Rebels in the Rockies by Walter Earl Pittman

Author:Walter Earl Pittman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-08-05T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Charley Harrison’s War

On his long journey by stagecoach to the East, Charley Harrison had three companions, also forced out of Denver by the pro–Union mobs. One was Carroll H. Wood, a tough South Park miner, born in Missouri about 1837, who served as Harrison’s bodyguard. Wood, who had been saved a few weeks earlier from a Unionist lynch mob in Denver by former mayor John C. Moore, joined a regular Confederate unit after reaching Missouri. He survived the war, resettling in Arkansas. Another companion was William L. West, born in North Carolina, a prosperous builder who lived next door to John C. Moore in Denver. On their journey, somewhere in Kansas, West ran afoul of a “notorious criminal,” John Tutt of St. Louis. The year before, Tutt, who was one of the notorious Kansas “Jayhawkers,” had tried to kill Thomas R. Livingston, a prominent lead miner and pro–South leader in southwest Missouri who later became an important Confederate guerrilla leader. According to one account, West unwisely allowed himself to be provoked into a duel with Tutt at an unknown location in Kansas. A twenty-foot circle was cleared, and the men stripped to the waist and fought one another with the large Bowie knives then common to the frontier. West got by far the worst of it, being cut 17 times, seriously enough to be near fatal. But he survived and recovered to ride south and join the guerrilla force of General Jeff Thompson. He didn’t survive long there, being shot accidentally by a sentinel when he drunkenly ignored a picket’s order to halt when returning to camp after dark.1

Charley Harrison’s own reception at Leavenworth was as unfriendly as the mob scene when he left Denver. Word was sent ahead of the pro–Southern exiles by means of the new telegraph line that had recently reached Julesburg. U.S. Army provost marshal detectives were waiting for him, and on 4 October, Harrison and his traveling companion, William A. Jackson, another Colorado exile, found themselves locked up in St. Louis’s Gratiot Prison along with several hundred other civilian prisoners suspected of pro–Southern attitudes or actions. Jackson was the brother of George A. Jackson, the pioneer discoverer of gold in Colorado. No charges were ever filed against them, and Harrison and Jackson were released on October 10.2

Harrison’s whereabouts for the next month are unknown, but apparently he made immediate contact with the Southern underground, for he was recruiting troops in northwestern Missouri and in the field a few weeks later. On 20 November 1861, the Leavenworth Daily Times reported that “Charley Harrison of Denver notoriety” was in Leavenworth (a pro–Southern town), in uniform, “rejoicing” in the title “Captain Charles Harrison.” It is also identified him as a former Kansas soldier who had deserted.3

This misidentification of Harrison by the Daily Times began a pattern of confusion that continues to this day. There was another Charley Harrison from Kansas, who, after he was driven from his home by the Jayhawkers, joined Quantrill’s band. The Kansas Harrison was killed on 28 July 1862 at the Delaware Ferry west of Olathe, Kansas, by a 30-man posse.

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