A Civil War Mystery
by Bob Brail
by Bob Brail
Everyone
loves a good mystery. Whether it is a
television show, a novel or a movie, a mystery compels a person to keep
watching or reading because he wants an answer to the question, “What really
happened?” Even an historical event like
the disappearance of aviator Amelia Earhart many decades ago still interests
people because of its mysterious uncertainties.
The Civil War is another long ago event which is sometimes characterized
by unanswered questions. For example,
Francis Louis Fluesmeier was a farmer who spent his entire life in Femme
Osage Township. Several records indicate that Fluesmeier was
a Union soldier during the first two years of the war. However, some very reliable family history
shows that Fluesmeier was a Confederate soldier during the last two years of
the war, and his obituary clearly stated he was a Confederate veteran. How is this apparent contradiction possible?
In 1836
Heinrich and Wilhelmena Fluesmeier, both born in Prussia and in their early
thirties, purchased land in Femme Osage Township on what is now Highway F. Heinrich Fluesmeier had served under Napoleon
I before emigrating to America
(an 1885 source states that Francis was still in possession of the saber and
pistol Heinrich had used to fight for Napolean). Three years later, they had a son, Franz Louis
Fluesmeier, on October 2, 1839;
he was later baptized at the Femme Osage United Church of Christ. Francis Fluesmeier spent his childhood
learning how to farm from his father.
For reasons
that can only be surmised, in 1860 when the federal census taker traveled
through Femme Osage Township, the twenty year old Fluesmeier had left home and
was living and working at the farm owned by slave owner Abraham Matson, a
southerner by birth. Matson’s son,
William H., who was the same age as Fluesmeier, was also there. William H. Matson would enlist in a
Confederate unit shortly after the war broke out and fight for nearly four
years.
The mystery
of Francis Fluesmeier’s Civil War service begins in April of 1861. After the surrender of Fort
Sumter, President Lincoln called
for each state to enlist a quota of soldiers for the Union. At the time, Missouri’s
governor, Claiborne Jackson, was an avowed Secessionist, so he refused to respond
to Lincoln’s call. Because of that resistance, Lincoln
authorized General Nathaniel Lyon to enlist up to 10,000 Missourians for the Union. Francis Fluesmeier enlisted on May 7 as a
private serving under Captain Pieper.
Eventually five regiments from Missouri were mustered in for three
months. These regiments were known as
the United States Reserve Corps (USRC).
The USRC would have a minor role in General Lyon’s capture of Camp
Jackson on May 10, and part of the
USRC would fight at Wilson Creek
in early August. The USRC was mustered
out in August, with Fluesmeier leaving on the 20th.
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| Francis Fluesmeier |
Only two
months later, on October 18, Francis Fluesmeier traveled to St.
Charles and reenlisted as a private, this time in
Arnold Krekel’s Independent Company of the Reserved Corps Infantry or Home
Guard. The Home Guard undertook actions
such as guarding bridges and railroads in the area. This unit was disbanded in January, 1862;
Fluesmeier was mustered out at St. Charles
on the 10th, after having served less than three months.
In what to
a modern person surely gives the impression of intense, heart-felt patriotism,
Francis Fluesmeier waited only a few months before enlisting yet again! On August
11, 1862, Fluesmeier was mustered in as a private at Augusta
in Company E, under Captain Osthoff, of the 75th Regiment of the
Enrolled Missouri Militia (EMM). The 75th
EMM was made up of St. Charles County
residents. Fluesmeier was then
twenty-two years old. The EMM was
created on July 22, 1862,
and all male Missourians eligible to serve had to join; in other words, service
was compulsory. Missourians with Southern sympathies did not
have to join but, if they did not, they were required to make those sympathies
public. As one historian writes, “The
net effect was that tens of thousands of fence-sitting men of military age were
brought into the military fold. At the same time, thousands of other fence-sitters
that were quietly supporting the South were forced to make a decision whether
to serve in a Federal unit, or to flee the state and enlist in the Confederate
Army.” This meant that many Confederate
sympathizers were pressured into enlisting in the Union cause. Because some EMM units had Southern-leaning
officers and men, a few units were eventually disbanded. No record exists which states the length of
service for six of the ten companies in the 75th EMM, including
Fluesmeier’s Company E. The men in the
other four companies averaged thirty-eight days of service over several months’
time.
Even though
Francis Fluesmeier’s service in the Union army was well documented, his
obituary clearly states that he was a Confederate veteran! In addition to this, the Fluesmeier family
history, supplied to this author by Fluesmeier’s great-granddaughter, Mary
McMillan, is unequivocally clear that Fluesmeier was a Confederate
veteran. As Mrs. McMillan stated in a
2011 email, “My mother did know her grandfather and heard the story of his
service with the Confederacy from him,” so the family history is reliable. A check of the 1860 federal census for any
suggestion of two individuals with similar names who lived in the same area of Missouri
and could have served on opposing sides was not productive. These included all the variant spellings this
writer found in his research: Fluesmieir, Flusmeyer, Fluesmeyer, Flussmeyer,
Fluesmeier, Fleismeyer, Fluessmeyer, Floissmirie, Fluermeier, and Fluesmier. There
can be no doubt that Fluesmeier fought on both sides.
