http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~arcchs/ccconfed.html
From: "Robert W. King"
Subject: RE: Schnables - Missouri - Marion Co., Ar
Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 08:00:54 -0500
In-Reply-To: <95.1c027bcc.2a0661a7@aol.com>
Schnable's Cavalry is the unit that a supposed relation of mine was in. My
uncle (since deceased) found a pension record that a man surnamed King had
served with Col Schnable. The pension record seemed to imply that the unit
was a militia unit formed in the area of present day Marion and Baxter
County, Arkansas. On the strength of that pension record, my uncle was able
to join the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Personally, I have never been
satisfied that the man in question was in fact related to us.
However, that doesn't deal with your question. While I was trying to resolve
the question at the time, I didn't have much luck locating any information
about Col. Schnable or his unit. Indeed, it wasn't even clear whether it was
a Missouri or an Arkansas unit.
Since then I've come into possession of a copy of the appropriate volume of
Stewart Sifakis' "Compendium of the Confederate Armies." That most useful
reference work has the following information:
Schnable's Missouri Cavalry Battalion
Organization: Organized with six companies in the summer of 1864. Probably
surrendered at Yellville, Arkansas in May or June 1865.
First Commander: John A. Schnable (Lieutenant Colonel)
Assignment: Jackman's Brigade, Shelby's Division, Army of Missouri,
Trans-Mississippi Department (August-December 1864)
Battle: Price's Missouri Raid (August-October 1864)
So there - now you know as much as I do. :)
Actually, you might want to research Sterling Price, Governor of Missouri
and Confederate General and the history of the great raid he led into
Missouri in 1864.
I've lifted a few paragraphs from "Civil War in the Ozarks" by Phillip W.
Steele and Steve Cottrell that may help fill out the scene for you:
Just when it seemed that the Confederate Cause in the Ozark region was at
last growing too weak to be a serious threat, a major Southern offensive was
launched. General Sterling Price, who had been transferred back to the
Trans-Mississippi Department, received an order that he had been anxiously
awaiting for two and a half years. Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith, department
commander, directed him to take charge of a mounted invasion force and cross
the Arkansas border into Missouri. St. Louis was to be the main objective
and the gathering of new recruits was to be a primary activity of this
massive raid. Price himself had high hopes that the expedition would be more
than just a raid, but a full-scale campaign to retake the entire state. It
was with this in mind that Missouri's Confederate governor, Thomas C.
Reynolds, joined the expedition, hoping to be installed as Missouri's chief
executive at Jefferson City. Former Missouri governor Jackson had died of
cancer near Little Rock, Arkansas, on December 6, 1862. Earlier in the war,
a Union state legislature and governor had been sworn in following Governor
Jackson's retreat south.
After successfully eluding Maj. Gen. Frederick Steele's forces in northeast
Arkansas, General Price set forth from the town of Pocahontas, Arkansas, on
September 19 with 12,000 troops and 14 artillery pieces. However, "Old
Pap's" army was poorly armed and ill equipped. Many of his men .didn't even
have weapons as the invasion began and some 1,000 had no horses. Price's
legion of rough-cut troops, made up of Missourians and Arkansans, was
organized into three divisions under Maj. Gen. John Marmaduke, Brig. Gen. Jo
Shelby, and Maj. Gen. James Fagan. On the same day it left Pocahontas, the
'Army of Missouri," as Price named his force, crossed the state line.
[stuff snipped]
Meanwhile General Price, heading north toward St. Louis, received word at
Fredericktown of Federal positions. Spies told him that 8,000 troops were
encamped near St. Louis and ready to defend the city. He was also told that
a garrison of 1,500 Federals was at the nearby town of Pilot Knob. The old
general saw the chance of an easy victory and on September 26, he sent
General Shelby northward to destroy the tracks and bridges of the Iron
Mountain Railroad, cutting off the Union force at Pilot Knob from St. Louis
reinforcements. The rest of Price's army marched toward Pilot Knob until
late in the afternoon when they collided with Federals at a spot called
Shut-In Gap near the town of Arcadia where indecisive skirmishing took place
until darkness fell. At sunrise the struggle resumed with the Federals
fighting a delaying action through Ironton to Pilot Knob where their
commander, Brig. Gen. Thomas Ewing, ordered his men to take up positions at
Fort Davidson. Surrounded by a dry moat ten feet wide and over six feet
deep, the fort was an eight-sided structure with a nine-foot high dirt
parapet topped with sandbags. An impressive network of trenches beyond its
walls provided the fort with outer defenses. Gen. Ewing's force was not
1,500 strong as reported to Price, but actually consisted of no more than
900 men, some of whom were civilian volunteers from the vicinity. However,
with four huge siege guns, three howitzers, three mortars, and six field
artillery pieces, Ewing's men prepared to hold the fort against the
thousands of Confederates massing before them.
