The Poison Spring Massacre (April 18, 1864) part 2

If you have not read the first half, look here.

Below are two images from reenactments of the battle. I doubt they recreate the massacre for family audiences.

Final Push

On the Union left Companies C and I, 1^st Kansas Colored, saw about a hundred men in blue coats pass along their front. They assumed they were from the 2^nd Kansas Cavalry as well as sharpshooters from the 18^th Iowa. They were soon corrected when hundreds of Confederate cavalry appeared alongside them Cabell had ordered Crawford, who to this point had only skirmished, to move all of his available men forward. Gibbons “immediately ordered the men to fire, which was kept up for a few minutes only, but with such effect as to check the enemy’s advance.” Among the men commended in Gibbons’ report was First Sergeant Berry, a black officer who urged his men to think of freedom and hold their place.[1]

Gibbons ordered his men 60 yards back. They fired a volley, but made another withdrawal when they saw the rest of the regiment in retreat. Crawford’s Confederates “moved rapidly and steadily forward, firing volley upon volley” at the black troops. Gibbons attempted to mount his horse. He tripped on his saber halfway up and the horse “became scared and dragged me about 5 yards.” His infantry left him behind and he was left alone against the on-rush of screaming Rebels. “I need not say I mounted quick and rode away quicker.”[2]

Alan Taylor's American Republics

Taylor, Alan. American Republics: A Continental History of the United States, 1783-1850. W.W. Norton & Company, 2021.

American Republics is the third entry in Alan Taylor's ongoing history of the United States (following American Colonies and American Revolutions). He uses the plural form of Republic because he argues that the United States was hardly a united front, with various ideas for what the nation should be. The most obvious divide was between free-soiler Northerners and pro-slavery Southerners. However many reformers, religious outliers, Abolitionists, and others further added to a dazzling array of variants on the American ideal. Many Americans, and Indian Peoples as well, even struck out to create their own independent republics (Mormons, Texans, and Cherokees are among the notable examples), though all eventually fell into the United States anyways. Taylor also shows how shaky the American Republic was in its early years. It struggled economically and was battered by established empires, foremost Britain's. Internal strife frequently led it to the brink of disunion as different geographic and political sections pursued differing agendas. The book ends with the Compromise of 1850, which did ward off Civil War, but also heightened tensions to the point that it caused one anyways ten years later.

Taylor also gets into the history of America's neighbors, such as Canada and Spanish Florida. These are among the strongest parts of the book, contextualizing America within a wider continental history (as the title promises), and providing some inroads into other countries' histories for more curious readers Another strength is the collection of various unique characters, many little known even to history buffs. In addition to well-known monumental figures ranging from Henry Clay to Frederick Douglass to Andrew Jackson, Taylor treats us to would-be republic founder William Bowles (77-80) to humanitarian slaveholder Zephaniah Kingsley, Jr. (150-155) to William and Ellen Craft, a slave couple who posed as male master and valet to escape to the North (374-375). This makes for an expansive and colorful collection of characters and stories within 400 highly readable pages. American Republics serves as a wonderful starting point to find topics to investigate.