Chasing History: Exploring My Ancestral Roots - Post #24
By Tonya Graham McQuade
In today's post, I'm sharing one of the most unique letters that was included in the box of old family letters I received back in February - this one from someone named Rachel (I have not figured out who she was in my family tree) to "Cousin Bailis" (my GG Grandfather). She signed the letter "Rachel of Rebel Rendezvous" - and basically wrote him a letter telling him he needed to see the error of his ways and join the Southern cause. Another cousin added a note at the bottom and signed it "Nancy Neutrality." That certainly made me laugh.
I wanted to include the letter in the book I'm working on, Missouri Daughter, so here you can see how I have drafted it in. I'm still trying to figure out one of the names Cousin Rachel mentions - Ed Pace/Bace - and I am not certain about the skirmish to which she alludes involving Pace/Bace and Silas Gordon. There were many attacks by Bushwhackers on Union soldiers and their supporters. However, the details about the Platte River Bridge disaster on September 3, 1861, are historically accurate, and Silas Gordon is suspected of helping to lead that attack. My GG-GF Bailis Petree served in the Missouri Militia from Oct. 1861 to Feb. 1862 in the St. Joseph area, so it's likely he was tasked with helping to find Gordon and his men.
What the letter certainly captures, though, is how the Civil War tore many families apart - and this excerpt ends with Mollie pondering the divisions that now exist between her and the cousins with whom she played as a child, as well as how difficult it would be for her father if he ever came face to face with his nephews on the battlefield.
Excerpt from Missouri Daughter, Chapter 7:
Later that afternoon after returning from town, Bailis walked in with a strange look on his face and words clearly itching to escape from his mouth. “Would you look at this?” he said to Mollie, a sense of disbelief in his voice. “Look at this letter I just received from cousin Rachel.”
Mollie took the letter from Bailis’s outstretched hands and began reading:
February 25, 1863
Hurrah for Jeff Davis, for Beauregard, for Price, for Jackson, and every other brave man in the Southern army! Rebel Rendezvous
Dear Cousin:
Bailis, you see by the state of this that I have emigrated; pens and ink are more plentiful here than farther south, but I do not care for that. The farther north I go, the better I like the dear, dear South.
Now dear cousin Balis, why do you not come to see your rebel cousin and bring her to light the lamp of secession with, for as you surely know it has long since been blown out by these Northern winds, and we sainted rebels are wandering from our way. I am afraid we will wander so far North that we will not find our way back, and we will forget all our secessionist paths and rebel haunts - for Bailis, we all forget what we do in less than a week after.
Dear cousin Bailis, I should like to hear your opinion of the three last fights in Kentucky and Tennessee. I want to know if you are foolish enough to call them victories. If you do and anticipate any more such, you are to be disappointed for our valiant Jeff has determined to act on the defensive no longer. It is going to be entirely on the offensive (I don’t know if you have thought it very offensive all along). We are going to learn you that we don’t care for or mind your cannon balls and bombshells. We are coming north to your own soil to fight you. We are going to fight you with Bowie knives. We are going to show you what Southern chivalry is.
Bailis, I do not write this to hurt your feelings. It is to warn you of your danger. I fear I shall have been a traitor to my country if I say much more on this subject, but then you are my very dear cousin, and I have a faint hope of convincing you of the error of your ways, for you surely see it will be sure destruction to you. You may think you are safe away up here so far north, but just wait until warm weather comes when the wind ceases to blow, and when we can once more live in the hazel dells. Then and not till then will you see your blunder, benighted Bailis.
Bailis, I have heard it hinted that you were among the number that fought the brave Ed Pace (Bace?) and his brave little band. Oh! the grief of the south when they heard of his death, he having fallen behind a tree. And there was the brave Gordon! But he is now safe going south with the Arkansas traveler. I also hear your friends are making fun of our General Price. I tell you – beware! Oh! Take care - you will yet have to dance to a new tune of the Arkansas traveler.
Bailis, I hope you will not have any hard thoughts on this. I mean to make you mad. I hope the scales will fall from your eyes and you may get later to be President of the Southern Confederacy.
Bailis, if I have any more cousins in the Federal armies, I want you to read this letter to them; and if they are officers, give it to them that they may study it well and may finally see how they are bewildered and led astray. Dear Bailis, come to see me soon, and bring the rest of my cousins (if I have any) with you.
