On a summer’s day in July 1926, a reporter for the Cape Girardeau Southeast Missourian noticed an old man sitting in Courthouse Park across the street from the newspaper. The reporter greeted the man, who introduced himself as William A. Bacon, a Union Civil War veteran who had just celebrated his 80th birthday. He was in Cape Girardeau to visit his son who ran a restaurant on Main Street. Bacon was from Stoddard County, where his father Thomas and family had moved from Old Appleton when William was age three.
Thomas Bacon moved the family to Cape Girardeau in 1861, living in the block where the newspaper building stood. William attended school in a brick building where the Presbyterian Church stood, taught by an attorney named Wilson. Thomas died in 1862, so the family moved back to Stoddard County near Leora. The Bacons were Union sympathizers, and the 17-year-old William left for the safety of Cape Girardeau in 1862. There, he enlisted on Nov 2, 1863, in Company B, 2nd Missouri State Militia Cavalry. The Missouri State Militia Cavalry regiments were state units in federal service, mostly engaged in fighting guerillas, guarding supply trains, and performing local service as needed. The 2nd operated mostly in southeast Missouri.
While stationed in Cape Girardeau, on February 12, 1864, Bacon saw a mob of soldiers take Fugate Bolin, a notorious guerilla of Civil War days, from the dungeon in the basement of the Common Pleas Courthouse. The mob dragged him to a gate post on Bloomfield Road, near where Henderson Avenue crosses. Bacon said his commander, Colonel Rodgers, tried to prevent the hanging, but was unsuccessful. Bolin made a detailed statement of his crimes before he was hanged.
Bacon enlisted in the newly formed 14th Missouri Cavalry Regiment on December 22, 1864, in Company B. His company organized at the end of January 1865 and spent the time through April stationed at Benton Barracks in St. Louis. They departed by steamer to Jefferson City on May 3, and arrived in Pleasant Hill, Missouri, on the 18th. There, the company spent a month riding escort for stages and government supply trains, and participated in a scout against guerillas in Johnston, Henry, and Cass counties in Missouri.
On June 20, the 14th headed for Fort Riley, Kansas. Beginning July 7, the regiment embarked on an expedition to Fort Zarah, Fort Larned, Colorado, Fort Dodge, and on to Fort Leavenworth by September 12, then returned to Fort Riley. In the most consequential action they undertook in Kansas, the 14th traveled to the mouth of the Little Arkansas River 140 miles from Fort Riley in mid-October. Their mission was to provide a military force at the Little Arkansas Treaty Council. The council included members of the Kiowa, Comanche, Plains Apache, Southern Cheyenne, and Southern Arapaho. The resulting treaty created reservations for these tribes, but the government never implemented them, and the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867 superseded them.
The need for large numbers of troops in Kansas disappeared with the end of the Civil War and the treaty. The 14th Missouri Cavalry mustered out November 17, 1865, at Fort Leavenworth, and William Bacon returned home to Stoddard County. In 1875, he married Susan Haden, and they became the parents of 12 children. William worked at hauling cotton and other products by ox team to Cape Girardeau merchants, including David Glenn. Much of his hauling was along Crowley’s Ridge deep into Arkansas, there being no railroads or other ready access to the Mississippi River across the swamps.
