CHEROKEE NEUTRAL LANDS – Troopers from the Sixth Kansas Volunteer Cavalry formed a hastily prepared defensive line along the banks of Cow Creek. As the leaves fell from the trees around them on a late October morning in 1864, Pleasant Smith, a farrier in Company K of the Sixth, labored to get a wagon train of nearly 500 refugees moving north towards the safety of the Union garrison at Fort Scott. Little did he know, 100 miles to the north, Union troops were engaged in the Battle of Westport, the “Gettysburg of the West.”
Despite the shifting fortunes of war along the western frontier, events in the East had largely sealed the fate of the Confederacy. By October of 1864, Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg in 1863 had inexorably changed the course of the war. The Union had captured Atlanta, and General Ulysses S. Grant was leading the Grand Army of the Republic towards the Confederate capital at Richmond, Va. For the Southern Confederacy, the writing was on the wall. However, the settlers in Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, and the Indian Territory, the so-called “bloody corners,” had been fighting the Civil War since the mid 1850’s, and didn’t seem to know how to stop.
The destructive nature of the conflict caused many residents to abandon their homes and flee for safety. Among those in 1864 was a group of women and children from Northwest Arkansas. Despite the Southern leanings of most Arkansans, there was a group of farmers in Washington and Benton counties who remained loyal to the Union. These farmers became known to their neighbors as “Mountain Feds,” referring both to where they lived, and their loyalty to the federal government.
By 1864, Northwest Arkansas had been repeatedly traversed by opposing armies during the Pea Ridge, Prairie Grove, and Camden campaigns. The country was also crawling with bands of guerillas who preyed on Union wagon trains and farmers they suspected of holding Northern sympathies. With their husbands and sons either dead, or serving in the War, many wives, mothers, and widows decided to abandon their farms and make for the relative safety of Kansas.
The Sixth had been stationed at Ft. Smith after the disastrous campaign to capture Camden, Ark. It was barely a cohesive fighting force. After three years of near constant combat, many of the men in the sixth were without horses, and because their enlistments were nearly up, the War Department declined to provide them with fresh mounts. The Sixth was cavalry in name only. 1864 had already been a long year of escort duty rife with ambushes and harrowing tales of summary executions and narrow escapes, but now the end was in sight.
On October 5, 1864, general John Milton Thayer ordered the men of the Sixth, whose enlistments were about to expire, to report to Fort Leavenworth to be mustered out. As they marched north up the Military Road, the troops were tasked with guarding an empty supply train. Traveling with the wagon train were about 500 destitute “Mountain Feds.” As the wagon train lumbered out of Ft. Smith and pointed north, it was on a collision course with the last major military campaign in the Trans- Mississippi theater.
In August of 1864, Confederate general Kirby Smith ordered former Missouri governor, and Mexican War hero, Sterling Price to lead his army into Missouri as a last-ditch effort to bring the state back into the Confederacy, spoil Abraham Lincoln’s re-election campaign, and turn the tide of the war.
As Price’s army made its way up Eastern Missouri towards St. Louis, Confederate guerilla bands began attacking Union supply lines, railroads, telegraph lines, and riverboats across the state to delay the Federal response and prevent Union forces from concentrating against Price’s army.
Although Price envisioned his army being bolstered by legions of sympathetic volunteers, it soon became clear that the Union had a strong hold on the state, and he lacked the numbers to conduct a successful invasion. His glorious invasion had devolved into a raid.
After a costly victory at Fort Davidson, near Pilot Knob, Mo., Price decided against an attack on the well defended arsenals at St Louis. Instead, he turned west and headed up the Missouri river valley towards Jefferson City. As he went, Price’s men captured wagons and supplies from federal troops. They also pillaged valuables from residents. The result was a long and cumbersome wagon train that became an albatross tied around the army’s neck.
By October, Price had failed to capture St. Louis, declined to attack the defenses around Jefferson City, and was steering his army and its 500 wagons of loot towards Kansas, where he hoped to inflict some vengeance on the towns, farms, and families of the hated Jayhawkers. Price was pursued by a large force of cavalry commanded by general Albert Pleasanton. Blocking his path to the west, was a hastily assembled army commanded by Gen. Samual Curtis. It was comprised of Kansas militia, some cavalry, and a few regular infantry regiments. Curtis deployed his 15,000 troops along a defensive line stretching from Westport, Mo. south to the Blue River, roughly along the path of what is now Wornall Rd. in Kansas City, Mo.
