ARMY BUGLER IS AWOL
Camp Grover, Warrensburg, Mo.
Col. T. T. Crittenden issued orders to affect the arrest of Pvt. Wm. S. Belcher, Bugler, Co I, 7th Missouri State Militia. Pvt. Belcher had been granted a two-week leave-of-absence on May 10, 1864, but failed to return to his post at Camp Grover. Capt. Hamblin of the 7th brings the specific charge that Belcher deserted from Miami, Saline Co., on or about the 15th day of June 1864. Belcher’s situation was further complicated by his enlistment in the United States Army in St. Louis on May 18 1864. He was assigned to the 23rd Missouri Infantry, Army of the Cumberland and posted at McMinnville Tennessee. Pvt. Belcher writes (dictates, as he cannot write himself) a letter on Aug. 13th, to Capt. Squire Ballew, his commanding officer in Co I, from the Military Prison at Chattanooga, Tenn., that he was arrested on July 11 and has been confined ever since. He blames his predicament on being “…a little in liquer.” He had friends in the 23rd and says they pushed him into joining up with them and tells Ballew that if he can help in any way he, “will be a good boy the balance of my time.” By September of 1864 Col. Crittenden is writing to Maj. Gen. Frank Blair, Commanding, Army of the Cumberland, asking that Belcher be forwarded to the Provost Marshal for his return to Camp Grover for court-martial proceedings. Pvt. Belcher is returned to Warrensburg in November, pleads guilty to desertion and is sentenced to two months confinement in the guardhouse. His pay had been stopped when he didn’t return from his leave and was not resumed until March of 1865. He was mustered out of service April 3, 1865, as was the entire 7th MSM.
I thought it curious that despite the many references to the father of J. W. Boone being a bugler in the U. S. Army, that no one apparently tried to find his name. From Melissa Fuell’s book of 1915, and various contemporary newspapers, we learn that the father was a bugler and Boone was been born in a camp of Co I, in Miami, Saline Co., on May 17 1864. Co I was indeed stationed there at the beginning of that month. The headquarters and nearly all companies of the 7th were moved from Marshall, Saline Co., to Sedalia, Pettis Co., and finally to Camp Grover in Warrensburg, Johnson Co., in May of 1864. I found another connection to Co I when I searched for Rachel, Boone’s mother. She described herself as “contraband.” This word had a meaning peculiar to the Civil War. It meant she had been “freed” by members of the militia acting on Federal orders. As commander-in-chief, Pres. Lincoln had along with his Emancipation Proclamation, issued orders to the troops to relieve any Confederates or their sympathizers of their property. This of course, also meant slaves.
In Warsaw, Benton Co., Mo., October 1863 (eight months before Boone’s birth) Pvt. Belcher is promoted to Bugler, he is also reprimanded by Capt. Ballew for “mischief.” And he is fined twenty dollars for losing his bayonet and scabbard. Capt. Ballew’s morning reports say he has enlisted as undercooks two men of African descent (undoubtedly freed slaves). More significantly, some Missouri Militia units are investigated for the murder of civilian residents of Benton Co. One of the men killed was named Carpenter, and according to the 1860 Slave Schedule for Benton Co., Mo., he was a slave owner. When John W. Boone died in 1927, in Warrensburg, his Death Certificate has information provided by Samuel Hendricks. Hendricks is Boone’s sole surviving stepbrother, and his home was where Boone died. Hendricks says Rachel’s maiden name was Carpenter.
My sources are the Official Records on microfilm at Mid-Continent Public Library, Independence, Mo., and at the Missouri State Archive in Jefferson City, Mo. I am a member of the West-Central Genealogical Society and the Johnson County Historical Society, both in Warrensburg, Mo.
Mike Shaw / March 6, 2008
Hello All,
Just figured out that Fuell's book about Boone* was published twice. First in 1915 by Burton Pub., Kansas City. Then in 1918 it was published by the Evangel Pub. Society, Robbins, Tennessee.
I only have a copy of the Evangel book, but believe the only difference is the section concerning the death of John Lange, Jr., which occurred in July of 1916. I found two libraries that have copies of the Burton book, so may have to compare the two. The titles are identical, so there can't be much difference between the two books.
New York concert pianist John Davis's renditions of Boone's music won't be out until late winter or early spring 2008. Just in time though for Boone's 144th birthday anniversary celebration in May. Hopefully we will be able to convince Mr. Davis to come to the Park for the party.
It seems I am close to exhausting what is available about John Boone on the www. There is however a large amount of work by African American authors that was/is mostly ignored by the mainstream white press. I just finished a biography of African-American singer and social activist, E. Azalia Smith Hackley, 1867-1922, by Lisa Pertillar Brevard. Boone is not mentioned in this book, but there are many source materials quoted that should yield more about Boone's prominence. A very interesting book by Hackley is "The Colored Girl Beautiful", pub. 1915, by the Burton Co., Kansas City, Mo. The same company and time as the Fuell book, so they have known each other. Hackley did have many Boone items in her personal collection.
