THE MAYFIELD BROTHERS

The 1887 Vernon County History Book paints some lively scenes about true stories of real people in Vernon and surrounding counties during the Civil War. Often it wasn’t simply individuals who ‘went to war’. Many times it was the entire family that fought to preserve their lifestyles. One such family was well-known in Vernon County. The Mayfield family were all actively involved in the war, men and women. Here are some incidents described in the 1887 edition that show the adventures of two Bushwhackers who became known far and wide as ‘The Mayfield Brothers’.
    
“Two noted Confederate partisans who came to be well known throughout Southwest Missouri during the year 1862, were Brice E. and John Crawford Mayfield, brothers, and sons of John Mayfield, who settled on section 19, Montevallo township, in 1856, and died in May, 1858. At the outbreak of the war Brice Mayfield was 27 years of age, and married, and Crawford (or "Crack," as he was better known,) was 21. Both enlisted in Gatewood's company and were in the battle of Wilson's Creek. At the skirmish on Drywood, in this county, "Crack" Mayfield was taken prisoner, but not long after­wards was released on parole.

Some time in the early winter of 1862 Brice Mayfield came back into Vernon with some kind of recruiting authority, and from this time forward the two brothers engaged in irregular warfare against the Federals in this part of the State. Their deeds and adventures, if fully related, would fill a considerable volume. They were splendid horse­men, not troubled with conscientious scruples regarding the manner in which they acquired their steeds, shrewd in forming their plans and cool and thorough in their execution, and bold and daring fighters.

The Mayfield boys operated in the border counties, chiefly between the Osage River and the Arkansas line. Their exploits are perhaps largely exaggerated, but some of them were remarkable. On one oc­casion in the early spring of 1872, while a company of the 6th Kan­sas was stationed at old Montevallo, seven of the men, unarmed, rode out one evening to McCarty's branch, at the Reavis ford, half a mile to the west, to water their horses. While the horses were drinking Brice and "Crack" Mayfield and John Gabbert suddenly appeared from the opposite bank and with drawn revolvers got the drop on the unsuspecting Federals and marched the entire party away. The prisoners were kept in Dunnagin's Grove for some days. The Mayfield boys sent their sister Ella and Miss Eliza Gabbert to the Federal commander to say that all the prisoners would be given for Capt. Henry Taylor, then a prisoner at Fort Scott, but the offer was re­fused. Finally the captives were escorted to the Drywood and turned loose and advised to go to "bleeding Kansas" and stay there.

On another occasion the boys were being chased by a party of the 1st Iowa Cavalry. One of the Federals dismounted to pick up his hat; which had been shot from his head by "Crack" Mayfield. His horse, a fine sorrel mare, broke away after the bushwhackers, and being relieved of its rider soon came up with " Crack," who took her by the bridle and led her away in safety. It is said that this animal was afterward ridden by Gen. Joe Shelby and killed under him in one of his battles in Arkansas.

The Mayfield boys fired upon many a Federal picket post, bush­whacked many a Federal scouting and foraging party, terrorized many a Union citizen, and gained for themselves the admiration of a large share of the Confederate element of Southwest Missouri. But at last their time came. On the morning of the 26th of December 1862, both were killed a few miles north of Neosho, in Newton County.

The circumstances of their death were as follows: A Federal wagon train was on the way from Ft. Scott to Bentonville. The night it encamped in Neosho two of the escort, Sam Kaiserman and Jack Hudson, both of the 6th Kansas, in company with a citizen boy about seventeen years of age, named Coyer, whose home was near Neosho, stayed at the house of a man named Parnell, on Shoal creek, where there were a number of young women.

The Mayfield boys were in the vicinity, and learning of the presence of the two soldiers determined to either capture or kill them. Early on the morning of the 26th, about breakfast time, they rode tip to Parnell's and called. As they were dressed in Federal blue it was supposed they were Union soldiers, and Kaiserman and Hudson walked out to meet them. Suddenly the Mayfields drew their re­volvers and opened fire. Hudson fell mortally wounded, but Kaiser­man picked him up and bore him into the house. The Mayfields dismounted and ran to the house. Young Coyer came to the door and was shot down and instantly killed. Kaiserman killed both of the Mayfield brothers as they stood on the porch trying to break down the door. " Crack " was killed first, and the next shot brought down Brice, who fell across his brother's body, both dying almost instantly.

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CAPTAIN MARCHBANKS RIDES AGAIN!

