Frank James and the Civil War Battle of the Hemp Bales

by Sean McLachlan on


Jesse James must have been jealous of his older brother Frank. Jesse was only 13 when the Civil War started. Frank was 18, the perfect age to go off to war. Coming from a slave-owning farm family Frank naturally joined the Confederate army.

Many Missourians, especially city dwellers and the large German immigrant community, remained loyal to the North, while the majority of rural farmers supported the South. Most people actually wanted peace, but attitudes hardened as events spiraled out of control in the spring and summer of 1861. When Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to quell the rebellion, Missouri’s governor defiantly refused. Then the Unionist General Nathaniel Lyon captured a group of state guardsmen camped near St. Louis, fearing they planned to capture the city’s federal arsenal. The capture went off without a hitch (except for Lyon being kicked in the stomach by his own horse) but when Lyon’s troops marched their prisoners back into town they got attacked by a secessionist mob. A soldier and about twenty civilians died in the ensuing riot.

The secessionist government fled, soon replaced by a loyal state government, and the Missouri State Guard under General Sterling Price declared their loyalty for the South. Lyon led his Union forces from St. Louis west along the Missouri River valley, took the state capital of Jefferson City, and defeated a small State Guard force at the Battle of Boonville, one of the first battles of the Civil War. Price retreated with the State Guard to the southwestern part of the state to organize and train his green troops.

One of his new recruits was Frank James. He arrived with a group of Clay County boys, some armed with shotguns and squirrel rifles, others with nothing. They all itched for a chance to fight the Yankees. They didn’t have to wait long. On August 10, 1861, Lyons’ Union forces attacked Price’s Confederate camp at Wilson’s Creek. The Union soldiers came in from two sides, and as cannonballs flew through the State Guard tents, Frank James and his companions marched off to face the enemy.

%Gallery-108346%He and his unit charged up a hill overlooking their camp on which Lyon had placed the bulk of his force. Almost immediately the position earned the name “Bloody Hill”. Missourians fought each other through thick underbrush, attacking and counterattacking for hours. Meanwhile the second pincer of the Union attack was being wiped out to the south of camp. The battle tipped in the rebels’ favor, Lyon fell dead from a bullet, and the Union army retreated.

The fight left more than 1,200 casualties on each side, but the rebels exulted in their victory and marched into the center of the state towards the Missouri River port of Lexington. If they could take it, they’d control the river and the most populous pro-secession region in Missouri.

Col. James Mulligan, a tough Irish-American, had 3,500 Union soldiers at Lexington. While Price’s Confederates numbered more than 12,000, Mulligan decided to fight anyway. He dug trenches and earthworks atop a hill with a commanding view of the town. A stone building that served as a Masonic College added extra protection. The rebels arrived on September 13 and immediately surrounded the position. For a week they sniped at the Union troops on the hill. Volunteers swarmed in from the countryside to join Price. An account tells of how one local, an old man, arrived every morning with an antiquated flintlock rifle and a packed lunch, spent the day blasting away at the Yankees, and went home every evening.

Inside the fort Mulligan and his men grimly held on. No help came, and after a few days the rebels cut off their water supply. They threw back several determined attacks, and when the rebels heated up their cannonballs in an attempt to set the Masonic College on fire, Mulligan sent a boy with a shovel running around inside the college building, picking up the red-hot iron balls and chucking them out the window.

Frank James must have been getting nervous by this point. It had been a week and the fort still hadn’t fallen. Sooner or later a Union relief force would show up and there’d be real trouble. Then someone hit upon a clever idea. Missouri was one of the nation’s largest hemp regions. The cannabis plant was used for rope, paper, cloth, and many other purposes besides the recreational smoking that eventually got it banned. The harvest had just been brought in and the river port was filled with heavy bales of hemp. The rebels made a wall of these bales, soaked them with water so they wouldn’t be set on fire by hot lead, and started moving this wall up the hill.

Mulligan’s Union soldiers soon discovered these bales were bulletproof. Even cannonballs only rocked them. From behind the wall of hemp Frank James and his friends were able to get better shots at the defenders and the Union casualties began to mount. The noose tightened. Cut off, low on water, and with no help in sight, the defenders finally surrendered. Marijuana had won a victory for the Confederacy.

It wouldn’t last long. General Price realized his position was too exposed and headed back south. Frank fell sick with measles, a potentially fatal illness in those day, and got left behind. He was captured, gave an oath of loyalty to the Union, and returned home. Soon he was back in the saddle, however, joining William Quantrill’s guerrillas. Later he followed one of Quantrill’s lieutenants, Bloody Bill Anderson, and his younger brother Jesse joined him.

Frank and Jesse James’ war years were the beginning of their training as America’s most famous outlaws. They learned to ride, shoot, and hide out in the woods. Fellow members of Bloody Bill’s group formed the core of their bandit gang. With these experienced warriors they’d blaze across half a dozen states and into American folklore.

Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield has a museum and tours. The Battle of Lexington State Historic Site also has a museum (with a hemp bale they had to get special permission to import) and is in the center of a fine old town with lots of historic buildings. Check them out for more information about two Civil War battles that aren’t very well known outside of Missouri.

Don’t miss the rest of my series: On the trail of Jesse James.