That afternoon, after a short and pitifully ineffective bombardment of the
fort by four cannons situated on high ground, Price ordered an assault. The
high-pitched Rebel yell echoed through the valley as thousands of men hurled
themselves into a hideous storm of shot and shell. Three times they charged
the walls; three times they failed to take them. The hellish gunfire mowed
down scores of brave, young soldiers. A few reached the moat, only to be
slaughtered by rifle fire and crude grenades. As the thunder of the guns
finally subsided, thick clouds of sulfureous gunsmoke drifted away to reveal
a ghastly scene of carnage. The fields before Fort Davidson were covered
with nearly 1,000 dead and wounded men. The surviving Confederates
bivouacked for the night and prepared to renew the bloody contest in the
morning, building ladders to scale the fort's walls. Word that the hated
General Ewing was in command of the Union force no doubt strengthened the
resolve of the Southerners.
Inside the jolt, Ewing tallied his casualties, only 75, and made plans to
attempt an evacuation that night. Incredibly, he succeeded! At 3:00 A.M.,
his troops quietly slipped out of the fort and in the nighttime chaos of
battle preparations, the Union force was mistaken by Rebel pickets for
friendly troops moving to a new position. An hour after the Yanks abandoned
the fort, a slow burning fuse in the powder magazine accomplished its
mission, setting off an incredible explosion that shook the surrounding
hills and left a huge smoldering crater in the middle of the fort. Not
taking a hint, the Confederates believed an accident had occurred within the
stronghold and that the survivors would surrender at dawn.
In the morning, Price learned that the fort was his but that Ewing and his
men were gone. A subsequent attempt by a portion of the Confederate force to
overtake the Federals was unsuccessful. There was no victory for the
Confederates to celebrate at Pilot Knob and large numbers of troops began
deserting the Army of Missouri soon after the bloody debacle.
Leaving Pilot Knob on September 29, Price marched north. His delay at Pilot
Knob had allowed the Federals enough time to rush reinforcements to St.
Louis. Deciding against an assault of the heavily defended city, Price sent
a small force of Shelby's cavalry to fake an attack there while he marched
off with his main force westward to Jefferson City. Upon reaching the
outskirts of the state capital on October 7, Price spent the day probing its
strong Federal defenses. The following morning he marched off and Thomas C.
Reynolds remained a governor without a capital. As the Army of Missouri
approached the area of Kansas City, it encountered strong Federal
resistance. Finally on October 23, the weary Confederates, now numbering
only 9,000, were soundly defeated at Westport by 20,000 Union troops
commanded by Maj. Gen. Samuel Curtis of Pea Ridge fame and Maj. Gen. Alfred
Pleasonton, noted cavalry commander from the Eastern Theater. This defeat
was followed by a hasty retreat south with the Union army in close pursuit.
Crossing the border into Kansas, Price's desperate army ravaged the land in
its path. West of the Ozarks, a portion of the Confederate army, under
Generals Marmaduke and Fagan, made a stand at Mine Creek north of Fort
Scott, Kansas. The Southerners were routed and hundreds were captured,
including General Marmaduke himself.
Crushed and demoralized, most of Price's ragged force nevertheless remained
intact and once again entered the Ozark region. Crossing back into Missouri,
the Confederates arrived at the charred ruins of Carthage on October 26 and
camped for the night. The entire town had been burned by guerrillas on
September 22. By October 28 the Confederate army was four miles south of
Newtonia and Price decided to set up camp and rest his men and horses for a
few days. Yet the relentless Yanks were still in pursuit and the tired and
hungry Rebels had just begun to gather corn from a nearby field when the
alarm was sounded that the enemy was within sight. Price ordered Shelby to
hold them back while the main force continued its retreat. The familiar
sounds of battle once again filled the air near Newtonia. When Shelby opened
fire on the Federals he met with immediate success and drew close to
overrunning them, pushing the Union troops back a mile and a half. It was
not the Curtis full force that had surprised the Confederates but merely
1,000 cavalrymen led by Gen. James Blunt. Since his humiliating defeat at
Baxter Springs, Blunt had been struggling to regain his military reputation
and when he located Price's camp he did not wait for the rest of Curtis'
forces to arrive before attacking.
