Remembering Our Civil War Heritage and
Heroes:
1861-1865
James Berry: Quantrill
Raider and Train Robber
Who Left Deep
Tentacles in Montana—Part I
By
Ken Robison
For The River Press
November 28, 2012
This
continues a monthly series commemorating the 150th Anniversary of
the Civil War and the veterans that settled in Central Montana. This month
features Confederate soldier James Berry who came to Montana Territory during
the Civil war; returned to Missouri for a life of crime as part of the Sam Bass
gang; and after his violent death, his widow and family came to the Shonkin
area to join her father.
The border
war between Missouri and Kansas, known as “Bleeding Kansas,” was a series of
violent confrontations from 1854 and 1861 involving anti-slavery “Free-Staters”
or “Jayhawkers” based in Kansas Territory versus pro-slavery “Border Ruffian”
elements or “Bushwhackers” from Missouri. Bleeding Kansas was a proxy war
between Northerners and Southerners over the issue of slavery. It set the stage
with the outbreak of the Civil War for special animosity and violence in both
Kansas and Missouri. Jayhawkers raided Missouri farms thought to be
pro-secessionist, freeing slaves and wrecking havoc. Bushwhackers raided Kansas
towns and farms burning and pillaging.
Throughout
the South, Confederate veterans fought and died for their cause, the War of
Southern Independence, But in the states of Missouri and Kansas, more than
soldiers died, as the conflict became one of “total warfare,” sweeping though
the civilian population of farms and towns with a ferocity greater than perhaps
any other region.
Despite the
fact that Missouri’s Governor favored secession and pro-secessionist officers
led the state’s militia, the Missouri State Guard, the state remained in the
Union at the outbreak of the Civil War because of decisive action by Union
troops stationed in St. Louis. Along the Missouri River corridor a large slave-owning
area known as “Little Dixie” remained in insurrection throughout the early
years of the war. For the Confederacy, the Missouri State Guard under General
Sterling “Old Pap” Price conducted much of the fighting. Supporting the
partisan rangers of the State Guard were quasi-military units such as William
Clarke Quantrill’s Raiders and Bloody Bill Anderson’s gang. These units wrote
their own rules of warfare and often dressing in civilian clothes or Union
uniforms. They left a bloody trail as they employed hit and run tactics, often taking
no prisoners.
Three Berry
brothers, Isaac “Ike”, Richard “Dick”, and James “Jim” Berry grew up in
Callaway County, Missouri in the heart of “Little Dixie.” James F. Berry was
born in 1838 near Shamrock, Callaway County, fifth of ten children of farmer
Caleb and Virginia Fulkerson Berry. By 1860 James was off the farm, owning and
operating a grocery store in nearby Williamsburg. He was described as being
very talkative, having sandy red hair, often with a chin beard, 5’ 9” tall,
with a round full face that got very red when he was drinking.
As with many
unconventional forces of the Confederacy, few records were kept and even fewer
survive, and this is the case with Quantrill and Anderson’s men. Post-Civil War
reconstructions, such as the William Pennington List offer well-researched insight
into those who likely served in the war with both William Quantrill and Bill
Anderson. Among Quantrill’s men were later famed outlaws, Jesse and Frank James
and the Younger Brothers.
Pennington’s
List includes the three Berry brothers, Ike, Dick, and Jim Berry together with
Samuel Morgan Hays, husband of their sister, Rebecca Berry, reporting briefly
on each member:
Berry, Ike (Isaac). Was at Lawrence [Kansas] with
Quantrill, Centralia [Missouri] with "Bloody Bill" Anderson
9/27/1864. Purportedly convinced Anderson to burn Danville [Missouri] 10/14/1864.
Survived War becoming a liquor merchant/ Restaurateur. Died 1928, Mo.
Berry, Richard. With “Bloody
Bill” Anderson Unit. Survived War - Was with Quantrill at Lawrence [Kansas].
Brother of Ike.
Berry,
James. With “Bloody
Bill” Anderson Unit. Rode
with the Sam Bass gang after the war, robbing banks and trains throughout the
mid-west. Killed, Oct 21, 1877 by Sheriff Glasscock in Adrian County, MO.
Hays, Samuel Morgan. With Quantrill.
Indicted 18 Nov 1863 for the murder of George Burt at Lawrence [Kansas], 21 Aug
1863. Sam was married to Rebecca
Berry.
