CIVIL WAR IN JACKSON COUNTY, MISSOURI--ORDER #11

 

A Story Written by Frances Fitzhugh (George) Kabrick

 

March 1, 1897, Oak Grove, MO

 

Story transcribed as written, except paragraphing was added.

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I Francis Fitzhugh George was born the 14 of June 1841 and can remember several things that transpired befor I was three years old.

 

I remember of crying to go to Texas with my name sake Francis Fitzhugh in June 1844 also of other things that happened the same spring before. I remember well when my little infant brother was a corpse and was buried August 25 1845. Also I remember of another infant brother that was buried Dec. 8, 1849.

 

That was the farthest back that I can remember of my father saying that God could take care of infants as well as adult for they all had to become as helpless as little children before they could feel he (God) had all power over them. Then I thought that I would love to be good enough to be with them two little brothers. Many and many times while

playing in the dirt and other places I would think of them and cry because I was not good enough to meet them in Heaven.

 

I started to school the day I was six years old to Wm. Phillpott, going but a few days to him.  I went some each year until eleven years old going part of three months session in year did not amount to much.  Then I quite going to school could only read in first and second readers.  Could write a little was a very poor speller.  Either of our two children living now could spell better when they were seven or eight years old then I can now.

 

I have sheared sheep, picked and colored wool, spun yarn, wove cloth, picked cotton out of field also picked seed out of cotton and carded and spun thread of it, wove cloth out of thread. Spinning is to take wool or cotton roots draw them out and twist them into thread and run them upon a breach. Perhaps most of the children would like to know

what a breach is it is shuch or paper put on the spindle of a wheel and

the thread run upon it .

 

I have in my possession two coverlets that I wove out of white  cotton thread and blue yarn thread by the winding vine draft. The other coverlets were gave to sister Amanda the first wife of John W. Tyler of Lee Summit Mo.

 

In the year 1858 or 1859 I sheared twenty two sheep in one day at 10 cents a head.

 

Was married to Ezra Moore March the 21st 1860 we lived with Mrs Mary T.T. Hudson till the 4th of October 1860. Then we moved to a 40 acre piece of land my Father David C. George gave me 1 1/4 mile north west of Oak Grove, Mo. which Mr. Moore built a log house on.  Ther was a daughter born to us Feb. 22nd 1861 which died Sept. 3rd 1861

 

Mr. Moore went into the Confederate Army was at the battle of Lexington, Mo.

part of a bum shell striking his leg. After the fight was over him not being well

came home had typhoid fever.

 

The 23rd day of January 1862 he went to Texas with N.B. George old

Adason Phillpott J.M. Harding and others with stock.  When he got to the

Confederate Army the 12th day of Feb. 1862 he enlisted in it for three months.

When his time was out he started home with B.F. Harding he got home safe

the 23rd day May 1862 alone as B.F. Hardings horse was stolen.

 

Then Ezra Moore planted some corn was trying to make crops when the Federal troops came up from Lexington Mo. after him the 11th day of June 1862. But they did not get him that day.

 

The 12th day 1862 the Federals burnt David C. Georges house (my Father) which was the cause of Mr. Moore and others going with Quantrill to get to the Confederate Army.  But the Feds after them all the time and over powered them killing Ezra Moore and wounded Wm. Tucker the 11th day of July 1862.

 

That was a hard trial to take him up where he had been temporary buried, him being put in the grave first and his right hand and arm falling out the right then there was two more put in the grave after he was and they laid on his right arm.  A thin cloth was spread over their faces was all the covering they had except their shirts and pants as the Feds had took their coats. 

 

He was wounded just 2 or 3 inches above the heart was trying to climb up the bluff when the Feds took him prisoner and they shot him again a half or an inch in front of his left ear powder burnt his face. That fight was west of Pleasant Hill Mo. Commenced at Scerences lot or barn  

 

Two men went with sister Amanda after him, the men went in a wagon her and I went horseback. 

 

I stayed at brother Hiram J. Georges while Mr. Moore was gone the first part of 1862.  When Ezra Moore was killed I was staying with brother in laws Joshau Owing the husband of sister Martha which I lived with her till the time of the order #11 in August 1863.

 

That was the terblest drive that was ever experienced by women and children I know everybody in the country moved at one time the wether dry hot and dusty the dust so thick on the fences a person could gather it up by hands full, white women and children looked like negros they had to move anyway they could.

 

I started to move the last of my things a horse back with my bed weighing 35 lbs. on the horse behind me a large amount in my lap a tea kettle on the horn of my saddle a shovel under one arm carrying them that way two miles or more. Then putting them in sister Martha Owing wagon. Not knowing when we started where we could get a house to stop in.