Outnumbered by his foe, Blunt was forced to stretch his battle lines thin.
Shelby sensed his opponent's weakness and grouped several units for a mass
charge. He sent them roaring into the center of the Union line in a furious
headlong assault. But with the help of the blazing mountain howitzers of the
1st Colorado Battery, the stubborn Union force repelled the savage
onslaught. It is said that during the confusion of the battle, two Union
scouts serving as spies slipped from the Confederate lines and galloped away
under a hail of bullets. One was shot from his saddle while the other, James
B. Hickok, escaped without a scratch. This young scout later gained fame as
a fearless Western gunfighter known as Wild Bill Hickok.
Blunt's men began running low on cartridges as the battle continued. One
company of the 3rd Wisconsin Cavalry exhausted its supply of ammunition but
still held its position apparently planning to use their empty carbines as
clubs if necessary. Just before Blunt's men suffered the consequences of
their leader's impetuous aggression, Brig. Gen. John Sanborn's brigade,
accompanied by General Curtis himself, dramatically arrived on the scene to
rescue them. Shelby then withdrew and the fast approaching nightfall
discouraged any attempt of Federal pursuit.
Continuing its retreat south through early sleet and snow, the Army of
Missouri steadily dissolved, losing men to desertion and disease every step
of the way. On November I, army entered the village of Cane Hill, Arkansas,
and licked its wounds for three days. During this time, word arrived in camp
that a Southern force was besieging the Union garrison at Fayetteville, 30
miles away. Incredibly, Gen. Fagan sought and gained permission from Price
to take 500 men and an artillery battery to participate in the action. On
November 2, Fagan ordered his men forward through drifting snow in an
assault on the town. However, his demoralized troops refused to advance
within range of the Federal rifles. The Yanks retained their hold on
Fayetteville and the Civil War in the Ozark region was over. The Army of
Missouri trudged off into Indian Territory on a hideous trek to Texas in
which freezing weather and disease took a heavy toll on the desperate
survivors of this last great raid.
The foregoing would make it appear likely that Col. Schnable's command (and
hence your ancestor) were involved in the bloody assault against Fort
Davidson at Pilot Knob and the fake attack (called a "demonstration" by us
professional military types) against St. Louis while the rest of the Army of
Missouri marched off to the west. Then they were heavily involved in the
losing battle at Westport. They seem not to have been present for the
engagement at Mine Creek in which Gen. Marmaduke was captured. However, they
seem to have fought rather effectively under Shelby's good generalship at
Newtonia before withdrawing in the face of additional Federal forces
approaching the field.
Somehow, I rather doubt that Schnable's Cavalry Battalion stayed with
General Price all the way to Texas though. I suspect that they probably
slipped away after Newtonia or the stay at Cane Hill and went home to
Yellville where they spent the rest of the war being nasty to their
neighbors of the Union persuasion. At any rate, that is where they seem to
have been when it came time for them to surrender.
--
Robert W. King
I'm an ingenieur, NOT a bloody locomotive driver!
SnailNet: 19023 TV Tower Rd, Winslow, Arkansas 72959
BellNet: 479-634-2086
InterNet: robert@wildweasel.net
Web site: http://www.wildweasel.net
Subject:Schnables - Missouri - Marion Co., Ar
I am sending this to both lists as I have just discovered my missing
relative
I have hunted for 20 years. Anyway, I believe it to be him. Who knows
until
the papers come in.
Can someone help me with some military information?
William D. Shields (William DeShields) died in Alton, Illinois Prison as a
prisoner of war. With him was James Wilmoth. Both boys were captured in
Marion Co., Arkansas. William on 12/23/1864 and James on 1/10/1865.
However
it says:
Schnables Company; Missouri. Can anyone give me information on this
company?
I realize Boone/Marion counties border Missouri so this would not be that
unusual. But, as I remember from my Green History, it was said that many
young men were taken against their will by the Union Army. It was said that
was why the grain and valuables were stored in the Cave above the DeShields
Green Cemetery. Since it said James and William was captured, it is
possible
these are the young men the Green folklore was talking about. I was always
told William died of Measles, but it says he died of Small Pox which would
be
very easily crossed.
In December and January, 1865, was there any Union troups encamped in the
Yellville/Lead Hill area? When was the courthouse burned? Any information
would be helpful.
Schnables - Missouri - Marion Co., Ar by RPSODAPOP@aol.com
RE: Schnables - Missouri - Marion Co., Ar by "Robert W. King"
RE: Schnables - Missouri - Marion Co., Ar by "Robert W. King"
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