Historian
Rick Miller writes of Jim Berry in his book Sam
Bass & Gang: [Jim Berry] “was reportedly a member of Bloody Bill
Anderson’s guerilla troop, associated with the infamous Quantrill’s raiders in
Missouri during the Civil war.” Years later, in 1877, the Sedalia Mo. Weekly
Bazoo wrote, “Jim Berry’s bearing was that of a man who would fight to the
last. Indeed, he had given previous examples of his desperate and daring
nature. He was one of Bill Anderson’s most daring followers, and his
unshrinking courage was tested in many a terrible fray which that bold partisan
led all into who followed his banner.” The
[Missouri] State Journal added, “Jim Berry was known to have been one of
the most desperate members of that terrible company of rough-riders who
followed the fortunes of Bill Anderson during the war, and they also knew that
he had two or three brothers living in Callaway who were fully as dangerous as
he.”
Miller
writes also of Ike Berry: “According to the St. Louis Daily Missouri Democrat, 12 November 1864 . . . [Bloody Bill]
Anderson’s ‘orderly’ was a man named Ike Berry, whom he called ‘Weasel,’ Both
Anderson and Berry were intoxicated and together severely pistol-whipped and
tortured Lewis, and Anderson even rode a horse over him until the family was
able to produce five thousand dollars. Lewis died, largely as a result of his
injuries, on February 2, 1866.”
Sketchy as
the sources are, it is convincingly clear that the three Berry boys served
under Quantrill and Anderson during the Civil War, and only the toughest of the
rough rode with them. Examining Jim Berry’s activities during the Civil War in
detail it is clear that he served only briefly in the war before heading to the
western territories, while Ike and Dick Berry continued to fight for the
Confederacy through most of the war.
By late
1861, William Quantrill had formed a raider force that likely included the
three Berrys and their brother in law Sam Hays. During the winter his force
grew in strength to around two hundred men, and were better mounted and armed. Throughout
1862 Quantrill and his men raided around Kansas City, Independence, and Olathe.
After a raid on Independence, on March 19, 1862, the Union issued a general order that all guerrillas
were to be treated as common criminals rather than soldiers and prisoners of
war, and they were to be shot on sight. This "No Quarter" policy apparently
was a turning point for Quantrill and his men. Until this time they often
paroled prisoners, a common practice by both sides early in the war. After the
authorities issued the "No Quarter" order, Quantrill and his men
exercised the same policy of no quarter towards their captives, usually killing
them on the spot.
Hoping to
cause the Union Army to soften their policy towards guerillas, the Confederate
government passed the Partisan Ranger Act. The act legitimized guerrilla bands
as rangers acting under the authority of the Confederate Army. The Union Army
command ignored the Partisan Ranger Act, but from this time on the men who rode
with Quantrill and similar bands considered themselves soldiers in the
Confederate Army, and the CSA bore the responsibility for their actions.
In July 1862
the Union issued Order No. 19, requiring all able-bodied men in pro-slavery Jackson
County to enlist in Missouri Union militias and help exterminate the guerillas.
This was at a time when marauding Kansas Jayhawkers operating as Federal
militia, were preying on slave holding families in Jackson County. The order led
many young men in Jackson and surrounding counties to flood into the camps of
Quantrill and General Price’s other units.
On August
11, 1862, Quantrill led twenty-five veterans and four hundred new recruits into
Independence, Mo. The Union commander surrendered his force to a Confederate
officer present. Four days later, Quantrill received a commission as captain,
and his men were mustered in as partisan rangers in the Confederate army,
organized as Shelby’s 2nd Missouri Cavalry Regiment. This unit was
also designated the 12th Regiment, Missouri Cavalry, CSA. This
regiment, including Jim Berry was informally known as the “Jackson’s County
Cavalry” since a majority of its men came from the Jackson county area of
western Missouri. Although Col. Upton Hays and later Colonels Beal G. Jeans and
David Shanks commanded this cavalry unit, it remained closely associated with
Quantrill and his Raiders. .
Five days
later, on August 16 at the Battle of Lone Jack, Quantrill’s Raiders join the Confederate
army in defeating Union forces in nearby Lone Jack, Missouri. On September 12, Quantrill
raided Olathe, Kansas killing fourteen, while sacking and looting the town. The
Fourth Kansas Cavalry chased the Raiders for ten days through four counties in
Missouri. Throughout the early fall of 1862, Quantrill’s men were chased
relentlessly by the Fourth Kansas and Sixth Missouri Cavalry.
During the
summer of 1862 Bill Anderson formed his own gang, robbing to support
themselves, and killing Union soldiers, quickly gaining the sobriquet, of
“Bloody Bill.” Early in 1863 Anderson traveled to Jackson Co., Mo. to join
Quantrill. Initially, Quantrill gave Anderson a chilly reception perceiving him
to be brash and overconfident.