Coming up next: Jesse James’ greatest escape

[Image of the Battle of Wilson’s Creek courtesy user Americasroof via Wikimedia Commons]

Coming attractions: Ethiopia

by Sean McLachlan on

There aren’t many countries that can truly call themselves unique. France has great cuisine, but so does Italy. India has challenging and beautiful mountaineering routes, and so does Peru.

But Ethiopia really is unique. It’s the only African country that was never colonized, and as far as paleontologists can tell, it’s where the human race evolved from our earlier ancestors.

Ethiopia’s Great Rift Valley is a treasure trove of fossils that have revealed our origins from something not quite human and not quite ape, and our slow evolution into something more recognizable. These fossils, including the famous Lucy, are on show at the National Museum in Addis Ababa. The great lesson evolution has to teach us is that we’re all related. Ethiopia is everyone’s hometown.

Ethiopia’s great history didn’t end with simply giving birth to the human race. It was home to a series of important civilizations that left a rich cultural legacy. The country boasts eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including the eleven churches of Lalibela cut out of solid rock. The one pictured here is called Bete Medhane Alem (“Savior of the World”) and is believed to be the largest rock-hewn church anywhere. Another entry to the list is the ancient capital of Aksum with its towering monoliths. Aksum’s rulers controlled one of the ancient world’s great empires for a thousand years from about 50 BC until 950 AD.

Ethiopians are proud of their history and near Aksum is the battlefield of Adowa, where in 1896 an Italian army determined to colonize the country was gobbled up by a well-armed and disciplined Ethiopian force in one of the biggest defeats of a colonial force by a native army in history. The Italians returned in 1935 under Mussolini, this time with tanks and poison gas, and took over for a few brutal years, but they never really controlled the country and got promptly ejected during World War Two.This is a large nation, almost twice the size of France, with several different cultural and ethnic groups and a mix of Christian, Muslim, and animist beliefs. The population of 79 million speaks 83 languages and more than 200 dialects. In the rugged highlands of the north are the Amhara and Tigrayana, who are mostly Christian. In the dry east are the Muslim Harari, whose main city of Harar is considered one of the holiest cities of Islam. The grasslands to the south are home to the Oromo, who embrace various faiths, and tribal animist cultures such as the Mursi, who are famous for the giant rings they put through their lower lips. There are many more ethnic groups, but it would take a book to cover them all.

One aspect of Ethiopian culture many people in the West have discovered is the food. There’s Ethiopian coffee, of course. Coffee was discovered coffee here and the Ethiopians have a pleasant ceremony to celebrate drinking it with friends. There’s also distinct cuisine that’s beginning to catch on in the West. A spongy, slightly sour bread called injera provided a base for a variety of meat and vegetable dishes. There’s lots for vegetarians to eat in Ethiopia, plus Wednesdays and Fridays are traditional fasting days when most restaurants and private homes won’t serve meat. Ethiopian restaurants have become popular in the U.S. and U.K. and provide a good introduction to the cuisine. If you’re in London, try Merkato Restaurant on 196 Caledonian Road. The best I’ve had in England!

If nature is more your style then try the wild and rugged Semien Mountains, another World Heritage Site, that offers unspoiled trekking where you can see rare species found only in Ethiopia, such as the Ethiopian wolf and Gelada baboon. You might also want to dare the Danakil Depression in the extreme northeast. An inhospitable desert 100 meters below sea level, it’s seen a record high of 64.4°C (148.0°F) and regularly gets up to 48 °C (118 °F).

Get there

A number of airlines fly to Bole International Airport in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. Since it isn’t a hugely popular destination prices aren’t very competitive but they aren’t outrageous if you shop around. I got a flight on Egyptair from Madrid via Cairo to Addis Ababa for only 550 euros ($830). Few flights from Europe are direct; most stop in the Gulf or North Africa. One odd thing is that many flights land in the wee hours of the morning. I’m getting in at 4am, so I guess I’ll just change some money at the 24-hour bank, hope one of the airport cafes is open, and wait until sunrise.

I’ll be there from February 9-March 27. It’s been a lifelong dream of mine to see Ethiopia. I’ve been studying the history for years and talking to every expat I can find. Now I’m finally going there! Expect to see lots more about this fascinating country on Gadling.

Ft. Sumter, where the Civil War began

by Jamie Rhein on

In the year of Lincoln’s 200th birthday, there’s plenty to keep a person busy taking in sites around the United States that are connected to the 16th president in some way. For example, there’s the Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. that has recently reopened and Lincoln’s boyhood home in Indiana, two sites we’ve recently covered. There’s also his home in Springfield, Illinois.

Here’s another. According to this article in the Dispatch, next month marks another anniversary of the day the Civil War began. On April 12, 1861 at Ft. Sumter in South Carolina, the 34 hour battle between the Confederate and Federal troops started when the Confederate army launched an attack on the fort. The Union army that was posted at Ft. Sumter wasn’t able to hold out against the Confederates. After the battle they headed to New York. Once the Confederates took over the fort, they never lost control of it.

After the Civil War, Fort Sumter was used during the Spanish American War and also during World War I. Today the fort is a historic site operated by the National Park Service. Accessible by a ferry that leaves from a dock near the Fort Sumter Visitor Education Center, it’s a place to take in an important part of the U.S. past that has influenced its present.

As a note, the park Web site says that Ft. Sumter has one of the best collections of seacoast artillery in the United States. If you go, also take in Fort Moultrie nearby on Sullivan Island. It’s a unit of Ft. Sumter and is significant because of its role in the 171-year history of U.S. seacoast defense.