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They Fought Like Devils

I don't know if people like my conspiracy posts or history posts more but I write about what I stumble upon and at the moment I'm still perusing the stories in "Reminiscences of the Boys in Gray"  and decided to write about J.F. Smith who was from South Carolina and attending school in Kansas City, Missouri at the war's outbreak.

Smith writes:

I got me a gun and a knife and a one barrel pistol and as a walked through the line of the Kansas Jayhawkers and Sturgis' U.S. troops I said: " Goodbye boys; I'm going to join Price's army and fight you fellows." - J.F. Smith
The Jayhawkers responded that he was a fool to tell them his intentions and if caught out of the city , he would be hanged but Smith slipped past them eventually joining the Missouri State Guards in time for the Battle of Lexington, Missouri. It his recollection of this story which (if true) solves the mystery of why General Price abandoned Lexington after capturing it.  I always thought it was because General McCollough refused to follow him there but according to Smith:

After we captured the Yankees General Price found that they had destroyed all of their ammunition and as we were out of caps for our guns we had to retreat.
Smith added " General Price was always as kind and thoughtful of us as possible. He called us his boys and we called him Pap".

After his State Guard enlistment was up he joined the 6th Missouri Infantry (CSA) and it is his account of the Battle of Corinth (Mississippi) that we learn the true bravery of the men of this unit.

We were now prisoners in the place we had captured a year ago (Iuka). In a few days General Rosecrans summoned our surgeons to meet him in consultation. General Rosecrans had asked if our men had drunk whiskey and gunpowder before making our charge, our surgeon told him that our men did not even have water. "Well", he said, "they fought like devils and there is nothing in my power that I will not do for such brave men."

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