Thomas Ewing’s Guerrilla Household Map

1863

Union General Thomas Ewing, who was appointed commander of the newly-created District of the Border, commissioned this 1863 hand-drawn map to show the locations of pro-Confederate guerrilla households that supported bushwhacker activity in eastern Jackson County. The accompanying lists name the residents of these “disloyal” households. There were few military-age Missouri men who remained in their homes by mid-way through the war. Most men had joined the Union or Confederate armies, the pro-Union Missouri State Militia or the Enrolled Missouri Militia, the pro-Confederate guerrillas, or had fled to urban areas such as St. Louis or to the West.

This map and list of names go to the core of how guerrilla warfare operated. The combatants needed women, children, and elderly people to lend them support in their fight; this included providing the men with supplies such as food, ammunition, clothes, and fresh horses. In addition, residents of these households, primarily women, as the list suggests, engaged in covert operations such as providing the guerrillas information on troop movements and strength. Gen. Ewing likely used the lists and map to identify individuals for arrest for disloyal activities or for eviction after he issued Order No. 10, which authorized the removal from Missouri of individuals known to aid the bushwhackers, and No. 11, which removed all citizens who had not signed an oath of loyalty to the US government from Jackson, Cass, Bates, and the northern part of Vernon counties in response to Quantrill’s deadly August 21, 1863 guerrilla raid on Lawrence, Kansas.