, making
movement from one position to another extremely hazardous. By noon the
Confederates had crept so close to the Union position that only the width
of the town lots separated them. Fortifications designed to beat off
mounted guerrillas had proven woefully inadequate against seasoned
veterans backed by artillery.
By now the situation of the defenders was hopeless. They were
surrounded on three sides by a superior Confederate force and on the
fourth by the river, their ammunition was running low, there was no hope
of reinforcement, and the enemy, supported by five cannons, seemed to be
preparing to launch a final assault. Colonel Handing knew that the game
was up; the best he could hope for now was generous terms of surrender
from General Clark. Clark was as eager as Handing to put an end to the
battle. The Yankees had proven themselves game fighters and had made the
Confederates pay in blood for every inch of ground they gained. A final
all-out assault would only delay the inevitable conclusion and needlessly
swell the casualty lists on both sides.
By 1:30 p.m., the two sides managed to work out acceptable terms of
surrender. The Confederates agreed to parole the men, allow the officers
to retain their side arms, and to escort the prisoners to Union lines. The
last provision was the most essential, for unarmed Federals would face
certain murder at the hands of guerrillas. Handing reported 11 men killed
and 32 wounded. Among this number were three citizens of Glasgow,
including the commander of the citizen militia, Capt. Samuel Steinmetz,
and his younger brother, Aaron. No final tally of Confederate casualties
was made, but the toll was thought to be high.
The biographer of Shelby, John Newman Edwards, employed no kind words
in describing the commander who led the defense of Glasgow: "Luckily,
indeed," said he, "that its defenses were commanded by an
officer without experience, destitute of tenacity, and filled more with
the wiles of a politician than the energies of a soldier." Edwards
dismissed Handing as the sort of officer who was known more by his stripes
than wounds. But the Battle of Glasgow had proven that none of Harding's
stripes were coward's yellow. With the Federal high command completely
absorbed by the crisis of coping with Price and his raiders, the
vulnerable position of the garrison at Glasgow had been overlooked and the
officers and men left to their own devices. On his own initiative, Harding
had chosen to remain at Glasgow during its hour of greatest peril and had
directed a courageous stand against overwhelming, if not hopeless, odds.
Whatever the final judgment on Harding's performance, no one questioned
the bravery of his men. The fight they put up surprised even the
redoubtable Joe Shelby. Clay Countian, John Henry Frick, now a prisoner,
recalled:
"- - . Not long [after the surrender] we saw a Confederate
officer with a plume on his hat, followed by his staff coming up the
street from the river. This proved to be General Joe Shelby. I hard him
ask, Are there any western troops among you fellows?" Several of us
answered, 'We're all western troops. ' I knowed it.! I knowed it.!
By ___! We always know when we are fighting our kind! Why I expected to
take you fellows within an hour, and here you've given me six hours of
hard fighting!"
One of the most controversial actions surrounding the Battle of
Glasgow, at least in the minds of the town's citizens, was the burning of
the city hall. The city hall was used at the time to store the ordnance,
commissary, and quartermaster stores of the Missouri State Militia. To
keep these stores out of the hands of the enemy, the city hall was set on
fire. A strong wind was blowing that caused the fire to spread to
adjoining buildings; thirteen buildings, including stores, shops, a church
and several dwellings, were reduced to ashes. Captain Mayo burned an
additional two houses that stood too near his trenches. It was charged by
the locals that $100,000 in personal property was destroyed in the effort
to keep $30,000 of government property from falling into rebel hands.
Even with the burning of the stores, there were still plenty of
supplies left for the Confederates to impress. The quartermaster supplies
brought down river on the West Wind and Benton, consisting of some 1,000
uniforms, bales of blankets, and other supplies, had been piled on the
wharf and were eagerly taken up by Confederates desperate for precisely
such goods. The weapons of the defenders, amounting to some 1,200 small
arms, were also confiscated, along with 150 horses. It was not the rumored
5,000 stand of arms, but still a decent haul. The victors also sunk the
battle-scarred West Wind. In addition to the reported prizes of war,
individual Confederates indulged in a binge of freelance robbery and
plunder. Every house occupied during the battle was ransacked. Clothing,
shoes, blankets, jewelry, watches, and just about anything else that could
be conveniently carried away on horseback, were stolen.
Was this capture worth the effort? That issue is debatable. The time
consumed in taking Glasgow caused still more delay in an army that was
already moving westward at far too slow a pace for a mounted raid. The
thousands of Federals in Price's front and rear were preparing a trap for
him that would be sprung at Westport, only a week after Glasgow fell.
The capture of the Federal garrison left the Unionist citizens of
Glasgow without any protection against the guerrilla bands that were
roving in the wake of Price's army. First to arrive was the notorious
guerrilla chieftain, William C. Quantrill. At gunpoint he forced the town
banker, William F. Dunnica, to hand over all the money in his safe, some
$21,000. Local guerrilla leader, Jim Jackson, and his men put in an
appearance; only the persuasive powers of the Confederate surgeon kept
Jackson from murdering the wounded Federal soldiers under his care. Then
came the most dreaded of all guerrillas, William "Bloody Bill"
Anderson. He, too, wanted to murder the wounded Federals, but was also
dissuaded from doing so. Instead, he paid a nighttime visit to the lavish
mansion of Benjamin Lewis, a tobacco millionaire, Unionist, and town
benefactor who helped found Lewis Library and Lewis College. For four
harrowing hours, Anderson subjected Lewis to savage beatings and torture,
and then forced him to raise $6,000 from his neighbors-the sum that Lewis
had offered as a reward for the capture of Anderson dead or alive. Lewis's
death a little over a year later was attributed to the injuries sustained
at Anderson's hands.
A final ironic footnote to the Battle of Glasgow occurred at Mine
Creek, Kansas, on October 25. Following the Confederate defeat at Westport
on October 23, Price's army began a precipitant retreat southward with the
Federals in hot pursuit. They caught up with Price's battered army at Mine
Creek and gave the Southerners another severe mauling. Confederate
soldiers captured there who happened to be wearing the uniforms taken at
Glasgow were executed on the spot. It was a payback of sorts for all the
times that "Bloody Bill" and his guerrillas dressed themselves
in the uniforms of their slain victims in order to deceive, surprise, and
slaughter still more hapless Federals.
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Webmaster's Note: This article was published by permission of
the Boonslick Historical Society, PO Box 324, Boonville, Missouri 65233
and originally appeared in "Boone's Lick Heritage," Vol. III,
No. 3, September 1995, the quarterly historical journal of the Boonslick
Historical Society.
