Oxley Johnson Goes to War
He Joins the 23rd Missouri Volunteer Infantry Regiment
and Almost Dies from the Measles
by Neil Allen Bristow
As the nation stumbled into what was to become the first war of the industrial age, no one grasped the magnitude of the oncoming conflict, but after Bull Run both North and South realized that the struggle would be neither short nor bloodless. In summer of 1861 the Lincoln administration called for a massive increase in manpower, and Congress passed 22 July an act for 500,000 more troops, to be raised though the states. The 23rd Missouri Volunteeer Infantry came from the implementation of that act. The companies making up the regiment were raised by local efforts in Harrison and neighboring counties. Company officers, like Captain William P. Robinson and Lieutenant John Fisher of Oxley Johnson's Company D, were usually elected to their posts by the men they had recruited. Patriotic fervor and standing in the community commonly counted for more than military or administrative experience.1
When the call for volunteers came from Washington, Missouri was already torn. Indeed, guerilla bands had for years spread blood and fire along the border with Kansas, egged on by both pro- and anti-slavery elements. Abolitionist "Jayhawkers" — including the notorious John Brown — vied with so-called "Border Ruffians" in ferocity, each side convinced that the righteousness of their cause justified any act of violence. In communities throughout Missouri people were forced to choose sides, often against their will.2
The newly-elected Governor, Claiborne Fox Jackson, like Oxley and many other Missourians, was a transplant from Kentucky. He took office in early 1861 just as the Union was coming apart. Under even more stress than Kentucky, another Border State with divided loyalties, Missouri leaders vainly tried to keep out of the fight by proclaiming "neutrality", a pious fiction that neither side chose to observe for long. The stakes were too high. The first major use of force occurred 10 May when Nathaniel Lyon, a regular army officer and a zealous Republican, occupied the US arsenal in Saint Louis, armed loyalist Home Guards, and sent other weapons to Illinois, thwarting secessionist plans to take the arms. His actions sparked riots in Saint Louis, which he put down with gusto.
In spite of frantic last-minute negotiations among military and politcal leaders, the pretense of neutrality collapsed completely. On 12 June Gov. Jackson called for volunteers to protect the state as Federal troops under Lyon moved to occupy the state capital, Jefferson City. Jackson and his supporters, mostly Southern sympathizers, fled, first to Boonville and then south to the protection of the Confederate Army. Meanwhile a state convention, under the watchful eyes of Union soldiers, voted to declare the governorship vacant. During the summer, the North suffered setbacks with defeats at Carthage, on 5 July, and Wilson's Creek, 10 August, just two weeks before Oxley and his nighbors joined up. Anxiety among Lincoln's supporters must have increased with another Confederate victory at Lexington in mid September, just days before the regiment's arrival at Benton Barracks in Saint Louis on the 24th to become part of the Federal Army.
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| Miltary actions in Missouri during the summer and fall of 1861. Everything from skirmishes up to a couple of real battles. (From a list in the Official Records.) |
Political infighting and bureaucratic confusion hampered Union efforts to create an effective military force in Missouri, with commanders coming and going every few weeks. John Charles Fr�mont — a media darling famous for his explorations of the West — took command at the end of July, but neither he nor his subordinates seemed to know what they were doing. The tiny officer corps of the Regular Army was overwhelmed by the flood of volunteers into newly-created regiments. A few of the volunteer officers had experience from the Mexican War and even fewer were West Point graduates, but most holding command positions at the company and regiment level had run nothing bigger than a farm or a general store. Organizing thousands of men into fighting units required more than teaching raw recruits (mostly farmboys) how to march and how to shoot. The men had to be fed and clothed and sheltered and moved from one place to another. And equipped and paid. And kept fit and healthy. These demands proved beyond the capacities of many commanders, no matter how dedicated and well-intentioned they may have been, and Oxley's experiences provide a good example of the confusion rampant in the first year of the war.3
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| New troops drilling in Saint Louis. |
The best account of what happened when the new troops gathered in Saint Louis, in late September 1861, was provided by John A. Fisher, who had helped raise Company D.4
About this time an order was issued for three hundred men of the 23d Mo. fifty men from each of the six companys then in camp to Report to headquarters at daylight for instructions, one Commissioned Officer from Each company. I was in command of Co. D.s Detail. Said Oxley Johnson was one of my Detail. Lt. Perie had command of the whole Detail from our Regiment. He marched us through St Louis, from one Headquarters to another for instruction what to do from Early morning till after the middle of the day when we reached Stock yard near Mound Market. There he was informed that we were to catch and harness unbroken Mules, which he refused to do saying thats the Men did not Enlist for that kind of Service. I told him unless he ordered me not to, that Co. D. would catch Mules. He said I could do as I pleased. So I ordered Co. D. to go to catching Mules. We worked there about an hour catching and harnessing Mules. The Men were jerked around in every directing yet they seemed to Enjoy it. Then Lt. Perie ordered us in line and marched us back to Benton Barracks where we arrived about three O'clock in the afternoon tired and hungry.
