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When the American Civil War began in April, 1861, the
governors of the important border states of Missouri and Kentucky were both in sympathy
with the Confederate States of America although neither man was so radical on the issue of
secession as their enemies depicted them. Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson of Missouri was a
Douglas Democrat who believed his state's interests could not be separated from those of
her sister slave states and if war came she must, therefore, "share the fortunes of
the Southern States." 1 He was forced to adopt a pragmatic policy
of neutrality after he was "out-maneuvered and out-fought" by a "handful of
St. Louis Republicans"2 in the spring of 1861.
Missouri decided to remain in the Union, but the decision had
not really been hers. An uncompromising United States Army presented the compliant State
Convention with a fait accompli. Still, Missouri had the distinction of having two,
arguably, legitimate governments during the war—the provisional one installed in
Jefferson City by the State Convention and supported by the U. S. Army, and the other the
rather hapless floating government-in-exile of Governors Jackson and, after his death on
December 6, 1862, Thomas C. Reynolds.
In Kentucky the situation was similar. Governor Beriah
Magoffin was a southern sympathizer who, because of circumstances beyond his ability to
control, advocated a public policy of strict armed neutrality in the conflict. He
emphatically refused to supply four regiments to the United States when demanded to do so
by President Lincoln. He also declined a request to furnish a regiment to the Confederacy.
Magoffin consistently called for a policy to "preserve the Union through compromise
and conciliation instead of by force of arms."3 He forbid either
side to set foot on Kentucky soil but could not force their evacuation when they did in
September of 1861. Prior to the state's invasion by both sides he had quietly looked the
other way for months while Confederate recruiters worked the state. For that reason and
others most politicians in Washington and Richmond believed Governor Magoffin's
middle-of-the-road rhetoric a smokescreen to cover "some sort of secret plot to lead
Kentucky out of the Union. . . ."4 Like Jackson of Missouri,
Magoffin at first found his state divided and confused on the issue of secession. The
majority of citizens were moderates who were willing to let the South go its way
unmolested by the North, but who were not themselves ready to sever Kentucky's tie to the
Union. They approved of Magoffin's declaration of neutrality. Gradually a pro-North
consensus emerged in Kentucky, and led by the pro-Union legislature the state remained in
the Union. While he was not evicted from the state capital and subsequently deposed as
governor as was Claiborne Jackson, Magoffin did resign in the summer of 1862 when his
position became "untenable."5 In the first year of the war,
however, Kentucky's intentions were less apparent to President Lincoln and he went out of
his way to appease Governor Magoffin, hoping, no doubt, that the state would at least
remain neutral (Magoffin's professed desire) if Magoffin were handled discreetly. Lincoln
probably did not expect to receive any cooperation from Kentucky as long as Magoffin was
governor, but in 1861-62 Lincoln's objective was simply to keep his native state from
seceding until he could consolidate his military and political positions in the border
states. At the time Lincoln was criticized for his kid-glove handling of Magoffin. For
instance, the President ignored a public charge by Magoffin that he (Lincoln) was guilty
of usurpation. In the end, however, the President's policy of patience proved wise. He
eventually got rid of Governor Magoffin without having to forcibly remove him from office.
An interesting and unknown footnote to Lincoln's relationship with Beriah Magoffin is the
Ebenezer Magoffin affair of 1861-62 in Missouri.
Ebenezer Magoffin, younger brother of Beriah Magoffin, was
born at Harrodsburg, Mercer County, Kentucky, probably in 1817,6 the
son of Beriah Magoffin, a native of County Down, Ireland, and Jane McAfee Magoffin,
daughter of Samuel McAfee, a Kentucky pioneer.7 Among his nine
brothers and sisters were James Wiley Magoffin (1799-1868), a well-known United States
agent and consul in Mexico in the 1820s and '30s who helped to open the Mexican overland
trade and who later was responsible for the U. S. Army's gaining jurisdiction over New
Mexico without bloodshed during the Mexican War;8 Samuel Magoffin,
another pioneer Santa Fe trader, who married Susan Shelby, granddaughter of Governor Isaac
Shelby (1750-1826) of Kentucky, who wrote a published diary (Down the Santa Fe Trail)
of her experiences on the Santa Fe Trail; and the aforementioned Beriah Magoffin
(1815-1885), politician and statesman, governor of Kentucky from 1859 to 1862, and one of
Kentucky's wealthiest men. Magoffin County, Kentucky, was named in his honor. Beriah also
married a granddaughter of Governor Shelby, Kentucky's first governor. Ebenezer married
Margaret Ann Hutchison (1820-1861), daughter of Elijah and Isabella Hutchison.9 Their children included Elijah H., John R., Beriah, Mary B., Jennie,
and Emma.10
Ebenezer Magoffin went to Boone County, Missouri, from his
home in Mercer County, Kentucky, in 1856.11 On February 19, 1856, he
purchased 2,160 acres in a body in north central Pettis County, Missouri, from Nimrod and
Mary J. Dewees of Morgan County, Illinois, for $16,000.12 Mr.
