The Missouri in the Civil War Message Board

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In Response To: Annie Harris-McKeene ()

There was a lot of fable written as fact after the war, and I have no idea if this account is true, but if it is, its quite the story.

A WOMAN'S ROMANTIC CAREER
St. Louis Post.

The following obituary notice appeared in one of the New Orleans papers during the month of September:
Sister Celeste – Died, in this city, at the Convent of the Sisters of Mercy, Sister Celeste, on Wednesday, September 1878. Solemn high mass of requiem at the Church of the Immaculate Conception next Friday at 9 o’clock a.m.

One September day in the fall of 1862, there rode up to the old but comfortable-looking farm house of Andrew Harris, near Independence, Mo., a band of seventy men, armed to the teeth with shotguns and revolvers. They were all strong and young, and had an unconcerned air of determined bravery. They all sat up well on their horses, were young and hardy-looking. A few were but boys, while others had beard and long hair. They were dressed in diverse styles some in red, blue or cheeked shirts, others wore coats. All had boots coming up over the pantaloons above the knee, and most with big spurs at the heels. Their horses were magnificent, and well decked off with fine saddles and showy bridles. At the head of the company rode a small man with a pale face, light short hair, blue eyes and light mustache. It was Quantrell and his men. Who need be told who they were or what they were? Not such robbers nor frightful looking people as some would imagine, but bad enough indeed. They opened the gate of the barnyard and went in and dismounted, having left a guard on the hill half a mile back. They pulled down the hay, opened the corn crib and made themselves at home without saying a word to Andrew Harris, the good farmer they had come to despoil. But he was not disturbed; he was ready to give them all he had, for he was one of that numerous class who lived in that section that was but too ready to succor anybody whose mission it was to fight the Kansas Jayhawkers. The guerrillas then found our Harris a friend, warm and readv to aid them even at the risk of his life. Quantrell was invited to take dinner at the house with his family and his officers were invited to come with him. One who went was John McKeene, in courage or stature the peer of any man in the command and one of the guerrilla s most trusted counsellors. He had become famous for daring deeds as well as handsome appearance. He had come from Cass County, and in the breaking out of the war his father and two brothers had been killed by Jennisen's men from Kansas. McKeene took an oath that no grass should grow under his feet in his pursuit of the murderers of his father and brothers, and he kept his oath with a fearful vengeance. He, like most of his companions in arms, became a desperado, with revenge as the impelling motive. Ho had killed men, both old and young. He had learned to shoot them down with as much deliberateness as if he were engaged in a simple practice of marksmanship. But he was handsome for all that. He stepped like an athletic and had a rude manner that was graceful in its way. He wore a wide brimmed, light colored hat, on which was pinned a black feather, a wide belt of red morocco, with gold embroidery, and the cavalry boot of a federal colonel. To his belt there always swung a pair of ivory-handled navy revolvers. These were all the arms that he used and all that he carried. With these he was a master, always ready, quick as a panther and deadly in his aim. Sitting on his horse, or standing on foot, he might be the envy of the noblest formed and most ambitious knight that ever belonged to the Round Table.

There was then, instead of fear, enthusiasm at the house of Andrew Harris on the September day that Quantrell came to forage on him. Never were corn, hay and oats, as well as food for the men, given away with a better good will. But Andrew Harris was not alone in his hospitality. His wife had a son with Price and another buried on the field of Wilson's Creek. She was doing a labor of love. And there was another, the only child left at home, a girl seventeen years old, who like many of her sex in that time and country, had wished a hundred times that she were a man that she might go into the war.

She was rather pretty. Her eyes were blacker than an Indian maiden's and as piercing, and her hair as long and as straight – a type of women well known to those who lived in Western Missouri in those troublesome days. She had made flags, large and small, which she gave to those of her neighborhood who went out to fight. She had made herself a dress of red and white. Any sort of a rebel soldier to her was a demi-god. The wild insanity of the time found in her a splendid representative. Her name, young as she was, had been spoken throughout half a hundred counties. She was known at every Federal post in the state, and authorities had often threatened to banish or imprison her. As a woman, she was as notorious as John McKeene was a man. They had heard of each other many a time, and had longed to see each other; He had said she was the bravest woman in Missouri: she had said he was the bravest man of all the rough riders of the border. Consequently, when they met at her father’s table, it was a cordial meeting, and each was more than pleased.

