The Civil War looms large in the American collective memory. Like many Americans, I wondered if my ancestors participated in the war. I stumbled on a Civil War account written by my third great grandfather, William L. Fenex, about the 1865 ambush of the bushwhacker, Alfred Cook, and his band. Fenex was captain of the Seventy-third Infantry Enrolled Missouri Militia in Taney County, Missouri, a part-time Union force meant to protect civilians and assist the army during the Civil War. Informal primary and secondary accounts from the opposing side corroborated Fenex’s 1865 report. What follows is the story of the Sugar Loaf affair, as told by four different narrators.
Our
narrators are Captain William L. Fenex, Silas Claiborne Turnbo, John E. Cook,
and John Ellison. William L. Fenex wrote his official report to his commanding
officer, John B. Sanborn, on January 17, 1865, approximately eight days after
the event. Fenex described the ambush as Lieutenant Kissel reported it to him.
Silas Claiborne Turnbo, a former Confederate soldier, gathered stories from the
White River Valley people at the end of the 19th-century and
referenced the Sugar Loaf Affair twice in his manuscripts.[1] Turnbo explored the Sugar
Loaf cave and interviewed John E. Cook, the son of Alfred Cook, about his
father in 1894. Turnbo also interviewed John Ellison, who was with Alfred Cook
and barely escaped with his life that day. Fenex relates his triumphant story
with confidence while Turnbo, Cook, and Ellison describe the event in terms of
defeat, fear, suffering, and grief.[2]
On
a cold January day in 1865, Captain William L. Fenex dispatched Lieutenant
Kissel and twenty-five men to capture or exterminate Alfred Cook and his band.
Fenex justified his orders to his superiors by stating that Cook’s band “had so
long been a terror to the loyal people of Taney, Christian, and Stone
Counties.” [3] The Union militiamen
traveled by horseback thirty miles south from Forsyth, Missouri, to Arkansas,
Confederate territory. Once the men crossed the border, they traveled
stealthily through the Sugar Loaf Mountains, carefully avoiding Confederate
guerrilla fighters, called bushwhackers.[4] Alfred Cook and his band
of men were bushwhackers and based their operation in Arkansas, crossing the
border to raid their former Missouri neighbors’ farms or attack Union military
forces.[5]
Cook
and his men were hiding in a cave in the Sugar Loaf Mountains. The opening of
the cavern was large, with an overhanging cliff of rock. Someone added wooden
breastworks to the cave to make it more defensible.[6] Inside the cave, Cook and
his men debated what to do. John May, an old friend of Cook’s, warned, “that a
small force of the enemy could lay siege to it and guard the mouth of it and
starve out any armed force that would attempt to defend themselves in the
cavern and would be forced to surrender and shot down like dogs.”[7] Cook scorned the advice of
his friend and determined to stay put. Unwilling to die, John May, John
Ellison, and Joe Webb saddled their horses and left the cave. They led their
horses through several inches of heavy snow down the mountainside. When they
had traveled about three-quarters of a mile away from the cave, they heard
shots near the cave and knew they had escaped just in time.[8]
Meanwhile, Lieutenant Kissel cunningly learned
that Cook and his band were holed up in the cave. Somehow he caught one of
Cook’s sons and forced him to reveal the location. The boy reluctantly led Kissel
and his men to the cave. Cook and his band were well and truly caught.
Surrounding the cave with twenty-five armed men, Kissel issued an ultimatum,
his voice carrying across the cold air into the cave. “You have four hours to
surrender unconditionally. We will carry you to Springfield, where you will be
turned over to the authorities to be dealt with according to the law.”[9]
The
four hours ticked by slowly as the tension increased. Finally, nine men raised
their arms in surrender when the four hours expired and walked out of the cave.
Alfred Cook, Ed Brown, Hiram Russell, and two other men stayed in the cave,
refusing to surrender. Cook and his men looked at each other in the cave,
trying to figure out how to extricate themselves. Ed Brown attempted to “run
the gauntlet of armed men at the mouth of the cavern and succeeded in getting
one-quarter of a mile from the cave before he was finally slain.”[10] Kissel and his men held
their siege at the cave until the following day. They killed Alfred Cook and Ed
Brown at the mouth of the cave—giving “Cook and his party their southern
rights.”[11]
Lieutenant
Kissel and his men rode their prisoners to Springfield, Missouri, where they
were turned over to federal military authorities. John E. Cook, the sixteen-year-old
son of Alfred Cook, and the families of the dead bushwhackers carried the
bloody, shot-up bodies of their men down the mountainside to a wagon. They
drove the wagon four miles to Abe Kelling’s place, where they dug a grave and
buried Alfred Cook, Hiram Russell, and Ed Brown together.[12]
William
L. Fenex’s account is brisk, confident, and triumphant. According to Fenex, his
cause was just, Kissel acted honorably,
and Cook got his “southern rights.”In contrast, Silas Turnbo, John Ellison, and
John Cook describe the event from a place of defeat. Together these four
narrators provide a complete but terrible picture of the Sugar Loaf Affair.