Magoffin moved to the new farm with his family and slaves either later in 1856 or in 1857.
He named his farm "Prairie Lea.''13 It was located on the
headwaters of Heaths Creek in a gently rolling and productive area of Pettis County. The
present village of Hughesville is located in what was the southeast corner of Prairie Lea.
The post office serving the community went by the name of Magoffin P. O. The 1860 census
values Magoffin's real estate at $47,200 (which seems very high) and his personal property
at $6,580. Many of the Magoffins' neighbors were fellow Kentuckians who had immigrated to
northern Pettis County in the mid-1850's. Most were large land and slave owners; a few
were young professional men such as George Graham Vest who had come to Pettis County to
practice law. Nothing else of Magoffin's pre-war life can be documented. 14
Beginning with the spring of 1861 and for the next fifteen
months, however, Magoffin's life can be documented in considerable detail. In May, 1861,
prior to Governor Claiborne F. Jackson's call on June 13 for 50,000 volunteers to protect
Missouri from invasion and capture by the United States Army under the military leadership
of Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon and the political leadership of Colonel Frank Blair,
Magoffin went to Jefferson City to offer his services to his adopted state. Governor
Jackson instructed him to return home and raise a regiment of cavalry to act as scouts in
the West Central Missouri area. He and a Major Thomas E. Staples of Georgetown, Pettis
County, proceeded to organize an impromptu regiment that in June was ordered to Boonville,
now the makeshift capital of the state, to help defend it from General Lyon's troops
advancing from Jefferson City. The regiment departed under the sole command of Major
Staples when Mrs. Magoffin suddenly became ill and Magoffin remained at home with her.15 Governor Jackson's ill-trained and under-armed Missouri State Guard,
under the field command of his nephew Colonel (later General) John S. Marmaduke, was
defeated by Lyon on June 17, 1861, and the Governor retreated to Southwest Missouri where
he set up another temporary Missouri State Government-in-exile at Neosho until General
Sterling Price could recapture control of the western Missouri River Valley and Jefferson
City for him. Magoffin rejoined the regiment shortly after the Battle of Boonville and at
the Battle of Carthage (Missouri) on July 5, 1861, he received prisoners and acted as aide
to Governor Jackson. After that battle, in which Jackson's State Guard was victorious,
Magoffin, still without official rank, was ordered by the Governor to return to Central
Missouri to recruit troops and procure supplies for General Price's army. He returned to
Pettis County without written orders and raised a regiment from Pettis, Cooper, and Saline
counties. He also did some recruiting north of the Missouri River. When the new regiment
numbered less than 300 men Magoffin was elected major and as it increased in size, he was
to claim later, elected colonel. While he was organizing the regiment Magoffin quartered
it on his farm, presumably at his expense. Magoffin was supposed to leave with his
regiment to join the main army in Southwest Missouri, but as before Boonville he was
unable to do so. In August, 1861, he was summoned to Fort Leavenworth to serve as a
witness for a John J. Jones. He returned to Pettis County late in August and found that
all but twelve of his men (part of a Captain White's company) had already departed with
Colonel Edwin Price, son of General Price. On or about August 29th (there is some
confusion among the principals about the exact date), Colonel Magoffin took his twelve men
to Georgetown, the Pettis County seat, to purchase some shoes and/or clothes for them.16
Meanwhile on August 24th Lieutenant Colonel Henry M. Day of
the First Illinois Cavalry, stationed at Jefferson City, had been ordered to Lexington by
the recently promoted Brigadier General U. S. Grant. Colonel Day was armed with a list of
names of rebels and secessionists whom he was to arrest on the way to Lexington should he
find them. Colonel Magoffin was not on his list but only because he was so well known it
