| Newsletter Archive Volume 1 No. 8 August 30, 2004 Volume 1 No. 7 August 24, 2004 Volume 1 No. 6 August 17, 2004 Volume 1 No. 3 July 19, 2004 Volume 1 No. 2 July 12, 2004 Volume 1 No. 1 June 2004 |
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| Newsletter Archive Volume 1 No. 8 August 30, 2004 Volume 1 No. 7 August 24, 2004 Volume 1 No. 6 August 17, 2004 Volume 1 No. 3 July 19, 2004 Volume 1 No. 2 July 12, 2004 Volume 1 No. 1 June 2004 |
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| Find out What's new on the Shelby County Trail
Visit the main Illinois Trails History and Genealogy Website Clickable Illinois Trails County Map Illinois Trails County Locator Textbased guide to Illinois Trails counties online Shelby County is surrounded on - the north by Christian, Macon and Moultrie - the east by Moultrie, Coles and Cumberland - the south by Effingham and Fayette - the west by Christian and Montgomery Visit my personal Family Tree - My Father's Side (Edwards) My Mother's Side (Houser) Illinois Trails History and Genealogy Illinois Trails is an Independent, non-profit organization dedicated to providing free access to Historical and Genealogical Records Illinois Trails History and Genealogy. All Rights Reserved. Copyright includes all contents of this site and does not extend to any other entity. It may not be quoted or retransmitted without a full citation to the author, and may not be put into print -- in whole or part -- without the individual author's express permission. Submitters retain all copyright, along with the hosts. |
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CIVIL WAR RECORDS from the Shelby County Trail (Don't miss the personal account of Jasper L. Douthit - below!) Shelby County residents fought on both sides during the Civil War. Largely overlooked are those who fought on the Confederate Side. According to Gale Red, Commander of the Illinois Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the following Confederate veterans are buried in Shelby County, Illinois. Gale says, "So far, over 12,000 men have been found, most (about 11,500) are buried in the five national cemeteries at Alton, Camp Butler, Rock Island, Oakwoods (Chicago), and Mound City. However, we have found more than 500 so far scatterd in almost all counties of IL." Meyers/Burrus Cemetery, Herrick In 1880, in Big Spring
Twp, Butcher, Virginia A. (Simpson) is listed at PO Sigel Sec 13 Wife
of James T. Butcher, she was born in Indiana and came to Shelby County
in 1868
Big Spring Twp, Butcher, James T. is listed at PO Sigel Sec 13, Farmer & Stock Raiser, was born in VA and settled in Shelby County 1868 Unknown Cemetery, Herrick MCMANIMIE, Isaac Pvt., Co. H, 17th Arkansas Infantry Regt.(Lemoyne's), CSA, b. 28 Apr 1843 (AR), d. 20 Dec 1928 Excerpt from Jasper Douthit's Story: The Autobigraphy of a Pioneer In the fall of 1859 I came back to Shelby County, and my wife and I, now with one child, went to keeping house in a little cabin on a farm near my birthplace (at the head of Jordan Creek). The first time I got a chance to speak, I declared myself an Abolitionist. I believe I was the only one then in shelby County who called himself an Abolitionist in public. this shocked all of my friends and relatives. It was terrible, they thought; for in their eyes an Abolitionist was a monster, and now to think I had married a Yankee wife and turned Abolitionist! The newspapers made a sensation of it. Practically, so far as the local newspapers were concerned, there was no free speech on political questions in those days in southern Illinois. Although instinctively hating African slavery, yet through ignorance, I gave my first vote for James Buchanan for President, but I persisted in expressing abolition sentiments and was ridiculed and laughed at for my inconsistency. When my eyes were open to see my folly, I tried to make amends, not by allying myself with any of the existing parties but by pleading for free speech and fair play. It was my conviction that civil war might be averted if the questions at issue were only fairly presented to all the American people. Light was what was most needed; so I thought then, and I have seen no reason to change my opinion. But alas! the light could only come through the lurid flames of devastating war. "Fair Play in Politics," was the heading of a pleas of a half newspaper column which I wrote in the early summer of 1860 and sent to the editor of the Okaw Democrat for publication. The editor being a personal friend, I had hopes of the plea being admitted. After considerable squirming, he told me that he would be glad to favor me in any way that he could, but for the sake of the party he could not admit my communication; "and," said he, "if you take any decided stand against the old party, I shall be compelled to denounce you publicly." I did take a decided stand. But there was no paper through which to get my ideas before the public until the following July. On Saturday morning, July 28, 1860, the first number of The Shelby Freeman was published in Shelbyville. Mr. E. E. Chittenden, a frail but plucky man, was editor. My rejected article was published in the first number and I was made associate editor. The Freeman advocated the election of Abraham Lincoln for President, and was published weekly till he was elected and inaugurated and the first call made for volunteers to suppress the rebellion. Then the editor, Mr. Chittenden, answered the call and went to the war, and the first newspaper in southern Illinois devoted to free soil, free labor and free speech, died. In April 1863, the press which he had used was bought by John W. Johnson, to print the Shelby County Union. I enlisted from Shelby County in the army of the Union, and went up to the state capital to be examined and mustered in. I was pale-faced and frail in body. The examining surgeon shook his head doubtfully. I thought about it over night. I had left my mother in great distress and my wife reluctant to have me go. I was the eldest son, the other children were still young, my mother sorely needed my presence, and I had promised to live near her as long as she lived, which was expected to be long. Several of the friends with whom I had enlisted, among them my old teacher, Charles W. Jerome, advised me to return home, saying that I could do as much for the cause at home as I could as a soldier. Therefore I returned, just as determined to die at home for my country , if exigency required, as if in the army. I