In May 1863
Anderson’s gang joined Quantrill’s Raiders on a raid near Council Grove,
Kansas, in which they robbed a store west of town. After the robbery a US
Marshal with a large posse intercepted the raiders about 150 miles from the
Kansas-Missouri border. In the resulting skirmish, several raiders were
captured or killed as they spit into two groups to return to Missouri.
During early
summer 1863 Bloody Bill Anderson was made a Lieutenant, serving under Quantrill
in a unit led by George M. Todd. It is possible that the Berry boys began
serving under Anderson by this time, although this is not clear. During June
and July Anderson took part in several raids that killed Union soldiers in
Westport, Kansas City, and Lafayette County, Mo.
On August
21st Quantrill led his force of about 400 men into Lawrence, Kansas, the
strongest abolitionist city in the state. The attack had been carefully planned
with independent columns approaching in a coordinated pre-dawn attack. Over
four hours, the raiders pillaged and set fire to the town, killing about 185
civilian men and boys, most of the male population, while burning about a
quarter of the city to the ground. Their principal target, Jayhawker Senator
James H. Lane, escaped death by racing through a cornfield in his nightclothes.
By 9 a.m.,
the raiders were on their way out of town. The Lawrence Massacre was one of the
bloodiest events in the history of “Bleeding Kansas.” The city seal of Lawrence
commemorates Quantrill’s attack with a depiction of a Phoenix rising from the
ashes of the burnt city. Quantrill led his force along the Texas Road en route to
winter quarters in Texas. Along the way on October 6th they fought a
minor battle at Fort Blair in Cherokee County, Kansas.
It seems
clear that Ike and Dick Berry were among the raiders that day of infamy at Lawrence,
Kansas although it is possible that Jim Berry had already left the war behind and
headed westward to Nevada.
Some time
during mid 1863, Jim Berry arrived in mining fields around Reese River, Lander
County in central Nevada. There on November 26, 1863 James F. Berry married
Mary Elizabeth Price. Mollie, as she was known, with her father Cyrus and
brothers Kyle and Charles had moved by wagon train from Callaway County, Mo. to
nearby Austin, Nevada in 1861 at the beginning of the Civil war. The Price family
likely knew the Berrys back in Missouri, and Cyrus Price seemed determined to
leave Little Dixie after the suicide death of his wife and before the family
became swept up in the war.
Jennie Lee
Berry, the first of six children, was born at Reece River Valley, Nevada on August
30, 1864. Shortly after, Jim Berry joined the gold rush to the new Montana
Territory. A combination of the gold strikes on
Grasshopper Creek and Alder Gulch, Montana Territory during the Civil War and
the decisive defeat of Gen. Price’s army in 1864 brought many Missourians to
the new territory during and after the Civil War—so many in fact that a legend
was born that Montana was settled by “the left wing of
Price's army.” There is an element of truth to this legend as evidenced by the
arrival of Missourian Jim Berry and his family and many others in the new
territory after serving with Gen. Price’s army.
Jim Berry’s
activities in frontier Montana from 1864-67 remain unknown, but in May 1867
twin daughters, Anna/Anne Natalle and Adelaide “Addie” Price Berry were born in
Virginia City. Apparently during the summer of 1867, Jim Berry headed overland
back to Missouri. His wife Mary and their three children went overland from
Virginia City to Fort Benton to board a steamboat to go down the Missouri River
to their home near Mexico, Audrain County, Missouri. The steamer Gallatin departed Fort Benton September
2nd with the Berry family on board. Family legend tells that Mrs. Elizabeth
Meagher, wife of recently deceased Thomas Francis Meagher was also on the
steamboat that carried a total of eleven ladies and six children on this trip.
The steamboat Gallatin
departed Fort Benton for Omaha with 150 passengers and upwards of a quarter of
a million dollars in gold dust onboard. After trouble from late season low
water, the boat reached a point thirteen miles below Camp Cooke on the morning
of the September 5th. Here the Gallatin
ran hard on the rocks at Holmes Rapids, and for six days the crew and
passengers worked with block, tackle, and spars, struggling to get her afloat.
On Sunday, Sept. 8th, the steamer Only
Chance came along and about 25 of the Gallatin’s
passengers, gave up and took passage down on that boat, an action they would
later regret.