was thought unnecessary to include his name. On August 29th Colonel Day approached
Georgetown from the east on the Otterville Road with Company C, First Regiment Illinois
Cavalry, composed of about 95 regular soldiers and 125 Home Guards. He divided his command
as was his habit so as to surround the town and prevent the escape of any rebels who
happened to be in town. He then rode toward Georgetown with nine regular soldiers and
sixty Home Guards. A half mile from the courthouse Colonel Day's orderly, Sergeant George
W. Glasgow, reported that he saw what appeared to be soldiers in Georgetown. At first they
were believed to be Union soldiers but when they turned and ran they were assumed to be
rebels. Colonel Day and his men then charged up the hill and down the main street of
Georgetown in pursuit of the men now on horseback. According to witnesses the Federal
troops fired first on the rebels, who were in fact Magoffin's men. In the ensuing skirmish
Sergeant Glasgow was shot to death by a man with a double-barreled shotgun who was later
identified by eyewitnesses as Colonel Magoffin. Word soon reached Colonel Day that the
notorious Colonel Magoffin was believed to be in town. Magoffin was located in the attic
of the Kidd Hotel, armed with a pistol and shotgun. He was induced to surrender and after
supposedly denying any connection with the Missouri State Guard or the Confederate Army,
he was arrested on the charge of murdering a soldier of the United States Army. He was
threatened with summary execution by the angry Home Guards, many of whom personally knew
him, and some of the regular troops; but he was safely transferred to headquarters at
Sedalia three miles south and jailed. During an interview that evening Colonel Day
admonished his prisoner: "Magoffin, I am astounded that a man possessed of as much
intelligence as you appear to be should take the course that you have in assassinating
Federal troops." Colonel Day then expressed the hope to Magoffin that he would be
shot or "hung up" by the neck and that he would like to be the man to do it.17
Magoffin was not executed but was taken by his captors to
Lexington as a prisoner. After a siege that started September 13, Union forces were
defeated September 20, 1861, in the celebrated Battle of Lexington by General Price. The
tables were turned. Magoffin was released in exchange for former Missouri Governor Austin
A. King and former Missouri Supreme Court Judge John F. Ryland, prisoners of Magoffin's
son, Captain Elijah Magoffin.18 Ironically, Lieutenant Colonel Day,
who was severely injured in the battle, found himself the prisoner of Colonel Magoffin.
(Colonel Day was later to grudgingly admit that he had been kindly treated by Magoffin
while he was his prisoner. Those who knew Colonel Magoffin, including Federal officers,
described him as a "perfect gentleman, high-toned and honorable.") Meanwhile,
Magoffin was immediately and officially commissioned a colonel of infantry by General
Sterling Price and instructed to recruit yet another regiment of infantry.19
Colonel Magoffin campaigned with the Missouri State Guard
throughout the fall of 1861, but on December 7, 1861, he received word indirectly from his
family that his wife was dying. He tried to return home that night but was fired upon by
soldiers reported to have been posted in every room of his home except Mrs. Magoffin's
bedroom as well as outside the house. (The sentinels had obviously been alerted to Colonel
Magoffin's possible arrival.) Magoffin escaped that evening but left his horse behind. On
December 9th Magoffin sent word to Colonel (later General) Frederick Steele, commanding
officer of the 5th Division, Army of the West, stationed at Sedalia, that he wished to see
his wife before she died and, through the efforts of some of Magoffin's Union friends who
evidently believed and implied to Colonel Steele that Magoffin might be ready to swear
allegiance to the United States, Magoffin was granted a pass on December 10th to Prairie
Lea to be with her. Accompanied by Lieutenant Colonel (later General) E. B. Brown, Colonel
Steele's aide-de-camp, an exhausted and distressed Magoffin returned home just before Mrs.
Magoffin's death.20
The pass, or safeguard, ran from December 10 to December 20.