         
Too often, history confronts us as a set of frustrating cold trails and tantalizing dead ends.  What could be colder and deader than the Civil War, done these nigh 150 years?  What could possibly be learned, for instance, about a personage of whom the latest news comes out of a book itself well over a century old?

Vernon County decided, a few decades ago, to revive and make something of, at least to acknowledge if not necessarily celebrate, the memory of its Confederate/Bushwhacker heritage, once very much alive, though it had been allowed to fade away with the generation that knew it at first hand.  (The last Vernon County Confederate veteran died in 1946.)
It was dismaying to note how little of the record was left.  The local heroes of the war nearly all seemed to have ridden off into the sunset, leaving little if any witness to their wartime exploits or evidence of their postwar lives, wherever they went.  Few seem to have found time even to sit for their portraits.

Colonel Hunter, for instance.  He hung around for a while but then dashed off in his old age and died and is buried in Oklahoma. (This has been proven untrue and the Colonel is buried in Deepwood Cemetery in a previously unmarked grave.)  Captain Henry Taylor, too, hung around long enough to get reelected to his prewar office of Vernon County sheriff.  In 1887, he was resident postmaster at Montevallo.  But then he drops from the record, presumably moved on.  (Once again this has been proven untrue and he is also buried in Deepwood Cemetery in a previously unmarked grave.)  The suspicion is that, like countless other Missouri Confederates, his forwarding address would have been “G.T.T.” – Gone To Texas.
And then, what of Captain William Marchbanks, perhaps the bushwhackingest of them all?  The man who led the Bushwhacker attack on the Federal militia party on Nevada’s square, on May 24, 1863, that led to the burning of the town two days later.

He’d “G.T.T.” for sure, that we knew.  “He now resides near Paris, Texas,” observed the 1887 history, “a quiet, reputable citizen.”  It wasn’t much to know about the later years of a man who’d played so critical a part in our county’s most critical years.

Someday, this writer used to muse, one’s going to have to “G.T.T. oneself (one should live so long) in quest of Bill Marchbanks and others who wound up there, whatever the reason.  Marshall, Texas, was the capital of Missouri’s pro-Confederate “government in exile.”  Bushwhackers, famous and otherwise, made the Dallas region their wartime wintering ground.  Some exiles frequented a place known as Scyenne, in that area.
Then, lo and behold, around 1996, came a letter from one Lewis Marchbanks, of Arlington, Texas: “I understand my great-grandfather was an active participant in’bushwhacking’during the Civil War in your area.”  Afterwards he clarified, “Bob Marchbanks was my great-grandfather, but I am interested, of course, in his brother’s activities.”
“Evidently after the end of the active war, it was probably unhealthy to have stayed in your area.  It is my understanding the brothers relocated to Manchester, in Red River County of northeast Texas, but am interested to know how you are aware of Scyenne.”  He added, “Unfortunately my Uncle Emery, who passed away last summer at 99 years, 11 months, long ago destroyed all the old pictures my grandmother had.  He knew nothing of his Uncle Bill or his Grandfather Bob’s activities during the ‘unpleasantness’.”

Then, late in 1998, came a telephone call from Susan Hejka, Dekalb, Texas, who soon sent along a whole ream of lowdown on – Captain William Marchbanks, no less!
Susan Hejka is no relation whatever to any Marchbanks.  She met Captain Bill, in fact, in our own little Bushwhacker of the Border, which essentially only repeats the 1887 history account.  Intrigued, she headed for nearby Paris, Texas, now a city of some 25,000, and there turned up all manner of Marchbankses, both dead and alive, including the captain himself.
She soon wrote again:  “William was married only once, to Missellany Gear.  I’ve enclosed some more materials: his military record; William and Missellany’s marriage record, along with some documentation I had gotten at city hall while Mr. Marchbanks was city alderman in 1903, 1904, 1905.”  She also sent photos of his gravestones (died 1912) in the Paris cemetery, and information about descendants who, like the captain both here and there, were prominent, respected figures in business and public life.  “I am still waiting for some pictures of Captain Marchbanks,” she added.  Before long she phoned again, with the exciting news:  She’d located a photo.  A copy was on its way.

