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Moses Elcaney Banks was born about 1830 in Carter County, Tennessee, the fourth of the eight children of Moses Banks and Charlotte Grindstaff who survived to adulthood. By 1840 the family was living in Newton County, Missouri, where they settled on the fertile bottom land between Shoal Creek and Capps Creek about five miles east of Newtonia. In 1848, a whiskey distillery was built on Capps Creek about a mile northeast of the Banks farm. The small town of Jollification grew up around the distillery, reportedly named for the effect of its product on the local inhabitants. During the Civil War, the entire town was burned except for the distillery, which was later converted to a grist mill. Today the Jolly Mill is one of the few surviving antebellum mills in Missouri and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Jollification area was settled largely by emigrants from the upper South, several of whom were slave owners . Two of the older Banks brothers, Edward and Benjamin, married into the William Shipman family, which owned at least one slave woman and her children. The Shipmans were, in turn, linked by marriage to Abel Landers, a prominent local landowner, lawyer and politician. Landers served in the Missouri legislature in the 1840s and 1850s with colleagues such as future Confederate General Sterling Price and future secessionist Governor Claiborne Jackson. In 1858, he moved to Texas where he apparently supported the Confederacy during the war. Despite these Southern ties, all of the Banks sons and sons-in-law who have been traced fought for the Union in the Civil War.
On January 15, 1854, "Caney" Banks (Moses E.'s nickname) married Charity Carroll in Barry County, Missouri. They settled on Capps Creek about two miles east of Jollification in Barry County and had three children: William Henry, born December 14, 1854; Sirena Bell, born June 11, 1859; and Sarah E., born April 18, 1865. All three children survived to adulthood. William Henry married Mahana Hart; Sirena Bell married Thomas Vassar; and Sarah E. married Elias Gaw.
Caney's wife Charity Carroll was born in Indiana and raised in Barry County, Missouri, as part of the John and Frances Sexton family. Although it cannot be ascertained with certainty, it seems likely that her maiden name was Sexton and that the name "Carroll" resulted from an earlier marriage. One of her brothers, James Sexton, married Emeline Banks, Caney's younger sister, sometime in the early 1850s. The Banks and Sexton families were thus related by a sort of double marriage. Another of Caney's sisters, Charlotte Banks, married John G. Hawkins in Newton County about 1855. By the 1860 census, all of these people were neighbors in western Barry County.
The Stone Prairie Home Guard
After the outbreak of the Civil War, in mid-1861, John Sexton Jr. (son of John and Frances, brother of James and Charity) organized an independent company of the Stone Prairie Home Guard in Barry County. This short-lived Union organization was very much a family affair for the Bankses and their in-laws. Of its 43 officers and men, at least nine seem to have had some family tie by marriage. In addition to Captain John Sexton Jr., the unit included Sergeant Moses E. Banks, his younger brother Jacob M. Banks, his brother-in-law James Sexton and his brother-in-law John G. Hawkins. Also members of the unit were John Hawkins' father Keith, his brother-in-law Jackson Daniel and two probable relatives of his mother, George M. Goodnight and John Goodnight.
According to the unit register in the Missouri State Archives, the Stone Prairie Home Guard "was organized in Barry County June 1861 by authority of Col. Phelps and approved by Genl Sigel; and the duty performed consisted in scouting and watching the movements of the enemy until August 1861 when the same was disbanded." (Home Guard Register, Office of the Adjutant General, Microfilm Reel #ML290, Missouri State Archives, Jefferson City.)
Despite the June date in the unit register, this unit was actually organized informally in early May, 1861, and formally enlisted at Mt. Vernon, Missouri, on July 6, 1861. General Sigel is known to have been in Mt. Vernon that day, because the prior day, July 5, he had led union troops against a superior Confederate force in the battle of Carthage and had withdrawn to Mt. Vernon during the night. Colonel Phelps was Congressman John S. Phelps, who represented Southwest Missouri in Congress for 18 years and who probably knew the Banks family through it ties to Abel Landers. Phelps was a loyal War Democrat.
