U.S. Provost Marshal Charges Against Margaret A. Johnston of Eureka, Missouri, 1862

Headquarters 4^th Reg Mo [Missouri] Vol

Pacific, Mo  Aug 15 1862

Charges against Mrs. Johns[t]on near Eureka St. Louis Co. Mo.

Disloyalty and treasonable language against Government of the United States

In this, that on the 23 day of July 1862, while I was searching the house of the prisoner for arms & ammunition, in accordance with orders received from Col. Robert  Hundausen, commdg 4^th Reg Mo. Vols., she, the said Mrs. Johns[t]on, although treated with all courtesy and leniency, used abusive language against the government, as follows: that she was a true daughter of the South, that is she had ten lives to loose [lose], she would cheerfully loose [lose] them for the success of the Southern Confederacy, that she gloried in the course Jefferson Davis had taken and was still pursuing, that he was all which was great and chivalrous and quite a contrast to the mean blackguard, negro-stealing contemptible abolition president Abraham Lincoln; that her prayers by day and by night and her best . . . was all for the success of the Southern Confederacy; that she gloried in her brave brother in law, Gen. [Joseph Eggleston] Johns[t]on, who had made the Union soldiers feel his heavy hand more than once, and she hoped and prayed he would do so again.

When the search was over, she used insulting language against me and the men of my command, asking us, if we would not enjoy the smokehouse, and appropriate the bacon, as was our custom, and we were half starved by the Government who hired us. All this without any provocation, as the men behaved orderly and quiet throughout.

Upon reporting this to Capt. Leighton [George Eliot Leighton, 1835-1901], Provost Marshal Gen., he ordered me to arrest Mrs. John[s]ton for accordance with the order I proceeded to her house with a squad of men this morning.

Upon arriving at the house, I told Mrs. Johns[t]on what my orders were. She said, she was ready, she was ready and willing to go, she expected it for some time, but that she was still of the same opinion. That she had been born and raised in the South, that all her sympathies were with the South, and all her hopes and prayers by day and by night centered in the success of the Southern cause, and she loved it and its institutions with an undying devotion, and that if she had 100,000 dollars, every dollar of it would be devoted to the Southern cause, and the destruction of the mean, black republican hordes, now fighting against the Southern cause.

While on the way from Eureka to Franklin, though treated with more courtesy than she perhaps deserved, she repeatedly used insulting language against the men, and hurrahed for Jeff. Davis, declaiming that her colors were red, white and red, and that she hoped and knew, that the blue was extinguished forever, and that we would rue the day, we had arrested her, together with many, similar expressions.

George Hussman

Lt. & Quartermaster

4^th Reg. Mo. Vol.

Margaret A. Wooley/Woolley Johnston (1821-1867) was the second wife of Edward William Johnston (1799-1867). My rough transcription. Original in Records of the Provost Marshal General's Bureau (Civil War), National Archives. Pictured at top: Gratiot Street Military Prison, St. Louis. Image can be found here.

There is a searchable Missouri Provost Marshal (1861-1866) database here.