We’d referred both Lewis Marchbanks and Susan to two recent books, Hard Trials and Tribulations of an old Confederate Soldier, by George T. Maddox, and Behind Enemy Lines:  The Memoirs and Writings of Brig. Gen. Sidney Drake Jackman, which between them make much mention of William and Bob Marchbanks.     It isn’t at all clear, however, that the Bob Marchbanks who appears in Maddox’s reminiscences is Vernon County’s Bob, Williams’s brother.  In local accounts Bob figures only as a sergeant, a modest follower of his bushwhacking big brother, whereas Maddox’s Bob Marchbanks sounds like a high officer.  It’s not all that common a name; but Maddox’s memory just may have played him false.
In any event, Bill Marchbanks’s place in Vernon County is indisputable, and any news whatever about him, after all these years – above all a picture – is more than welcome.
Those interested can read, or reread, his story for themselves, on page 334 and elsewhere throughout the 1887 history.

Even today some persist in seeing the Bushwhackers as, if not exactly outlaws, baddies, at least just not quite “respectable.”  The 1887 historian begged to differ.  “The Federals who fought him generally respect him,” he remarked of Marchbanks.  “He never murdered a prisoner or a private citizen” – something not every righteous Federal regular soldier could say.

Once, General C.W. Blair, the Federal commander at Fort Scott, sent a note to Jack Beard, of Richland Township, announcing his intention of coming over with a party of officers “to take a hunt in the Marmaton Bottoms.”  Jack knew that four miles down the stream, in a thick grove of water oaks, Bill Marchbanks and his band of bushwhackers were encamped, and that if a warning were not given the Federals might start up a species of game they had not counted, upon.  Beard sent his boy through the darkness to give the alarm, and to request that the guerrillas would get out of the country and stay out until the hunt was over.

“And this Capt. Marchbanks actually consented to do and did do.  The obliging guerrilla leader crossed his force to the south side of the Marmaton, and again settled down in another bosky thicket, where the Federals could not see him and the hounds could not track him.  Here he remained within hearing of the turmoil of the hunt until it was over, and allowed Gen. Blair and his party to return to Ft. Scott unmolested.”

Such was the chivalry of Captain William Marchbanks and his Bushwhacker “baddies” – one reason, obviously, why the South lost the war.  Can you see a guerrilla gang, in our oh-so-“civilized” day and age, sportingly passing up such a golden opportunity to pick off the enemy’s whole high command?

Past Perfect
True Tales of Town and’Round
Nevada and Vernon County, Missouri
By
Patrick Brophy

“THEY RUINED IT”

The former Nevada post office, now the Vernon County jail and sheriff’s office, became the subject of historical speculation and debate in 1986 when the decisions was made to have the building depicted on that year’s Bushwhacker Days plate.

The structure, it turns out, is, or rather was, one of the most substantial and architecturally outstanding in Nevada; and it’s had, to say the least, a rather checkered history.
Years ago a series of 32 photos of the building’s construction were given to the Bushwhacker Museum by the late postmaster, Willoughby O’Connell.  Clearly they were taken by the Federal governments as a means of keeping an eye on the progress of the contractor, J.A. Daly, of Nevada.  Each photo is carefully dated, making it possible for the job to be followed step-by-step.

The photos themselves would seem to be typical spendthrift bureaucratic overkill.  The crystal-clear images, affording fascinating detail, must have been made with the best camera then available, doubtless by an imported professional.  Most are printed on sized linen, clearly a sign of quality – and expense.

The earliest of the pictures, bearing the date 1907, shows the site well before the work began, when it was just a brush-grown vacant lot, bounded by a still-dirt Ash and Cherry streets, with the street-car tracks visible down the middle of the latter.  Where the Oddfellows building today stands was a big picket-fenced yard.  To the north, as other photographs show, stood the bell-towered old city hall and firebarn, then the Cumberland Presbyterian (later United Brethren, today’s Community Christina) church.  Just across Cherry on the corner stood the big brick Amerman Medical and Surgical Infirmary, then Nevada’s only hospital.  To its east lay the Mason and Moss Feed Barn and other modest business buildings.  The building north of the site is visible, but its use at the time is unclear.  Just to the east, the building now occupied by the Pawn Shop then housed Wainscott’s Furniture Warehouse (for years afterwards it would be J.R. Davis’s furniture store).  The courthouse (completed 1908) is visible in the background of several of the shots.  The clock face, on which the time can even be read, unlike todays appeared to be an opaque white.

Work on the post began in the spring of 1909, and continued through the summer and fall.  By the end of the year the workmen had the outer shell completed and had moved indoors.  By May, 1910, the building looked essentially finished.

After the county took over and had the building sandblasted, it was said, and even written in an editorial, how the sandblasting had “brought out the beauty of the original marble.”
Would that it were so!  In truth, the building was constructed of terra cotta, a manufactured clayware much in vogue in that period.  Far more nearly concrete than marble, terra cotta was characterized by a surface coating of buff or earth-colored fine “slip” or glaze.  The sandblasting merely knocked off most of the “slip,” leaving the rougher core bared in a mottled pattern – temporarily eyecatching perhaps but subject to instant discoloration and deterioration.  Ever since, it’s had to be regularly painted, in a stonemason’s terse judgment, “They ruined it.”