Lt Perie Reported
what he had done at Headquarters. Genl Curtiss ordered him to take these same Men Back to the Mule Pen as soon as Possible and catch Mules. I being very tired was relieved at my own request by Lt Carnwell. Next Day I joined the Detail at the mule yard Near Mound Market, about the middle of the day, where I found the Men without food or Shelter, Except what the could beg from the citizens. They had Slept in the yard and on floors in adjoining Buildings, caused by Lt Carnwell's Drunkeness. The Majority of the Men were complaining of Diarrhea caused Probily by fatigue Exposure and Eating to many watermellons and fruit which they beged arround the Market as they had no money to buy with as they had not been payed yet. This duty lasted about three days. After we returned to Camp Benton, said Oxley Johnson complained of piles and was treated by the regimental Surgeon for the same.
Subduing a recalcitrant Army mule.
From Leslie's Magazine
Oxley reported that he suffered from "chronic diarrhea and piles" in September and just before leaving Saint Louis, "I was taken with a severe headache at Camp Fremont" which may have been the onset of measles.5
In late October the new regiment was part of an expedition sent to central Missouri.
Oxley's contention was confirmed by the affidavits of several of his comrades who endured the trip, including John Garll:6
"Sometime in the fall I think it was October 1861 at Schofield Barracks St Louis Mo Oxley Johnson took down sick. At the time we got on the cars he had the measles. While in open cars in going from St Louis to Macon City Mo the weather was cold and stormy and the Said Soldier took cold with the said measles. At Macon City Mo the weather was mostly cold and disagreeable. We remained there but a few days And then moved to Chillicothe Mo the same part of 1861. During all of Said time Said soldier was exposed to the inclemency of the weather and became entirely helpless, not able to turn round in bed. At Chillicothe Mo a great many of the Regt were taken with the measles. I frequently saw him almost daily while he was in hospital at Chillicothe Mo. Before he was taken to Hospital he belonged to the same mess I did. He had no use of his back at all while in hospital."
