Cleveland's Widow Exhumed his Body

Marshall Cleveland

An interesting little piece from The Daily Times in Leavenworth, dated 5 August 1862:

Cleveland's "widow" had the body of the great jayhawker exhumed, last week for the purpose of getting a lock of his hair. That tombstone at last is planted at the head of his grave.

http://jayhawkersandredlegs.blogspot.com/2009/08/hell-is-full-of-such-angels-part-iii.html



"The Depredators:" The Cleveland-Tough Connection Part II

While the story told by Blue and Moore contains the usual jayhawker hyperbole, and while they are seriously confused about the dates of certain events, their account closely corresponds with the official report written by Captain Irving W. Fuller of the First Missouri Cavalry:"In pursuance of the above order I left Fort Leavenworth with my command at 2 o'clock p. m. of the 20th January, 1862, and proceeded to Atchison, where I arrived at 8 o'clock p. m. of the same day. I reported immediately upon my arrival to Mayor Fairchild (Special Orders, No. 58, revoking that part of Orders No. 57, not having reached me yet). Mayor Fairchild informed me that the citizens had driven the principal jayhawkers (depredators) out of town, but at the same time requested me to arrest certain parties who were suspected to be in league with these depredators and as having the keeping of stolen horses and cattle. In conformity with his request I arrested several of such persons as he pointed out to me and charged with the above crime, but who from want of evidence and with his concurrence were discharged. On the next morning, January 21, 1862, at 4 o'clock a. m., Lieutenant Sprague joined my command with 20 men and reported for duty. At 8 a.m. of the same day I sent out Lieutenant Sprague with 25 men in search of horse-thieves and depredators and stolen property, who succeeded in capturing 5 of the stolen horses and 2 jayhawkers, and re- turned at 2 p. m. of the same day. I then proceeded with the balance of my command to the farm of Sueter Dixon, a noted jayhawker, and took from his farm 20 horses and 2 shot-guns, the property of citizens of Kansas and Missouri, to whom I restored their property upon their bringing satisfactory proof of ownership. January 22, Mayor Fairchild delivered to me 8 horses taken from the jayhawkers by the Home Guards of Atchison previous to my arrival, which were all claimed by citizens of Kansas and delivered to them as above. January 23, made several scouts and searches in the neighborhood of town. I was informed by Messrs. Brown, Dunlap, and Sumers that several horses were brought to their farms by parties unknown for safe-keeping, but that they supposed them to be jayhawked horses, and would like to have an investigation of the matter. I proceeded to the farms of the above-named men, seized the horses, and brought them into town, when they were immediately claimed by their proper owners and delivered to them. January 24, I was notified by Mr. Irving, of Missouri, at 3 o'clock a.m., that 15 jayhawkers had robbed his farm in Missouri and taken therefrom 40 horses and mules and 6 negroes; that they dragged his family, among whom there are several females, out of bed, insulting them in the most revolting manner, robbed them of their jewelry, and finally left and proceeded in the direction of Elwood. I immediately concluded to go in search of this party, and Mr. Irving offering himself and a few neighbors as guides, I consented thereto, but dispatched him in advance. I overtook him at Geary City, where I found that his party had caught 2 and killed the captain (by name Chandler) of jayhawkers, and wounded another. The rest had escaped, 11 in number, and had gone in the direction of Elwood. I then told Mr. Irving that I thought best for him and his party to go home, as I had a force sufficient to answer all purposes. Accordingly Mr. Irving and his party went home. I took the 2 prisoners in my charge and gave chase to the remainder.
I followed them closely. When I came within 8 miles of Elwood I ascertained that the party I was in pursuit of had divided. Five had gone west of Elwood,in the direction of White Cloud, and 6 had gone to Elwood. Accordingly I divided my command. I sent Lieu- tenant Sprague in pursuit of the party of 5 en route to White Cloud, and proceeded myself in pursuit of the other party en route to Elwood, where I captured them. Two hours after Lieutenant Sprague joined me, having been successful in the capture of the party sent after, with all the stolen property in their possession 5 horses, saddles, bridles, & c. The party I captured had in their possession 12 horses, 3 mules, and 4 wagons, all these the property of Mr. Irving. These are the most material points of my proceedings. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, I. W. FULLER, Captain, First Missouri Cavalry."