The prime advantage of terra cotta over natural stone was that it could be cast into any desired shape.  Other local examples are the trim on the older Farm and Home building and the building on the square’s south side built in 1924 as the Liberty Theater.

Local residents may have passed by the 1910 post office all their lives and yet never really stopped to look at or appreciate the pleasing effect of its architectural style, apparently Romanesque Revival.  Comparing it to the Kansas City Union Station, one might actually think the architect, James K. Taylor, had in mind a local miniature of the Baths of Caracalla in Rome.  The round-arched windows, the stately entryways, the balustraded skylighted roof, the terra cotta eagle above the door – these may not be original or immortal works of art, but they’re as near thereto as you’re likely to get in a smalltown public building in any age.
Inside, it’s an even more striking story.  “Like a luxury hotel,” was the remark of one young woman on being shown the rediscovered photo of the high-vaulted molded-plaster lobby ceiling while still under construction.  The stair rail and other fittings were luxurious bronze.  Upstairs were offices for the IRS and other Federal agencies.   What’s been done to this gracious interior since the building changed hands doesn’t bear thinking about.  Radical alterations in any building of character are almost always as unkind as tearing it down.  What with lowered ceilings covering the molded plaster, and partitions run through without regard for the ornamentation. It’s a safe bet nobody would any longer liken it to a “luxury hotel.”  It may be argued that a jail need not be beautiful, merely practical; yet what is it that prevents people from cherishing beauty when it’s handed to them on a plate, as this building was to Vernon County?  Of course it’s unfair to blame any individual official for this prime example of how common sense gets lost in collective decision-making and responsibility.

The government paid J.A. Daly just over $70,000 for the building, all told.  It served the community as a post office for just 52 years, and in that relatively brief span acquired a timeless atmosphere all its own, at least in the minds of its patrons.  Like the courthouse it was largely a male bastion, with spittoons placed strategically on rubber mats, and a heady odor of stale tobacco and carbolic acid, not unpleasant just because so familiar.
No good reason for the abandonment of the building as a post office was ever offered.  The rumor that went around at the time was that President Kennedy’s administration was anxious to combat the recession of 1961 by means of government building projects.  Too, a new Nevada post office would solve the county’s problem of lack of an acceptable jail by leaving the old structure for that use.  In the face of this bald bribe no Nevada, so far as in known, objected at the time.  (When a similar bribe was advanced in the form of “free” Federal money for the Izaak Walton Swimming, the present writer reminded several proponents, “you say you’re for frugal government.  Here’s your chance to show it, by spurning this bribe.”  Whew, you’d’ve thought they’d been stabbed with an icepick!)  But the honest opinion of many was well-voiced by the late crusty J. Ben Robinson, who, weary of hypocritical eulogies of the new post office (already betraying its gimcrack construction in mortar-smeared bricks, crumbling concrete walks, and landscaping designs never followed through), snorted, “Why, it’s just a big warehouse, isn’t it?”

A visiting artist remarked, in this regard, that it say something unflattering about a community that it stands by while a building of character is defaced or even razed (like the State Hospital, after years of almost malicious neglect) and some soulless new substitute run up.  If the cathedrals of the Middle Ages expressed the soaring spirit of those supposedly benighted times, what do modern buildings express – unless the lack of any spirit at all?

The new post office owes its style, or lack thereof, to the Bauhaus architectural school of Weimar Germany, whose desolation of the American urban landscape was discussed in Tom Wolfe’s book of a few years ago, From Bauhaus to our House.

And clearly the architect had California in mind, not Missouri.  Little spaces were left here and there outside for exotic plantings.  But they all soon died and were never replaced, leaving the edifice looking somewhat like a gap-tooth mouth.

The builders of the 1910 post office, in contract worked meticulously around an existing native pine tree that graced the site.  And it stayed on as a pleasant landmark in the corner yard clear down to the great ice storm of 1948.

No county official, of course, gave a thought to replacing it or, for a long time, otherwise softening the building’s starkness with so much as a shrub.  Lately, at last, some flowering plums were planted – not the best choice, but better than nothing.

May 21, 1986
“Past Perfect, True Tales of Town and ‘Round, Nevada and Vernon County, Missouri”
Patrick Brophy