Note. A biography of
44.Benjamin Ulpian Massey
was published in "History of the Bench and Bar
of Missouri," p.267. I have excerpted that portion of the article
that relates to the experiences shared by Benjamin Ulpian Massey and
his father, 6.Benjamin
Franklin
Massey during the Civil War.[Ed.]
|
[44.Benjamin Ulpian Massey] was educated in such
private country schools as existed at Sarcoxie in the primitive days of
the fifties and in such private schools as Jefferson City afforded
between 1856 and 1860. This schooling was afterward supplemented with
much self instruction and exhaustive and general course of
reading. It was during the early period while his father was
Secretary of State that the son attended school at Jefferson City, to
become later his father's chief clerk, or assistant Secretary of
State. The father by virtue of his office was a member of the
official family of the courageous and fiery Claib Jackson, then
Governor. The son as his father's chief helper was thrown into
intimate relations with the public men of that day, was an active
participant in the stormy scenes of those times, and can therefore now
relate many interesting incidents respecting the men and events that
then made history. His narrative of the evacuation by the State
government of Jefferson City, of how it followed Price's army South
after the battle of Boonville, of the convening of the Legislature at
Neosho and the varying fortunes of the great seal of Missouri is
especially interesting. Because of their historical import the
facts are here incorporated as Mr. Massey's friends have often heard
him relate them.
|
In the spring of 1861, the capture of the
State Militia at Camp Jackson, in St. Louis, by the Federal troops
under the command of General Lyon, caused great excitement at Jefferson
City and a call was made by Governor Jackson for 75,000 of the
volunteer militia to assemble there to protect the State against
Federal invasion. It soon became apparent that no sufficient
force could be gathered at the Capitol to resist the march upon that
city by General Lyon, and so about the first of June it was determined
that the State government should remove, or retreat from Jefferson City
and carry with them such of the records of State as were portable and
absolutely necessary to conduct the State government while it was thus
on wheels. In a state of intense anxiety and expectation and in
great haste; after dark one night about the 12th of June, such records
were packed in the Secretary's office as had been determined it
necessary to take, and with them the State seal, and carried for
concealment and protection to the home of Captain Rodgers, an old
gentleman who lived in a stone house just back of the Capitol, inside
the corporate limits and up the river from the main part of the
town. The seal and records were stored in his house for a day or
two, then placed in wagons and hauled to Boonville and from there,
after the skirmish of June 17, followed the fortunes of the retreating
State forces from the first battle in the State at Boonville to the
encampment down in the Cowskin, a stream in the southwestern part of
the State in McDonald County. The seal, which is now one of
Missouri's historical relics, remained in the custody of the Secretary
of State, who was with the Governor, and its impress appeared on the
certified copy of ordinance or act of secession passed by the
Legislature convened at Neosho. This seal remained after the
battle of Wilson Creek, in custody of the subject of this biography at
Springfield, Missouri, until the retreat of General Price in the spring
of 1862. He had it in charge at the time of the battle of Pea
Ridge in March of that year, and took it on the march from Van Buren,
Ark., after the battle of Pea Ridge, to Des Arc on White River in
Arkansas.
|
When General Price's Army and Governor
Jackson's civil staff,including the Secretary of State, Lieutenant
Governor and others, reached this little town of Des Arc they there met
the Committee or Commission which had been appointed by the Legislature
at Neosho to superintend the engraving or lithographing of $10,000,000
in State bonds.(1) by which the seceding State expected to obtain the
sinews of war. These bonds were there signed by the governor and
sealed with the said seal and attested by the Secretary. As the
Secretary of State was absent it became the duty of his son as his
representative to affix his father's name and the seal of the State to
many of these bonds. The bonds of smaller denomination were then
used for paying the State troops whose time had about expired.
Shortly thereafter Price's army disbanded as a State organization. and
the larger part of the troops enlisted in the Confederate
service. Governor Jackson died shortly afterward at the home of
his son-in-law at Des Arc, and Lieutenant Governor Reynolds, who was
then with Governor Jackson, assumed the reins of the State government,
guided the ship of State as well as might be under existing
circumstances. It is Mr. Massey's impression that he (Governor
Reynolds) then took charge of the State seal, as that was the last he
saw of it until after the war, when the deal was presented by Governor
Reynolds in person to Governor McClurg, at Jefferson City, and where it
now remains as a relic and souvenir of the part taken by Missouri in
the conflict of the States.
|