(Although the pass guaranteed the safety of Colonel Magoffin, his family, and his property
for ten days, Magoffin's hogs, chickens, and turkeys were shot by passing Union soldiers.
One group of soldiers even demanded breakfast of the bereaved family but left after
finally recognizing the authority of the safeguard.) After the funeral Colonel Steele sent
Magoffin a "parole" dated December 14th in which by its acceptance Magoffin
promised that he would not "in any manner by word or deed, aid, assist or give
countenance to the enemies of the United States Government." If he accepted these
conditions Colonel Magoffin was to be permitted to remain at home "in the quiet
unmolested pursuit of his usual peaceful occupations." On December 16th Colonel
Magoffin wrote his good friend and family physician Doctor (sometimes referred to as
Colonel) James R. Hughes, who had been instrumental in obtaining the first pass for him
and who had been with Magoffin the night his wife died, that he could not accept the
proffered parole received by him on December 15th because he had word from reliable
sources that there was "a conspiracy . . . to assassinate me in my home. Reluctantly
I am compelled to leave it again ... [and to leave my] young and helpless family to the
mercy of my enemies."21 The army officers at Sedalia, however,
were under the mistaken impression that Colonel Magoffin had accepted the parole. Magoffin
was subsequently captured by a large Union force on December 19, 1861, at Milford, Johnson
County, Missouri, with 684 rebel troops under Col. F. S. Robertson. He was camped with the
Confederates (on their way to join General Price) at the mouth of Clear Creek on the
Blackwater River, approximately 17 miles west of Prairie Lea. Magoffin was apparently
unarmed and not in command of any of the rebels but was with them solely for his
protection from Pettis Countians whom he believed were going to kill him. His sons,
Captain (later Colonel) Elijah H. Magoffin, 24, and Beriah Magoffin, 19, were probably
captured at the same time. 22
After his capture Colonel Magoffin was taken under guard to
St. Louis at the personal request of Major General Henry W. Halleck, commanding the
Department of Missouri, and eventually tried on dual charges by a panel of four Union
officers called a "military commission." He was charged with murdering Sergeant
Glasgow in Georgetown on or about August 29, 1861, and of violating his alleged parole not
to resume arms against the United States by leaving his home on or about December 16 to
rejoin a Confederate force. The trial commenced on February 6, 1862, and continued to
February 20, 1862. Fifteen military and civilian witnesses were called to testify for the
prosecution and the defense, including a number of Pettis Countians who had been in
Georgetown the day it was raided by Colonel Day. The Pettis Countians summoned to St.
Louis to testify included Mentor Thomson, a prominent farmer and son of General David
Thomson, and George and Samuel Brown, sons of the famous Pettis County pioneer freighter,
the late James Brown. The official record of the trial is unclear if Colonel Magoffin had
the benefit of counsel or if he defended himself against the government's dubious charges.
Regardless, his defense arguments (all in the first person) were eloquent and thoughtful.
Because his questions to witnesses and prepared statements to the commission reflect
considerable knowledge of the law and legal precedent, they may have been asked and
written by a defense attorney. The verdict, however, was probably a foregone conclusion
and the trial but a formality. On February 20, 1862, Colonel Magoffin was found not guilty
of the charge of murdering Sergeant Glasgow (the commission was forced by the
preponderance of evidence to reluctantly agree that the Colonel was a legitimate
belligerent in August, 1861, and had killed the sergeant in self-defense), but guilty of
the charge of violating his parole on December 19th. He was sentenced to be taken to the
prison at Alton, Illinois, and shot to death "at such time and place as the
commanding officer of this department [Major General Halleck] may direct." Halleck
subsequently approved the findings of the commission and its sentence. At the time,
General Halleck was routinely approving the executions of many Missouri men and boys found
guilty by his "military commissions" of burning bridges, destroying telegraph
lines, and other alleged crimes against the government of the United States, all despite
the fact as Colonel Magoffin correctly argued, that the so-called commissions had no
jurisdiction in such cases. Even the Judge-Advocate, John F. Lee, in reviewing Magoffin's
case, wrote that "Military commissions are not a tribunal known to our laws, and
military commanders have no power to inflict death except by sentence of
courts-martial."23
Colonel Magoffin was not immediately executed, however. On
March 24, 1862, his brother Beriah Magoffin sent a telegram to Kentucky's venerable
statesman John J. Crittenden in Washington asking his help in obtaining a suspension of
his brother's sentence until "I can get it fairly before them (Lincoln and Stanton).