Answer this immediately and relieve the anxiety of your cousin,
Rachel of Rebel Rendezvous
Cousin Nancy is here from the south and wants to write you a few words.
Cousin Bailis,
I take no sides, but the South is a kind country, cousin. I hope the south will be victorious. Cousin Deb sends her love to you.
Nancy Neutrality, age 46
Nancy Neutrality, indeed! Bailis thought to himself. And that Rachel! Bailis remembered well the skirmish Rachel mentioned. His company had come across a band of guerrillas, led by bushwhacker Ed Pace, in their pursuit of the men responsible for burning the Platte River Bridge, and a number of shots had been fired. One shot took down Pace before the guerrilla band fled.
How could Rachel speak of him – and that evil Silas Gordon – as heroes? Innocent men, women, and children had been killed when that train derailed. Those guerrillas were not soldiers – they were outlaws, ruffians, and criminals, deserving of punishment. Bailis had been glad when the reports came in of the 18th Missouri Infantry’s success in capturing and executing some of Gordon’s men. Unfortunately, Gordon had slipped away – and now, here was his cousin, rejoicing in the fact.
"Oh, my. That is indeed quite a letter!” Mollie said with exasperation. “And to think Rachel believes that you are the one who needs to have the scales removed from your eyes so you can see the error of your ways! She cheering on this rebellion - and her family are still keeping slaves!”
“I’m not sure that’s true anymore,” Bailis replied. “Many of the slaves from that region have been freed by the Jayhawkers and have crossed the river into Kansas to freedom. I’ve heard that some have even joined up with that colored regiment Jim Lane put together, the one that was part of that skirmish at Island Mound over in Bates County against the guerrillas.”
“I hope all of them will gain their freedom soon,” Mollie said emphatically, her usually cool temper starting to flare. “How we have allowed that abominable institution to continue for so long is beyond me.”
Ever since she had read Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Mollie had felt even more certain of the need for Abolition. She had been extremely moved when she read of the determined Eliza hopping across the Ohio River on ice floes, her young son Harry clutched tightly to her chest, in an effort to prevent Harry from being sold down river and to escape her pursuing captors. Mollie had cheered when Eliza had finally reached Canada and been reunited with her husband George, who had made his own incredible journey to the North and freedom.
While Mollie’s parents had never kept slaves, some of the neighboring farms did - and her own Grandmother Hale in Tennessee had several slaves that her Uncle Enoch, with whom Grandmother was now living, hired out to help pay for her upkeep. Mollie hoped at least some good would come from this war – she hoped that the country would finally see an end to slavery.
“Now, calm yourself, Mollie,” Bailis encouraged. “I don’t want you getting upset. We both have cousins who have taken up the Rebel banner, but I don’t want to think of them as enemies. Think how your father must feel, knowing he could face his nephews on the battlefield! I pray that never happens. I’m glad his brothers Lewis and Enoch are too old to fight.”
“Yes, so am I. That would be too much for him to bear,” Mollie agreed, thinking of the Tennessee cousins she used to play with as a child.
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I hope you've enjoyed this peek at the historical fiction novel I'm working on, Missouri Daughter. While I have no way of knowing whether my GG Grandmother Mollie (aka. Mary Ann Hale) ever read Uncle Tom's Cabin, she certainly might have! She seems to have been well-educated and well-read.
According to Wikipedia, “Uncle Tom's Cabin was the best-selling novel and the second best-selling book of the 19th century, following the Bible. It is credited with helping fuel the abolitionist cause in the 1850s. The influence attributed to the book was so great that a likely apocryphal story arose of Abraham Lincoln meeting Stowe at the start of the Civil War and declaring, "So this is the little lady who started this great war."
I may be giving Mollie stronger abolitionist views than she possessed, but she was definitely a strong supporter of the Union cause. I believe it's fair to assume she felt torn by the divisions in her country and in her family, and she must have worried what would happen if her father ran into any of his family members on the battle field.
It's hard to imagine what it must have been like for those family members to reunite after the Civil War to sit down to a meal together, celebrate together at a wedding, join in prayer for a family member at a funeral, or sit down together at a church worship service. But we know it happened - that in many cases they found a way to put their differences behind them. Perhaps there is a lesson there for today as many families struggle with political, religious, and cultural differences of opinion and wonder if they will ever find a way back to each other.
Stay tuned for a letter from Bailis's brother, Benjamin Petree, in my next post. And don't forget, if you liked this post, to "Subscribe via Email" to get future notifications.
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