The guerillas pursuing the men of the Sixth and their wagon train of refugees that October morning were under the command of Major Andrew J. Piercy. Piercy, a Virginia native, took command of the guerillas operating in Jasper County, Mo., following the death of their charismatic leader Thomas R. Livingston. Piercy had no idea of the events playing out at Westport. He was simply carrying out his mission of disruption.
Commanders of the Union garrisons in Southwest Missouri were well aware of Piercy’s presence, but were either unable to locate his force, or lacked the strength to challenge him in open combat.
On October 24, Major Milton J. Burch, commander of the Union garrison in Neosho, Mo., wrote to his superiors in Springfield.
“In regard to the sending out of scouts in the direction of Ft. Scott, it is a very dangerous undertaking from the fact that Piercy has 250 men between here and Ft. Scott. Piercy’s men are on the Spring River below Carthage... ...It is certain that Piercy is in Jasper County and has not less that 250 men and some reports say 500.”
It stands to reason that the guerillas operating along Spring River caught wind of the wagon train as it lumbered up the Military Road towards Fort Scott. The train was slow and vulnerable as it traversed the Cherokee Neutral Lands. The only hope the men of the Sixth had was to fight a delaying action that would allow the wagon train to escape.
The wagons first crossed the creek about a quarter mile west of where the WATCO railroad bridge now stands between Pittsburg and Chicopee. The site of the first skirmish that day took place along the bend of Cow Creek west-southwest of the current wastewater treatment plant. As the guerillas crossed the creek in pursuit of the fleeing wagons, the men of the Sixth opened fire. Initially, the Confederates fell back under heavy fire, but they regrouped and forced their way across the creek.
The troopers from the Sixth fell back and formed another line along a crossing that sits roughly behind the Crawford County Historical Museum. It was here that the defenders were finally overwhelmed and captured along with the wagon train of refugees. By this point in the war, Confederate guerillas were unlikely to take prisoners, preferring to execute captives and loot their bodies. They did, however, possess a keen sense of chivalry towards women and children. The presence of so many refugees was likely a factor in the guerillas’ decision to parole their captives.
The Kansans were stripped of their weapons. The refugees were forced to abandon their wagons and belongings. The guerillas took what wagons they could along with the draft animals. The remaining wagons were piled up and burned. The captives were told to walk to Fort Scott while the Guerillas camped overnight on the present site of Pittsburg. The next day they melted back into the brush and timber along Spring River.
As the men of the Sixth fought along Cow Creek, Sterling Price’s army was defeated at Westport, and forced to flee south along the Military Road. Two days later, Union cavalry caught the Confederates as their wagon train tried to cross Mine Creek in Linn County. Instead of waiting for reinforcements, the outnumbered federals attacked Price’s rear guard. The result was the most decisive victory for the Union in the Trans-Mississippi. Mine Creek was also the largest cavalry engagement fought west of the Mississippi. Price’s withdrawal turned into a full-blown retreat.
Price’s army would not stop retreating until it reached Texas. The war in the Trans-Mississippi was essentially over. Perhaps because of the merciless nature of the Civil War in this area, many Southern leaders were unwilling to surrender to federal authorities despite Abraham Lincoln’s favorable terms. Price, General Joe Shelby, Confederate Governor of Missouri Claiborne Fox Jackson, and about 500 former Confederates fled to Mexico where they formed the colony of New Virginia near Cordoba, Veracruz. Eventually, they returned to the U.S., took the oath of loyalty, and returned to civilian life.
General Stand Waite of the Cherokee Mounted Rifles was the last Southern general officer to surrender. Some guerillas couldn’t give up their life of robbery and plunder. The members of the James-Younger gang shifted their focus to the banks, railroads, and officials who flooded Missouri after the war. They often found shelter among Southern veterans and sympathizers living in Missouri. Their reign of terror was ended on Sept. 7, 1876, by the townsfolk of Northfield, Minn. The entire gang, except Frank and Jesse James, were either killed or captured after attempting to rob two banks simultaneously.
It was about this time that Pleasant Smith recounted the events surrounding the “Fight in the Bend” to A.J. Georgia. Georgia sat on the story for a couple of decades before recounting it to a reporter from the Pittsburg Headlight. The story appeared in the Dec. 17, 1901, edition of the Headlight, although the events and location of the battle were the same, the year and participants were inconsistent. The story placed the battle in the fall of 1862 and named Sterling Price as commander of the Confederate cavalry. So, what really happened along Cow Creek? Who attacked the wagon train, and when? Can we determine the identities of any of the 12 skeletons discovered along Cow Creek?
The answers would take nearly 80 years and would involve two local historians. One, a graduate student researching the Sixth Kansas, James Paul Huff, and the other, the most famous historian and author in Pittsburg’s history, Dudley T. Cornish.
