Joseph J. Gravely Goes After Missouri Bushwhackers-- Part 1

From RootsWeb.

Gravely was evidently with the 8th Missouri Militia Cavalry before assuming command of the 15th Missouri Cavalry.  James Bolin served with him later in the 15th Missouri Cavalry.

Report of Col. Joseph J. Gravely, 8th Missouri State  Militia Cavalry (Union) to Brigadier General John B. Sanborn.

AUGUST 18, 1864    SPRINGFIELD, MO.

He had complied with Special Orders No. 213,  headquarters District of Southwest Missouri and returned to Springfield, his post.

His mission was to ascertain Confederate strength in the area and kill as many Confederate bushwhackers as possible.

On August 13, he had assumed command of several designated units at Neosho, Missouri, (near Joplin).

AUGUST 13

To Cowskin Creek.  Advance guard saw six men and killed one of them.

AUGUST 14:

Captain Kelso killed Lieutenant  Baxter, a noted bushwhacker, whom we learned from the ladies of the house where he was staying and killed, that he had carried dispatches from (Confederate) General Stand Watie to the companies in that vicinity to join Stan Watie near Fort Smith.

--Old Secesh

Joseph J. Gravely

From Wikipedia.

JOSEPH J. GRAVELY  

September 25, 1828 - April 28, 1872 

He was the commander of the 14th Missouri Cavalry which was James Bolin's outfit.  James Bolin married Helen Jackson who died this past December 2020 and is regarded as the Last Civil War Widow.

Born in Henry County, Virginia.  He attended public schools as a child,  engaged in agricultural pursuits and taught school.  He studied law  and was admitted to the bar in Virginia and had a practice there.   On 1853 and 1854 he was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates.

In 1854, he moved to Missouri and was a delegate to  the Missouri Constitutional Convention in 1860.

During the Civil War, Gravely served as colonel of the  8th Missouri State Militia Cavalry Regiment in the Union Army.  In addition, he was a member of the Missouri Senate in 1862 and 1864.

In 1866, he was elected  as a Republican to the U.S. House of Representatives and served there from 1867 to 1969.

After that, he was elected lieutenant governor of Missouri on 1870 and served under Governor B. Gratz Brown 1871 until his death in Stockton, Missouri, on April 28, 1872.  He was interred in Lindley Prairie Cemetery near Bear Creek, Missouri.

--Old Secesh

14th Missouri Cavalry (Union)

From Family Search.

This was the last Union regiment James Bolin served in.

The regiment was organized  at St. Louis and Springfield, Missouri,  November 30, 11864, and May 13, 1865.  It was attached to the District of St. Louis to November 1865.  It had duty at St. Louis until June 1865.

It performed a scouting expedition from Waynesville to  Coal Camp Creek May 23-26.

It moved to Nebraska and had frontier duty on the Plains until November.  They mustered out November 17, 1865.

Lost during service:  2 killed and 34 to disease.

It's commander was Lt. Colonel Joseph J. Gravely.

--Old Secesh

James Bolin's Wives: Helen Viola Jackson Bolin

From Find-A-Grave site.

She is the one being called the Last Civil War Widow.  I have been writing about her since April.

The site has her listed as the second wife of James Bolin.

HELEN VIOLA JACKSON BOLIN

BIRTH:  3 August 1919  at Niangua, Missouri   Webster County

DEATH:  16 December 2020  (aged 101)   Marshfield, Missouri  Webster County

BURIAL:  Marshfield Cemetery   Marshfield, Missouri  Webster County

She is buried alongside here sister, Lena Jane Jackson Tiede.

James Bolin's Wives: Elizabeth Davenport Bolin

Of course, his last wife became the country's Last Civil War Widow as far as we know.

From the James Bolin Find-A-Grave site.

His first wife, ELIZABETH DAVENPORT BOLIN

1842-1922   Married 1868

BORN:   27 December 1842, in Alexander, Morgan County, Illinois

DEATH:  24 March 1922,  Niangua, Webster County, Missouri

BURIAL:  Niangua Cemetery  (Also known as Freewill Baptist Church Cemetery.

