She had her beliefs and she held onto them. I think to Lou, it was not what color uniform a man wore, it was did he need something? Food? Clothing? Shelter?
Lou made a statement to Union officials on May 22, 1863, while in custody just a few days after the Missouri City raid.
"I do not know what I was arrested for, but was told it was for feeding bushwhackers, but I do not believe I have ever been guilty of that. I have fed both parties. No Union man ever came to my house and asked for something to eat but what he got it. It made no difference whether they were union men or rebels – I fed them. I never turned off any one who was hungry. I will take the oath willingly and live up to it. I would not take the oath unless I intended to live up to it.
"It cannot be proved that I ever done any disloyal act. I do not know what a disloyal act is. They say it is feeding rebels ... my enemies have said a great many things of me which are not so ... I fed rebels. I only meant that they had come to my house and asked for something to eat and I gave it to them. I did not think I was doing anything wrong.
"I have two children. I have one brother in the Federal army ... most of my relatives are in the Federal Army, some are in the secession Army."
Lou signed the oath of allegiance and was paroled. Still, she did what she felt was right. In her 1912 article for Confederate Veteran Magazine, she described a "thrilling experience" before she left St. Joseph.
"I suppose it is a mystery to this day how Captain Burkholder escaped from prison. It was Mrs. Howard, of St. Joe, and I who set him free. After I was paroled, I went with Mrs. Howard to the hospital to visit the sick. Captain Burkholder was there. He was a prisoner, held as a spy and condemned to death. He had been captured within the lines at Missouri City dressed in citizen's clothes.
"I knew him, he was a friend of the Hardwicks, and Ella Hardwick's lover (the Hardwicks owned the hotel in Missouri City in which Benjamin Rapp had been taken after being shot in the May 19th ambush). He [Burkholder] had risked his life in the enemy lines in order to see his sweetheart. Captain Burkholder told us of his perilous situation. We said we would aid him to escape if we could. He said the prison keeper had agreed to give him a cap and coat if they would serve him, and then he said, 'If you two can come here just before dark, I can manage it. I'll put on my cap and coat to disguise myself and go out with you, giving the countersign, which I know, to the guards. If you can have a conveyance ready outside, I will surely get away.
"We carried out the plan successfully. Mrs. Howard found a true man who stationed himself in a carriage just back of the hospital. Captain Burkholder walked out with us, giving the countersign, entered the carriage and was quickly on his way to Rock House Prairie, where I had a friend who would aid him further by buying a ticket for him at the station and sending him on to Canada – out of reach of the hangman's halter and he got safely away without our being suspected."
Lou returned to her home in Missouri City, but the feisty 20-year-old wasn't finished yet. Three months later she was arrested again.
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| Pictured is the lay of the land in present day from the hills of Clay County overlooking river bottom land toward Missouri City where Lou McCoy lived. There is plenty of hilly, rolling land until the river bottom, which is vast, lush, and prime for planting. (Photo by Liz Johnson) |
"A squad of soldiers came to my house and read to me an order from General Rosencrans, dated from Washington, D.C., I think, which stated that every officer's family was to be put through the lines [banishment]. The paper also charged that I had come on in advance of General Price on his raid.
"My husband, Captain McCoy, had done that, but they charged me with it. Captain McCoy had come in advance of General Price, had caught one of Captain Garth's men and had sworn them out of service till exchanged.
"Garth's boys had gone out grape hunting with some of the girls of Liberty, but where they could not find any grapes, they found themselves surrounded by McCoy's men of Price's army, captured and paroled. They were of the militia pressed into service against their will, and were glad to be released to respect this oath."
And so Lou was to be banished from her home in Missouri. She had little time to prepare and departed Liberty somewhere around Feb. 15, 1864.
"We were taken to the railroad station by a lieutenant and five privates, who accompanied us to Pine Bluff, Arkansas. There were 13 families of us in all, some of them from Jackson County. When we arrived in Pine Bluff, a new escort received and receipted for us as if we had been so many cattle.
"While we were waiting, two families succeeded in having the order to send them through the lines revoked. At this, others of us undertook to have the order revoked in our favor. I asked a sergeant to tell General Clayton that some of us would like to speak to him. With a sneer he replied, 'Do you know what you would have to do in order to speak to General Clayton? You would have to send in a gilt-edged card on a golden plate.'"
Lou was always quick witted and replied, "'Why wouldn't it do to send a white sheet of paper, turned down at the right-hand corner and on it written, 'Urbanity of Tom, Dick or Harry? You can tell General Clayton that my husband is one of Joe Shelby's staff officers.'"
The strategy worked and within a few minutes, General Clayton came to the door asking for "the little Rebel Captain who wishes to speak to me."
Unfortunately, despite finding Lou rather charming, the general reported that her case had gone too far for the order of banishment to be revoked and so the group continued on their way.
They were traveling in open wagons with escorts on horseback, with one carrying a white flag. The flag was to let the "graybacks" know that the group was just passing through and it was important to keep the flag unfurled.
Lou said that before too long they saw an army of men ahead of them and sure enough, they were wearing gray. "The Confederate commander halted his men and advanced alone to meet us. Seeing this, our lieutenant, ordering the escort to remain with us, rode forward."
The two enemies faced each other, tipped their hats and shook hands. All was civil and the Confederate soldier was permitted to come and meet each of the group of southern sympathizers now banished from their homes.
It turned out the Confederate soldier was from Clay County and a few members of the group knew who he was.
"As the squad of Confederates approached us we waved our handkerchiefs. Then we all, gray and blue, were taken to Dr Ferguson's house, where the officers exchanged writings. Our officers were Boes Roberts and Col. Gil Thompson," recounted Lou.
"That night the prisoners were given shelter in Dr. Ferguson's house, while gray and blue remained by camp fires till morning. The Yankee escort went back and we went on to Monticello, where we remained until the surrender."
Sadly, Lou's husband, Moses McCoy, died soon after the war. She said in her 1912 article that she believed William Quantrill and his guerrillas came to Missouri City to help her because her husband had helped them in a time of need.
Lou's story was just one of hundreds of women's stories during the war – in every state involved in the conflict. She was actually lucky – despite being banished from her home, as she never had to serve time in one of the dirty, rat-infested prisons in St. Louis.
Lou McCoy eventually remarried twice and ended up in Texas toward the end of her life. She was feisty, tenacious and brave – an example of the true spirit of a pioneer woman.
Lurena "Lou" McCoy Lucas Gentry died on Jan. 1, 1916 in Mansfield, Tarrant County, Texas.
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