Saga of the 13th Missouri Vols

HDQRS. TWENTY-FIFTH REGIMENT MISSOURI VOLUNTEERS,
In Camp near Corinth, July 24, 1862.

Maj. J. A. RAWLINS, Asst. Adjt. Gen., District of West Tennessee.
SIR: I have the honor to address you for the purpose of calling the attention of the commanding general to the condition of the Twenty-fifth Regiment Missouri Volunteers in the command of which I have been since the 4th instant. September 20, 1861, the regiment was surrendered at Lexington, Mo., and in a short time thereafter was released upon parole. In October General Frémont then in command of the department ordered it to be disbanded and the men to be mustered out of service. The order was carried into effect October 26, 1861. Afterward an arrangement was made by Generals Frémont and Price whereby the Camp Jackson prisoners on parole were to be exchanged as far as their numbers reached for an equal number of Lexington prisoners. Under this arrangement a part of the officers and men of this regiment (then known as the Thirteenth Missouri Volunteers) received their release from parole but many still remained under their obligation. In February, 1862, the War Department issued a special order (No. 29) by which the muster-out was cancelled and the officers and men were required to report to regimental headquarters for duty. Col. Everett Peabody who then commanded the regiment thereupon published his order to the effect that those who failed to report would be treated as deserters.

Regimental histories of civil war units are often just as intriguing as reading about the battles in which they took part. As I was working on They Met at Shiloh, I puzzled over why I could not find much information in the Official Records for the 25th Missouri previous to the battle of Shiloh. It was only after having written my drafts and in editing that I discovered that the 25th hadn't participated in the Ft. Donelson campaign as I had previously supposed. While other regiments were freezing in the siege lines around Ft. Donelson, another drama was playing out.

Days after the defeat at Wilson's Creek and scattering of Nathaniel Lyon's federal forces in Missouri, Major General Sterling Price, in command of the Missouri Home Guard - forces sympathetic to the Confederacy and nominally counted as part of the rebellion but nonetheless representative of a neutral state marched triumphantly through Springfield Missouri unopposed on September 11th, 1861 and his van stopped on the outskirts of Lexington, Missouri for the night to await the arrival of the rest of Price's force.


Major General Nathaniel Lyon
The confederate force that overwhelmed Lyon at Wilson's Creek was smaller as it progressed into Missouri as the Arkansas troops under General Ben McColluch leaving Price with a substantial force. Facing them were several thousand determined yet hopelessly out gunned federals under Colonel James Mulligan in command of a brigade (the 23rd Illinois Infantry) of Irish, Mulligan himself Irish, marched from Jefferson City, Missouri, and once determining where Price was headed entered Lexington and began preparing for its defense. Here he was joined by a regiment of Illinois Cavalry (1st Illinois) and several hundred home guard. Colonel Everett Peabody, marching from Kansas City, Missouri, brought in his 13th Missouri Volunteers to add to the defense of this strategic and important city. 2,800 men to oppose Price's 10,000. The results were inevitable.

Colonel James A. Mulligan, cmdr 23rd Ill
Though Mulligan gave Price a few days pause and bought enough time to allow Major General Fremont to cobble together sufficient force to oppose Price, the 2,800 men minus those lost during the three days of fighting were surrendered on September 20th, 1861. It would be here that the drama would begin for the hapless members of the 13th Missouri and 1st Illinois Volunteers. Public outrage over the twin defeats of Wilson's Creek and of Lexington would see Fremont cashiered and Henry W. Halleck taking command of the Western Theater of operations. But, before Fremont left, he brokered an exchange of prisoners as alluded to in the above communication.
Mjr General Sterling Price
The problem with the negotiations for prisoner exchange was that Price held no Confederate commission and was not legally holding those captured at Lexington prisoner and Fremont, for his part, was holding men captured at Camp Jackson, Missouri Home Guard units encamped in St. Louis and prepared to take the federal arsenal were not legally prisoners of war but arrested. Due to the anomalies official Washington did not take a kindly view of the exchanges. Those men taken at Lexington were paroled on the field after taking an oath to not take up arms against the Confederacy unless duly paroled and to these men it was a serious oath taken and given in honor. Further, due to the paroles and oaths taken by these regiments General Fremont ordered they be disbanded and discharged from duty until properly paroled. So, men of the 13th Missouri headed for home and were not expecting to re-enter the service. The following extract from the Official Records aptly demonstrates how these oaths were taken:

Mjr General John C. Fremont

BENTON BARRACKS, April 5, 1862.
Major-General HALLECK.
RESPECTED SIR: We the undersigned respectfully solicit your attention for a few moments in regard to this article concerning the First Illinois Cavalry Volunteers, we having been compelled to come back into the service and that too under false pretenses; and we ask why all the members of the above regiment are not compelled to return if any part of them are? We do respect the oath which circumstances compelled us to take when we were taken prisoners at Lexington and there surrendered our arms to General Price of the Confederate Army. We there took a solemn oath before God and man that we would not take up arms against the Southern Confederacy. We consider it our duty to stand by that oath and if we do take up arms again we will have to answer for a sin which we are compelled to commit, and moreover we do not think that an exchange will relieve us from that oath. We cannot think that oath null and void; we would be happy to think so but we do not. The officers of this regiment can return to the service with a clear conscience as they did not take an oath but were released on parole of honor and have been exchanged. We wish to do what is right and we will do that come what will. We hope to hear from you soon.
BENJAMIN F. BROWN,
President.
M. B. SMITH,
Secretary of Meeting

What compelled these men to rejoin their regiments was General Order no. 29 canceling the discharges and, in some instances, forcing the men at point of the bayonet into rejoining their regiments. In the case of the old 13th Missouri, not all of the men had been exchanged in the Price/Fremont exchange and therefore still remained under their oaths. The GO no. 29 forced all men mustered into federal service back into their units regardless of the circumstances as evidenced in the above entry. Hence, while these men were being rounded up and reporting for duty in February, 1862 the battle for Fort Donelson was being fought and won. By March and April, the 25th Missouri, reconstituted from the cadre of the old 13th and mostly new recruits, was encamped with other green regiments of Prentiss's division awaiting their date with destiny.


Mjr General Bengamin Prentiss