 

About 4 or 5 miles from where I put the bed in the wagon the tire came off the wagon my Mother was in and they sent a runner ashead for me so I had to go back and put the tire on which I did but worked and worked and tried every way before I got it on at last I got mad and got stout so it went on and I fastened it on with telegraph wire and the last

time I saw the old wheel had that wire and tire on it at J. Whites south of the bron church in Lafayette co. Mo. something like five miles east of Odessa.

 

That was my first wagonen. We drove till dark over took us stopped the wagons at the side of the road and they just bunked upon the ground till morning.

 

Sister Amanda and I rode in the night horse back to elder Josep Warder near Wellington Lafayette Co. Mo. He (Mr. Warder) told us he thought we could get to move in the school house in his district.

 

Sister and I went the next morning to see the trustees of the school house. So my Mother (Mrs. N.E. George) and family of five and sister Martha Owings and family of seven and myself all lived there a while was 13 including the negro girl.

 

I and sister Amanda rode around and hunted till we found a house about nine miles south east from the above named school house. Mother and others her family moved up there in the fall or first of winter 1863.

 

That fall and winter my two sisters three nephews and myself made many trips to Jackson County to get corn, hogs and provisions through rain snow and sleet.

 

One night sister Manda one of the nephews and I stopped at Dink Campbells 

with two wagon loads of hogs . When we got there our clothes were frozen on us as it had been raining and sleeting the most of the evening turning colder all the time.

That night I hated to get into a clean bed so bad I told Mrs. Campbell to throw some

old thing in the corner and let me sleep there but that great noble women put us in

that clean bed with our muddy clothes on.

 

Next morning when we got up it was snowing and snowed very hard all day.  I got

on my horse riding all day to sell the hogs as they had to be turned loose as they were tied the night before when we got to Mr. C. I came back and stayed all night at Mr. C. the next night.

 

The second morning I started again to try to sell them I was directed to to a man by

the name of Wm. Morrison getting his discription that evening starting to greenton

to see him. On my way I met him . I knew in reason that it was him before I got fifty yards of him.

 

When we met I asked if he could tell me of a man named William Morrison. He said

he was that man. I said I suppose so by the description I got of you. So he went back with me to where the hogs were. I sold them to him for just what I could get him making big profit. Now this was one of my many hardships with many others.

 

Likewise before the war closed my youngest brother Gabriel Wm. George went with Price south after the first battle was fought at Lexington there Sept. 18-20 1861.  Then he came home the first of the winter and was killed at Independence Mo Feb. 22 1862 with Quantrill.

 

My Father David C. George went to the south part of the state in the fall of 1862 and staid at an old friend of his by the name of Cantrell till Feb 1863. He started home got as far back as the neighborhood of Eldorado Springs is now and was killed about the 15th of Feb 1863 by Capt. Motons men he now lives in Taberville Mo. We have not been to find Fathers grave yet. He was burried in a cemetery 2 miles south east of Eldorado Springs.  Anyone knowing his grave please let us know. He was almost 65 years old

when killed

.

The last day of 1863 was the disagreeablest day that I ever was out. I rode nine miles facing the blizzard with N.B. George of Oak Grove behind me. When we got half way we stoped to warm and his boot was froze fast on his feet and his ears frozen so stiff they could have been broken off. The next day the first day of 1864 was still colder but very calm. That morning I cut and sawed a hole through the roof and ceiling of the

school house to put the cook stove pipe in as we had it put through the window which I received one dollar for that work.

 

Sister Martha and family leaving there the 4th of March going to Chariton county Mo and live there and Adrain Co, till after the close of the war. I moved in with my Mother on the Shipley farm 4 or 5 miles north east of Odessa or where it is now.

 

I thought as I had a horse and Mother one left out of eighteen which we would have a team of two plugs of horses and two one year old calves so I had my youngest sister Lucinda G. George her being 18 in June of that year and the crippled colored girl and John D. George the grandson of Mrs N.E. George him being 10 years old in Nov. of

that year.

 

That spring of 1864 the above force set in to tend a crop of corn of about thirty acres which we suceeded in doing. When we commence the old dry hog weed on it was taller then our head by a foot or more. We all worked faithfully while Mother, sister Manda done the house work cooking vcarding and spinning cotton etc. We raised a good crop and garden that year

 

also that summer I made up a school for S.E. Farmer she now being the wife of

N.E. George now of Joplin (my oldest brother) Amanda, Lucinda, John D and

myself all went to school to her. She would call John D. sonny to me we would have 

a big laugh to ourselves. After the war he was her sonny sure enough. While I was going to school to her I got so I could read some in the third reader but never studied grammar a day in my life, you can tell that by the way this is written.

 

The fall of 1864 my three brothers came home which was N.B., H.J. and J.H. George. When Price made his raid through Missouri N.B. was at home (or where we lived) the 21st day of Oct. 1864 that was his birthday.