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| Route of the 23rd Missouri in October and November 1861 An 1860 map of the railroads north of the Missouri River. Stopping points in red, as is Cainsville. (Macon City is shown with its original name of Hudson.) |
Lieutenant Fisher described the unit's journey:7
In October 1861 our Regt. was in camp on Chattau [Choteau] Ave. & Hickery St. in St Louis Mo. The latter part of October our Regiment left St. Louis Mo. by Steam Boat for St Charles Mo, where we Boarded open flat cars Expecting to meet an Enemy near Mexico or Wellsville Mo. Sometime during the night. The weather was clear and cold and windy. We moved Slow and cautious, put in most of the night between St Charles & Wellsville. Early in the Morning we Built fires and got our Breakfast near Wellsville. After Breakfast we went to Macon City, Mo. At Macon City said Oxley Johnson complained of being Sick and was reported so at sick call. We had no Hospital at Macon city so the Sick had to remain in their Mess tents during our stay at Macon. The Regiment moved from there to Chillicothe Mo. leaving Co. D. with me in commd and the only commissioned officer with it, Capt. Robinson, absent on Detached Duty & 2d Lt Carnwell previously resigned, my orders from Col. J. T. Tindall was to remain at Macon City untill Col. Grasbecks Ohio Regiment arrived, then I was to take the first rain west for Chillicothe, Even if it was a freight train. In a day or two Grasbecks Regt arrived. The first train after Col. Grasbecks arrival was a freight train of empty Box cars. We boarded the train in the afternoon in a misty rain. Towards night it cleared up with a cold north west wind. The train stoped at Brookfield for the night. We again built fires along the track and set arround them till after daylight. There Johnson Still complained of being sick. Then we took the train again for Chillicothe where we arrived about 11 oclock A.M. that day. When we arrived at Chillicothe I had to rept to Col. Tindall, and the orderly Sergt. of Co. D. took all the Sick to the Hospital, said Oxley Johnson being one of the Number. This was about the first week in November 1861. His sickness proved to be measles. He was treated by the regimental Surgeon in Hospital at Chillicothe Mo. from the first week in November 1861, to the 18th of March 1862. From that time on Said Johnson never done any duty in the company that I heard of. On or about the 18th of March 1862 I visited the Hospital and left money to be divided among the sick of Co. D., money which I Borrowed from the Sutler of the Regt. for that purpose, and Said Johnson was one of the number.
Eugene B. Fisher, a sergeant, told a similar tale.8
"On or about the last week in October 1861 my Co. D and the rest of the Regiment left St Louis, Mo. for Chillicothe, Mo. on the Hannibal & St Joseph rail road for the Purpose of guarding the said rail road. We went on a steam boat from St Louis, Mo. to St Charles, Mo. at which Place we got on flat or open cars, on which we rode to Macon City, Mo. As the weather was cold and raw we were very much exposed to the weather for one night and part of a day. Said Oxley Johnson took the Measles while on this trip from St Louis to Macon City. When we got to Macon City there was no Hospital there and the said Oxley Johnson had to lay in camp Several days. He had the Measles very bad at that time. Said Oxley Johnson was treated by the Regimental Surgeon during his Sickness at Macon City, Mo. Our Co. D. got to Chillicothe sometime during the first week in November 1861, and Said Oxley Johnson was taken to the Hospital there and the Regimental Surgeon treated him there for the above complaint. My Regiment left Chillicothe, Mo. the 18th of March 1862 for St Louis. At that time the said Oxley Johnson looked very bad and we had to leave him and a Number of our Boys behind as they were to[o] sick to go with us."
Other
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| Federal troops waiting to go somewhere in luxurious boxcars. (These soldiers were in Virginia, not Missouri.) |
Several of his comrades, including fellow privates J. H. Bishop and James Ross, recalled that Oxley was hospitalized with measles at Macon, and that by the time he reached Chillicothe he was in bad shape, as were others in the company. "I had the measles and several other boys and Johnson was sick at the same time and in the same room," said Lemuel D. Bishop. James Halloway noted that Johnson was "so blind he could not see his way." David Rope added that Doctor Ralph had treated Oxley for measles and bad eyes.10
The crowded conditions ensured that infections were passed around. Francis Marion Hanson stated, "I being a Bunk Mate took the measles myself from Johnson." And later reiterated, "Belonging to the same Co. & mess I slept with him and caught the measles from him."11 A soldier who went into the hospital with one ailment might soon have two others.It's clear that Oxley had at least three diseases. The most serious seems to have been measles, a highly contagious viral infection, sometimes leading to conjunctivitis (inflamation of the lining of the eye) which can be severe, even to the point of blindness. Diarrhea can be caused by several infectious agents, but for it to linger for years suggests he may have contracted amoebic dysentery or some other parasitic disease. Oxley stated in 1880 "That at times I am troubled with Chronic Diarrhea contracted in the U.S. Service though not so bad as when I was discharged. Also with Piles all the time both blind & Bloody So bad at times that the blood runs through my pants when I have on no pad. Also with Rheumatism so bad at times that I cannot walk..."12 Rheumatism can have a variety of causes, including exposure and/or infection.