Where Fenex offers justification for his actions, Turnbo, Ellison, and Cook
offer none. Neither do they present an explanation for why Cook and his men
were in the cave that cold January day. Either Turnbo, Cook, and Ellison expect
their audience to understand they were bushwhackers, or it is a deliberate
omission. These three narrators of the Sugar Loaf affair highlight the
destruction, suffering, and pain they experienced in the Civil War and offer no
resolution to their experiences.
[1] Much of the action takes place in
the White River Valley, a river that encompasses part of northern Arkansas and
Southern Missouri. Because Missouri was a border state during the war, counties
at the border experienced a lot of conflict. Southern Missouri shares the
border with Arkansas and
[2] Associate Professor of History,
Matthew C. Hulbert, asserts that some bushwhackers attempted to create a
mythology of the bushwhacker as hero after the war, in his 2013 article.
Despite those efforts, the accounts of these bushwhackers show how the
mythology was false.
Matthew
C. Hulbert, “How to Remember “This Damnable Guerrilla Warfare”: Four Vignettes
from Civil War Missouri,” Civil War History 59, no. 2, (June 2013), 146.
[3] Wm. L. Fenex, “Affair Near Sugar
Loaf Prairie, Arkansas,” War of the Rebellion, Serial 101, Chapter LX,
p. 37, website, EHistory, Department of History: Ohio State University (https://ehistory.osu.edu/books/official-records/101/0037 : accessed 1 August 2020). John B.
Sanborn, Brigadier-General of Southwest Missouri, characterized Alfred Cook and
his two lieutenants as the most brutal and bloody men. The transcribed account
names Lieutenant Kissel, however, I think the name is actually Kissee, for
Willis Kissee. Looking at the original would clarify the name, but that is not
possible. Willis Kissee married Elmira Fenex, who was most likely a relative of
William L. Fenex. Fenex sold property to Kissee in September 1863.
[4] Bushwhackers were Confederate
guerrilla forces that attacked Union outposts and sympathizers. Unsanctioned by
the Confederate government, they engaged in a small scale war to defend their
homesteads and retaliate against the Union. Their womenfolk outfitted them with
clothing, including a distinctive ruffled shirt. Two of the most well-known
Missouri bushwhackers were Bill Anderson and William Quantrill, who led a raid
against the Unionist town, Lawrence, Kansas in 1863. Quantrill’s Raiders killed
about 150 men and boys. LeeAnn Whites, “Forty Shirts and a Wagonload of Wheat:
Women, the Domestic Supply Line, and the Civil War on the Western Border,” The
Journal of the Civil War Era 1, no. 1 (March 2011), 56-78. Joseph M.
Beilein Jr., Bushwhackers: Guerilla Warfre, Manhood, and the Household in
Civil War Missouri, (Kent, OH: Kent State University, 2016), 34.
[5] Bushwhackers and Confederates
referred to Union militia/military/sympathizers as federals. In turn, Union
sympathizers referred to themselves as loyal. In his 2016 book, Bushwhackers:
Guerrilla Warfare, Manhood, and the Household in Civil War Missouri, Joseph
Beilein Jr. argues that when the Union army started arresting and penalizing
households for supporting bushwhackers (Confederate guerrilla fighters), they
felt they had no choice but to amp up the destruction and actively fight
against their neighbors and the military to defend their households.
[6] Silas Claiborne Turnbo, “The Alph
Cook Cave,” June 22, 1894, The Turnbo Manuscripts; digital collection, Springfield-Greene
County Library https://thelibrary.org/lochist/turnbo/V1/ST002.html : accessed 23 September 2020.
[7] Silas Claiborne Turnbo, “A Cold
Swim Across White River,” The Turnbo Manuscripts; digital collection, Springfield-Greene
County Library https://thelibrary.org/lochist/turnbo/V2/ST046.html : accessed 23 September 2020. Turnbo
interviewed John Ellison about the Sugar Loaf Affair. Ellison was in the cave
the day it was ambushed and made the smart decision to exit sooner rather than
later. The implication is that Ellison was part of Alfred Cook’s band of
bushwhackers.
[8] The three men, John May, Joe Webb,
and John Ellison, had a harrowing escape. John Ellison recounted to Silas
Turnbo that they crossed the White River (in January) at Dubuque by holding
onto their horses tails as the horses crossed the river. They nearly froze to
death and found a temporary shelter in a deep gulch where they lit a fire to
dry off and warm up. They hid out for over twenty-four hours before going to
Batesville, Arkansas where they surrendered to federal authorities.
[9] Wm. L. Fenex, “Affair Near Sugar
Loaf Prairie, Arkansas,” War of the Rebellion, Serial 101, Chapter LX,
p. 37, website, EHistory, Department of History: Ohio State University (https://ehistory.osu.edu/books/official-records/101/0037 : accessed 1 August 2020).
[10] Silas Claiborne Turnbo, “The Alph
Cook Cave.”
[11] Wm. L. Fenex, “Affair Near Sugar
Loaf Prairie, Arkansas.”
[12] Silas Claiborne Turnbo, “The Alph
Cook Cave.”
