Rickners | After the War

Southwestern Missouri during the Civil War was burned to the ground by guerrilla warfare. Many civilians left Jasper County after the war due to the intensity of the violence and destruction wrecked by the irregular warfare. When the war was over, “There was not much to return to”, writes Schrantz in his history of the Civil War in Jasper County.

All the towns and villages in the central and western part of the county were in ashes and those the easter part were either destroyed or badly damaged. Most of the farm houses had disappeared and all over the region were skeleton chimneys, surrounded by fallow, weed grown fields. In the main the district had reverted to the wilds. Deer , wild turkey and game of all sort had increased tremendously during the last years of the war and early comers after the struggle state that wolves were so tame that they could be shot from the wagon seat of those who at wide intervals drove along the seldom used roads.

Schrantz, p 240

Schrantz claims that many of those “who had fought for the cause of the south, particularly those who had taken part in the partisan warfare that had been so bitter in this region, did not return.” Instead, immigrants from Kansas and “former federal soldiers who had seen this country during the military operations and liked it” came instead.

Three households living in the vicinity of Carthage, Missouri enumerated together in the 1870 census demonstrate the sentiment in this statement.

Household 1: Archibald & Malissa (Rickner) Danford

Early in the war, Malissa Ann Rickner lived with her first husband, W. K. Franklin on the town square in Carthage and was most likely present for the Battle of Carthage. Franklin died early in the war, and in 1866, she remarried a Union Veteran, Archibald Danford. She was married by her cousin, James Rickner who was the Justice of the Peace.

Archibald Danford had served in the 13th Wisconsin Infantry. In 1862, the infantry was stationed at Kansas forts, marching to Fort Scott, then Lawrence, Kansas, and then to Fort Riley and Fort Leavenworth. It was later sent to other parts of the war.

In the 1870 Census, he is living with Malissa and their children, as well as his brother-in-laws: William and Jeptha.

Household 2: James Rickner

James Rickner, the eldest son of Jacob Rickner, was a native to Jasper County. His biography n the History of Jasper county states that he was a “staunch Union man” and he served in Company B of the 9th Regiment Missouri State Militia. The biography states obliquely “His service was of a nature familiar to all old settlers of the Southwest”. The primary purpose of the Missouri State Military was to conduct offensive operations against guerrillas and oppose Confederate raids.

Household 3: Israel & “Amelia” Ogden

Permelia Rickner was fourteen years old in 1860 and was living in McGhee County in the Kansas Territory with her father and stepmother Margaret Reneau. In 1861, her father died and it appears that her stepmother died prior to 1870. It is unclear where Permelia spent the war.

However, in 1867 she married Israel T Ogden. Unlike her sister, who had been married by the Justice of the Peace, they were married by J. C. Willoughby “Minister of the Gospel”. The History of Jasper County states that he was the first clergyman of Lincoln Township, established after the war and in honor of Abraham Lincoln, the president of the Union. He was a Methodist Episcopal pastor in charge of the circuit in Jasper County after the war, reorganizing churches and regrowing church membership.

Permelia’s husband, Israel Ogden, had served in the 17th Kansas Regiment in 1864. He and his family had lived in Linn County, Kansas, having migrated there from Illinois. Their eldest son was named Thaddeus Steven Ogden, presumably after Thaddeus Stevens, the leader of the Radical Republican faction in the Republican Party. By 1875, he had died and Permelia Jane Rickner married her second husband, John Harrison Vanslyke.

Sources:

Schrantz, W. L. (1923). Jasper County, Missouri, in the Civil War. United States: Carthage Press.

The History of Jasper County, Missouri: Including a Condensed History of the State, a Complete History of Carthage and Joplin, Other Towns and Townships …. (1883). United States: The Printery.