‘How Pioneer Mount Ayr Met The Rebel Guerrillas’
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By Mrs. B.M. Lesan
[Editor’s note: In recognition of Mount Ayr’s sesquicentennial observance in September, the Record-News will run an occasional feature story recounting the early days of the city and county. Items are told in the vernacular of the day in which they were written, but some have been edited with discretion.]
During the civil war the southern border of Iowa was raided several times by rebel bushwhackers or guerrillas. The eastern counties, especially Davis, was raided more than any other county probably because it was an older and richer county. But the last raid was made in the early morning of October 12, 1864, when twelve young men all dressed in federal uniforms and mounted on grand specimens of horse flesh and armed with from two to seven revolvers, rode into Davis county near the southeastern corner. They took each house in its turn, first breaking the guns then at the point of their own revolvers they robbed the men took them prisoners and terrified the women and children. They found several Federal soldiers at home on furlough. they stripped them of their clothes to use in their future raids. Most of the soldiers they shot in cold blood to release them from the Federal Army and to intimidate the rest.
At one place they took a small boy’s purse which contained twenty-five coppers and also robbed him of his pocket knife. This was the smallest haul they made, as they took as much as $800.00 from some men, they carried their money in their pockets as at that time banks were scarce and people were afraid to trust their money in them. The guerrillas put in the day killing some and robbing all and taking men along with them as prisoners, lest they give the alarm in town and check their depredations. The prisoners had to witness the killing and robbing of their neighbors. Horses were stolen for the prisoners to ride, as they could not cover so much territory with them on foot. They left notes pinned to two dead men’s clothing which read as follows: “Killed in retaliation for the murder (by Federal soldiers) of David Plunket of Missouri, signed by James Jackson October 12th, 1864.” They took prisoners with them until they formed a company of 150 men.
It happened to be the first day of the fair at Bloomfield, the county seat so a great many men were there. About 4 o’clock in the afternoon a man was working at a cane mill some distance from a house where the guerrillas had robbed the man and taken him prisoner. The wife sent the children to him and he mounted a horse and rode like the wind to Bloomfield, where he gave the alarm. It broke up the fair. The men all hurried to the arsenal where guns and ammunition were distributed. Col. J.B. Weaver, assisted by another Colonel, took command of the raw recruits. They left a militia to protect the town and followed the trail of the guerrillas until twelve o’clock in the night when they came to the last man killed by the guerrillas. Then as they were several miles in Missouri, they decided there was little chance of capturing the guerrillas and fearing an ambush they hired a man to take the body of the dead man home. They had met the prisoners who had been turned loose after they had killed this man. The prisoners had served their purpose and they had no more use for them. So the soldiers returned to Iowa where they guarded the southern border of the county until the close of the war and between October 21 and November 8 they captured thirteen of the worst outlaws that ever went unhung. Several had been killed by the guerrillas and several thousand dollars been taken from the people, also several fine horses had been stolen.
The people of Ringgold county had no county newspaper but a few patrons of the Mount Ayr post office were subscribers to the Burlington Hawkeye and read the account of the murders and plunder and passed the papers and news along until the excitement was very great and many people spent sleepless nights in fear lest the guerrillas pay Ringgold county a visit. They had men along the border to report anything suspicious to the people. One day soon after they had read or heard of the raid in Davis county, Mount Ayr received a report that fifty guerrillas were coming by way of Merritt settlement, about twelve miles away, to rob and kill the people and burn the town. The message came about four o’clock and the excitement was intense, as all the able bodied men were in the Army so the old men and boys heroically came to the rescue. They hunted up all the old muskets and blunderbusses and single barreled muzzle loading shot guns and got their ammunition ready and sent to the surrounding county for help.
After dark they courageously marched out east of town in a body to lie in wait to give the guerrillas a hot reception and shed their life’s blood, if need be, in defense of their families, home and town. Not a sound was heard until about eleven o’clock and the old men and big boys were bravely and breathlessly awaiting the hoof beats of the horses of the guerrillas and each Mount Ayr brave had his guerrilla as good as killed (in this mind) when the awful sound of many horses only a short distance away, coming on the run, broke the stillness of the night and completely routed the braves of Mount Ayr and every man and boy forgot his home and family and ran like deer to find a hiding place behind a dump of grass or hazel brush or in a ditch except Charlie Dunning, a nine-year old boy, who had stolen into the crowd without the consent of his parents or the knowledge of the men in the crowd. The boy was slow to take in the situation and by the time he did, he could see there were no guerrillas and yelled for the crowd to stop that they were his father’s mules, but he could make no one hear. They had all made a safe “get-away.” Charlie’s father, Barton B. Dunning always kept about fifty or sixty mules running at large on the prairie between Leasanville and Mount Ayr. These mules had become scared and stampeded for home on the run on this night of all nights, when the guerrillas were expected. The frightened men and boys rallied and put in the rest of the night waiting for the guerrillas who never came. The men surely swore Charlie to secrecy as no one ever heard of the scare for years, but a Mr. Miller (Mrs. Earle Allyn’s grandfather) an old man who was in the crowd, thought it was to good a joke to keep and told it and laughed every time he thought how the old men and big boys protected Mount Ayr from the Rebel guerrillas. Even at that late day the other men and boys could not see the funny part and refused to talk about it; although they never denied it; just simply kept “mum.”
