Large OLD Chimney - Calwood, MO
Posted by: YoSam.
N 38° 55.560 W 091° 51.429
15S E 599065 N 4309185
Very old chimney so, no facts found, a story is coming.....
Waymark Code: WMX34V
Location: Missouri, United States
Date Posted: 11/20/2017
Views: 4
County of chimney: Callaway County
Location of chimney: MO-JJ, about ¾ mile W. of MO-Z, Calwood
Visible and photoable from State Hwy JJ, and the story coming is as the say in the movies "Based on actual events"...and just as true as the movie that follows.....meaning not so much.
"Here on the afternoon of July 28, 1862, some 400 recruits and guerrillas from North Missouri led by Colonel Joseph C. Porter, C.S.A., ambushed 730 Union troops under Colonel Odon Guitar of the Ninth Missouri Cavalry. After several hours of fierce fighting, the Confederates were forced by superior firepower to retreat northward along Auxvasse Creek leaving 52 dead and more than 100 wounded.
In their retreat the Confederates, angry at having lost again, and being denied the route to Arkansas to join larger forces, took it out on the Baker Family house, and set fire to it
The house was finished in 1853, the Baker family slaves made the bricks on site. The foundation was 6 feet deep and had a complete drainage system to take water south of the building where the corn field use to be.
The burn marks where the living room floor once covered was a remnant left from the night the Confederates came to burn the house and kill Mr. Baker, but he had gone to Jefferson City.
Anna Baker met him at the door with baby in arms, and they rode through the house on their horses to show their disrespect.
There were 8 girls in this family, only Sally and Emma married.
Emma married Ben., a childhood sweetheart.
Slaves in Missouri were free to leave at that time, but it was safer for them to stay. After the family decision to free the slaves, Mr. Baker paid his former slaves wages to stay. He also built houses for them, these to were razed.
The slaves and the girls hid out in the cornfields until the Confederate soldiers left for good.
During the battle, Union losses were 13 killed and 55 wounded. This action prevented Porter and his men from crossing the Missouri River to join the Confederate forces in Arkansas. Many of the casualties are buried in a mass grave on the south side of the road about one mile west of Calwood.
The battle is fact, the house segment is a figment of my imagination.