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| Side one of the letter |
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| Side two of the letter |
Francis Fluesmeier’s family history goes on to state that he served with Sterling Price and Joe Shelby for the duration of the war. Documentation to prove this apparently does not exist, but that is not unusual for Confederate soldiers. From the fall of 1863 until the end of the war, General Joe Shelby served under the command of General Sterling Price. Fluesmeier may have joined Shelby’s cavalry forces in time to participate in Shelby’s “Great Raid,” a 1500 mile excursion into Missouri that resulted in 1,000 Union casualties and a $2 million loss in Union supplies. This raid commenced on September 22 and lasted until November 3, 1863. In the spring of 1864, General Shelby’s forces fought in several small battles in Arkansas and, on June 24, captured and destroyed the Union gunboat USS Queen City at Clarendon, Arkansas. In September and October, Shelby commanded a division during Price’s raid into Missouri. His cavalry division was active at several places, including Little Blue River, Westport, Potosi, Boonville, Waverly, Stockton, Lexington, and California. After the war ended, Shelby went to Mexico with approximately 1,000 of his troops, rather than surrender to Union forces. There is no evidence that Francis Fluesmeier was part of that contingent. Instead, Fluesmeier swore an oath of allegiance to the U. S. government on June 27, 1865, and was pardoned.
Perhaps the most compelling question of this mystery is not “What really happened?” but “Why did it happen?” It is fairly safe to say that Francis Fluesmeier was not proud of his service in the Union Army, apparently not speaking to his family about it, since it is not part of the family history. No record exists to indicate that he ever joined the local post of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) in Augusta, the organization for Union veterans. Upon his death in 1923, his newspaper obituary stated he was a Confederate veteran. Yet, it is undeniably true that on three separate occasions he enlisted in Union units.
Some people might think it pure conjecture to guess at the motives of a person long dead. However, in Francis Fluesmeier’s case, there is some evidence which might lead to an understanding of why he fought on both sides. St. Charles County was truly a divided county during the war, and the southern half of the county was especially so. Abolitionists and slave owners allied themselves against each other, especially those of German descent with their Northern sympathies against those of Southern descent. Fluesmeier would have had regular interactions with Southern neighbors throughout his adolescence and early adulthood. As the war approached, he made the decision to leave home and move only a few miles away to the farm of slave owner Abraham Matson and his son, William H., who would fight for the Confederacy for the war’s duration. Fluesmeier could have easily ridden or even walked the short distance between the two families’ farms each day. Was he distancing himself from the German community even before the war commenced? St. Charles County records may provide further proof that Fluesmeier had rejected his German heritage as a young adult. The records show that Fluesmeier’s father wrote three wills: the first left everything to his second son Henry; the second left everything to a public institution; and the third left everything to his daughter, except for five dollars to each of his two sons. After the war, the elder Fluesmeier, who died in 1871, lived with his son Henry. Perhaps Francis Fluesmeier’s father left him nothing, or nearly nothing, in each of the wills because Fluesmeier had forsaken his German heritage in his youth. Two years after the war ended, Fluesmeier married Catharine E. Ashby, daughter of Benjamin P. Ashby, a Southerner by birth, in contrast to his siblings, who married within the German community. Mary McMillan, Fluesmeier’s descendant, thinks that Fluesmeier may have begun this courtship before the war commenced, again distancing himself from the German community.
So, even before the war began, Francis Fluesmeier may have felt a degree of kinship with the Southern cause. Perhaps the twenty-one year old succumbed to the pressure of his German neighbors when he twice enlisted in 1861, or maybe he still felt an allegiance to the Union cause at that early point in the war. By the beginning of 1862, Fluesmeier may have been repulsed by the excesses of the Home Guard of which he was a part, such as the killings of southern sympathizers John Edwards and John Johnson of Dardenne, the “requisitioning” of possessions of those loyal to the southern cause, and the exorbitant bonds several area Southern sympathizers were required by Arnold Krekel to post to ensure their patriotic behavior. By August of 1862 when the 75th Regiment of the Enrolled Missouri Militia was formed, Fluesmeier may have reluctantly chosen to join rather than declare his support for the South and face the resulting difficulties.
Then in March of 1863 Francis Fluesmeier fled the county, swimming the Missouri River to escape a cause he no longer believed in. It is possible Fluesmeier was avoiding conscription, as the family history states. It is also possible he was deserting the 75th EMM. Whatever his reason, Union soldiers pursued him. His service in the Union army was over.