The Cleveland-Tough Connection

In a book published in 1893, titled, Scouts, Spies, and Heroes of the Great Civil War, the author, Captain Joseph Powers Hazelton, included a chapter called, “Moore and Blue the Kansas Scouts.” The account describes the activities of Frank M. Blue, formerly of Michigan, and Henry W. Moore, previously of Brooklyn, New York, and their involvement with Marshall Cleveland’s gang. Of particular relevance is their description of the shootout involving the Chandlers, which took place in January 1862, and Cleveland’s twin bank robberies in Kansas City, which occurred on November 16, 1861. Of specific interest is the name of one of the bank robbers, William Tuff of Baltimore. William Sloan Tough was from Baltimore, and during the course of the war most newspapers identified him as “Tuff,”or “Tuft” or some similar spelling. As an example, the reporter C.M. Chase wrote that “The name of Captain [a purely honorary title], Tuft – or according to his own spelling, ‘Tough’ – carries with it a degree of terror in Kansas of which people in peaceable society can have no conception.” As a standalone document, the story of Blue and Moore is rather insignificant. However, when combined with other primary sources, the chapter sheds extraordinary light on Cleveland and his men, as well as the activities of William S. Tough. In a previous blog post I quoted R.M. Peck, who claimed Cleveland’s gang fell apart after his death. Peck also claimed that one of Cleveland’s men went on to become United States Marshal. Interestingly, William S. Tough was a United States Marshal for the State of Kansas from 1873-1876. Below is an excerpt from the chapter on Moore and Blue:

"With the prospect of active service, they could not stand idly by and see others engaged, and accordingly recruited ten men, with whom they joined Captain William Cleaveland's independent company for the defence of the Kansas border. Their first exploit was a dash into De Kalb, Missouri, where they captured twelve or fourteen prisoners and forty horses and mules. A large party, however, pursued them, overtook and captured them at Atkinson's ferry, carried them to St. Joseph, and lodged them in jail. The good people of St. Joseph were very anxious to have them tried and sent to the penitentiary at once ; but there was no court in session, and the only recourse was to lock them up in the jail, where they did not remain long. The guard was made drunk with drugged whiskey, the negro cook was bribed with a twenty dollar gold piece to steal the keys from the jailer, the door was unlocked at midnight, and the whole party walked out just ten days after they had been incarcerated. One John Seelover, a friend, had a skiff near at hand to cross them over the river and a conveyance on the other side to take them to Atchison the same night. The next night, nothing daunted by their recent jail experience, the same party crossed in a flat boat to Missouri, captured from the rebel farmers horses enough to mount themselves, and returned again, after giving the people thereabouts a good scare. The evening following, a negro came to their headquarters at Pardee, eight miles from Atchison, and saidthat his rebel master, John Wells by name, and living twelve miles south of St. Joseph, was to leave the next morning for Price's army with two wagon loads of goods and a coffin full of arms. The company started over immediately, the negro acting as guide. The rebel was found, and so were the goods, consisting of bacon, Hour, sugar, coffee, tobacco, whiskey, powder, and lead, but no arms. Demand was made for the latter, but the prisoner denied having any. A lariat was then thrown over his neck, and drawn tight for a few minutes, when he disclosed their place of concealment - a newly-made grave, with head and footboard - in which were found twenty stands of arms of all kinds, and a box of pistols, all of which were taken to Fort Leavenworth, and turned over to the United States Government. Many other expeditions were made, until Cleaveland and his band were known and feared all over that country. On one of these, it was ascertained that Major Hart, of Price's army, was at his home, fifteen miles from Weston, with ten men. The company immediately set forth to capture them, a woman - Mrs. Chandler -acting as guide. The Major, his men, and the stock on his farm were taken and carried to Geary City, Kansas, where the stock was just put away and twelve men left as a guard over the prisoners, when forty Mis- eourians rode up and demanded their surrender. Chandler, who stood in the porch, said they would never surrender - when he was shot dead, eleven bullets being found in his body. His wife and the remainder fired from the house, and picked them off so fast, that they were compelled to retire to Fort Leavenworth, eight miles distant, hence they brought up a company of thefirst Missouri Cavalry, under Captain Fuller, to their assistance, and finally succeeded in capturing the little garrison. They were taken to the fort, and, no one appearing against them, were speedily released by Major Prince, of the U. S. Regulars, commanding the post.

Not long after this, Moore, Blue, William Tuff, of Baltimore, and Cleaveland, dashed into Kansas City, and levied a contribution of some thirty-three hundred dollars in coin upon two secession bankers who had rebel flags flying at their windows. They were pursued, but made their escape, divided the money equally, and all four went to Chicago to spend it, which they did most liberally ; and in June, 1861, returned to Leavenworth."

