He was not seen or heard from
again by Union officials until the summer or fall of 1863 when Moss learned
that he had showed up in Pike County living with or near relatives at Bowling
Green, where he'd grown up. Moss sent word to Union headquarters at St. Louis
of Gatewood's whereabouts, but Gatewood was not to be found in Pike County
because he had gotten wind that Union officials were looking for him. Instead
of hanging around Bowling Green, he fled to Kentucky, where he had other
relatives, and he later spent time in Illinois and in the St. Louis area, where
he worked on a government boat on the Mississippi River. In June of 1864,
special orders were issued at Troy, Missouri, for the arrest of Gatewood, who,
in addition to being an escaped prisoner, was also suspected of horse stealing.
In early October 1864, Gatewood made the mistake of returning to Pike County,
where he was intercepted and taken into Federal custody on October 7 between
Louisiana and Bowling Green.
The next day at Louisiana, Gatewood gave a statement saying he had been
discharged from the Southern army about the first of April 1862. This, of
course, was a fudging of the facts, since he’d been taken prisoner in Vernon
County about the middle of April while still a member of Taylor’s ragtag
outfit. Gatewood said that, immediately after his discharge, he returned to
Pike County from Vernon County. Shortly after reaching his old stomping
grounds, he went to Mexico, Missouri, and took an oath of allegiance to the
Union. He stressed that he traveled from Bowling Green to Mexico specifically
for that purpose.
Brought to St. Louis and charged with being a bushwhacker, Gatewood gave
another statement on October 11, 1864. He again admitted he had been in the
Missouri State Guard and the Confederate Army briefly during the early part of
the war, but he had never been a bushwhacker. He had taken the oath of
allegiance in 1862, and he had never been outside Federal lines since that
time. He said he was not now a Confederate sympathizer and that he sincerely
wished to see the authority of the Federal government restored.
Two days later, on October 13, Colonel Moss gave a deposition telling
what he knew about Gatewood. Moss said Gatewood had told him after he was
arrested in southwest Missouri that he'd never been in Confederate service,
that the hotel fight was the first time he'd ever fought against any Federals,
and that he'd only done so because he'd been persuaded by some of his friends.
Colonel Moss added that Gatewood, when interrogated at Osceola, had denied
killing anybody at the Montevallo fight but that he (Moss) subsequently learned
that Gatewood had said in the presence of Union prisoners that he had
personally killed one or two of Moss's men. Moss named Granger and Bowman as the
men who had heard Gatewood make such a statement.
On October 16, Gatewood was re-interviewed and grilled on the issue of
whether he had been a bushwhacker. He said he didn't know the men Taylor's
company attacked at the hotel in Montevallo were Iowa troops. He thought
instead they were Kansas jayhawkers. He also claimed he did not fire a shot
during the hotel skirmish. Seeking to prove that Gatewood was not a regular
soldier, his interrogator asked him whether he was outfitted with a uniform,
arms, and other equipment when he enlisted in Taylor's company. Gatewood said
he received some clothes and a minimal amount of other supplies when he joined,
but he admitted he had no uniform and that he and his fellow soldiers sometimes
had to "press" provisions from civilians. He denied ever stealing any
horses from citizens, however. He also said he knew of no instances in which
Taylor's men had killed private citizens. After admitting that Taylor's company
had only been with the rest of its regiment one time, he was asked whether he
wouldn't characterize such a unit as he had described as a bushwhacking outfit.
Gatewood said he did not think of it in that manner.
Gatewood was also grilled on the discrepancies between his statement and
that of Colonel Moss. Why, for instance, did he deny ever being in the
Confederate Army in 1862 when he now readily admitted having served in the
Confederate Army? He said he had lied about his military service when he was
captured in 1862 because he figured it would help get him released from prison.
Was it not true, he was asked, that Taylor's company had disbanded or been
broken up when Taylor was captured and that the remnants of his command that
fought the Federals at the Montevallo hotel were simply acting on their own?
Gatewood said he did not believe that was true. On the subject of whether
Gatewood had ever personally killed any Federals, his interrogator did not ask
about the specifics mentioned by Moss. He asked only whether or not Gatewood
had ever killed any citizens or Federals, and Gatewood denied those
accusations.
Gatewood’s case was turned over to Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Darr, Jr.
acting provost marshal general, who sought additional evidence against the
accused. Private Granger had already given a statement back in 1862, and Thomas
Bowman was tracked down at or near Little Rock, Arkansas, where he gave a
statement in early December 1864. Bowman recalled that he'd been taken prisoner
at Montevallo about the first of April 1862 by a band of men calling themselves
"Home Guards." At the time of his capture, one of the men of his
company was shot dead while standing guard in a horse lot, and another was
killed while climbing out of a hay loft. Bowman did not witness the killings
because it was the middle of the night, but he heard the shots fired and later
heard two or three of the so-called home guards talking about shooting at the
two soldiers. The only one whose name he remembered was George Gatewood. He
added that Gatewood did not specifically say that he had personally killed
either man, only that he had fired at them. However, Bannon thought Gatewood
was one of the men who'd done the actual killing.
Gatewood was lodged at Gratiot Street Prison when he was first brought
to St. Louis, and he was imprisoned there throughout the proceedings against
him in the fall of 1864. The final disposition of his case, however, is unclear.
Presumably he was banished to Illinois. On May 1, 1865, he wrote to Colonel C.
W. Davis, provost marshal general at St. Louis, from Washington, Illinois,
informing Davis that he had been released from Federal custody.
After his release, Gatewood returned to Missouri, where he married Mary
Alice Noble in Audrain County in August 1866. By 1870, the couple was living in
Henry County with two children. Gatewood later lived in Oklahoma, New Mexico,
and Arizona, where he died in 1924.
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