Another remarkable aspect of this story involves Francis Fluesmeier’s younger brother. Henry Fluesmeier also eventually enlisted in three separate Union units but, unlike his older brother, Henry never fought for the Confederacy, and after the war, Henry joined the Robert Bailey Post (Augusta) of the Grand Army of the Republic, the Union veterans’ organization. Henry and Francis lived in close proximity their entire lives. It is impossible to believe that their different views were never discussed, yet their descendents know of no dissension between them.
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| Louise and Catherine on the steps of their home |
Fluesmeier was a lifelong tobacco chewer, but Catharine would not allow him in their home with a stained beard, so he always washed at a basin and mirror on the back porch before entering. One grandson would later remember Fluesmeier’s “long white beard” with its “stained stripe down the middle.” Fluesmeier and Catharine would have seven children, four of whom would predecease their father. Two of their older children, Elihu and Statella, practiced medicine, Elihu earning his medical degree from the University of Missouri (and also an engineering degree) and Statella earning her degree in ophthalmology from the Barnes Medical School in St. Louis.
Francis Fluesmeier was an involved citizen who was not afraid to speak his mind. He and Catharine were active members of the Pleasant Hill M. E. Church, which was located a short distance from the intersection of Highway 94 and Howell Road; Fluesmeier was a trustee for several years. Both Fluesmeiers were also active in the Masons. Fluesmeier was involved in local politics, serving as an election judge in Schluersburg and on the Femme Osage Township grand jury. Throughout his adult life, Fluesmeier would chastise anyone of his generation for speaking German. Fluesmeier felt that they should speak English since they were Americans.
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| Fluesmeier around 1908 (Top Right) |
By 1905 Francis and Catharine Fluesmeier owned 340 acres west of Defiance, and south of Defiance Road and Highway F. Their sons Elihu and Bruce owned an additional 180 acres on the north side of Defiance Road, between Highway F and Holden Road. In the middle of that year, Fluesmeier made a generous gift to an old friend. Joseph Chandler was a former slave from Missouri, who began working for the Fluesmeiers in the 1870’s. Over the years, Chandler and his wife also helped raise the Fluesmeiers’ children and grandchildren, who knew Chandler as “Uncle Joe.” In appreciation for his years of service to his family, Fluesmeier apparently gave him $1,000 to purchase about fifty acres of land which adjoined the Fluesmeiers’ farm. Chandler Hill Winery now occupies this property.
Francis Louis Fluesmeier died at the age of eighty-three on March 13, 1923, and was buried the next day in Craig Cemetery, just across the road from his house. The cause of death was influenza. On the obelisk which marks his grave are these words from the Old Testament: “For the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.” One’s initial impression of these words is how unusual they are for an epitaph. They do not speak of heaven or how much the deceased will be missed. However, these words do seem particularly appropriate for Fluesmeier’s headstone. Despite giving the appearance of supporting the Union cause in the early years of the Civil War, Fluesmeier knew in his heart where his true loyalties lay. Eventually he took great risks to make those loyalties known. After the war, Fluesmeier lived nearly sixty years, working, worshiping, and doing business with Union veterans who had opposed him. Throughout all the tension of fighting in a state with divided loyalties and then living for decades among men who remembered what he had done, he believed that God knew the kind of man he was, and that was satisfaction enough for Francis Fluesmeier.
Sources: 1852 State Census, St. Charles County, Missouri;
1905 Atlas Map of St. Charles County; Biennial Report of the Board of
Curators, University of Missouri (http://books.google.com);
The Civil War in St. Louis: A Guided Tour (William Winter); Civil War
St. Louis (http://www.civilwar
stlouis.com/militia/federalmilitia.htm); Civil War Soldiers and
Sailors System (www.itd.nps.gov/
cwss/soldiers); Confederate Oaths of Allegiance from the St.
Louis Missouri Democrat (Kenneth Weant); Enrolled Missouri Militia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki);
Wayne Fairchild (1984-1985 letters); Federal Censuses of 1870-1920; Gleanings
of Newspaper Articles, St. Charles County, Missouri 1881-1888 (St. Charles
Count Genealogical Society); A History of Augusta, Missouri, and Its Area As
Reported in the St. Charles Demokrat (Anita Mallinckrodt); A History of
St. Charles, Montgomery, and Warren Counties, Missouri; Joseph O. Shelby (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki; Mary McMillan (emails); Missouri Death
Certificates (www.sos.mo.gov/archives/resources); Obituaries, St. Charles,
Missouri, Newspapers (Gertrude Johnson); Rootsweb (www.ancestry.com); St.
Charles County Recorder of Deeds; St. Charles County Records: Probate, Circuit
Court (St. Charles Historical Society); St. Charles County Marriages,
1851-1875; Soldiers Records, War of 1812 – World War I (www.sos.mo.gov/archives/ soldiers);
Sweet Land of Liberty (http://llewis2alp.tumblr.com); USS Queen City (http://en.wiki- pedia.org/wiki/USS_Queen_City).