The battle of Carthage came about after Missouri's secessionist elected government fled Jefferson City in mid-June and moved to Southwest Missouri. There the pro-Confederate Missouri State Guard led by General Sterling Price linked up with General Ben McCulloch's Confederate forces in Northwest Arkansas. Missouri's aggressive Union commander Nathaniel Lyon decided to fight this superior combined force immediately, leading first to the battle of Carthage on July 5 and then to the battle of Wilson's Creek on August 10, 1861. Although its exact role is unknown, the Stone Prairie Home Guard was involved in "scouting and watching the movements of the enemy" during this crucial interval.
Again according to Missouri Archives enrollment records, most members of the Stone Prairie Home Guard were discharged August 20, 1861, after the Union defeat at Wilson's Creek forced Union troops out of Southwest Missouri. Based on subsequent enrollment histories, it seems likely that at least part of the unit retreated to Rolla, Missouri, where several of the discharged members enrolled immediately in the 24th Missouri Infantry.
Interestingly enough, however, several members of this unit left shortly before the battle of Wilson's Creek. According to the unit register, Captain John Sexton Jr. left the company August 6, 1861, in an "irregular and disorderly manner." Sergeant Moses E. Banks, Jacob M. Banks and James Sexton were all discharged the same day. The particular incident or controversy that triggered these departures is unknown. The Hawkins family remained with the unit through August 20. (Home Guard Enrollment Cards, Office of the Adjutant General, Microfilm Rolls ML238-239, Missouri State Archives, Jefferson City.)
The 14th and 8th Missouri State Militia Cavalry
After it lost the Battle of Wilson's Creek at Springfield on August 10, 1861, the Union essentially abandoned Southwest Missouri until the battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas, brought it back into the Union fold in early March, 1862. How Moses E. spent this time is unknown. It is known that his brother Jacob went to Kansas where he enlisted in Company C of the 6th Kansas Cavalry at Fort Scott on August 24 and was mustered into service on September 27, 1861. Similary, Caney's brother-in-law John Hawkins, together with John's father Keith Hawkins and his brother-in-law Jackson Daniel, went to Rolla, Missouri, where they joined Company F of the 24th Missouri Volunteers on August 20, 1861. It seems likely that the extended Banks family spent at least part of the war as refugees in Kansas, and Caney may have spent these months resettling them.
In any event, on April 7, 1862, at Springfield, Missouri, Caney Banks joined Company H of the 14th Regiment Missouri State Militia Cavalry as a corporal under Captain Milton Burch and Lieutenant John Kelso. His military records describe him as 5' 10" tall with a dark complexion and dark hair and blue eyes. He brought his own horse valued at $55.00.
The story of the 14th MSM Cavalry is well told by this website and need not be repeated. After the 14th was disbanded in early 1863, Caney Banks followed his officers Captain Burch and Lieutenant Kelso to Company M of the 8th MSM Cavalry. For most of 1863 and thereafter, the 8th was organized in two battalions, one stationed between Springfield and Rolla (usually Lebanon) and one stationed on Missouri's western border (usually Neosho, but sometimes Newtonia, Granby or Carthage). Company M and Caney Banks spent the remainder of the war with this second battalion on the border.
The Civil War on Missouri's western border was largely an anti-guerrilla war, similar in some respects to later wars like Vietnam. Union forces garrisoned fortified towns while Confederate guerrillas largely controlled the countryside. Union patrols made forays into the country to harass the guerrillas and to keep them from concentrating. Frequently, it was impossible to know who among the local population was friendly and who was the enemy. An enormous effort was necessary just to protect local foraging parties and supply trains from Fort Scott, Kansas.
The danger of this type of warfare was not the pitched battle but the hit-and-run ambush. Union soldiers here never died by the hundreds, but they were killed and wounded regularly, one, two or three at a time.
Personal details of Caney Banks' service with the 14th and 8th MSM Cavalry are unknown, but it is perhaps enough to know that he rode with Milton Burch and John R. Kelso and was promoted to Sergeant under them on February 19, 1864. Among historians of the Civil War in Missouri, Burch is considered perhaps the finest anti-guerrilla officer produced by the Union, and Kelso is simply a legend, a man of fanatical dedication to the Union. Some historians consider Kelso a fearless hero, others a remorseless killer, but everyone agrees that he fought a hard war.
According to its Record of Events, Company M of the 8th MSM Cavalry fought in over 50 engagements with guerrillas. Apart from casualties it inflicted in general engagements, it killed 123 guerrillas and took prisoner more than that number, while capturing and destroying large quantities of Confederate arms and property. Two officers and ten enlisted men died in these actions. One of the dead was Caney Banks.