A later historian observed, "Measles was perhaps the worst infection from a standpoint of prevalence and complications such as pneumonia and mastoiditis. Some surgeons went so far as to say that the bulk of all serious illness was traceable to this particular eruptive fever." The same source noted that diarrhea and dysentery caused as many as 60,000 deaths.13 Authorities tallied 155,049 cases of 'acute rheumatism' in the Union Army.14
Friends and family members from the Cainsville area were able to visit the troops and bring comfort to the sick. Among Oxley's visitors was Emily Chapman, who said later, "[S]he also saw him at Chillicothe Mo in Jan 1862. [H]e was sick could just barely get around."15
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| Chillicothe a few years after the war. I have not been able to find any leads to the location of the house that served as a hospital. |
When Oxley had passed the crisis point, somehow surviving the acute phase of his diseases, the doctors sent him home on furlough. They recognized that they couldn't do much for him and probably figured that if he was going to die, it might just as well be at home. Less paperwork for them and less responsibility. And he might just get better. He recalled, "I think I was at home twice during the winter and when the regiment left Chillicothe Mo sometime in March 1862, I think I was left in the hospital and in two or three days afterword John Covey came there to see his son and took me home, it only being about sixty miles from my home, where I remained until I was dishcharged."16
According to Eugene Fisher, Oxley still had sore and inflamed eyes when Sgt Fisher left with the regiment on 18 March for Saint Louis and Tennessee.17
It is possible that the Regimental Surgeon, John B. Ralph, a small town doctor before the war, had garduated from an accredited medical school, but most contemporary physicians practiced medicine without much formal education, having served only an informal apprenticeship with an established doctor. Also, state licensing requirements were minimal or nonexistent, especially in states not long removed from the frontier.
Medicine was on the verge of great advances, but most doctors in the 1860s had no conception of the germ theory of disease or even an understanding of the need for antiseptic measures. Although most physicians could set broken bones and sew up wounds, there wasn't much they could do in the face of infectious disease except try to keep the patient alive until the disease had run its course. They could sometimes alleviate the symptoms and make the patient feel better, but often there was little they could do bring about a cure.
Sometimes their treatments caused more harm than the disease, such as one Oxley endured in the Chillicothe hospital, when his caregivers applied blistering agents to his chest, perhaps to relieve congstion of the lungs. The painful aftereffects lingered for months. His wife recalled that when Oxley came home on leave, he "had some trouble with his breast and right lung for which the Army Surgeons had blistered his entire breast from right to left lung, which cause him great suffering."18
Oxley was lucky to survive. Far more soldiers succumbed to disease than fell to enemy action. According to figures compiled by Major Rex Allen Gooch, of the 236 deaths suffered by the 23rd Missouri during the war, 2 officers and 57 enlisted men were killed or mortally wounded and 4 officers and 173 enlisted men died from disease.19
"Approximately 225,000 Federals and 164,000 Confederates simply 'died of disease.' For the first year over one-quarter of the Union Army and close to one-half of the Confederate army were on sick call, and just about five times as many died of disease as wounds on both sides. Though the sickness rate tended to improve in the North, in the South the shortage of food, medicines, clothing and shelter did much to break the camel's back."20
Although many of military doctors lacked both the scientific and administrative background to deal effectively with the challenges they faced, as the war ground on year after year the Union Army's Medical Corps — with civilian help — did manage to rise above the chaos that was so evident in 1861. "The Medical Department's poor early showing was part of the Union army's general lack of readiness. The Commisary and Quartermaster Departments, for example, were unprepared for the needs of an army so much larger than the peacectime force. The resulting chaos in housing and feeding the volunteers contributed to the soldiers' illnesses."21
Since Oxley never got further than Saint Louis, and was there for less than a month, he escaped the regiment's baptism of fire at Shiloh 6 and 7 April 1862, where many of his healthier comrades were killed or captured.
