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Caught Between North and South, Missouri Family Loses Livestock

By Capper's Staff
Published on October 30, 2012

Grandmother and her family lived in Missouri between the North and South. Soldiers from both armies would come by and eat everything they could find in the house. They would kill and eat a cow or calf, and what they couldn’t eat, they took with them. The bushwhackers were worse than the soldiers. They had killed all the livestock and chickens except one old hen that managed to escape.

My aunts and Grandmother decided to have her for Sunday dinner before the bushwhackers could get her. The dinner was nearly ready when they saw the bushwhackers coming down the road. They grabbed the old hen and buried her in the garden. The bushwhackers searched the house, but the dinner was safe.

My uncle was with the Union Army, and when they were camped close to home he would come home. They were camped near Chillhowee, and one cloudy night he walked home. Some of our close neighbors were bushwhackers and were waiting for him. Grandmother had a one and a half story house, and part of the family would keep watch from the upstairs window. During the night they saw the bushwhackers coming, and my uncle climbed out one of the upstairs windows onto the roof. He hid behind a large fireplace chimney. They watched the house for a long time before they finally gave up. He got back to camp safely.

Mrs. Sally Boone
Clinton, Missouri


Back in 1955 a call went out from the editors of the then CAPPER’s Weekly asking for readers to send in articles on true pioneers. Hundreds of letters came pouring in from early settlers and their children, many now in their 80s and 90s, and from grandchildren of settlers, all with tales to tell. So many articles were received that a decision was made to create a book, and in 1956, the first My Folks title – My Folks Came in a Covered Wagon – hit the shelves. Nine other books have since been published in the My Folks series, all filled to the brim with true tales from CAPPER’s readers, and we are proud to make those stories available to our growing online community.