The Death of Caney Banks
Company M's Muster-Out Roll shows that Caney Banks was "killed by guerrillas near Newtonia" on November 10, 1864. The Inventory of Effects signed by Captain Kelso after his death says that his effects were "captured by the enemy at the time of his death." This suggests he fell in something like an ambush and his body was abandoned on the field. No other specific details of his death or the engagement in which he died have survived. At the time of his death, Caney's wife Charity was pregnant with their third child, Sarah, who was born April 18, 1865.
It may well be that Caney's death was simply one of the many random killings that marked guerrilla warfare in Southwest Missouri. But the possibility that it was linked to more specific circumstances warrants at least modest speculation.
First, it was a standing joke in Missouri during the Civil War that Missouri had five seasons: spring and summer, fall and winter -- and Price's Raid. This joke refers to the fact that Confederate forces in Arkansas commanded by General Sterling Price made repeated raids into Missouri during the war. Milton Burch of the 14th MSM first rose to prominence when he detected one of these raids under General Marmaduke in January 1863 and warned Springfield in time for a successful defense to be organized.
The most spectacular of Price's raids began in September, 1864, when Price himself invaded Southeast Missouri and headed north toward St. Louis, then diverted westward toward Jefferson City and Kansas City and finally retreated south into Arkansas along Missouri's western border. The eastern battalion of the 8th MSM spent September and October chasing Price on this big circle through Missouri, but Caney's Company M of the western battalion remained at its post at Neosho in Newton County. Price's retreat eventually took him through Newton County, where the second battle of Newtonia was fought on October 28, 1864. Price's army had already been badly mauled by this time and small groups of stragglers continued to make their way south for weeks thereafter. Caney Banks may have died in an encounter with some of these stragglers. The Official Records of the war record a skirmish near Neosho on the day of Caney's death, November 10, 1864, but no detailed account seems to have survived.
A second speculative possibility is that the death of Caney Banks was somehow related to his political activity. In 1856, Caney had served as the elected constable of Capps Creek Township, and in 1860, he was its elected justice of the peace. In 1864, he again entered politics. Missouri's general election was held on November 8, 1864, two days before his death. In this election, Caney ran for State Representative from Barry County, receiving only 17 of 176 votes cast. Although the certified election returns do not show party affiliation, he clearly ran as a Democrat. His vote total of 17 exactly matches the county vote total of Democratic presidential candidate George B. McClellan and Democratic congressional candidate Martin J. Hubble.
Although the Banks family had political ties before the war, the war greatly changed the politics of Southwest Missouri. In 1860, for example, Barry County cast 877 votes for president, only one of which went to Lincoln. In 1864, it cast 214 votes for president, 197 of which went to Lincoln. When we consider that soldiers stationed in the county were allowed to vote at least in national elections, these returns show both how the war depopulated the county and how loyalty oaths and physical intimidation kept dissenting voters away from the polls.
It is also interesting to note how the area's congressional seat changed hands during the war. For 18 years, the seat was held by the slaveholding but unionist Democrat John S. Phelps. Then, in 1862, Phelps was defeated by emancipationist S.H. Boyd. Finally, in 1864, Boyd was defeated in turn by Radical Republican John R. Kelso. Kelso, of course, was Caney Banks' commanding officer in Company M of the 8th MSM Cavalry.
While many Democrats fought valiantly for the union, the Democratic party by 1864 was also home to many who were disaffected with the war in one way or another. For example, some opposed slave emancipation as a war aim and others sought a negotiated peace with the South rather than unconditional surrender. Whether Caney Banks was one of the disaffected or whether he acted out of pre-war loyalties is unknown, but clearly his decision to run for office as a Democrat was not very popular -- witness only 17 votes! Given the passions of his era and the timing of his death two days after the election, his political involvement at least raises the speculative possibility that he was killed not in a guerrilla bushwhacking but in a political murder. Unfortunately, we'll probably never know.
Written by: Robert O. Banks, Jr.
Inventory of Effects
Muster Out
Roster RecordResearchers of Sergeant Moses E. Banks.
Robert O. Banks, Jr.
Jane CartCivil War Site By: Robert O. Banks, Jr.
The Stone Prairie Home Guard OR