The following is from, "Who's who of the Colored Race, A General Biographical Dictionary of Men and Women of African Descent", Vol. 1, 1915, Edited by Frank Lincoln Mather, Memento Edition, half-Century Anniversary of Negro Freedom in the U. S., Chicago, 1915, p. 71:
"Coffin, Alfred Oscar, contracting agent Blind Boone Concert Co.; born at Pontotoc, Miss., May 14, 1861; son of Samuel and Josephine Maria(Drake) Coffin; prep. edu. Rust Univ., Holly Springs, Miss.; A. B., Fisk Univ., 1885; A. M., Illinois Weslayen Univ., 1888, Ph. D., 1889; one child; Lillian Viola. Professor in Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College, Miss., 1887-89; professor of mathematics and modern languages, Wiley Univ., Marshall, Texas, 1889-95; secretary and disbursement agent, Alcorn A & M, 1895-8; principal public schools, San Antonio, Tex., 1898-1901, Kansas City, 1902-09; advance agent for Blind Boone Concert Co., since 1910. Methodist. 32nd degree Scottish Rite Mason. Author; 'Origin of the Moundbuilders, " 1889; 'Native Plants of Marshall, Texas,' 1896; 'A Land Without Chimneys, or the Byways of Mexico,' 1897. Address; 1704 E. 10th St., Kansas City, Mo."
As you can see Mr. Coffin was a very educated man, and his employment in the Concert Co., is evidence of the high regard of Lange's management skills. Life on the road seemed to wear everyone out but Boone. By 1920, according to the Federal Census, A. O. Coffin is back teaching school in Texas.
Mike / Mon, 26 Nov 2007
*BLIND BOONE, HIS EARLY LIFE AND HIS ACHIEVEMENTS ~ Author Miss Melissa Fuell, B.S.D., Burton Publishing Co., K.C., MO 1915 / Author Mrs. Melissa Fuell-Cuther, B.S.D., Evangel Publishing Co., Robbins, TN 1918
John W. “Blind” Boone was one of the most prolific performers who has ever lived. His repertoire included, essentially, anything he had ever heard. His genius was manifested in the ability to repeat, after just one hearing, any music presented to him. These seven piano rolls are the only known recordings of Boone, but reflect a typical Blind Boone Concert Company program, which was founded by, and originally managed by another genius, John B. Lange, Jr. Lange’s genius comes to us through his ability to present Boone to the public, in a manner acceptable to both black and white audiences. Although, Lange was a former slave, and Boone’s mother, Rachel, had escaped slavery, these entrepreneurs became the most financially successful African-Americans in Missouri, and possibly the whole of the country, by presenting a program, which was described as, “put before the public in first class style”, by a Ft. Wayne, Indiana, newspaper, in 1883.
The inclusion of “Dixie”, written by Daniel Decatur Emmet in 1859, and known as the Southern national anthem, is an example of the Boone Co.’s ability to play to it’s audiences. Emmet was the founder of the Virginia Minstrels, the first black-face minstrel company in America. Boone’s concerts always included hymns, and “Nearer, My God to Thee”, words by Sarah F. Adams, 1841, and music by Lowell Mason, 1856, was one of his favorites. Boone was known to lend his own voice to this song, and it also has a connection to music history, as Lowell Mason was the first music teacher in a public school in America (Boston, 1833). Boone was an accomplished classically trained pianist. His compositions, “Gavotte Chromatics” and “Woodland Murmurs”, demonstrate his love of the classics. Lizst, Gottshalk, Wollenhaupt, and Chopin were well represented at a Boone concert. “When You and I Were Young, Maggie”, words by George W. Johnson and music by James A. Butterfield, pub. in 1866, by Butterfield, was a very popular piece in post-Civil War America. The most important recordings, however, are “Camp Medley No. I”, subtitled, “Strains From the Alleys, and “Rag Medley No. 2”, subtitled, “Strains From the Flat Branch”. These two Boone compositions represent much in the way of music history, in that they contain publishing “firsts”. “Strains from the Alleys” begins with these lyrics:
“I got a chicken on my back,
There’s a bulldog on my track,
But I’ll make it to my shack
‘Fore day.
Oh, Make me a pallet on your floor”
This theme, and even these same words are used extensively in later “blues” lyrics, and while Boone is not likely their originator, he was the first to have them published, by Allen Music Co., Columbia, Mo., 1908. “Strains from the Flat Branch”, which refers to Boone’s home neighborhood in Columbia, Mo., is said, by “The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz”, pub. by Grove Pub., New York, 2001, to be the first publication of a “boogie-woogie”, also pub. by Allen Music, 1909. These two compositions come from the part of a Boone Concert when he would announce he was “putting the cookies on a lower shelf for all to enjoy”, and are often referred to as “ragged-time” pieces. Ragtime music is commonly recognized to be the beginning of modern popular music in America, and John W. Boone, classical pianist, ragtime pianist, composer, and performer of over 10,000 concerts during a 47-year career, must be considered one of the founding fathers of our modern popular music.
Mike Shaw
Sept. 9, 2006