James Bolin, Helen Jackson's Husband (The Last Civil War Widow)-- Part 1

From Find-A-Grave.

PVT. JAMES BOLIN

BIRTH:  23 March 1843, Tennessee

DEATH:  18 June 1939, Nianagua, Webster County, Missouri

BURIAL:  Niangua Cemetery, Niangua, Missouri

14th Missouri Cavalry

*****************

SPOUSES

ELIZABETH DAVENPORT BOLIN

HELEN VIOLA JACKSON BOLIN

He and Elizabeth had six children.  Three are buried at Niangua Cemetery in Missouri.  One is buried in California, one in Kansas and one in Nebraska.

--Old Secesh

The Widow's Secret-- Part 9: Honors

But, all that secrecy was over by the time Helen Jackson died back in December,

The town of Marshfield, Missouri made her the grand marshal for the Fourth of July parade in 2018.  She was riding in a Chevrolet and told the driver, "Slow down, these people want to see me."

A stone slab with her name on it was placed on the town's Missouri Walk of Fame near the town square.  The school superintendent in Niangua gave Jackson, who never completed her education -- an honorary high school diploma for the Class of 1937.Her pastor set up a Facebook page "Helen Jackson, Last Civil War Widow."  

She received fan mail from all over the world.  A member of the Sons of Union veterans of the Civil War sent her a card each Christmas.

In 2019, Jackson sat down with a local historian for a lengthy oral history.  At the time she related:  "I didn't want them  all to think that I was a young woman who had married an old man to take advantage of him.... Mr. Bolin really cared for me.  He wanted me to have a future and he was so kind."

--Old Secesh

The Widow's Secret-- Part 7: Lived Along Route 66 in Marshfield

Of course. Helen Jackson lived her whole life with heavy emotional baggage from her short marriage to James Bolin.  What would people think of her when  and if they found out about that staggering age difference?

In Marshfield, Missouri, she was employed at a wood-working factory and later as a substitute cook in local schools.  She lived alone in a farmhouse along Route 66 and became an active member of the Elkland (Mo.) Independent Methodist Church.

For 81 years, she kept her secret.

Then, her pastor, Nicholas Inman found out about her former marriage and he set out to find out if she was indeed the last Civil War widow.

Stories of "last" Civil War widows come around every so often.  The Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War confirmed Jackson as the "last" publicly documented widow.  But, who knows if there are still any other widows out there harboring secrets of their own?

--Old Secesh

The Widow's Secret-- Part 6: Never Dated or Married for Fear of Reputation Being Ruined

Less than three years after the marriage, on June 18, 1939, James Bolin died at the home of his daughter, Martha, after a lengthy illness.  In the local newspaper, the 96-year-old veteran's obituary listed his next of kin as two daughters, besides Martha, two sons, 17 grandchildren, 36 great-grandchildren and 9 great-great grand children.  There was no mention of Helen Jackson.

Helen Jackson did no go to the funeral service either.

Soon after Bolin's death, one of his daughters threatened to out Helen Jackson if she filed for James' veterans pension.  Petrified of having her reputation ruined by a revelation, she never did.

Around World War II, Jackson moved to nearby Marshfield, roughly seven miles from Niangua to escape potential "wagging tongues."  Worried that if she ever got serious about a man he would discover her secret, Jackson never dated or married.

Meanwhile her many brothers and sisters married and raised families.  Later, she cared for her aging parents.  Her mom died in 1953, her dad in 1972.  Her last sibling died in 2019.

--Old Secesh

The Widow's Secret, Helen Jackson-- Part 5: The Marriage With a 76-Year Age Difference

Helen Jackson accepted the old man's offer, but with strict ground rules:  She would keep her maiden name, go home to her family every day and tell only a few select people.  The couple's 76-year-old age difference would surely have created a scandal.

Bolin agreed.

