About the 1st of July, 1864, Sallie Mayfield, her 16 year old
sister, Jennie Mayfield, Mrs. Nancy Burrus, and Miss Nannie McConnell were
out riding with a squad of bushwackers. The party were going to the site of Old
Montevallo and were riding up the valley to the southward, when they came upon a
detachment of Co. C, 3rd Wisconsin, out from Balltown on a scout. The
bushwackers ungallantly deserted their fair charges and sought only to save
themselves. Deserted by their cavaliers the women did their best to escape, and
Nannie McConnell succeded. The two Mayfield girls and Nancy Burrus were
captured. Being found in company with the bushwackers, they were taken first to
Balltown and kept three days; then to Ft. Scott, where they were detained for a
week; then to Leavenworth, Kansas; then to Kansas City, where they were kept
another week, and finally sent to Gratiot Street Prison (McDowell College) in
St. Louis and afterwards transferred to the Confederate female prison, on the
corner of 7th and Chestnut Streets.
Miss
Burrus was released upon taking the oath in Kansas City. Miss Ella Simms,
another "lady bushwacker: who lived near Montevallo, was taken prisoner soon
afterward, and either died in prison or on the way
home.
At 2 o'clock in the morning on the
19th of October, the Mayfield girls made their escape from the Seventh and
Chestnut street building, accomplishing a most remarkably skillful and
successful feat, but at the same time one full of difficulty and peril. They
were imprisoned in a room in the third story of the building, with other
Confederate girls and women. Sallie Mayfield fashioned a screwdriver from a
table knife, which she had secreted, and opened the door of the room by taking
off its hinges. Then, carrying their shoes, she and her young sister slipped
noislessly down the stairways, passing safely the drowsy sentinal snoozing on
the landing. The door opening from the foot of the stairway on the street was a
formidable one, with heavy bolts and bars, and there was a soldier on guard upon
the outside pacing his beat with his musket on his shoulder. Drawing the bolts
and forcing the lock with some difficulty, the girls waited until they heard the
sentinal turn the corner of the street and start to walk the pavement on the
side of the building fronting on Chestnut, when they quickly stepped out on
Seventh Street, closing the door behind them, and tripped
away.
They walked the streets till
daylight. Unacquainted with the city, and not daring to ask for
assistance, they encountered all sorts of difficulties, and had many narrow
escapes. At last they contrived to reach the tracks of the old North Missouri
Railroad (now the Wabash), on which they walked nearly to St. Charles, and
evntually reached some friends in the western part of St. Charles County. Not
long afterward they were forced to leave this retreat and repaired to the then
residence of their mother, in Morgan County.
The story above of
the escape came from "The History of Vernon County, Missouri". If the story is
true, they must have been rearrested. The escape was on Oct. 16, 1864. They were
banished from the state on Nov. 2, 1864, to "any place north and east of
Springfield, Illinois". If they were actually banished, according to the order,
they weren't gone long. Sallie was back in Missouri in
1865.
Eliza (Ella)
Gabbert
Eliza Ann (Ella) was the oldest child of William "Old Man"
Gabbert, leader of his own Bushwhacker band in Dover Township, and his wife, the
former Rebecca Wade. She was born Dec. 12, 1834, in Washington County,
Ind., and came to Vernon County with her parents and their eight other children,
about 1858.
In early winter, 1862, when the Mayfield boys and
John Gabbert captured, disarmed, and unhorsed 27 Federal cavalrymen going, a few at a time, to
water their horses in McCarty Creek, west of Old Montevallo, they sent their sisters Ella and
Eliza to the Federal camp to offer to trade the 27 for Capt. Henry Taylor, then
a prisoner at Ft. Scott. The offer being refused, they simply released the
27, after making them swear allegiance to the Confederacy.
The
Vernon County girls innocently shopped at Fort Scott and smuggled ammunition
back to their menfolk, doubtless under their hoopskirts, safe in the knowledge no gentleman
would dream of searching them. The Federals knew perfectly well that Eliza and
Ella were combatants, just like the men. But what could they do?
Lady Bushwhackers were still ladies.
Eliza was
one of a number of young women who helped bury the gory bodies of seven
Bushwhackers killed in the fight at Old Man Gabbert's on May 26, 1863.
Eliza watched the Federals burn her family home on this occasion.
In August, 1862, when so many Vernon County men were in
prison at Springfield, captured during Coffee's campaign, Ella Mayfield and
Eliza Gabbert went unattended to the prison and by their persistent itercession
with the Federal military authorities secured the release of half a dozen or
more men. The intercession consisted of swearing to the innocence of the
men in question.
Eliza A.Gabbert married Dr. John W. Lipscomb April
12, 1868. She died June 6, 1884, reportedly of cancer of the womb, then
aged 49 years, 7 months, and 6 days.
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James R. Baker
Jr.