While he was recuperating back in northwest Missouri, conditions in other parts of the state deteriorated as Union authorities resorted to increasingly harsh measures to surpress Southern symapthizers, pushing the state to the verge of bloody anarchy. The after effects lasted for a generation, poisoning politics and straining civic relations.22
Like most of those who lived through the Civil War, Oxley took pride in his service, as brief and nearly fatal as it was. He joined the Grand Army of the Republic, and his experiences became part of the family lore among his descendants. Many decades later, Blossom Lowe Bristow wrote her younger cousin, Ruth Fogleman, a fantasized version of Oxley's suffering:23
Dear Little "Roosie," as your Dad always called you,
Yes our Grandfather was sent on a secret mission for the Union Army. Another soldier went, too. But they were captured by the Rebels and beaten almost to death & thrown into prison. Penned up in Libby? or Andersonville — Will try to find details. The cruelty and horrible treatment almost ruined his life. Had to sleep on the ground — Very little food — He was a dam Yankee, they called him — He wouldn't talk about it, but Grandma used to tell me that was why he had the terrible heart attacks, & of course, Rheumatism of the heart. ...
She went on to accuse some of the Johnson inlaws of harboring Rebel sympathies — without foundation as far as I can tell. The note, apparently in response to a question from Ruth, is undated but likely was written in the 1920's when Ruth would have been a teenager, and both grandparents in their graves.
Blossom loved a good story (especially gruesome tales — her library included several books on disasters such as the Johnstown flood and the Titanic sinking), and she was not above "improving" events for dramatic effect. She transformed her grandmother Martha's complaints about Oxley's having to sleep on the ground and his suffering while in the service, and her understandable resentment of later bureaucratic indifference, into a narrative much more dramatic, even heroic. In reality Oxley never saw combat, let alone the inside of a Confederate prison. Blossom's version also had the advantage of not blaming the incompetence of the gallant United States Army for her grandfather�s disabilities but rather the malicious actions of the despicable Rebels. Blossom was a fervent patriot and devout Republican to the end of her days, her outlook determined in large measure by a war that had ended twenty years before her birth.24
Notes:
[Click on the footnote number to return to the text.]
1 An indispensable reference to the Civil War period is: E. B. Long with Barbara Long, The Civil War Day by Day, an Almanac, 1861-1865. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971). Goodspeed's History of Harrison and Mercer Counties, Missouri (Chicago: Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1888 [reprint 1972]) touches on the raising of the 23rd. The Harrison County Genweb site offers more bits and pieces.
2 Two works by William E. Parrish remain helpful in understanding what happened in Missouri, Turbulent Partnership: Missouri and the Union, 1861-1865. (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1963) and volume three of the extensive A History of Missouri: the Missouri Sesquicentennial Edition (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1973).
3 The accounts of Oxley and his comrades in Company D about the events of that fall are reasonably consistent, allowing for both the passage of time and for the possibility of a little coaching. Oxley Johnson Pension files, Claim No. 237,502. Photocopy of original documents in National Archives.
4 Pension files. John A Fisher (21 Jun 1888). See a complete transcription of Fisher's affidavit with notes about some of the people involved.}.
5 Deposition (4 Oct 1884).
6 John Garll (31 Oct 1891).
7 John A. Fisher, above.
8 Eugene B. Fisher (4 Nov 1887).
9 Robert L. Oxford (22 Feb 1886); also Isaac Young (31 Mar 1888) and Charles Mullins (21 Feb 1890).
10 J.H. Bishop (5 Feb 1886); James Ross (5 Feb 1886); Lemuel D. Bishop {13 Apr 1885}; James Holloway {9 Aug 1882}; David Rope (18 Feb 1886).
