Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-09-16
}USHWHACKING GIRLS
lIsSOuri Maidens Who Played Guer-
rillaS During the War.
HE NOTED MAYFIELD SISTERS.
irutal Scenes Of Blood and Carnage in
Which They Took Part.
BEAUTIFUL AMAzONS IN MANI FIGHTS

CHTLLTCoTHE, No., Sept. 13.-Perhap,
he desperate nature of the Civil War in
Missouri will never be correctly understood
ave by the actual participants. 1t was bad
% begin with, and it grew worse all the way
Iown to the close, two months after Lee
urrendered
Plenty of men of Northern birth and
lineage wore the gray, and the guerrilla
ling, Charlie Quantrill, was an Ohio man,
10rn and reared. Some of the best blood
II the South was hottest for the Union, and
Scuth Carolinians Virgiuians and Missis-
ippians fought TO save it against Pennsyl-
.anians. Ohioans and Illinois men who tried
destroy it.
The rro-Confederates became the more
l-moraIized of the two parties: perhaps this
ras because, after Wilson'S Creek and Lex
nCJon. their cause steadily lost, and the
respects fo- its ultimate success daily
rEued. and desperation comes oftener than
eE-ua+ion from defeat, and madness, hot
as yitriol, frequently succeeds the coldest
despair.
AS RAD AS THEIR BROTHERS.
Women become as bad as their brothers.
Fr0m the sewing Of bandages and the scrap
ng of lint came the molding of bullets, the
-mucgling of caps, the making of cartridges,
md then living and spying and the Turing
md betrayal of men to death. In the coun
-ry It was hard to find a woman, no matter
now tair her face and refined her character,
who was really a non-combatant, and was
lot guilty of numerous acts of hostility.
Riding alone from Brunswick TO Laclede,
% The summer of 1868, Lieutenapt William
Reeves, of Davies county, a Union officer
ni militia, drew bride at a little cabin east
If Compton's Ferry, in Charlton county.
4 bright, cheery-faced little woman met
lim al the door, in one hand a butcher
zuife, in the other a milestone, her face
Hneanl. her eyes aglow. ''Hush," she said;
there's a reb in the back room, sound
lsleep Go in, quick and kill himi 1
I'D him I was a good secesh, too," she
vent on, land he says he is bushwhacker
md has been two nights without sleep, and
I fed him and coaxed him to go to bed,
md he has beenEsnoring for two hours.
Hurry in-don't mind the blood on the
agd. ."
And what were you going to do with
hat knife, " asked the officer
As soon as L got 1t sharp enough" she
.slmly replied, Il was going to stick it
through his heart
Think of that And three years before
rIs little woman, into whom the spirit of
I8el seemed TO have entered. was Sunday
.aool teacher, earnestly impressing upon
children the divine Injunction: "All things
whatsoever We would that men should do
anto you do We even so unto them"
The. officer secured the bushwhacker's
rims, then the bushwhacker himself, and
nh him to Laclede prisoner, instead of
...sylng him where he slept, TO the manifest
appointment and sorrow of the little
'stess who petulantly said: 81 have seen
a1s after they were dead, but wanted to
..- one killed.
SOME WOMEN SPIES.
There were more rebel women spies than
men. and they were the shrewdest, the most
-.llaus and the most unscrupulous. Some
". these underwent all sorts of experiences
r their efforts TO help the Southern cause.
some of them risked not only their lives,
ar their honcr-aye, and lost it, too, toss |
r- it gladly into the scale, believing that
.ha end would Justify the means.
There was Anna Ficllel, of Lafayette, a
mir Young rebel girl, who made Quantrill's |
..ank silk flag from the skirt of her dress,
and supplied the guerrillas with so much
powder. shot and caps that Quantrill ought |
g.. lave made her his chief of ordnance. 1t
WAS Anna and a woman old enough to be
n.r -randmother who compaSsed the murder
nt TWO | Union soldiers in order to effect the
ralease of Andy Blunt, guerrilla prisoner,
H.a was permitted to visit the grand
mothers house. Blunt escaped for the
.me hut 4 few days later the Saline county
~s.li,ia came upon him, and beat out his
brains with tobacco sticks. Miss Fickel |
..as sent TO Alton prison.
In 1854 nearly every Federal military
prison In the State had Confederate women |
inmates. They had been arrested for feed |
u- gUerrillas, giving them information and |
stance, spying upon Union troops,
r-tiuE letters, smuggling ammunition and |
Gwen arms and for other kinds of mischief |
a.ah certain rebel ladies delighted to per- |
r.lr.re. Some Of these were girls of Is to |
-. theirs were women of 40 and 50. The |
ritv Of these ladies were released after |
."r- imprisonments, but many were held to |
... close Of the war or banished from the |
state. Mrs Samuels, the mother of the
james boys, was sent to Nebraska.
BOLD PUSS MICHAELS.
n the latter part cf the war so bad had |
uiaCs become that least four score girls and |
women in Western and Southwestern Mis-
..rj became guerrillas purely and simply,
aGG they were not so very pure or SO Very
simple either. There was Puss Michaels, a
t1>> county girl, who was mortally wounded
b.. % fight between a squad of Missouri guer-
las ana some Kansas men, on the Marais
.'.~ tvTue>, in the fall of 1868, after the
..wrencc raid and massacre. She carried
$50 revolvers, was dressed partly in male
tire and died with her boots on.
There were 20 or more girls and women
with QUautrill and Bill Anderson at the
laughter Of General Blunts escort (65
nen), al Baxter Springs, the week after
Euss NIichaels was killed. have it from
IN ex-Cucrrilla, who was present, that half
dozen Of these bushwhacker bellies took
uart in the chase and massacre of Blunt's
UgE.
TWO NOTED SISTERS.
IN 1854 fully score of the rebel girls of
Vernon were riding with the guerrillas and
The most noted of these
were the Mayfeld sisters. Their mother
1r..- . widow, and they were young widows
Their husbands and two their brothers
Briee and Crack Mayfeld, desperate
1u~awEacAers. had been killed Sally Nav
HaIL as she was best known, though her
r.a. name was Mccoy, was a pretty young
woman - p in the spring of 1864 She is
ll.sr "a respected matron, a good Christian
woman. ami not long since lived near her
ala home In Southeastern Vernon.
Size Joined the guerrillas in the spring of
-#, becoming the wife of Dave Majors the
leader of a small band that operated in
Hautnwestorn Missouri and Northwestern
Arkansas. She rode with her husband for
unarcas Of miles, shared all his perils,
ar.-aips and privations, and was by his
- .a when he got his deathwound She had
t.uv "a narrow escape from death. Her
~. WAS often pierced by bullets, and she
4 Rows hat Il is 10 ride hard, to fight hard,
tr Ha hungry and tired and cold to hiyouac !