As the sun went down Quantrell and his men rode away, and as they passed along in front of the house, Annie stood at the gate and received a salute from each one. Then it was that she wished more fervently than ever that she was a man that she might go along. On the following morning, before the sun had come up, the advance guard of the pursuing Federals came up to the house o Andrew Harris in hot pursuit. They had been told by a dozen friendly citizens of the hospitality extended to Quantrell and his men by the old farmer, and this was offense enough. They hauled him out and after a few unimportant one questions, shot him down and then burned the house. In less than an hour they had made a scene of black desolation, and the girl and the mother had sought refuge with a neighbor. It was the way of the times - a characteristic of guerilla warfare, and something that needs no apology now since time has dried up the tears, buried the dead and put out the fires.

The pursuit of Quantrell continued until he was overtaken. There was as a close, sharp fight, which resulted in the defeat and disbandment of the guerrillas. John McKeene returned to the ruins of the Harris homestead and learned the whole story. Ho met Annie Harris, and the two pledged their vows of eternal vengeance. There was more than that. She said she would go with him and deal the blows of death as he did. On horseback they went to a humble preacher's house, and, without alighting, had him make them man and wife. Annie threw away her woman's dress and donned male attire. She put on a belt besides and two revolvers, and her long hair she tucked up under her hat. See looked as much like a soldier as many a young boy that went out with Quantrell.

The whole land was full of Federal soldiers, and John McKeene and his guerrilla wife had to share the dangers and privations of all their kind. Their home was the saddle, their shelter the woods. They were together in more than one ambush attack, and together saw more than one of the hated enemy bite the dust. When the winter came and the leaves left the trees they rode away to the South, and waited there until the leaves were again as big as the ears of the squirrels, when they returned to their constant battle-ground. On a June morning, 1863, as they, with a half dozen others, were riding along over the prairie near where now stands the little town of Lee's Summit, they were met by a detachment of the Seventh Missouri State militia.

There was a desperate encounter, in which John McKeene was shot dead and Annie McKeene was shot through the shoulder. The others of the guerrillas escaped. When the Federals came up to where McKeene and his wife were lying, one of the soldiers levelled his revolver at the head of the woman in disguise, but before the trigger was pulled she threw off her hat, snatched her long hair down, and sat up before him with the face of a woman. The revolver was put up and the mystery solved. She told them all she had lived for was gone, but that she was not ready to die herself. She begged them to give her companion the best burial they could, and said she wanted to go to Kansas City. There was a tone of voice and style of earnestness about what she said that touched the hearts of the rough soldiers, and they buried John McKeene out on the broad prairie : but there was not a stone nor a piece of wood within a half dozen miles of the place, and nothing was left to mark the place of the grave. But it was such a burial as many a poor man did not have in those days.
Annie McKeene was taken to Kansas City, where she recovered, under the blessed care of some Sisters of Mercy. She went to Memphis, Tenn., and there joined the Catholic church, and resolved to devote her life to the care of the sick and the distressed. She became a Sister of Mercy, went to the front of the army, and during the remainder of the war was unremitting in her work of love and mercy. After the coming of peace she went to New Orleans, and became attached to the convent of the Sisters of Mercy. In devotion to her mission there was not one who surpassed her in earnestness. She was always ready to bear the heaviest burden, and manifested the fortitude in a good work that she had in a reckless guerrilla warfare as the wife of John McKeene.

She bore the secret of her life well. It was a memory that had grown sacred by her expiation, and around it was the sweet incense of a thousand prayers that had gone up out of a soul of tears. When the late epidemic came on she was among the foremost to go to the bedside of the stricken and the dying. She watched by day and by night - as faithful a nurse as ever saw the spark of life go out. Not only with her hands did she aid the suffering, but in word as well did she give strength to many a poor heart. Thu she labored and thus she fulfilled the sacred vow of her life, till the Father of Mercy claimed the Sister of Mercy as his own. Annie MeKeene, of 1863. was the sister Celeste whose death is announced in the notice at the head of this article.

“But that wild tale she brooked not to unfold,
And sealed now each lip that could have told.”

A Woman’s Romantic Career. Public Ledger; Memphis, TN. December 10, 1878. Page 2, Column B.

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