"Hell is full of such angels!" Part III

When I first examined the gravesite in 2004, the Cleveland tombstone was still standing. It is now resting flat on top of a slab of concrete. Two major items are missing from the tombstone. There is no sign of the “sculptured two hands, each holding a pistol” mentioned in the Liberty Tribune. On this particular point, I believe the newspaper probably embellished the story. If the two hands holding pistols were part of the original tombstone R.M. Peck would certainly have mentioned it. The second missing piece is the famous epitaph. Days after first viewing the tombstone, I contacted Randy Thies at the Kansas State Historical Society. The following is his report:

Observations of Randy Thies, Cultural Resource Specialist and Archeologist with the Kansas State Historical Society in Topeka, Kansas.

December 2004.

"Well, here's my observations. I don't think anything got washed away,and I don't think the current gravestone is a new stone. This current gravemarker is the original stone, in my opinion. I make that judgement due to the style of the lettering and associated sculptural characteristics, the fact the gravestone is made of marble, and the fact that gravestone is quite thin and was probably quite tall, all of these being characteristics common to gravestones of that time period. The concrete, however, is obviously new, not something that would have been used back in 1862. The stone is set in the concrete to a depth that brings the concrete right up and even encroaching on the circular sculptural depression that contains Cleveland's name. This is not something that anyone would have done purposely, so it seems obvious that the gravemarker has been reset, probably after being broken off at ground level after being struck by something--maybe vandalism, getting hit by a mower, hit by a log in a flood, whatever. Structurally, because the gravestone is tall and thin, it would have been easily broken. I strongly suspect the "One here less..." epitaph was somewhere below the name but it is impossible to know just how far it was located below the circle. It seems obvious that the gravemarker was formerly quite tall, so it is not certain where the ground-level breaking point would have been. Most likely, the broken upper part of the stone was placed up against the remaining lower part of the stone,and the two pieces were then reset in concrete, a move that probably resulted in the epitaph being covered--and it will be covered forever,because it would be difficult if not impossible to remove the concrete in such a manner as to enable restoration of the stone, assuming the city would ever actually allow anyone to undertake such a project. I was able to get permission from the city clerk to dig soil out from in front of the stone to enable viewing of the hoped-for epitaph, but the city facilities manager was aghast that such permission had been granted tome. I doubt that they would permit any intrusive restoration efforts whatsoever."

"Hell is full of such angels!" Part II

When Marshall Cleveland was gunned down by soldiers from the 6th Kansas Cavalry on the morning of May 11, 1862 on the banks of the Marais des Cygnes River, in Osawatomie, Kansas, his “supposed wife” or mistress attracted little attention. While the official report of the killing failed to mention her, (her name still remains a mystery), she was in fact in the house surrounded by Union soldiers that morning. The Atchison Daily Globe would later report that “Cleveland’s mistress by-the-way was the cause of his death. When it became so bad that soldiers were sent in search of him, the women was watched and the outlaw located at Osawatomie when the women went to visit him and he was killed.” While she did not draw a lot of attention on the morning of May 11, Cleveland’s widow would, over the course of the summer, draw quite a bit of interest.
Only a day after Cleveland’s death his widow appeared in Lawrence, Kansas. The Lawrence Republican noting that Cleveland “was buried on Monday” and that his “supposed wife passed through this place on Tuesday swearing vengeance on all United States Volunteers.”Weeks later a Missouri newspaper, the Liberty Tribune, ran a story entitled “The Tomb of Cleveland.” The newspaper reported that “At the marble works of Mr. Bedwell, on the corner of Francis and Sixth Streets [St. Joseph, Missouri], may now be seen an extraordinary work of art. It is not so remarkable as a mere artistic work, as it is when taken in connection with the purpose for which it is designed. The work of which we speak is the tombstone of the late Marshal L. Cleveland, who was killed at Osawatomie, Kansas…by Federal soldiers who had arrested him for his innumerable and heavy crimes as a Jayhawker. The stone was ordered by his wife, and the design of it is entirely her own. It consists of a plain slab of white marble; at the top are sculptured two hands each holding a pistol. The inscription on the stone is as follows:
Marshal L. Cleveland,
Died May 12, 1862.
“Earth counts a mortal less, Heaven an angel more.”

