General John Sappington Marmaduke

Sedalia Daily Democrat
May 10, 1878

From the “Commonwealth of Missouri” published by Bryan, Brand and Company

General John S. Marmaduke was born March 14, 1833 in Salina County, Missouri.  
His father was Honorable Meredity M. Marmaduke, a native of Virginia born in 
Westmoreland County in 1791 and emigrated to Missouri in 1823.  After a year or 
two spent in the Santa Fe trade, he settled near Arrow Rock, Salina County and 
engaged in merchandising.  He also bought a large tract of land near that place 
and paid some attention to farming.

In 1828, he made another trip to Mexico and a few years later retired from 
merchandising pursuits and devoted himself to farming in which he delighted 
and excelled.  In January, 1826, he met Miss Lavinia, daughter of Dr. John 
Sappington, a native of Maryland who emigrated to Missouri in 1817, first locating 
in Howard County where he practiced medicine until 1822, when he removed to 
Saline County, continuing to practice his profession and likewise engaged in farming.  
He died in 18??, aged 81 years, having long been prominent in his profession and 
admired and loved by all who knew him.

The elder Marmaduke showed his Saxon origin not only in his adventurous 
disposition, energy and courage but in his manly virtues and contempt for idleness.  
Although a gentleman of means, he brought his sons up to work on his farm regularly 
and systematically, not from greed but to give them practical ideas of life, mainly 
industrious habits and self reliance.  He was active in politics, being a “states right” 
Democrat but was not an office seeker.  He was elected lieutenant governor of 
Missouri in 1840 and became chief executive upon the death of General Reynolds 
and discharged the duties of his high office with ability.  He took no part in the 
exciting times of the war and died honored, respected and beloved in March of 
1864, aged 73.

Young Marmaduke worked on his father’s farm and attended county schools and 
at the age of 17 entered Yale College. At the end of two years, he withdrew and 
entered Harvard.  In 185? He was appointed by the Hon. Judge John S. Phelps 
a cadet at West Point and entered in June of 1853.  He graduated in 1857 and 
was assigned as lieutenant to the 17th infantry, a portion of the command under 
General Albert Sidney Johnson, then marching against the Mormons.  He served 
in Utah two years and then was assigned to New Mexico.  His frontier service gave 
him much military discipline and valuable experience in the practical duties of an 
officer.

Upon the election of President Lincoln in 1860, he returned to Missouri upon a 
leave of absence.  When the ensuing conflict was seen to be inevitable, he 
resigned his commission and, upon its acceptance, cast his fate with the 
Confederate cause.  He raised a company of Missouri State Guards of which he 
was elected captain, and tendered his services to Governor Jackson for state 
defense.  He was soon after elected colonel of a regiment composed of his own 
and other companies.  After the capture of Camp Jackson, Generals Lyons and 
Blair, with 2,200 men of all arms, moved up the Missouri River and the government
 retired from Jefferson City, the capitol of the state, to Boone.

A council of war was held and the governor advised to give battle to the Federal 
forces at Boonville.  Col. Marmaduke strenuously opposed such action, stating 
concisely that Generals Lyon and Blair were experienced and able officers
commanding 1,700 troops—infantry, cavalry and artillery—that these troops 
were well armed, supplied with ammunition, trained and experienced, while the 
troops under his command with which to meet them consisted of 600 raw recruits 
who had scarcely begun to put on the constraints of military life—one third were 
unarmed and the balance armed with hunting rifles and fowling pieces and supplied 
with only a few rounds of ammunition.  He declared that the attempt to fight under 
such circumstances would end in a disastrous rout or in a slaughter of his men 
and that it was the duty of a commander to avoid unnecessary and unavoidable 
defeat.  In place of this rash attempt to give battle, he advised that the government 
and the troops retire in a southwesterly direction, fixing their headquarters in some 
central point in the interior where troops could be concentrated, organized and trained 
and where they could give battle to the Federals at a distance from their base of 
supplies.  His arguments were unanswerable and he was ordered to move his troops 
as he had advised.  A few hours later, however, these orders were countermanded by
 the governor and Col. Marmaduke was ordered to give battle to Booneville.  He 
remonstrated without avail—and thereupon offered his resignation.  The governor, 
however, insisted upon battle and explicitly assumed the entire responsibility.  The 
assault was as Col. Marmaduke had predicted—disaster.