11 Francis M. Hanson (12 Sep 1889; 2 Oct 1891).
12 Oxley Johnson (25 Dec 1880). In a later detailed statement Martha said that when her husband returned home on his first medical furlough in December 1861, "he was pale and emaciated and suffering severely from diarrhea, the discharge from the bowels being small in quantity, very frequent and apparently composed only of blood and mucous; this condition of the claimant continued, almost constantly for about a year subsequent to ... said claimant's discharge [from] the service, when the diarrhea became less troublesome, and bleeding piles ... ensued; the claimant has been subject to periodical returns of each os said diseases, more or less each year from the date of his discharge the service to this date." Martha Johnson (14 Jun 1904).
13 Stewart Brooks, Civil War Medicine (Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, 1966), 120. "According to the sugeon general's report, the annual mobidity rates for diarrhea and dysentery per 1,000 (of mean aggregate strength) were 543 among the Federals, and 987 among the Confederates; and the total number of deaths reached at least the 60,000 mark!" Brooks, 114. He described the types of dysentery as: amoebic (Entoamoeba histolyica); bacillary (Shigellae); as well as salmonellae and viruses. Ibid., 115.
14Alfred J. Bollet, M.D., Civil War Medicine: Challenges and Triumphs (Tucson: Galen Press, 2003), 307-309.
15 Emily Chapman (3 Feb 1886).
16 OJ (4 Oct 1884). John H. Covey (b 1812 VA) who lived just over the Mercer county line near Princeton, was the father of Benjamin F. Covey (b 1844 Ray Co MO) a Private in Co C, who died 7 Apr 1862. It is unclear whether young Ben recovered and rejoined the regiment only to be killed at Shiloh, or whether he succumbed to disease and died at Chillicothe. He is buried at the family cemetery, near Mill Grove.
17 Eugene B. Fisher {6 Aug 1888}.
18 Martha Ann Johnson, Affadavit (14 Jun 1904). An earlier affidavit (4 Nov 1897) is less explicit in attributing the blistering to the doctors, "When he came home he was sufering [sic] with his breast and lungs very much." Lucinda Zimmerman and John T. Stallsworth also mentioned the condition (both 3 Feb 1886). I have no idea what his doctors used or whether the therapy went as planned. Did they really mean to raise blisters or did something go wrong? The whole affair sounds like something from the Middle Ages or a witch doctor's recipe book, but the principle lingered on in home remedies until the twentieth century. I can remember a time in my childhood when my mother made up a mustard plaster and placed the smelly poultice on my chest to clear my lungs. I don't know whether the mixture was extra potent or my skin was unusually sensitive, but the promised gentle warmth soon turned to searing heat, and by the time my increasingly urgent complaints had convinced her to remove the noxious preparation, my chest, though not blistered, had turned a fiery red.
19 See Gooch's 23rd Missouri site. The regiment's experience was typical of units of both sides. Although the exact ratio is still a matter of some dispute even now, it is clear that microbes were far more lethal than shot and shell. "Over the course of the war, disease caused roughly two-thirds of the 600,000 deaths among the troops." Bollet, 257.
20 Brooks, 106.
21 Bollet, 14.
22 See Michael Fellman, Inside War: The Guerilla Conflict in Missouri during the American Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). One of Oxley's inlaws, Cornelius Lowe, who served with Missouri troops to the end of the war, witnessed a shootout on Christmas day, 1865, in which several people were killed. See my notes on Cornelius Lowe.)
23 Thanks to Ruth's daughter, Marty Fuller, for a copy of the letter.
24 Her first husband, Julius Lucien Bristow II, came from a family of Southern sympathizers; he was originally named for an uncle, Jerome Bristow, who had served in the CSA as a cavalryman with John Hunt Morgan. For the Bristows and the Civil War, see Aunt Polly's Diary). Another uncle, Tom Coombs, also rode with Morgan and left a Diary of his adventures.