As an aside, the newspaper quoted the St. Jo. Journal’s comments about the tombstone, noting that, “To use a new expression, comment is superfluous.”
The story of the tombstone appeared in numerous Kansas and Missouri newspapers leading many to speculate that since the tombstone was fashioned in St. Joseph, Cleveland was certainly buried there. As an example, United States Senator John James Ingalls wrote in an article published in 1902, that “His temporary widow took his sacred clay to St. Joseph, where its place of interment is marked by a marble headstone bearing the usual memoranda, and concluding with the following:
“One hero less on earth,
One angel more in heaven!”

Ingalls and others however, were mistaken. The authentic story of Cleveland’s interment and of his widow was written in 1904, by a former wagon master and occasional express rider named R.M. Peck. Kip Lindberg and I stumbled across his memoirs in 2004 while researching the Baxter Springs Massacre. Peck and his associate Dan Eckerberger stopped at a hotel in Osawatomie in August, 1862 to feed their mules and procure dinner. Ushered into the men’s parlor to await their meal, Peck eyed a freshly chiseled tombstone propped up in the corner of the room. Curious to determine the inscription carved into the slab, Peck walked over and read it to Eckerberger:
Sacred to the memory of
Captain Marshall L. Cleveland,
Who died May 11th, 1862
Aged__
“Earth counts one mortal less-
Heaven one angel more.”

“I write this from memory," recalled Peck, “and cannot recall the age given, but I think the name, date and quotation on the tombstone were just as I have given them. The absurdity of such a sentiment on the tomb of such a notorious criminal as Cleveland was known to have been, struck me so forcibly that without thinking where I was, or who might be in hearing, I blurted out impulsively: “Hell’s full of such angels.” I was sorry I had used such ungentlemanly language as soon as I uttered it, for as I glanced through an open door into what seemed to be the ladies parlor, which I had not before noticed, I saw a black-eyed women ‘looking daggers’ at me, and I feared I had hurt her feelings, whoever she was. The landlord hurriedly approaching, as if fearful of another such explosion from me requested: ‘Mister, please don’t use such language in the hearing of the lady in the next room. She’s Capt. Cleveland’s widow.’…The landlord informed me that ‘Mrs. Cleveland’ had recently brought the tombstone from Leavenworth to have it placed at the jay-hawker’s grave. If it still stands there bearing that ‘misfit’ epitaph, it has probably, ere now, provoked many similar rough expressions of opinion from those who knew his reputation in life. It is scarcely necessary to add that Cleveland’s gang of jay-hawkers fell to pieces after his death; but strange to say, some of his men afterwards became respectable citizens of Kansas, with two of whom I became personally acquainted. One was, some years ago, a Justice of the Peace in Leavenworth, and the other was United States Marshal of Kansas.” [I will have more on these gentlemen in a concluding blog]
Peck was able to learn afterwards “that the woman who had passed herself as ‘Capt. Cleveland’s widow’ was never his wife, but had formerly been employed in ‘Ben Wheeler’s Ten Cent Show’- a disreputable ‘varieties’ dive in Leavenworth – as a comedy actress and ‘beer slinger.’ She was there known as the wife of ‘Tommy’ Pell, the comedian, whom she deserted for the jay-hawker.” Peck’s story appears to be right on the mark. Tommy Pell did in fact work for the same minstrel troupe as Ben Wheeler and it is almost certain that Pell performed on Wheeler’s stage in Leavenworth.
After reading Peck’s account, I drove over to Osawatomie, and soon located Cleveland’s grave and tombstone in the Oakwood Cemetery. What I found can be seen in the photograph included with this blog post. In Part III of this story I will reveal what happened to the rest of the monument.

“Hell is full of such angels!”

I could think of no better place to start this blog than with a short piece on the notorious Kansas Jayhawker Marshall Cleveland. While many of his more iniquitous exploits have been recounted many times, there remain three principal ambiguities concerning the “Phantom Horseman of the Prairie.” The first mystery concerns his name. While some have claimed it was in fact Charles Metz, no conclusive evidence exists to support this. Thus far, no one has been able to provide reliable evidence as to Cleveland’s actual name. The second puzzlement surrounding Cleveland involves his female companion, a woman described by one newspaper as “the most daring” of his gang. The newspaper portrayed her as “a small delicate woman, who left Leavenworth in company with Cleveland. She rides with them, heavily armed, and is always first in every enterprise, whether for plunder or fighting.” In my next post I will shed some light on the woman, Cleveland’s “supposed wife” who after his death swore revenge on the Union soldiers who killed him. The third mystery surrounding Cleveland involves his tombstone and the location of his interment. It’s a remarkable story and I will cover it in detail soon on this blog.