Col. Marmaduke, seeing that politicians and not military men were controlling 
military matters in Missouri, immediately handed in his resignation to the governor 
and repairing to Richmond, tendered his sword to President Davis, asking to be 
ordered to report for duty with any command that might be moving to the relief of 
Missouri.  He was commissioned first lieutenant, reported for service to General 
William J. Hardee, then moving up the White River, was assigned to duty on his 
staff and a few weeks later promoted to lieutenant colonel.  He was placed in 
command of a battalion of infantry.  In the fall of 1861, he was made colonel of 
the 3rd Confederate Infantry which became a model in training and efficiency and 
won laurels on many a hard fought battlefield.  This regiment was in Hendman’s 
Brigade of General Albert Sidney Johnson’s army in the fall of 1861-62, continually 
moving, between Bowling Green and Green River and covered the rear of the army 
on a retreat from Bowling Green to Nashville.  To lead the advance of an aggressive 
force or cover the rear of a retreating column was the position most often assigned 
to Col. Marmaduke’s regiment.

In the terrible battle of Shiloh on April 6, 1862, Col. Marmaduke’s regiment was 
given by General Hardee (who commanded the first line of battle) the distinct 
honor of bearing into battle the guiding colors of the battle line and at daybreak 
of that memorable day, the regiment opened the terrible conflict by firing the first 
gun and capturing the first prisoner.  In courage and skill he was conspicuous 
among those who won laurels in that bloody days’ battle.  When at evening he 
was withdrawn from the field, he, with his ambulances, traversed the ground, 
gathering up the dead and wounded of his regiment and spent the night in the 
hospital superintending and assisting in dressing their wounds and alleviating 
their suffering.

The next morning, his regiment was ordered to hold a certain position.  Gathering 
every straggler he could find and with the remnant of his regiment as a nucleus, 
he repulsed repeated charges and in the face of impending disaster rode in the 
thickest of the fight carrying the colors and leading the forces until he was carried 
wounded from the field.

For gallantry and meritorious service on that battlefield, Col. Marmaduke was 
assigned duty as a brigadier general.

In the spring of 1862, General Holms, commander of the Trans-Mississippi 
Department and General Hindman, commander of the District of Arkansas and 
Missouri, applied to have General Marmaduke ordered for duty with them.  
Generals Bragg and Hardee, under whom Marmaduke was serving, gave him 
the option for staying or going.  He decided to go to the western Mississippi 
and after reporting to General Holmes at Little Rock, he was ordered to take 
command of his division in northwest Arkansas in late November of 1862.  

General Marmaduke was attacked at Cane Hill by General Blount with 8,000 troops.  
Fighting, in which Shelby’s Missouri Cavalry bore the brunt, in the face of superior 
numbers, lasted all day, as they fell back upon Dripping Springs.  General 
Marmaduke bore a conspicuous part in the Battle of Prairie Grove.  

In the last days of 1862, he commenced movements upon General Blount’s 
communications, which forced the latter to abandon the Arkansas River (at 
Van Buren) and fall back to Springfield.  

In his march south, Marmaduke had a short but sanguinary battle to Hartville, 
and, after great suffering by the troops with hunger and cold, they reached 
Batesville, Arkansas, where his troops went into winter quarters.

In the spring of 1863, he led a force of 4,000 men and eight pieces of artillery into 
Missouri.  He extricated General Carter from his perilous position in Cape Girardeau 
and successfully withdrew his command from the combined forces of Generals 
McNeil and Vandiver, the latter with their united army of 10,000 strong, pursuing 
as far as the St. Francis River.  General Marmaduke swam his horse and took 
his men, ammunition, and artillery over the swollen torrents and rudely constructed 
raft-bridges which he immediately destroyed and proceeded with the main body of 
his troops to Jacksonport from which point he rallied around Helena.  

General Holmes’ attack in force upon Helena in July, in which Price’s division 
carried the works and entered the town, losing over 1,000 in killed and captured, 
proving a failure, he fell back to Little Rock with all his forces except Marmaduke’s 
Cavalry Division which was ordered to resume its former position with headquarters 
at Jacksonport.

A few weeks thereafter, at General Steele’s advance from Helena towards Little 
Rock, Marmaduke was ordered to Brownsville with his division and there to report 
to General L.M. Walker who was resisting Steele’s advance.  Marmaduke was 
ordered to cover the retreat and fought Steele stubbornly until reaching Bayou Metre, 
an ugly stream, almost impassible except by bridges.  Here he determined to make 
a deadly resistance against Steele’s overwhelming column and here, after a hard 
fought battle of many hours, Steele’s advance was driven back and forced to take
another route to reach Little Rock.

Shortly afterwards occurred the unfortunate duel between General L.M. Walker and 
General Marmaduke.  The affair is now spoken of with regret by both parties without 
the charge of malice against either of the participants but as an unfortunate result of 
the prevailing code of honor among military officers everywhere as well as then 
recognized by gentlemen in the South.