By Wednesday September 11th, the Gallatin’s crew and passengers had strained and racked the boat so
badly that it was considered unsafe to remain onboard any longer. All the
passengers and freight were put ashore, and the boat dismantled, even to the
deck planking. Her splendid machinery was left in place, in hopes she might
eventually get through, and the steamer was tied to the bank. Later passenger
accounts spoke highly of the conduct of Capt. Howe, who worked day and night,
in the cold weather and water to save his boat and secure comfort for the
passengers.
The eleven lady passengers, including Elizabeth Meagher and Mary
Berry, with the six children, provisions, baggage, and a few male passengers
were put on two mackinaw boats. The balance of the passengers started overland
on foot to reach the steamer Huntsville
at Cow Island, fifty miles below. Eight miles down river, the mackinaws met
Captain Jacobs of the Huntsville,
coming up with a yawl to their relief. He agreed to carry passengers on the Huntsville to Omaha for $75 currency,
while Capt. Howe of the Gallatin
generously gave all the provisions he had and all the money left from his trip.
Having no cooking utensils, the mackinaw party, including
Elizabeth Meagher and Mary Berry, laid down to sleep about eleven o’clock that
night, rather hungrier than was pleasant. To add to their discomfort the rain
coldly and continuously poured down on them through the night, with wolves
howling in the distance. Berry family
legend tells that Mrs. Meagher had plenty of Buffalo robes and shared them with
Mrs. Berry who wrapped her six-month old twins in the robes, saving their
lives.
An early start and the
mackinaws reached the Huntsville by
10 a. m., while the foot passengers, hungry and weary, wet, foot-sore and
demoralized, came struggling in by squads until night, thankful for their
deliverance from a shipwreck on the Upper Missouri.
The money and provisions from Captain Howe left $21.50 due from
each cabin passenger and $6 from deck passengers, which was paid. The Huntsville then waited for the arrival
of the ship’s Clerk and additional travelers from Fort Benton.
Boating conditions in that late season were horrible. The
steamboat Imperial was hard aground
twelve miles below Cow Island on September 14th, with poor prospects of getting
off. Another boat, the Zephyr, was
above Cow Island, and it was believed would have to remain all winter in the
mountains. The Only Chance had a
terribly rough trip down to Cow Island, pounding over rocks all the way. She
left Cow Island September 12th and made her way down to Omaha, the passengers,
including the twenty-five from the Gallatin,
suffering all the way from poor quality food leading to much sickness and two
deaths from dysentery. One passenger recorded that “a gladder set of boys never
walked a steamboat plank” upon their arrival at Omaha October 4th. Onboard were
over 200 passengers and about $3 million in treasure.
The steamboat Huntsville
with Elizabeth Meagher and the Berry family aboard departed Cow Island
September 19th. The boat passed Fort Peck on the 28th and worked her way down
the Missouri slowed by the late season low water, the almost constant need to
spar across sand bars, and frequent high winds. At long last, the trip from
hell ended at Omaha on the 17th of October. The Berry family likely continued
on to Missouri by train after their life-threatening trip down the Missouri
River.
The escapades of Confederate
veteran James F. Berry and his family will continue next month in Part 2.
[Sources: US Census 1850-1880; 2012 http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-jamesberry.html;
http://penningtons.tripod.com/roster.html ; Sam Bass & Gang. By Rick Miller. Austin, TX, State House Press,
1999; The Tenderfoot Bandits Sam Bass and
Joel Collins, their lives and hard times. By Paula Reed and Grover Ted
Tate. Tucson, AZ: Westernlore Press, 1988; “John Harris and Addie Berry Harris
Family” Collection of Harris-Berry Family Material Collected by William H.
Patterson Held at OHRC; “Historical Sketch of James F. Berry (1838-1877)” by
John F. Harris (Great Grandson); Sedelia
Weekly Bazoo 23 Oct 1877; The
(Jefferson City Mo.) State Journal 19 Oct 1877; http://www.missouridivision-scv-org/mounits/12mocav.htm
; http://www.whitsett-wall.com/Documents/James%20Simeon%20Whitsett,%20
Civil%20 War%20Guerrilla.pdf ; “Mrs. Thomas
Francis Meagher’s Sad Departure from Fort Benton In 1867: What a Way to Treat a
Lady!” Fort Benton Historian Blog August 3, 2005]
Photos:
1.
Sketch of James F. Berry from Missouri Ledger. [Courtesy of OHRC]
2.
General Sterling “Old Pap” Price, Commander of
Missouri State Guard [Courtesy of OHRC]
3.
William Clarke Quantrill, Confederate Raider
[Courtesy of OHRC]
