The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1869-06-03
(From the Glasgow (MoJ Journal
Che Mcneil Rutehery Mt PnImyl

earth IS cursed with the presence OF NC
| Neil, we feel it to be our solemn duty to
rehearse, once every year, the story OF
! the most atrocious and horrible occur
renees in the annals of barbarious war
fare. On the 18th day of October, 1862,
adeed was enacted at the Fair Grounds
at Palmyra, Missouri, which sent thrill
of horror throughout the civilized
world. Ten brave and true and lnno-
cent men were taken from their prison,
driven to the edge of the town, seated
on their rough board cofins, and for no
crime of their own, murdered like SO
many swine. Murdered Butchereu
By the old blotch upon creations face,
John Mcneil, now by the grace OF bay
onets, Tom Fletcher, and the Devil, is
Sheriff of st. Lopis county! and Radl-
cal in full fellowship. ~ ~ = :,
There was our poor, handsome, gal
lant boyhood friend, Tom Sidener. AS
pure soul as ever winged its flight
from blood stained sod to that God VINO
will yet, to all eternity, damn the tiend-
ish butcher Mcneil! Poor Tom, he was
model paragon of manly grace and
beauty. So exquisitely forned, features
so perfect andSo fair, so brave and yet
SO gentle, that even the vile reptile,
IWinchell, now editor of the Hannibal
Courier, said that 'in his beauty and
his wickedness, he reminded him OF
IAbsalom." Poor fellow He was en-
gagged to be married to a young lady IN
Monroe county. When he learned he
was TO be shot, he sent for his wedding
suit, which had Just been made, declar-
/ = 4 l. rTin inn N
lit, he intended to die in it, Arrayed in
his elegant black broadcloth, and his
white silk vest, when he mounted his
coarse plank coffin in the wagon that
was to bear him to death, he locked as
| if he wero going to be married instead
of shot! The very guards cried like
children when they bade him goodbye.
| Raising his cap, and bowling to the
weeping women who lined the streets
he was driven from their sight, forever
Half an hour afterward, six musket
balls pierced his noble heart, and his
white silk wedding vest was torn and
dyed in his martyr-blood
There was poor old Willis Baker, his
head whitened with the SHOWS OF more
than seventy winters. Heroic old man
With his white hair streaming In the
wind, he seated himself on his rude cof-
fin, and died without a shudder, retns-
ing with his last breath to forgive his
executors, and swearing he would "meet
them and torment them in hell, through
/ all eternity"
There was that helpless half-idiot boy
from Lewis county, who allowed himself
to be blindfolded; then hearing Sidener
and the others refuse, slipped up one
corner of the bandage, and seeing the
rest with their eyes uncovered, removed
the bandage from bis own, and died as
| innocent as a lamb,
There was Humstead and Bixler and
McPheeters.
Aud there was that most wonderful
martyr of all-yOung Smith, of Knox
Countrywide died for another man.
Humphrey was the doomed man. His
heart-broken wife, in widows weeds,
with her eight helpless, little ones in
deep mourning that was only less black
! than the anguish they endured, or the
heart Of him to whom she appealed,
rushed to the feet of Mcneil, and in ac-
cents so piteOus, that . soul Of adamant
must have melted under il, besought
him for the life of her husband and
father. She was brutally repulsed. But
Stratcham, the monster of Shelby
county, whom the angel of God, few
months afterward, smote with Hero
dian rOttenHess and worms-StratCh
am, whose flesh literally pctri-
fed and fell from his living
skeleton, at New Orlears-Stracham
who has long been paying in the deep
est, blackest hottest hole i'm pcrditiOn,
the penalty Of his forty-ply damnatiOn
deserving crimes, was Provost Marshal.
He saw the frantic agony of the woman,
called her into his office and told her
that he would save her husband if she
would give him three hundred dollars,
and then submit-bpt oh, humanity
shudders sickens at the horrid proposal
The wretched half-crazed, agonized
wife, not knowing what she did, acced
cd to save her husbands life. Aud the
next morning, she was found lying in
sane and nearly dead, with her babe at
her breast, near the public spring at
Palmyra. After all this her husband
was only released on condition that an
other should be shot in his place.
Eoung Smith was selected. And then
ensued i contest, without parallel in
all the six thousand years Of human his
tory. Humphrey refused to let any man
die in his stead; declared he should feel
himself murderer if he did. Smith |
protested that he was only poor or
phan boy, and so far as he knew there
was not soul on earth TO grieve for !
him; that Humphrey had large family
entirely dependent on him for daily |
bread, and it was his duty to live while |
he could. And Smith, the simple coun-
try lad only seventeen years old, the
Hero without peer on all Fame's
mighty scroll, took his seat on his
rough boX-and was shot!
We might dwell for hours on the in
cidents connected with the most fright |
full butchery of ancient or modern ages.
But why go onl The murder was done
The Confederate Government talked of
demanding the murderer Mcneil. Then,
a memorial" was gotten up, and signed
by two thousand Missourians, recon-
mending the accuTsed old monster, on
account of his Palmyra massacre, to the
special favor of Abe Lincoln And he
was promoted ts Brigadier General |
ship.
The green sod of the Palmyra Fair
Grounds long since drank up the life
blood of the ten innocent, heroic hearts.
The melancholy elms wave their dark |
boughs peacefully over the scenes Of
the terrible tragedy. The last time we
saw the place, the plow had turned up
a part of the historic grounds, and the
green corn glittered in the sunlight |
where once the murderer's musket
cleaned. All traces of the fearful
crime had faded from the spot; and |
everything was quiet, serene and |
beautiful, as of yore. But until the
heavens are rolled away as q scroll,
aud the great Archangel sounds
the Enell of Time, the Blood Spots of
She ia.myra massacre will stand out
deep, dark and inetfaceable upon the |
records of Earth's direst horrors Its
HIsAtinI memories can never, should |
never die. Generation after generation |
should repeat the story; mothers should |
1e'I II to their children. And the names |
Si butcher Mcneil aud all the signers of
us black memorial" should be in
sCIIOeu IN letters of flame pnos the