General Marmaduke displayed great skill in the defense of Little Rock upon the 
evacuation of which by General Price, he was left to cover the retreat and retard 
the pursuit of the enemy.  He planned the attack on Pine Bluff commanding three 
brigades.  His demand to surrender being refused, he drove the garrison within the 
fortifications, captured their encampment, quartermaster, commissary and ordnance 
supplies, their horses and mules and the officer effects, destroying all he could not 
carry off, shelled their fortifications and withdrew rather than sacrifice hundreds of
lives for an inadequate result.

General Marmaduke, in the spring of 1864, was assigned to the duty of maneuvering 
against Steele to retard his progress long enough to allow General E. Kirby Smith to 
dispose of General Banks, then moving from New Orleans.  Marmaduke;s force of 
10,000 men and eight guns was so admirably handled that he forced General Steele 
with a magnificently equipped army to occupy nearly three weeks in moving L.L. Rock 
to take a distance of 125 miles.  He harassed him at every possible point until Steele 
was driven into Camden where he exhausted his supplies.

On April 20, Steele sent a forage train with a guard of 3,000 men.  Marmaduke, with
sill and hard fighting, captured the train—about 250 wagons and ambulances, 500 
horses and mules and four pieces of artillery—killed and captured several hundred 
Federals.  Steele being forced to evacuate Camden, marched to Little Rock but 
being hotly pursued by Marmaduke’s cavalry, was forced to give battle and this gave 
time for General E. Kirby Smith to come up with a heavy infantry force and what 
followed was the bloody battle of Jenkin’s Ferry—which Steele’s army was saved 
by a hasty and disorderly retreat.

For distinguished services in this battle and in the general campaign against Steele, 
Marmaduke was made a major general.  During the summer of 1864, he established 
himself near Lake Village, Chicot County, and succeeded in breaking up the traffic 
between the Federal forces under General A.J. Smith and when the latter turned his 
position by a flank movement he retreated crossing the bayou, harassed the rear of 
the retiring expedition and the next day resumed his position against the enemy’s 
transportation on the river.

General Marmaduke commanded a cavalry division under General Price when the 
latter marched into Missouri in the fall of 1864.  He advised General Price not to 
turn aside and lose valuable time and lives in attacking Pilot Mound but urged him 
to press on with all possible speed to the capture of St. Louis.  

After the repulse of the Confederates at Pilot Knob, Marmaduke moved with his 
division up the Missouri River as far as Westport.  Several battles and skirmishes 
occurred until finally about thirty miles from Fort Scott he was surrounded and 
after desperate fighting, he was captured on Oct. 24.  His men, who had fought 
with him on half a hundred battlefields, ranging over hundreds of miles in distance, 
had learned his kind yet stern discipline, his honest frankness, his genial and 
dignified manners and were warmly attached to him.  Every one of them felt that in 
the capture of their leader, who was foremost in the fight, last on the field and present 
where he was most needed, they had every one of them met with a personal loss. 
He was sent to Johnson’s Island and to months later to Fort Warren from which he 
was released in August of 1865.

In the then distressed condition of the country—his health was broken by prison life—
he determined on a trip to Europe.  He sailed in September of 1865.  Journeying through 
Europe, he returned to Missouri in September of 1866 and in the month of May following, 
in connection with Wyatt M. Brown and his brother, D.W. Marmaduke, established the
commission house of Marmaduke and Brown from which he retired in the fall of 1869.

In November of 1869, he became the special agent of the Life Insurance Association 
of America to organize and superintend its business in the southern states from 
Missouri to Texas.  In this position, he brought to bear upon his work the intuitive read 
of character, the prompt decision and the administrative ability which he had developed 
and displayed in his military career.  When, on account of his health, he terminated his 
connection with this company in April of 1871, its business under his management had 
been thoroughly organized on a firm basis and was its most successful operation in the 
southern states.

Shortly after this, he bought an interest in the Journal of Commerce and in the latter 
part of the same year, he, his brothers Vincent and Leslie and Messrs. Wolcott and 
Hume, established the daily evening journal.  Later in 1871 this company bought the 
monthly Journal of Agriculture and changed it to an illustrated paper.  In 1872, he 
sold his interest in the above company and with his brother Vincent bought the 
illustrated Journal of Agriculture.  In June of 1873, he disposed of his interest in this 
paper and accepted a position as secretary of the state board of agriculture to which 
he was re-appointed in 1874.  In 1875 he was appointed by the governor one of the 
railroad commissioners of the state.  At the request of the State Board of Agriculture, 
he also continued to perform the duties of his office as their secretary until the expiration 
of his term.  In November of 1876 he was elected by the people to railroad commissioner 
for four years, in the duties of which office he is now engaged.

The same kind and genial disposition, frank, honest and truthful nature, gentlemanly 
manners, prompt energetic action, and self reliant character which every associate, 
every officer, recognized and admired, in his military career, General Marmaduke 
carries into his official and civil life and duties.


Transcribed by Christine Spencer, August 2008








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