I think I can prove . . . he is innocent." The telegram was delivered to President
Lincoln and he wrote the following endorsement on the back of the telegram:
| To John F. Lee [Judge-Advocate] |
| I wish to grant the suspension within requested. Will the Judge Advocate
please carry it into effect. |
| March 25, 1862 |
A. Lincoln 24 |
That same day, March 25, 1862, Lorenzo Thomas,
Adjutant-General, telegrammed General Halleck in St. Louis the message that Magoffin's
sentence was suspended pending his review of the case and ordered the record of his trial
transmitted to the Adjutant-General's office at the War Department. Judge- Advocate Lee
simultaneously sent a telegram to Governor Magoffin at Frankfort, Kentucky, informing him
that his brother's sentence of death had been suspended as requested.
Two weeks later President Lincoln sent the following telegram [it is not known what
precipitated it]:
| Major General Halleck |
|
Executive Mansion |
|
|
Washington |
| Saint Louis, Mo.: |
|
April 9, 1862 |
| If the rigor of the confinement of Magoffin at Alton is endangering his
life, or materially impairing his health, I wish it mitigated so far as it can be
consistently with his safe detention. |
|
|
A. Lincoln |
John Hay endorsed the telegram, "Please send above, by
order of President."25
The record indicates no further action or concern by either
the President or Halleck, although Judge-Advocate Lee recommended in April that Magoffin's
death sentence be lifted and even suggested that he be released on parole. Colonel
Magoffin languished at Alton until the night of July 24-25, 1862, when he escaped from the
prison with his sons Elijah and Beriah and 33 other prisoners. Much to the astonishment
and even admiration of the Federal soldiers guarding them, Colonel Magoffin and the other
escapees had dug a 60-foot-long tunnel, 18 inches in diameter, from inside an unused
outdoor brick oven three feet into the ground, through the three-foot-thick solid
limestone prison wall, and outside to freedom. Years later Elijah Magoffin reported that
the tunnel required 20 days to dig.26
On August 26, 1862, President Lincoln personally ordered a
court of inquiry to "inquire into the circumstances of the escape of thirty-six
prisoners of war from the military prison at Alton. . . ." The court met on September
3 and after interviewing six officers and one private ruled that the escape of prisoners
". . . was due to dereliction of duty, but to whom the court is unable to say. . .
." No one received an official reprimand.27
After the escape from Alton the record becomes vague and
contradictory. Magoffin and his sons rejoined the Confederate Army and supposedly served
under General JO Shelby in Arkansas. One source reports that Colonel Magoffin survived
until just before the end of the war. Another source reports he was killed soon after his
escape from Alton. Both sources agree that he was stabbed to death by a man named Cordle,
probably in Arkansas. One of Magoffin's friends and Cordle were fighting in a tavern and
when the Colonel intervened to break up the fight, Cordle stabbed him. Elijah Magoffin
pursued his father's killer 600 miles into Texas where he finally caught up with him and
hanged the killer himself, thereby avenging his father's death.28
Regardless what happened to Ebenezer Magoffin later in the
war, three weeks after his escape from the Alton prison there was in Kentucky on August
16, 1862, a "sudden and extraordinary change in State policy. . . ." Governor
Beriah Magoffin resigned on that date effective August 18, and Speaker of the Senate James
F. Robinson, a man "in perfect sympathy with the Union cause," became governor
of the State of Kentucky.29 Magoffin, after fighting an increasingly
hostile Legislature for over a year and helplessly watching as his vetoes of pro-Union
bills were regularly overridden by it, finally found himself frustrated, powerless, and
threatened with impeachment, arrest, and possibly even assassination.
