Originally aired on January 24, 1997 - In part 126 of our Civil War series, Virginia Tech history professor James Robertson describes the guerilla warfare that took place in Missouri. He also profiles the actions of Confederate Sarah Jane Smith, who was the first woman to be put to death for crimes against the United States.
#126 – An Obscure Execution (Sarah Jane Smith)
Nowhere in the thousands of books on the Civil War will one find the name of Sarah Jane Smith. Yet she achieved a dubious notoriety that should be remembered.
Her story began and ended in tumultuous times in Missouri. Although the Confederate flag bore thirteen stars, only eleven states were completely part of that government. In the border states of Kentucky and Missouri, determined efforts at secession occurred. However, the legislatures in both states refused to authorize conventions to consider secession. While secessionists in the two states established pro-Confederate administrations, in each state they reflected the will of minorities. Union occupation soon made each “a government in exile”.
Missouri became the scene of four years of guerrilla warfare. It produced a degree of terrorism not exceeded by anything else in the entire war. Atrocities, bushwhackers, ambushes, murders, all were regular events in Missouri. Such conduct would seem to have little relation with the huge war blazing in the East. The hit-and-run tactics of Southern guerrillas led to tens of thousands of Northern soldiers being sent to Missouri to maintain some degree of order.
By 1864, the state was largely in Union control. Confederate officials revived the old hope that a bold stroke in force into Missouri might shatter that Union occupation. So an expedition of 8 000 Confederate horsemen under well-known General Sterling Price struck out from Arkansas in late September and headed northward. Price’s aim was to slash westward across Missouri, scattering Union detachments as he went. With assistance from numerous guerilla bands along the way, he would quite possibly clear the state of Northern domination.
The campaign initially met with success. Confederates won several skirmishes, threatened St. Louis for a time, and then made their way westward across the rolling prairies of central Missouri. A few miles from the ultimate goal – Kansas City, Price’s men encountered overwhelming numbers of Federal soldiers. A sharp battle occurred on October 23 at Westport, just south of Kansas City. Price’s entire force was routed so badly that the horsemen did not stop riding until they had reached Texas.
Sarah Jane Smith was part of that Confederate expedition. Then eighteen years old, she was a native of Washington County, Arkansas. Her father was a soldier in Sterling Price’s Southern army. Miss Smith could neither read nor write, but she was totally devoted to the Confederate cause. Hence, as Price’s force moved across Missouri, Sarah Smith volunteered to be of assistance.
The young girl became part of a five-person guerrilla band that impeded Union movements by cutting the telegraph line at Rolla, Missouri, as well as destroying four miles of telegraph wire in nearly Greene County. Shortly afterward, Union soldiers captured Miss Smith. The October military trial was short, the punishment swift.
November 25, 1864, was a Friday and the day after Thanksgiving Day proclaimed by Abraham Lincoln. At noon that Friday, Sarah Jane Smith was hanged for treason against the Union. The cryptic record of this affair is buried in the musty ledgers of the Adjutant-General’s files in the National Archives. The notation does not say where the hanging took place, or what disposition was made of Smith’s body. In short, the teenager had a brief moment in the public eye, then vanished back into obscurity.
In the course of the Civil War, Federal authorities executed at least 126 civilians. Two-thirds of that number were people convicted of espionage or guerrilla activities. Usually the condemned were hanged rather than shot because treasonable acts were considered more despicable than other capital offenses.
Amid that large group, Sarah Smith has a singular distinction. She was the first woman put to death for crimes against the United States.