Battle of Pacific, October 1, 1864 / Kept Alive in Stories Told by Grandparents

By Pauline Masson – 

In their lists of Civil War battles, mainstream historians left no record of a Battle of Pacific.

But three generations of Pacific families hold onto the stories their grandparents told of the Civil War soldiers who came here to guard the Pacific Railroad, form military regiments, train, recover from wounds in military hospital – and – on October 1, 1864, to fight.

In the early morning hours of that day a rag tag horde of poorly dressed Confederate cavalry and infantry poured into Pacific. They burned 17 railroad buildings to the ground, stripped the stores of anything edible or wearable and set up a line of defense on St. Louis Street in front of what is to be our new Post Office, where they had been driven back from Dozier crossing by Union troops arriving from St. Louis. After a fierce street battle, the Confederate troops were driven out of the city.

On May 24, 2011 Pacific families filled the Pacific High School auditorium as one resident after another shared the stories their grandparents had told of the Civil War. Maggie Brundick Koetting came from Indiana to emcee the two-hour presentation. Third generation members of the Phelan, Kommer, Murphy, Alt and Denny families took to the stage.

The late Ed Phelan, captured on video during a visit to the abandoned Withington (original St. Patrick’s of Armagh) Cemetery in Catawissa, told a romantic little tale of North and South sympathies that set the mood.

The Phelans owned 400 acres in Catawissa that was mostly woods at the time of the Civil War. To help clear the woods for fields, they hired a pair of brothers who were serving in the Union Army and stationed near the Phelan farm to guard the railroad bridge over the Meramec River.  

“There was a wedding up at the Lynches,” Phelan said. And the Phelans invited the two young soldiers to go with them to the wedding. In the Irish custom a religious medal, or token, was baked into the wedding cake and one of the visiting soldiers got the piece of cake with the token. The young soldiers were later sent south to spy on the Confederate Army. They were captured, and as spies, sentenced to death and placed in a guard house to await execution. The young officer whose duty it was to execute them came into the guard house with a pencil and some paper in his hand. If you boys want to write home to your parents, I’ll make sure your letters are sent, he said. 

“I want to send this to my parents,” one of the boys said, as he reached in his pocket and took out a small token. “Where did you get that?” the young executioner asked. “I was stationed up in Catawissa, Missouri and was invited to a wedding. There was a token in the wedding cake and I got the token,” he said.

“What was the name of the people at the wedding?” The executioner asked. “Lynch.” The  doomed soldier answered. The would-be executioner took a deep breath. “I was at that wedding,” he said. He opened the cell door and released the prisoners, saying, “You boys go home.” Phelan said he knew the story was true. The young men would later return to Catawissa to tell the story.

The late Bobbie Kommer of Catawissa also had ties to the north and south. His Musick and Whitworth ancestors had fought on both sides of the war. They each enlisted in their respective armies locally and later found themselves facing each other across battle lines in Corinth and Iuka, Mississippi. Several of Kommer’s ancestors survived the war and are buried in little fenced and overgrown Whitworth cemetery, located a stones throw from the Old St. Patrick’s burial grounds.

Before the Southern branch of the Kommer family moved to Catawissa, they owned a large plantation in present day St. Louis county, named Hazel. After the family moved west, the grand manor house became the seat of government for a village that grew up on the plantation that became Hazelwood, Missouri.

The late Billy Murphy, great grandson of prominent resident Riverboat Dan McAuley related a story that had scarred his family for three generations. Ahead of the arriving Rebel cavalry, leaving his wife and daughters alone, McAuley took his horses to a nearby cave. He made the fateful error of leaving manure droppings in the barn yard. Finding the droppings and no horses, the enraged Confederate officers occupied McAuley’s fine stone house, forced Mrs. McAuley to cook for the officers and when they left they took as prisoners the two oldest teenage daughters. Days later the girls, who had been molested by the Rebel soldiers made their way home. For the remainder of their young adult years, they were shunned by local young men. When McAuley died he left each of his children $450. The two girls, who had never married, took their inheritance, moved to Colorado and bought a large house that they turned into a boarding house to earn a living.

 Another of Billy’s great grandfathers was John Freymeyer, or Freemeyer, of Pennsylvania, who was among the Union forces that got off the train in Dozier and drove the Rebels out of town. Freymeyer would return to Pacific after the war and get married. He was well connected enough that he was elected town marshal in 1892 and served for ten years.

