Murder of Lieutenant Miller

After Confederate forces were driven from Missouri in early 1862, the Civil War in the state quickly devolved mainly into a vicious brand of guerrilla warfare marked by robbery, sabotage, and murder. Atrocities were committed by both sides, but bands of Confederate-allied guerrillas, in particular, roamed the countryside. The bands sometimes preyed on civilians, but they especially targeted Union soldiers who happened to be separated from their units or former Union soldiers who'd returned to their homes. 

One unfortunate Union lieutenant named Miller found this out the hard way when he took a Sunday leave on April 28, 1862, to court a young woman in Barry County. The officer was spotted by noted guerrilla Hugh McBride and a companion named Smith Crim. The two men watched as Miller hitched his horse outside the girl's home, and then they crept up to the dwelling, When the two burst inside, McBride covered the officer with a shotgun and took him prisoner.

The two guerrillas took Miller some distance into the woods before McBride decided that he had to die. McBride ordered Crim to shoot the lieutenant, but Crim refused. An angry McBride then unloaded one of the barrels of his gun into Miller.

Crim, though, not McBride, was the one who suffered the consequences. He was arrested not long afterwards by Union forces and tried by military commission at Springfield in late September 1862. Found guilty of murder and violating the laws of war, Crim was sentenced to die by firing squad. 

The sentence, however, was not carried out, at least not immediately. In early 1863, Crim was transported to St. Louis and lodged in the Gratiot Street Prison.

Sources: St. Louis Daily Missouri Republican; Matthew Stith, Extreme Civil War.

The Spook Light Again

Back in September, I attended the annual conference of the Missouri Writers' Guild in Columbia, where Sandy Selby, editor of Missouri Life Magazine, was one of the speakers. I talked briefly with her before her presentation, and I remarked that my very first article for Missouri Life was published many years ago, 1977 to be exact, and that it was about the Tri-State Spook Light. She said that maybe it was time for an update, but I haven't followed through on the suggestion, because I haven't decided how to approach such an article or whether I even want to try. 

My latest book, published in January of this year, was about the Spook Light, and I'm not sure I have much more to say about it at this time. I guess my main hesitation is just that, as I discuss in the book, the Spook Light is no longer the attraction it once was.  

Oh, there are still a steady trickle of curiosity seekers who make their way to the out-of-the-way spot about twelve miles southwest of Joplin where the Spook Light, if conditions are right, makes its nightly appearance. Maybe half a dozen cars, give or take, might find their way to Spook Light Road on any given night, but that is nowhere near the number that used to frequent the road back in the 1970s when I first got interested in the light or even in the 1980s and early 1990s. Sometimes there would be as many as a couple of hundred cars over the course of one night, especially on weekends. 

The light lost some of its allure when both Spook Light Road and State Line Road were paved. Without looking the information up, I'd say that happened in the early nineties. About the same time, law officers, in response to complaints of rowdiness from people living in the area, started patrolling the vicinity more often. Also, Spooky Middleton, who used to run the so-called Spook Light Museum, retired about 1982 and died shortly afterwards, and no one stepped up to take his place. Because of all these factors, a trip to the Spook Light just lost a little of its rustic, magical appeal. 

I think another reason the Spook Light is not the attraction it once was is simply the fact that it's harder to see nowadays than it used to be. At least, that has been my experience. As I mention in the book, I attribute this phenomenon mainly to the fact that the trees on either side of Spook Light Road have been rather drastically cut back, thereby reducing the tunnelling effect that the V those overhanging trees used to create. Looking to the west along Spook Light Road (as almost all viewers did) was almost like looking down the sights of a gun, but that is no longer the case. Everything is more wide-open, which, I think, makes it harder to see the light or distinguish it if and when you do see it.

At any rate, I'm balking on trying to write a new article about the Spook Light, but it's still something I'm mulling over.   

The Past Two Days

Part of last week's post pertained to Missouri and Ozarks history, but some of it did not. What I want to write about this week has nothing at all to do with Ozarks or Missouri history. Instead, I want to relate a personal experience and give some thoughts and reflections on it. Sometimes, everyday life takes precedence over writing about history.  

Friday night, my wife collapsed and fell on our bathroom floor, almost completely unconscious. Fortunately, she had grabbed a towel rack when she started feeling weak and unable to stand, so that she didn't go down really hard. Also, I was nearby and helped break her fall.

I had already called an ambulance as soon as she said she was feeling bad, because it was pretty clear that this was not your normal "feeling bad" because of a headache or something minor like that. However, I called a second time after she collapsed to make sure help was on the way. 

The ambulance got here pretty quickly, although it seemed like a long time to me when I was waiting. The EMTs gave her some sort of shot that brought her around a little bit, but she was still pretty much out of it. They loaded her into a stretcher to get her out of the bathroom and down the hall, put her on a gurney, and wheeled her out to the ambulance. 

I followed the ambulance to the hospital, but I had to wait before I was allowed in to see her. The wait only added to my anxiety. I was finally told after about 15 or 20 minutes that I could go in and see her. When I did, she was beet red but awake and more lucid than she'd been after she collapsed at home. Gradually her complexion started coming back. 

At first, my wife and I thought, and the medical personnel seemed to go along with the idea (maybe just to placate us) that she had had some sort of allergic reaction. After a series of tests, however, the diagnosis was that some blood clots in her legs had gone to her lungs, which I guess is called a pulmonary embolism. 

The docs put my wife on a blood thinner, and she soon started feeling better. The doctors and nurses told us that she would likely need to be admitted for observation, however. This, mind you, was Friday night, and a room did not actually become available until early Saturday afternoon. 

By yesterday (Saturday) evening, though, she was ready to go home with a prescription for Eloquis, a blood thinner that not only prevents blood clots but also breaks up already-existing ones. 

Although it's almost needless to say, I'll say it anyway. I was very relieved when my wife of almost 52 years started feeling better and it looked like she was going to survive this medical crisis with apparently a decent outlook for no further complications. Although I've always loved Gigi, sometimes I guess it takes a crisis like this to bring that love into sharp focus and make one realize how much another person means to them. 

My Trip to Ohio

My wife and I just returned from a trip to the Columbus, Ohio, region. Any time I take a road trip across the country or even just across the state of Missouri, I am always awed by how much open land there still is in the United States. 

Our nation's population has increased by about two and a half times since I was born and more than doubled since I was a little kid. Yet, it seems to me that the amount of open land has not decreased by all that much. Indeed, some of the rural areas have actually lost population, while almost all of the country's population growth has been in the metropolitan areas. 

We traveled to Ohio by way of St. Louis and Indianapolis and came back by way of Cincinnati, Louisville, and St. Louis. Just driving across Missouri on I-44 between Joplin and St. Louis, one sees a lot of open land, but I was even more struck by the amount of open space in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky, because I've always thought of those states as at least somewhat more densely populated than Missouri. Except for when we were passing through the large cities (namely Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Louisville) much of our trip was through farm country. There were numerous times when only about a half dozen homes were visible when I looked around in every direction, as far as the eye could see. 

We saw some interesting sights along the way. In St. Louis, we visited the Missouri Civil War Museum at Jefferson Barracks and the Missouri History Museum at Forest Park. The Garst Museum in Greenville, Ohio, was also an interesting stop. The Annie Oakley and Lowell Davis wings of that place were very interesting, especially the Annie Oakley section. The highlight of the whole trip, though, was visiting with friends.