1862 Skirmish at Fristoe's Farm
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1862 SKIRMISH AT FRISTOE'S FARM
Captain James Lorenzo Morgan
On September 6, 1862, on the old Fristoe farm about four miles northwest of Armstrong, Missouri, fourteen Confederate recruits stopped on their way to join Sterling Price's army. They were attempting to miss the Yankee outpost at Glasgow, but someone reported them to the soldiers garrisoned there.
The Southerners got food from the Fristoe family and went into the nearby woods to eat it. When two of their group went to a well for water, the Yankees sprang upon them from a cornfield.
The surprised Confederates offered an immediate surrender, but Captain J. W. Baird dismissed them with the declaration, "We take no prisoners!"
With the Yankees was a group of about 40 Glasgow militiamen under the command of Captain James Lorenzo Morgan, many of whom were Southern sympathizers who had been forced to accompany the expedition.
When Baird ordered a charge, all but two of the Southerners scattered. The Yankees started firing and shots flew thick and fast for a few minutes. One of the remaining Confederates managed to mortally wound Captain Baird, but the pair eventually gave up.
One of the captured men was George Teeters, a boy of just 17 years of age, who was fatally wounded. The Yankee troops would have killed his companion, too, if Captain Morgan had not intervened.
Morgan also made sure that Teeters' body was not touched until permission was obtained from Glasgow to bury him. With $40 obtained from his pockets and some donations, the townfolk bought a suit of clothes and a casket and buried him.
When the battle site was examined soon afterwards, many shots were discovered high up in the trees on the opposite bank of the small creek. Many thought these shots were fired by Captain Morgan's militiamen, who refused to aim directly at the Confederate recruits.
Source: William A. Markland, Bicentennial Boonslick History, Boonslick Historical Society, Missouri, 1976, page 96.