Bryan Buchanan brought a unique memento of the war, his gr-gr-gr grandfather Robert B. Denny’s Civil War diary. Denny also fought in the battles of Corinth and Iuka Mississippi, but he didn’t write about the exploits that elevated him to the rank of Lt. Col. His thoughts seemed always to be on home. “He recorded each time he wrote a letter home and each time he received a letter. When didn’t get any mail, he wrote that down, too,” Bryan said. During Price’s raid Col. Denny’s wife Melitta wrote that she took all their possessions into the woods and hid them to save them from the plundering rebels. They did lose one horse during the raid.

After the war Col. Denny served as a Franklin County judge for three decades. He used his army pay to buy a farm in Lonedell. The elementary school is now on part of the farm. He built a grand antebellum- style house with two-story columns. Bryan had alway heard about the house and was able to visit it the week before the history program, which confirmed family stories. His grandfather had built the same house on their farm on Denny Road.

Henry Alt shared the experience of his great grandfather Charles Fries, who enlisted in the Union Cavalry, at Vicksburg, Mississippi, and participated in the Siege of Vicksburg. In later years family members associated him with Sherman’s march to the sea. But Grandma Fries always corrected them. “Not Sherman, she said, “No.” He was with General Sheridan. This was the leader of the Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Potomac in the East. In 1865, it was his cavalry troops that pursued General Robert E. Lee and forced his surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. After the strenuous life of a horse soldier Charles did not easily adjust to civilian life. When he first came home from the war he bought a gun and went out West for a while like the roving cowboys of legend. He later returned to Missouri, married and lived on a farm in St. Albans where died  in 1897 at age 61.

There were other snippets of local lore that had survived.

Grandma Annie Kennedy Ryan, great grandmother of emcee Maggie Koetting  had earned a permanent spot in local lore when she prevented Union troops from confiscating the foundation of the new St. Brigdet church for a fort. In the early days of the war, a contingent of Union soldiers came upon the rows of stones, that formed the foundation for the church construction site on Union Street and decided they would make a suitable fort. When word spread through the town that the soldiers were defacing church grounds, Grandma Ryan rushed to the church, demanded to see the officer in charge and in stentorian tones insisted that the soldiers remove themselves from the unfinished church. Which they did.

Lt. Col. William Stuhlman, a local landowner and vintner, owned a house, a ten acre vineyard and a cellar filled with casks of wine at present day Union and Second streets. In September, 1864, he was stationed in Union, Missouri when he learned of the approaching band of Confederate plunderers. As a local businessman Stuhlman had the distinction of being the first person to quarry sand off the slope north of town that eventually revealed the present sandstone bluff that identifies Pacific. When he heard the news of Price’s approach, he thought of the wine stored in his cellar and feared the the marauding men would get drunk and do even more damage. He and asked for and was granted leave to come home to Pacific where he emptied 1,000 gallons of wine into the street.

In 1935, the Henry Shaw Gardenway Foundation placed a beautiful bronze marker on the new Route 66, at the spot where the Union troops stopped the advance of the Confederate troops on Oct. 1, 1864. The expensive bronze marker was stolen and replaced three or four times and finally abandoned.  In 2014 the local historical society erected a replica of the original marker on the opposite side of the road, facing arriving motorists, at the base of Jensen’s Point. The replica was crafted of painted metal, hoping it would be less enticing to thieves.

A local Boy Scout Zach Myers gave the city its most impressive Civil War memorial. In 2011, the same year as the history program, as an Eagle Scout candidate, Zach purchased and erected a 12-pound replica Howitzer cannon, like those the Confederate troops had placed on the hilltop on Oct. 1, 1864.  Zach’s research showed that the Howitzer at that site would fire a four-inch solid ball, weighing twenty pounds – that – if fired east could reach the Third Rail Saloon in the East Osage Plaza, if fired south could reach the Graphic Packing planting the industrial park, or if fired west could reach Hardee’s and Moto-mart.

For the next 100 years, cannon balls, shells and bullets were dug out of roofs, interior floors and gardens in Pacific.

In the 1960s, Dale Hoffman and his father were in the crew that demolished the old Civil War mansion on St. Louis Street, known as the Blue Goose, where the new Post Office now stands. He found a board with a Civil War Shell. He cut out the section of the board with the spent bullet as a keepsake. Research showed the bullet was a flat base, one groove, Colt revolver .44 caliber Civil War bullet. In the wall, he also found an old diary and some letters from soldiers, which seemed to confirm local lore that the mansion had been a military hospital.

The Meramec Valley Genealogical and Historical Society staged the event. They recorded the talks in a DVD that was sold for $15. Donna Graham, society president said several copies are still available. To obtain a copy contact Kelly O’Mallley, city tourism director, 636-271-0500, Ext 222.

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