With his professed policy of armed neutrality a charade and
shambles, Governor Magoffin retired to his estate in Mercer County to pursue business
matters undisturbed by the North. Except for one term in the Legislature from 1867 to
1869, he avoided politics, although not issues, the rest of his life. Contrary to his
radical image, he supported Kentucky's ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment and the
granting of civil rights to Negroes, a position that cost him many friends among his
fellow Democrats.30 A pro-Magoffin biographical sketch claims that
"He was not a Secessionist, but a patriot, who loved his native land, and under
Scriptural interpretation felt that he must first care for the people of his own ilk and
household. Therefore, for them he was willing to be ostracized [sic] from the high
seat to which he had been elected.''31 That judgment is probably
correct except that he did believe in secession as a right; he was, however, "opposed
to the piecemeal process of leaving the Union."32
In peacetime Beriah Magoffin would have more than likely
enjoyed a successful administration because of his popularity, experience, and family and
professional connections. He had the misfortune of being elected governor at a time and in
a place that doomed a man of his personality and political convictions. Despite its
possible advantage to Kentucky, a middle-of-the-road non-involvement approach was
impossible for a man caught between the grinding momentums of two nations committing
themselves to total war. Had Magoffin been willing to accommodate the North instead of
half-heartedly collaborating with the South he might have finished his term of office. As
it was he was unwilling or unable to either cooperate or collaborate successfully and
resigned by popular request rather than betray (in his viewpoint) his beloved state.
As we have seen, however, Magoffin's gubernatorial career may
have been cut short (or prolonged) by personal as well as political pressures. Lincoln was
said to have remarked that while he hoped to have God on his side, he must have Kentucky.33 He wrote:
I think to lose Kentucky is nearly . . . to lose the whole
game. Kentucky gone, we cannot hold Missouri, nor, as I think, Maryland. These all against
us, and the job on our hands is too large for us. We would as well consent to separation
at once, including the surrender of this capital.34
Jefferson Davis coveted the strategically located Kentucky
as well. Assuming that both men early in the war believed Governor Magoffin's influence
real and his support crucial, Lincoln had one advantage in 1862 that President Davis did
not have. He held Ebenezer Magoffin at Alton under sentence of death. Shooting Colonel
Magoffin obviously would not have helped persuade Governor Magoffin to continue even his
superficial advocacy of neutrality. Whether or not he actually had the power to align
Kentucky to Richmond's orbit in 1861 is debatable. But Magoffin did have considerable
personal prestige as well as that of his office. And he had many friends and supporters.
Unfortunately for the governor, however, his friends in the Kentucky Legislature had been
ousted or barred from seeking reelection. Moreover, by July of 1862 many of Magoffin's
fellow Democrats and Southern sympathizers had been jailed by the United States government
acting through the army 35 Prior to the summer of 1862, however,
Magoffin and his large minority of secession-minded Breckinridge Democrats (or
"obstructionists" as the administration in Washington called them) could have
made the North's political/military campaign for Kentucky much more difficult than it was,
thereby delaying the invasion of the South proper. But while Lincoln may have felt that he
needed Magoffin, Magoffin needed Lincoln as well because only the President could grant
his brother a reprieve or pardon. We can assume that the governor did not want to see his
younger brother shot. He obviously would have been willing to make some kind of sacrifice
in exchange for his brother's life if given the opportunity or a choice.36
The record does not reveal a quid Pro quo option, but it does imply President Lincoln and
Governor Magoffin were in a stalemate in the summer of 1862. Beriah Magoffin was the last
major obstacle to Lincoln's total political control of Kentucky, yet he could not be
removed from office without an unseemly and embarrassing spectacle. And Magoffin was
depending on Lincoln's mercy to save his brother's life. As long as he held on to the
governor's office he still had some leverage; as a private citizen he would have none.
Ebenezer Magoffin's daring escape from Alton may have resolved
the men's dilemma for them by allowing them at last to act freely, unhindered by
circumstances not really germane to their mutual problem and objectives. The direct or
indirect role that Ebenezer Magoffin played in the Lincoln-Magoffin-Magoffin triangle
cannot be determined from the public record; certainly there is no evidence of a
"deal." But the sequence of events and the resolution of the affair in August,
1862, does suggest that Colonel Ebenezer Magoffin of Missouri had at least the appearance
of being a pawn who evolved into the chief obstructionist in the maneuvers for control of
Kentucky.