On September 4, 1936, Jackson and Bolin were married in the living room of the veteran's house.  Shortly after the ceremony, Tommy Macdonnell, a teenage who was preparing for a squirrel hunt, and his father, Bolin's physician, congratulated the couple.  Keep this quiet, Dr. C.R. Macdonnell urged his son.

To cement the union, Bolin gave his bride a pink topaz ring that had belonged to his second wife, and the common law marriage was recorded in his cherished personal Bible, given to him decades earlier by a traveling evangelist.

Their union followed Jackson's guidelines:  cooking, housekeeping, chores and then she would return to her home every night.  Although her husband talked about Civil War "blood and guts stuff" all the time, Jackson paid him no heed.

--Old Secesh

The Widow's Secret, Helen Jackson-- Part 4: You'll Get My Pension When I'm Gone

In an after-action report regarding these unrepentant Rebels, 14th Missouri Cavalry Lt. Cpl. Joseph Gravely wrote:  "The band that crossed the railroad near Knobnoster on the 23rd instant were all that I could obtain any reliable information of.  At Warsaw and other points, I learned that the above-named band committed horrid outrages, murdering some ten or twelve discharged soldiers and citizens in Hickory and Benton Counties."

Unable to find the guerrillas, the soldiers returned to camp -- "men and horses in good condition" according to Gravely.

Following a divorce from his first wife during the Civil War, Bolin married Elizabeth Ferrell in 1868, and the couple had seven children.  After Elizabeth's death in 1922, James had no one to help with chores. So in 1936, James Jackson recommended his daughter, Helen, then a 17-year-old high school student.

The kindly old man  and teen grew close, but according to Helen, not in that way, as she began to help him with chores around the house, cleaning and washing.

One day, Bolin made an unusual proposal to Jackson.  According to Helen, he said: "I do not believe in accepting charity and I don't have money to pay you, so why don't you marry me so I can give you my Civil War pension when I'm gone?"

For a girl of modest means like Helen, James' pension check, perhaps $30 a month or more in the depression era was too enticing to decline.

--Old Secesh

The Widow's Secret, Helen Jackson, Last CW Widow Dies-- Part 3: Secretly Wed James Bolin, 93 (She Was 17)

Twice-married Civil War veteran James Bolin, a widower himself, also lived in Niangua, alone, in a small house near a lumber yard and train tracks.  In a photo from the 1930s, a seated Bolin, wearing a bowler hat, suit jacket, and dark vest - sported a large white mustache.  It's a pity the photo wasn't in color, because Mr. Bolin had the most vivid blue eyes.

When he enlisted in 1864, Bolin -- a 21-year-old farmer from Webster County -- had dark hair and a fair complexion.  The 5-foot-eight private served honorably with the 46th Missouri Infantry from the fall of 1864 to March 1865, and later was in the 14th Missouri Cavalry.

Although both units were kept busy, neither unit saw much fighting.

In the spring of 1865, the cavalrymen, including Bolin -- guarded the Wire Road (the predecessor of much of Route 66 in Missouri).  This was a favorite target of guerrillas because of the telegraph line along this vital route.

In late May, 1865, more than a month after Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant, the unit was sent to confront unrepentant Confederates in the border state, which sent troops to both sides during the war and in which much fighting took place.

--Old Secesh

The Widow's Secret: The Last Civil War Widow Died in December 2020-- Part 1

From the April 2021 Civil War Times by John Banks.

I first wrote about this in my RoadDog's RoadLog Blog back on January 18 when became aware of it.  I put it in that blog because of this woman's Route 66 connections.

Hard to believe as is the case, Helen Jackson is the widow of a Union Civil War soldier.  Especially amazing since that war ended 156 years ago.  Do the math.

And, she kept her marriage secret.

She was 17 when she married Civil War veteran James Bolin, who was 93 in September 1936.  That was some age difference.

Helen Jackson was "The Last Civil War Widow."

She died December 16, 2020, at the age of 101.

--Old Secesh