Civil War Poems of Jasper County, Missouri
James Spring
The free-flowing hair
Of the neighbor girl
Found tangled this morning
Where two years ago
Sigel broke camp
Our poor neighbor
Saw rigor mortis flash its terrible grinning invitation
A tongue-flicking serpent in blue
Lunging from a cave
When she came for water
We found him
Filthy guerrilla
Lying in the shade
Small arms
Muffled in the woods
Robert Doll, millwright, Carthage, Missouri, July 5, 1863
Death of William Crawford at first Carthage
The fight broke out with Bill Crawford and Stuart Lundy picketed
Overlooking Dry Fork.
Their report details the engagement.
Rangers under Captain Shelby, Missouri State Guard, July 5, 1861.
Avoid encumbrance at any cost:
Slip away;
Ride low.
A jayhawker cursing your name and mother
Kicking stones in a cemetery.
Dry Fork is sweet honey below our post.
The hive waits unlimbered.
Caterwauling shells collide overhead at 8:32 a.m.
Black powder puffballs down on Crawford, hocus-pocus, Crawford
Sparks,
A flittering charcoal moth
Eaten alive by flame.
We shot him down.
The blues did too.
Stuart Lundy, deserter, Scotland, Missouri, January 1, 1863
"Home on leave from Union Army servcice in 1863, Levi Sly was visiting his parents' home near the family-owned gristmill east of Carthage on Spring River when a band of horsemen, some of whom were attired in Union uniforms, arrived at dusk, summoned him to the door and shot him to death. His brother George Sly was confined to bed at the home of a sister Mrs. Thomas Buck with an acute case of the measles. The raiders invaded that house, took George into the yard, placed him on the ground and riddled his body with rifle bullets. Another brother, Jackson Sly, survived to tell the story."
