General Order No. 11 (1863)

:"Not to be confused with General Order No. 11 (1862)"General Order No. 11 is the title of a Union Army decree issued during the American Civil War on 25 August 1863, forcing the evacuation of rural areas in four counties in western Missouri.

The order, issued by Union General Thomas Ewing, affected all rural residents regardless of their loyalty. Those who could prove their loyalty to the Union were permitted to stay in the region, but had to leave their farms and move to communities near military outposts. Those who could not do so had to vacate the area altogether.

Origin and implementation of the order

Order No. 11 was issued four days after the August 21 Lawrence Massacre, instigated by Confederate bushwhacker William Quantrill. The Union Army believed that Confederate combatants in the area were originating from, or being supported by, rural portions of four Missouri counties on the Kansas border south of the Missouri River: Bates, Cass, Jackson, and Vernon. Federal forces were determined to put a stop to these depredations by any means necessary, even if that meant dispossessing innocent (or not-so-innocent) civilians.

Ewing's decree expelled all non-Unionist residents from those counties, and commanded that their lands be burned. Exceptions to the order were made for those living within one mile of the limits of Independence, Hickman Mills, Pleasant Hill, and Harrisonville. The area of Kansas City, Missouri north of Brush Creek and west of the Blue River, called "Big Blue" in the order, was also spared. In approving Ewing's directive, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln cautioned that the military must be careful to avoid permitting vigilante enforcement. This, however, turned out to be much more easily decreed than done, as Unionists and Rebels alike would soon learn.

Ewing's order was issued one day before he received a nearly identical directive issued by his superior, Major General John Schofield. But whereas Ewing's decree at least made some effort to distinguish between Unionists and Confederates, Schofield's order made no such distinction, and was regarded as being even harsher than Ewing's. Ewing's order was allowed to stand, however, and Schofield would later pronounce it as "wise and just; in fact, a necessity." [John M. Schofield, "Forty-six Years in the Army" (New York: Century, 1897), pg. 83.]

Although Ewing ordered his men not to engage in looting or other depredations, he proved unable to effectively control his soldiers, who were mostly Kansans eager to exact any revenge possible upon their Missouri neighbors. Animals and other property were stolen or destroyed, and houses, barns and outbuildings burnt to the ground. The area affected by Order No. 11 quickly became a devastated "no-man's-land", with only charred chimneys and burnt stubble remaining where once-fertile farms had stood.

Ironically, Ewing's order had the opposite military effect from what it intended: far from impeding the Bushwhackers, it actually "helped" them in some ways--at least early on--by giving them unlimited access to all manner of supplies and foodstuffs unencumbered by their rightful civilian owners. One Confederate reported finding chickens, hogs and cattle in abundance, all abandoned by their owners when they were forced to flee. Smokehouses contained vast quantities of hams and bacon, and barns held stores of feed for Southern horses. Bushwhackers were able to gather these things at night, until Union troops finally succeeded in carrying off or destroying all remaining supplies. [http://www.civilwarstlouis.com/History2/castelorder11.htm. Retrieved on 11 July 2008.]

Ewing relaxed his order in November, issuing General Order No. 20 permitting the return of those who could prove their loyalty to the Union. By January of 1864, command over the border counties had passed to General Egbert Brown, who disapproved of Order No. 11 and almost immediately circumvented it with a new directive of his own, permitting anyone in the affected area who claimed loyalty to the Union to return to their homes.

Although greatly disrupting the lives of civilians in the region, at least some of whom were innocent of Confederate collaboration, there is no evidence that Order No. 11 in and of itself ever seriously hindered Southern military operations in Missouri. Although no further raids into Kansas ensued after its issuance, historian Albert Castel asserts that strengthened border defenses and a better Home Guard organization in Kansas, together with an increasing focus by Bushwhackers on operations in northern and central Missouri (in preparation for General Sterling Price's invasion of Missouri in the Fall of 1864), were more to blame for this than was Ewing's decree. [http://www.civilwarstlouis.com/History2/castelorder11.htm. Retrieved on 11 July 2008.]

The infamous legacy of Order No. 11 would persist throughout western Missouri for decades after the war ended.

