Volume 8, Number 1 - Fall 1982
A Civil War Letter of 1864
Submitted by Gene Thompson Hendricks
The difficulties of the Civil War years in Missouri are almost beyond present day comprehension in spite of the thousands of printed pages on the subject and the tales handed down in all our families.
The letter which accompanies this illustrates the stresses under which families at home lived, It was written by an obviously highly agitated woman, Elizabeth Dabbs Thompson, to her husband James Monroe Thompson. It is of particular interest to me because the writer and recipient are my great grandparents.
Elizabeth Remay Dabbs was born 27 March 1831 in Virginia (probably Prince Edward County as that is where her parents, Abner and Mary Ann Perrow Gunter Dabbs, lived at the time of the 1830 census). The family arrived in Greene County, Missouri, about 1844-45 and on 21 May 1854 she was married to James Monroe Thompson (Greene County Marriage Book "B", page 2). He was born 23 February 1826 in Henry County, Tennessee, and was a son of Edward M. and Elizabeth Dollison Thompson who came to Greene County in 1830.
Limestone Point, as the Thompsons called their farm, was located in Section 17, Township 28N, Range 21W in Greene County, Missouri, between present day Lake Springfield and Highway M. At the time of the 1860 census their post office was listed as White Oak Grove.
Both James M. Thompson and his wife, Elizabeth R. Thompson, met violent deaths. He was shot off his horse and killed 5 October 1864 within a mile or so of his home. She died in the "Marshfield Cyclone" of 18 April 1880 in her home in Greene County, the Limestone Point of the following letters.
The pictures of James M. and Elizabeth R. Thompson were made in the last months of his life, some time after early July, 1864, and before his death on 5 October 1864. When photographed Elizabeth was pregnant with a child, Elizabeth Christina, born 25 January 1865.
The Greene County history of 1915 (Past And Present Of Greene County Missouri by Jonathan Fairbanks and Clyde Edwin Tuck. Vol. II, Illustrated, published by A.W. Bowen & Company, Indianapolis) refers on page 1675 to the outcome of the court of inquiry for Mrs. Johnston. William P. Dabbs was the brother of Elizabeth R. Thompson; his wife was Hannah Johnston, daughter of the Mrs. Johnston accused of aiding the bushwhackers.
There are several references in old Greene County histories to the events recounted above and in the accompanying letter, giving more details than are included here. Those in History Of Greene County Missouri, 1883, Illustrated, R. I. Holcombe, Editor, Published by Perkins & Home, Western Historical Company, St. Louis, 1883 are as follows:
The killing of Will Wright Fulbright, pp. 460-461;
Murder of James M. Thompson, pp. 473-474;
Late spring (possibly erroneously attributed to 1865?), p. 480;
Death of Elizabeth R. Thompson in cyclone of 18 April 1880, page 565 murders of Elijah Hunt and Joel Dodson, page 693.
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