Our Grandfather’s Grandfather – Confederate Casualty

[Notes:  This is an adapted version of my October ProGen (online study group) homework – a formal research report for a client.  In this case, I’m my own client, writing a report to the Williams file.  I omitted the middle chunk of the assignment, the detailed findings – the lists of sources searched, but I left in the footnotes. In fact, I may change this blog’s tagline to “It’s about the footnotes.”  One more caveat:  this research, analysis, and report took way more than ten hours!]

Williams Report #1

31 October 2010

For:  Research File

Subject: Participation of ancestor Jesse G. Williams in the Civil War

Authorization:  Ten hours for research, analysis, and report

Summary of Findings: 

Jessee [Jesse] G. Williams, age 23, was living in Spring Hill, Hempstead County, Arkansas in 1860, with his wife, Christian, age 23, and two young children; the couple married in that county in 1857. [1] Their household was adjacent to a household consisting of Jesse’s brother, James M. Williams, age 27, Sarah A. E. Williams, and two children.  An 1873 obituary for Christian Williams describes her as the widow of Jesse Williams, who was “last seen by his comrades…engaged in a terrible conflict with the enemy while in Missouri with Gen. Price.” [2]   

Two newly discovered sources provide key clues. The first, an account passed down by Jesse D. Williams, son of Jesse G., states that Jesse served with his brother, a lieutenant, and includes details of a chaotic battle scene that could have only been originally provided by an eyewitness.[3]  The second new source, the Bible Records of brother James M. Williams, possibly that eyewitness, places Jesse’s death in Kansas, not Missouri, on October 25, 1864.[4]

Examination of Confederate compiled military service records confirms that Jesse G. and James M. Williams both served in the 1st Regiment, Arkansas Cavalry (Monroe’s). [5]  James enlisted as a 2^nd corporal and was promoted to 2^nd lieutenant on 1 January 1864. Monroe’s regiment, part of Fagan’s Division, participated in Major Sterling Price’s Missouri Expedition (alternatively called Price’s Raid), including the Battle of Little Blue River, in the Trans-Mississippi Theater. [6]  However, the Battle of Little Blue (also known as Westport) took place on October 21, not October 25.  [7]

It is more likely that Jesse G. Williams was killed in the Battle of Mine Creek, also part of Price’s Missouri Raid, during the brief span of time that the action took place in Kansas just beyond the border. That battle did occur on October 25^th, 1864, when Price was in retreat from Union forces, and Fagan’s troops were protecting the rear of a supply wagon train. [8]

Dora’s account and the Jesse D. account both probably had as their genesis the account brought home by James.  He was in good position, relative to the events, to know the specific date and place of death, thus his Bible record reference to Kansas is significant.  That detail and the description of the last sight of Jesse D. both point toward Mine Creek as the fatal engagement.

The Battle of Mine Creek was one of the largest cavalry battles of the Civil War.  Cavalry forces typically dismounted their horses in battle, but in this case, the Union soldiers were so close, the Confederates held their mounts.[9]  The confederate line buckled; the resulting scene has been described as chaotic, marked by panic and disorder. [10]  That is consistent with details from Jesse D.’s account, which described the last sight of Jesse as trying to mount a riderless horse after his own horse was shot out from under him; “it was every man for himself.” The Union soldiers wielded vastly superior weapons, and their smaller force overcame the larger Confederate one. [11]

Over 1,000 Confederate soldiers were killed, wounded, or captured.[12] The dead were buried nearby in unmarked graves, while prisoners of war were taken to two locations in Illinois.[13]  As the Jesse D. account put it, Jesse G. was killed near the end of the war, and, in fact, the failed raid ended the Civil War in the west. [14]  However, the wording of the family tradition “last seen”, “lost in battle”, leaves open the slim possibility that Jesse G. was captured, rather than killed.  Digitized holdings of NARA confederate prisoner of war records on Ancestry.com were checked; none of the approximately thirty index entries for Jesse Williams appear to be this Jesse.

The Kansas State Historical Society (KSHS) and the Mine Creek Battlefield Foundation work collaboratively to operate and preserve the battlefield and support its interpretation for visitors.  The foundation’s website offers a timeline of Price’s Raid, a drawing of the battlefield, and a downloadable Interpretive Walking Trail Guide, while the KSHS site offers information about visiting the site.[15]  The History Channel did a program on Mine Creek titled “The Lost Battle of the Civil War.” DVDs can be purchased at Amazon.com.

Recommendations for Additional Research:

1) There are numerous published sources on Major Sterling Price’s Missouri Raid/Expedition; only a few were examined. Several had extensive bibliographies listing other secondary materials, as well as unpublished manuscripts at various repositories, mostly in the Midwest.  A search could be mounted for specific references to Jesse G. Williams or James M. Williams by building a bibliography of original sources and contacting repositories for finding aids and indexes. That kind of effort could extend indefinitely, and, in the case of unique textual materials, involve travel or hiring local researchers. (Time estimate: uncertain.)  

2) At the very least, three more published sources should be checked for additional citations to original sources and more information about burial and prisoners of war.  These three articles, all of which were cited repeatedly in consulted materials, are available at McKeldin Library at the University of Maryland, College Park. (Time estimate: 3 hours.)

Langsdorf, Edgar. “Price’s Raid and the Battle of Mine Creek.” Kansas Historical Quarterly 30 (Autumn 1964): 281-306. Illus.

Lindberg, Kip. “Chaos Itself: The Battle of Mine Creek.” North & South 1:6 (August 1998): 74-85.

Plummer, Mark A. “The Battle of Mine Creek in the Great Price Raid.” Military Review 55 (September 1975): 69-75.

3) The book October 25^th and the Battle of Mine Creek, by Lumir F. Buresh (Kansas City, MO: Lowell Press, 1977), credited by the Mine Creek Foundation in its work to preserve the battlefield, is held by the Library of Congress. It is also available for purchase at the Mine Creek Foundation website for $18.  There were also other lower-cost, interesting items available for purchase at the website. (Time estimate – 5 hours for a specially scheduled trip to LOC; 2 hours if scheduled with other research.)

4) Military records should be explored further as well.

a) James M. Williams service record at NARA should be retrieved, so that copies of service records from each repository for both Williams soldiers are on hand.  It’s unlikely that anything new will be uncovered but it will take just a few minutes to do it. 

b) The descriptive pamphlet for Selected Records of the War Department Relating to Confederate Prisoners of War, 1861-1865 (NARA M598) refers specifically to registers of prisoners of war held at Camp Douglas and Rock Island, the two prisons named in the Mine Creek Interpretive Walking Tour Guide.  This is another very quick task.

(Time estimate for both – 2 hours.)