George Bingham and Order No. 11

American artist George Caleb Bingham, who was staunchly pro-Union, called Order No. 11 an "act of imbecility" and wrote letters protesting it. Bingham wrote to Gen. Ewing, "If you execute this order, I shall make you infamous with pen and brush," and in 1868 created his famous portrait reflecting the consequences of Ewing's harsh edict (see above). Frank James, a participant in the Kansas raid, is said to have commented: "This is a picture that talks." [http://www.mo-river.net/Arts/georgecalebbingham.htm. Retrieved on 11 July 2008.]

Bingham, who was in Kansas City at the time, described the events:

It is well-known that men were shot down in the very act of obeying the order, and their wagons and effects seized by their murderers. Large trains of wagons, extending over the prairies for miles in length, and moving Kansasward, were freighted with every description of household furniture and wearing apparel belonging to the exiled inhabitants. Dense columns of smoke arising in every direction marked the conflagrations of dwellings, many of the evidences of which are yet to be seen in the remains of seared and blackened chimneys, standing as melancholy monuments of a ruthless military despotism which spared neither age, sex, character, nor condition. There was neither aid nor protection afforded to the banished inhabitants by the heartless authority which expelled them from their rightful possessions. They crowded by hundreds upon the banks of the Missouri River, and were indebted to the charity of benevolent steamboat conductors for transportation to places of safety where friendly aid could be extended to them without danger to those who ventured to contribute it. [http://www.rulen.com/partisan/gcb11.htm. Retrieved on 11 July 2008.]

Bingham insisted that the real culprits behind most of the depredations committed in western Missouri and eastern Kansas were not the pro-Confederate bushwhackers, but rather pro-Union Jayhawkers and "Red Legs," whom he accused of operating under the protection of General Ewing himself. According to Bingham, Union troops might easily have defeated the Bushwhackers if they had tried hard enough, and exercized a requisite amount of personal courage. [http://www.civilwarstlouis.com/History2/castelorder11.htm. Retrieved on 11 July 2008.] Albert Castel refutes Bingham's assertions, however, demonstrating that Ewing made conspicuous efforts to rein in the Jayhawkers, and stop the violence on both sides. He furthermore argues that Ewing issued Order No. 11 at least partly in a desperate attempt to stop a planned Unionist raid on Missouri to exact revenge for the Lawrence massacre, to be led by Kansas Senator Jim Lane himself. [http://www.civilwarstlouis.com/History2/castelorder11.htm. Retrieved on 11 July 2008.]

Text of General Order No. 11

quote|General Order № 11. Headquarters District of the Border, Kansas City, August 25, 1863.

1. All persons living in Jackson, Cass, and Bates counties, Missouri, and in that part of Vernon included in this district, except those living within one mile of the limits of Independence, Hickman's Mills, Pleasant Hill, and Harrisonville, and except those in that part of Kaw Township, Jackson County, north of Brush Creek and west of Big Blue, are hereby ordered to remove from their present places of residence within fifteen days from the date hereof.

Those who within that time establish their loyalty to the satisfaction of the commanding officer of the military station near their present place of residence will receive from him a certificate stating the fact of their loyalty, and the names of the witnesses by whom it can be shown. All who receive such certificates will be permitted to remove to any military station in this district, or to any part of the State of Kansas, except the counties of the eastern border of the State. All others shall remove out of the district. Officers commanding companies and detachments serving in the counties named will see that this paragraph is promptly obeyed.

2. All grain and hay in the field or under shelter, in the district from which inhabitants are required to remove, within reach of military stations after the 9th day of September next, will be taken to such stations and turned over to the proper officers there and report of the amount so turned over made to district headquarters, specifying the names of all loyal owners and amount of such product taken from them. All grain and hay found in such district after the 9th day of September next, not convenient to such stations, will be destroyed.

3. The provisions of General Order No. 10 from these headquarters will be at once vigorously executed by officers commanding in the parts of the district and at the station not subject to the operations of paragraph 1 of this order, and especially the towns of Independence, Westport and Kansas City.

4. Paragraph 3, General Order No. 10 is revoked as to all who have borne arms against the Government in the district since the 20th day of August, 1863.

By order of Brigadier General Ewing. H. Hannahs, Adjt.-Gen'l.

Notes

ee also

*Scorched earth
*total war
*General Thomas Ewing, Jr.
*James H. Lane (Senator)

External links

* [http://www.historiclonejack.org/order11.html Historic Lone Jack]
* [http://www.rulen.com/partisan/gcb11.htm Missouri Partisan Ranger]
* [http://www.civilwarstlouis.com/History2/castelorder11.htm "Order No. 11 and the Civil War on the Border" by Albert Castel]