The Missouri in the Civil War Message Board

Re: 1862 fatalities from Missouri guerrilla war

Sally,

Here what I was able to discover about William F. Pulliam and Jeremiah Jones during the Civil War.

Both Jones and Pulliam appear together when the "Paola Herald" newspaper of Paola, Kansas reported that on Sunday, 7 June 1863, elements of the 9th Kansas Cavalry captured both men together near the Missouri/Kansas border. Many members of the 9th were Missouri men who were forced to move to the Kansas side of the line because they were northern sympathizers. Because of this, the troopers of the 9th had little sympathy for southerners. The patrol took the pair to higher Union authority where they were examined by a military tribunal. The "Kansas City Daily Journal of Commerce" on June 13 printed the Paola newspaper article. The Kansas City version says:

"The "Paola Herald" says that two notorious bushwhackers, Bill Pulliam and Jerry Jones, were arrested on Sunday last by the 9th Kansas near the line and brought them to that place and delivered them to Col Lynde [Colonel Edward Lynde, commander of the 9th Kansas Cavalry]. They are now undergoing an examination by a military commission."

I don't know if the Paola newspaper had more than that, but the tribunal evidently went well for Pulliam and Jones, because if the tribunal found them to be true bushwhackers, current Missouri Union Army regulations called for the death penalty for all southern sympathizing men captured with firearms and not wearing Rebel uniforms. The newspaper and possibly the Kansas troopers called Pulliam and Jones "notorious bushwhackers," but that is just the way soldiers called anybody they were able to catch in order to have something to show for all the hours of riding those horses across all that real estate, and the newspapers sold more copy by jazzing up what otherwise were routine Union army reports.

Both Jones and Pulliam more than likely pleaded to the military tribunal that they were loyal American citizens. The tribunal probably knew they lived near each other in southwest Cass County. If the Kansas patrol caught them carrying firearms, they would have had to do some tall talking. Bill Pulliam had to do some explaining because Union troops captured him riding in St. Clair County the previous year on 24 March 1862, and he was sent to one of the several military prisons in the St. Louis area (the one in Alton, Illinois). Pulliam was released from the Alton prison because he asked to take the oath to support the United States and not bear arms against it, and he took that oath on 26 May 1862. Jerry Jones took a similar oath at the Union military Provost Marshal's office in Harrisonville, county seat of Cass County, on 27 June 1862. Both men, like all Missouri men of military age, were required to report to their county seat in July or August 1862 to determine if they were loyal or not by enrolling in the Enrolled Missouri Militia (EMM), formed in a hurry that summer to deal with all the Confederate recruiters (Cass County had several of those) and guerrillas or bushwhackers in the rural areas (guerrillas like William Quantrill, who had several Cass County men in his band). More about the EMM below.

The EMM was a mandatory program for communities to provide for their own defense against Confederate recruiters and southern guerrilla bands. Jerry Jones must have been impressed enough by his capture and the tribunal that he rode to Harrisonville on 14 September 1863 and enrolled in the 77th Regiment EMM. Actually, Jerry did not have to ride into Harrisonville, because under General Orders Number 11 of the Union District of the Border effective a few days before, all of Cass County and three-and-one-half other counties were ordered depopulated in order to deny use of those counties to large numbers of guerrillas in this region. Residents who could prove they were loyal to the US could live at the county seat of Harrisonville, or they had to leave the county. Possibly, Jerry lived in town for the rest of the war, using that oath he took the previous year as proof of his loyalty. The card documenting Jerry's enrollment says he was 18 years old when he signed in, and that may have saved him from trouble for not enrolling earlier than that. The remarks section on the card documenting Jerry's enrollment into the EMM mentions that he was switched from one company of the 77th EMM into Company K. A second remark states "from only roll of above Co on file on which name appears." I have seen that remark on many EMM enrollment cards, and basically it was a polite way of saying that this man was probably a southern sympathizer and enrolled because he had no good choice in the matter, and it was probably not worth the efforts of his neighbors in the 77th EMM to go to Jerry's house and make him come in to drill. In truth, men of the 77th Regiment EMM had more pressing problems which kept them from doing much of anything. Since Cass County was very much part of Quantrill's operating area, the Cass County part of the 77th did little actual service because they possibly heard what happened to parts of the 71st EMM that attempted to do their duty in Lafayette County in fall of 1862. In essence, Quantrill's band shot down a number of the 71st EMM in the Lafayette County area. Jerry Jones probably fulfilled all that was expected of him by simply enrolling on 14 September 1863.

I also found an undated list of what Jerry Jones claims was property taken from him by passing military, northern or southern. This is probably the same list that you mentioned. I found this and Jerry's and Pulliam's oaths in www.familysearch.org. This free Internet site is set up and run by the Mormons, and I look there for Union military Provost Marshal files originally held by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Jerry's EMM card I found on the Missouri Secretary of State's website, which used to be maintained by the MO Adjutant General's office, but in recent years is held by the Sec'y of State's Office as part of the Missouri State Archives. This site is also free.

I found nothing further on Bill Pulliam, and have no idea what became of him. I found whatever the Union military had on its ledger about Pulliam's imprisonment during 1862 in Joanne Chiles Eakin's 1995 "Missouri POW's" book that copied all the NARA microfilm about Missourians imprisoned in the St. Louis area military prisons during the CW. The actual name of Eakin's book is three lines long, so I just call it "Missouri POW's."

Any questions?

Bruce Nichols

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1862 fatalities from Missouri guerrilla war
Re: 1862 fatalities from Missouri guerrilla war
Re: 1862 fatalities from Missouri guerrilla war
Re: 1862 fatalities from Missouri guerrilla war
Re: 1862 fatalities from Missouri guerrilla war
Re: 1862 fatalities from Missouri guerrilla war
Re: 1862 fatalities from Missouri guerrilla war
Re: 1862 fatalities from Missouri guerrilla war
Re: 1862 fatalities from Missouri guerrilla war
Re: 1862 fatalities from Missouri guerrilla war
Re: 1862 fatalities from Missouri guerrilla war
Re: 1862 fatalities from Missouri guerrilla war