Footnotes
- Howard L. Conrad, Encyclopedia of the History of Missouri, III
(New York 1901), 397.
- William H. Lyon, "Claiborne Fox Jackson and the Secession Crisis
in Missouri" Missouri Historical Review Volume LVIII, No. 4. (Columbia, Mo.,
July, 1964), 441.
- William H. Lyon, "The pro-Secessionist Governor of
Kentucky" Register of the Kentucky Historical Society (?), 222.
- Ibid.
- Louisville (Kentucky) Courier-Journal, Oct. 25, 1934.
- Dumas Malone, ed., Dictionary of American Biography, XII (New
York 1933), 199-201.
- Ibid, 200-201.
- Ibid.
- The War of the Rebellion
A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington,
1880-1901), Series II, Vol. I, 300 passim. Cited hereinafter as Official Records
- 1860 Census of Pettis County, Missouri.
- History of Saline County (Missouri) (1881), 650.
- Warranty Deed Record, Book G. Page 313 in the office of the Pettis
County, Missouri, Recorder of Deeds.
- Official Records, Series II, Vol. I, 358.
- In light of Ebenezer Magoffin's political convictions it is
interesting to note that he had a brother-in-law, Isaac W. Hutchison, who was married to
Lottie McDonald. Lottie McDonald Hutchison as a child was apparently orphaned and was
reared in the household of Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War under President Lincoln. History
of Pettis County, Missouri (1882), 789. Left a widow with three children, her in-laws,
Mr. and Mrs. Elijah Hutchison, gave her and her children a 200-acre farm near Hughesville,
Pettis County, on July 20, 1867, before their return to Mercer County, Kentucky, in 1868.
Stanton's second wife, whom he married in 1856, was Ellen Hutchison of Pittsburg,
Pennsylvania. It is unknown if she was related to the Elijah Hutchison Family or if her
name was only a coincidence.
- Official Records, Series II, Vol. I, 360-361.
- Ibid, 361.
- Ibid, 320-329.
- History of Saline County, 650.
- Official Records, Series II, Vol. I, 323 passim.
- Ibid, 299-301, 341-343, passim.
- Ibid, 357-358.
- Ibid, 358-359.
- Ibid, 158 (Telegram to Col. F. Steele from Maj. General
Halleck); 292-353 (Transcript of testimony).
- Abraham Lincoln, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln V
(New Brunswick, N. J. 1953), 170.
- Ibid, 183.
- Official Records, Series II, Vol. IV, 317-318.
- Ibid, 486-489.
- History of Pettis County, Missouri (1882), 411-412. History
of Saline County, 651. Ebenezer Magoffin's service record could not be located. It is
presumed lost. Elijah Magoffin returned to Missouri after the war and settled first in
Pettis County near his father's old home and later at Mt. Leonard, Saline County, where he
married Nannie Fackler in 1872. They had two sons: George Fackler and Ebenezer Vest
Magoffin.
- N. S. Shaler, Kentucky: A Pioneer Commonwealth (Boston,
1895), 323. The office of lieutenant governor was vacant at the time. The Speaker of the
Senate resigned to make way for Robinson who then was declared governor. Magoffin was
supposedly allowed to select his successor.
- Malone, Dictionary of American Biography, XII, 200.
- Mrs. Jennie C. Morton, Sketch and Picture of Governor of Beriah
Magoffin (?), 6.
- Malone, Dictionary of American Biography, XII, 200.
- E. Merton Coulter, The Confederate States of America 1861-1865
(Austin, Texas 1950), 46.
- Writings of Abraham Lincoln, V, 364, as quoted in William B.
Hesseltine, Lincoln and the War Governors (New
York 1955), 209.
- In June, 1862, Union General Jere T. Boyle started arresting Kentucky
Democrats and Southern sympathizers. The jails were full by July. With an election
approaching General Boyle then issued an order that "no person hostile in opinion to
the government" could run for office. That eliminated Magoffin's supporters as
candidates for office and in the election that followed Northern sympathizers were elected
by default. William B. Hesseltine, Lincoln and the War Governors, 245.
- After his conviction on violation of parole Ebenezer was always
subject to execution up to the night he escaped. His sentence was never overturned, only
suspended pending the President's "review."
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