lectured on the slavery question and "preached politics" as they said, although I knew no politics except "Liberty and Union, one and inseparable." In the spring of 1863, I got into trouble with the "Knights of the Golden Circle." The real object of that order was to resist the draft, and secretly help the rebellion, but it appeared before the public in the guise of a "Peace Democracy." Thus it misled many well-meaning people and gave a chance for bushwhackers and other emissaries of the confederacy to come into southern Illinois. One of these came from Missouri into our district. He called himself a preacher. He held meetings at Liberty Meeting-house. This house had been built of the double purpose of school and church, in fact all sorts of meetings, for it was the only house were public meetings could be held in that district; and I had stipulated when soliciting funds to built it, that it should be always be open to the community and sacred to free speech. A lodge of the "Knights of the Golden Circle" was organized there by the Missouri bushwhacker, and a score or more of my neighbors joined it. Besides secret sessions, the lodge help open meetings, to which everybody was welcome. In these meetings peace and union were talked. I went to a meeting of the Circle and begged for the privilege of speaking in behalf of peace and good-will among neighbors. The Missouri man was presiding. I arose and said: "Mr. Chairman: I am glad to hear that this is a Democratic peace meeting. I believe in peace and true democracy. Therefore, I beg leave to occupy ten minutes or less in reading a letter from a brave and patriotic Democrat, Major General Rosecrans, and also a short article from the Chicago Times, the leading Democratic organ of Illinois," -- these authorities both condemned the Golden Circle organizations,—"Can I have the privilege?" The chairman replied that the meeting was a Democratic love feast and a private affair for the purpose of reorganizing the good old Democratic party, that I could not be allowed to speak or read anything, and that if I was to exercise free speech I could "go out to the brush and bellow forth." To the credit of the majority in that meeting, be it said, the chairman was censured for the summary way in which I was refused a hearing. Then, after I was put out, was held the secret session in which the so-called preacher and bushwhacker made a rousing speech. He said: "Had it not been for such weak-kneed cowardly traitors (the Douglas Democrats) we should have had the tyrant Lincoln dethroned long ago, yea, verily and beheaded. I tell you we must prepare to fight. Clean out your old guns and get ready. If you have no gun, go up north and press one, and while you are there press a horse and ammunition. If we can’t fight on a large scale, we can bushwhack it. If you don’t know how, I can teach you. I have had some bushwhacking experience myself." My younger brother, George, who was not known to the chairman and was so very quiet and sleepy-looking that night that he was not scarcely noticed in the noisy crowd, was not put out. This brother had an excellent memory, an reported that speech word for word. I wrote out an account of this meeting and extracts from the speech,es and I took it to the only newspaper then printed in the county. It was rejected, not because its correctness was questioned, but because the press of the county was then intensely partisan, and the editor said it would never do to publish such a report. It would create discord in the party and make votes for the "black Republicans." I then sent the report to the St. Louis Democrat, the republican daily, most widely read in this part of Illinois at that time. On Thursday, March 19, 1863, it appeared in that paper on the first page under flaming headlines that started the country. ...It was hot times for me for a while. Resolutions were passed and vigilance committees were appointed to warn me, and as a last resort to threaten that if I did not desist reporting names and speeches for public print I should be treated as a spy. ... In 1864, rumors were flying thick that anyone who attempted to take the enrollment for a draft would be shot. There were men who boasted openly they would do the murderous deed. ..."The Knights of the Golden Circle" were drilling in sight of my home on the prairie, to resist the "tyrant Lincoln" as they called him. I would talk and reason with some of my neighbors, but many were glum and mum, and would give me no chance to talk with them. Under these circumstances I was pointed to take the enrollment in the eastern half of the county. On receiving my commission I was offered a company, or regiment of soldiers, to be stationed in the county, but I objected to their presence, because I knew that in the counties where soldiers were present there had been riot and bloodshed. I was advised to start well armed, but I declined to do this. I determined to do the work peaceably, or die in the attempt. However, I took the precaution to change my hat and coat and to ride a different horse, from day to day, as I went about the work. ... Years afterwards some persons confessed to me that they, with others, had resolved on shooting me if I were seen near their homes. ...The first morning I went out to take the enrollment I went to the house of an old citizen who had heard, for he could not read, of the rumors about me. He was in the field at work. his wife kindly invited me into the house and sent the children after their father. He came, walking fast, and as he entered the room he snatched a gun from out the rack over the door, and holding it up, cried out, with some unquotable expletives: "Now you get out and go home in a hurry, or you will be shot! ... One night after this there were a dozen shots fired through the open door of my house about midnight. As the last shot was fired I walked to the door in my night-clothes, but the shooters dodged behind a hazel-thicket, and nobody was hurt. Until that time I carried no firearms and kept none in the house, although it was rumored and believed by many that I had secreted a lot of government arms in or near my house. ... It shows how partisan demagoguery, working on ignorance and prejudice, can inaugurate civil war and lead peaceable and well-meaning citizens to shed each other’s blood. Jasper Douthit’s Story: The Autobiography of a Pioneer, Jasper L. Douthit, American Unitarian Association, 1909. p 55 -69 |
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