 

After that was another hard time on us girls. We had to gather corn which we had to shell to keep some people from steeling it. That fall one of our neighbors hogs destroyed a great deal of our corn but we had enough left to do us and we swaped corn for flour to have biscuits for breakfast.

 

We had to cut and hall all of our wood , we was to get the down wood and as the good lord did send a sleet that broke the trees down so we could get wood without much trouble.

 

That fall early I killed one of those hogs that got in and sent our neighbor a part showed him the head he never let on that it was his hog so they kept getting into our corn him saying that they were not his so we killed the second one and sent him a piece showed him the head him never letting on as they were his so they got fatter and fatter on our corn and his so we killed the third one and hurt one or two more so he got a part then he said they were all his and laughed said we must not kill any more. I laughed and told him now they were fat he could keep them up so we had no more trouble with the stock.

 

The next spring 1865 we put in another corn crop on the same land we did not have any rent to pay. We furnished H.J and J.H. Georges wifes corn that summer as they did not raise any the year before. So we raised plenty 1865 to do us and some to sell. N.B. George came and staid with us part of that winter we had plenty to feed his horse.  

 

That was another hard time on us as another neighbors cattle got in the field was destroying corn so we had to gather what was on the standing stalks and shuck out

the shock corn when it was so cold the snow did not melt a bit. One day we made a fire out of foder but we couldnt warm much.

 

I went in the woods that winter and chopped wood four or five hours when the snow was nearly knee deep. I had something like pneumonia or pluracy was very porly for a month or more but keep going around every day.

 

In the spring March 6 1866 we all moved back home Mother falling off of the wagon

one wheel running over her ankle breaking it so she was lame a long time most of the

time untill she died in 1888.

 

Brother N.B. and son John lived with mother and the two younger girls that summer so they did not need any help and not having much room I moved with brother Hicks at the Flick hill place just over the line in Lafayette co.

Brother not being well I had to still go through hardships helping him work out in the field etc. The 13th day of March 1866 I rode to Wellington and back the distance of 14 miles and back through the snow to get medicine to stop the chills on brother Hicks which I did.  As Dr. frick hadn’t stopped them by several weeks practice. I didn’t stay with brother Hicks very long.

 

went to John Kings the 9th day of May 1866, Worked there 4 or 5 months that being to hard a place for the pay I was getting

 

I moved to brother Hirams in the fall Sept. 1866. I made that my home for over four years my health being bad a great deal of the time

 

while there I did all kinds of work that women generally do and some that not many do. 

Brother Hic cut his knee in corn cutting time so I cut a little shock corn in fall of 1867.

 

That same fall Jane Bowman Chaney Husted and I went to Bates co. to see Janes brother and my sister as James Bowman married my older sister. That year spinning and weaving for myself and brothers family . The 28th day of Feb 1868 I started to Holt co. in company with Nan Marrow and Charley Alford to see Nans relatives which Nan staid and her sister Mrs, D.C. Morgan came back with us. 

 

In April and May I was porly with a cough again not very well all summer. In August 1868 I went to Sulphur Springs at Monagaw in St Clear Co Mo. in company with Mr. S.R. Bell and wife and there saw T.T. Bell. 

 

My health improved but staying to long I took the chills got rid of them started home got well took a sever cold and was not well for six months had something like dropsey

 

in the spring 1869 I got better and went to selling a tatten reel and winding blades

at which I made $13.50.

 

H.V.P. Kabrick and Francis Moore was married the 15th day of Nov. 1870. We moved here where we now live 1 1/4 mile northwest of Oak Grove. Mr. Kabrick buying 40 acres of land west of what my father gave me. We had a hard struggle before we could get it paid as he had promis 15 per cent on the dollar before we could borrow the rest to pay on it.

 

In 1871 he built H.J. George house. Next was to work for Chiles Owing some 4 miles away as he went to Mr Owings saw mill to frame the timbers of course we had to rise very early for him to go that far to put in 12 hours and come home after dark.

 

Lorena our daughter was born the 12th day of Nov.1872. 1874 Mr. Kabrick worked at home that year he planted corn the chince bugs ate it up and that year the grasshopper came in and he put the seventh crop opn one field in two years before he raised any crop. We would wrap Lorena up and take her to the fields while we would plant the

corn for the hopers to eat up.

The fall of 1875 Mr. Kabrick helped to build a bridge between Lone Jack and Pleasant Hill a cross Big creek he Mr Kabrick got hurt by lifting large timbers which he has never got over.

 

As this scribbling is to lengthy I will have to leave a great deal out.

 

If the Lord every changed my heart it was the last night of 1879 the last

hour of that night and almost the last minute while I was between life

and death the latter part that night and the next day was the happest

part of my life. I joined Primitive Baptist church the 14th day of June

1882 on my forty first birthday.

 

Mrs. Francis F. Kabrick