PIKE COUNTY, Mo. — Following is the first of a two-part series by contributing writer Brent Engel of Louisiana.

They were outnumbered more than four to one.

And yet, a tiny band of Union militia and local residents held off a swarm of Confederates led by two of Northeast Missouri’s most successful rebel guerillas.

The Battle of Ashley on Aug. 28, 1862, brought the Civil War to Pike County. All of the boasting, drilling and marching of the previous year was over. Bullets were now flying through the air.

The losses were minimal compared with the staggering number of deaths in clashes elsewhere, but author Bruce Nichols nonetheless labeled it “a savage battle.”

One Southern sympathizer would call the attack a “disaster.” Union supporters hailed it as a triumph.

“The dividing line between treason and loyalty, between traitors and true men, has been traced at length upon our own soil in characters of blood,” the Louisiana Journal said.

Susceptible to attack

Summer 1862 had been violent across Missouri, but Pike County had been spared for the most part.

The closest skirmishes had come at Florida on July 22, Santa Fe on July 24 and Moore’s Mill on July 28. The Union had an arsenal at Ashley under the command of 37-year-old Capt. William H. Purse, a New York native who lived in Louisiana.

Ashley trailed only Bowling Green and Louisiana when it came to the number of Pike County men serving, but many from Purse’s contingent had been sent to fight at other locations.

Confederate commanders Joseph Chrisman Porter and Clinton Dewitt Burbridge knew the weapons cache was vulnerable. They also were in huge need of a victory.

Just three weeks earlier, Porter had failed to take Kirksville and was forced to withdraw. The 53-year-old Kentucky native knew the area well, having gone to college in Marion County and living in Knox County.

The 28-year-old Burbridge, who lost his father at age four, was from Louisiana and the younger brother of banker-turned-rebel John Quincy Burbridge.

Most of the federal troops at Ashley had been recruited by Thomas James Clark Fagg of Louisiana. The Virginia-born judge was a former Missouri state lawmaker who was described by one legal publication as an “out-and-out Union man” and slavery opponent.

“They were men of great respectability and enthusiastically attached to the Union cause,” Fagg said of the recruits.

Here come the rebs

Purse’s men also were resolute.

Not long after daybreak on Aug. 28, sentinels alerted the captain that trouble was approaching.

“There was but a moment’s time for preparation, as right upon the heels of the notice came the rebels,” the Journal reported.

Up to 30 militia were joined by a few local residents. They quickly assembled to combat the estimated 125 to 150 attackers. The men took cover in four buildings, including businesses run by J.C. Elmore and Southern-born John McCormick.

“In this condition of affairs, the whole band of rebels came rushing in through the main street from the north, yelling like so many savages,” the Journal said.

The shouting abruptly stopped when the Union men returned fire. The raiders “discovered their progress had to be made with caution” and ducked behind houses, outbuildings, fences, privies and any other cover they could find.

“Ball and buckshot flew like leaden hail in every direction,” the Journal told readers.

The Confederates focused their attention on Elmore’s storeroom. It received the most damage, with 28 bullets penetrating the wooden part of the structure. The other buildings had slight damage.

After 40 minutes of skirmishing, the rebels sent a proposal to Purse under a flag of truce.

“We demand an unconditional surrender as far as arms are concerned,” read the message, signed by Porter and Burbridge. It also said the Union men would be pardoned.

There is disagreement over who carried the message. One story says it was Elmore, and claims the Confederates shot the storekeeper in the right shoulder as he stood by the door of his building awaiting a Union response.

Another story says it was Moses Beck, a 31-year-old Kentucky native and son of a Baptist minister who had grown up near Ashley and farmed in Montgomery County. The account says Union men shot Beck as he returned to the Confederate lines.

In his 1909 book “With Porter in North Missouri” author Joseph A. Mudd says Beck was not the messenger. According to his account, Louisiana rebel Samuel Minor was standing by Beck when the farmer was gunned down. In any event, Purse wasn’t about to surrender.

“Can’t comply with your request,” the Union commander wrote back. “Your men should have respected your own messenger.”

The two sides exchanged fire for about 15 more minutes before the Confederates inexplicably retreated. Union backers used what should have been an easy rebel win to light the fires of passion for their cause.

“Brave men that fought and fell at Ashley – the grass that springs upon your freshly sodded graves shall not fade until the last vestige of treason is swept from North Missouri,” the Journal promised.

Casualties and aftermath

Accounts vary, but it appears the Battle of Ashley led to seven deaths on the two sides.

A contingent of about 30 Union militia and local residents held off an estimated 125 to 150 Confederates on Aug. 28, 1862. The rebels were after guns stored at an arsenal in the Pike County town.

“Just what the casualties were is not fully known,” according to “The History of Pike County, Missouri” from 1883. “Pools of blood in the woods back of Ashley indicated that others were seriously wounded, a number of whom were reported to have died soon after.”

Two rebels – 25-year-old Lincoln County resident Davis Whiteside and William Friedly of St. Charles County – died of wounds on Aug. 29. David Blue of Ralls County passed more than a week later after taking a bullet to the stomach.

The Pike County history book identifies the final victim only as a “Mr. Wosham,” who was “killed by a ball carrying away part of the skull.”

The Journal says Confederates shot 23-year-old Union soldier George Washington Trower as they left Ashley. However, another account says secessionist Ashley residents ambushed Trower and killed him.

A 28-year-old brother, Robert Trower, was wounded during the battle. Two other siblings, Henry and James Trower, performed wartime duties for the Union. George Trower is buried in Smyrna Church Cemetery between New Hartford and Middletown.

James Venable is noted by the Journal as the second Union casualty, dying on Aug. 29 of his wounds. The newspaper lists the other Union wounded as McCormick, Ambrose VanArsdale, John Kiser, Samuel and Crede Grimmett, Jonathan Mayberry, Joseph Orr and H.M Reid.

Fallout from the Battle of Ashley would continue for weeks, and atrocities were committed by both sides.

Purse declared that “the brush around is swarming” with rebels. A Union patrol sent from Ashley came across suspected Confederate scout Peter Parsons.

“Parsons refused to tell where his gang was secreted and his captors promptly shot him,” the Journal reported.

Union loyalists held a meeting at Bowling Green on Sept. 1. Missouri U.S. Sen. John Brooks Henderson of Louisiana and Illinois U.S. Sen. Orville Browning of Quincy attended.

Henderson said “selfish demagogues” had started the “unnecessary rebellion” without justification and “should receive the condemnation of every patriot in the land.” He also called guerilla warfare that had resulted in the Battle of Ashley a “disgrace to the civilization of the age.”

“They have destroyed our property and taken the lives of our people, and Missourians owe it to their own honor to drive these plunderers from the state,” Henderson said.

Judge Fagg gave credit to the Union militia for preventing rebels from seizing the arsenal.

“It was doubtless true that this regiment was largely instrumental in preserving the property and even the lives of the people of this section,” he said.

The Journal didn’t hold back, either.

“Take it all in all, the affair turned out most disastrously to the rebel rascals who ventured to make a raid on the ‘sacred soil’ of Old Pike,” the paper proclaimed.