A Study in Disappointment

The Curious Civil War Career of Myron S. Barnes

Myron Barnes was another young man who ventured west in search of opportunity.  He was born in Bangor, in Franklin County, New York, on March 4^th, 1824.  His parents were William and Margaret Barnes of Vermont.  They made certain that he received a good education, he attended the Attica Academy and the Alexander Seminary; learning establishments in New York. He also mastered  the printer’s trade and became an editor at the age of 16. 

He served as a private in the Second Illinois Regiment (Company E.) during the Mexican War and was wounded during the Battle of Buena Vista.  Upon his return he headed up the Southport American, a Wisconsin publication, but in 1849 he returned to New York to become owner and editor of the Independent Watchman, an Ithaca, New York newspaper, where he remained until 1856.  Originally a Democrat, he switched party allegiance and used his paper as an organ to sound the virtues of the new Republican party.  In 1856 he was chosen as one of the delegates to the National convention that nominated the famous explorer, John Charles Fremont.  Barnes moved to Chicago shortly after to edit the Chicago Daily Ledger, but shortly afterward moved to Rock Island County to partner with Robert H. Graham to edit the Moline Independent, but by the time the war broke out, he had moved to Rock Island to become editor of the Rock Island Daily Register.

During his time in the Windy City, he’d become acquainted with Julius White, Lincoln’s appointee as customs collector in Chicago.  He teamed with White to raise a regiment which would be mustered in first as the "Fremont Rifles," and later as the 37^th Illinois.  Barnes was elected Lieutenant Colonel by the men of the regiment.  The troops were put to use quickly; organized in the summer, by September the regiment was stationed in Missouri where it immediately ran into problems with the Missouri Home Guard over control of government property and how to handle the thorny issue of runaway slaves.  At one point the enmity between the Home Guards and the 37^th erupted into gunfire when the regiment was sent to Boonesville, Missouri to arrest a Home Guard major for corruption, and the unit resisted, wounding 3 members of the 37^th.  Barnes was ordered to Boonesville to restore order, and did so, but the enmity between the Home Guards and the 37^th’s officers remained and would surface again.

When the regiment got the chance to prove itself in battle rather than the mundane tasks of railroad-guarding and chasing guerillas, it acquitted itself with honor.  During the battle of
Chandler's Mills, Barnes received a several shell fragment wound in the side. By the time the savagely fought Battle at Pea Ridge took place the editor's wound had not fully healed.  He  was present for duty though, and during the conflict his wound reopened when his horse was shot from under him, throwing him heavily onto the ground.  This is one of the reasons cited for his having to leave the army.   Julius White was promoted to brigadier general shortly before this time, and Myron Barnes had assumed the rank of full Colonel. This might have been a written explanation to save face however as another incident rears its head as a more convincing reason.  Colonel Barnes had a run in with the Missouri Home Guards again. again.  Two officers of the 37^th were arrested by one of the militia officers, perhaps as payback for the arrest of their major, and Barnes evidently in the vehemence of his protest overstepped military protocol, as he was charged with “Disobedience of Orders, Disrespect to Superior Officers, and Conduct Prejudicial to good Order and Military Discipline.”  A court-martial upheld the charges, and Colonel Barnes was dismissed from the service on November 20^th 1862.  The count that he was convicted of alleged that Barnes “did behave himself with contempt or disrespect towards his superior officer, Brigadier General E. G. Brown, commanding officer of the Southwestern Division, by using the following language: “Who was General Brown, He is nothing but a state militia general.  I don’t care a damn for him.” or words to that effect.”

Myron Barnes immediately went to St. Louis to seek to have his conviction and dismissal overturned.  Unsuccessful, he returned to Rock Island to resume his former occupation, becoming publisher of The Rock Island Union, an organ that Barnes used to support the Republicans and the war effort.  The war of words became heated, as the Democratic leaning editor of the Rock Island Argus referred to the Union as “that poor old nigger-league organ.”  Barnes responded in kind, charging that the Argus was ‘in the devil’s service.”

  During this time though, he continued campaigning to have the blot on his military record removed, and Congressman Isaac M. Arnold became an advocate on his behalf.  On April 18^th, 1864, President Lincoln set aside the conviction and said that Barnes could be recommissioned. Shortly after the War Department forwarded him his exoneration, Barnes received paperwork from the adjutant general’s office “authorizing and requesting” him to recruit a hundred day regiment.  Barnes helped to organized the 140^th Illinois Infantry, but he never did follow the regiment into the field. 

In August of 1864, he sold his Rock Island newspaper, probably in the hopes of joining the 140^th, but the new owner was unable to come up with the funds to finalize the transfer of it, so it reverted back to Barnes’s control in November of 1864. It had to have been a frustrating time for Colonel Barnes, who know doubt was eager to return to duty to redeem his reputation.    Financial concerns dictated his actions though, so he remained at the paper’s helm through the end of the war, finally finding a buyer for it in December of 1866. 

From that time until his death, Myron Barnes was a newspaper nomad, finding it hard to stay in one location for long.  From 1866 to 1872 he either owned or operated three newspapers, moving from Rock Island to Dubuque, Iowa, where he published the Daily Times, then to Aurora, Illinois where he operated the town’s Daily Herald.  By this time he had returned to the Democratic fold, and in 1871 he helped set up the Daily News, a paper in Chicago the was set up exclusively to serve to serve as a mouthpiece to tout Horace Greeley’s run for the Presidency in 1872.  After Greeley was soundly trounced by president Ulysses S.Grant, Myron Barnes shut down the newspaper and relocated to Galesburg, Illinois, where he purchased and ran the Free Press until age and ill health finally forced him to retire from the newspaper business in February, 1883.  By his retirement he was in years of service one of the oldest newspaper men in the State of Illinois.

Myron S. Barnes died in Galesburg on November 3^rd, 1889, and is buried in Galesburg’s Mt. Hope Cemetery.   His wife Charlotte, who lived until 1904, is also buried in their plot.  His impressive stone references his rank as Civil War Colonel, despite the brevity of his service and the circumstances surrounding his dismissal.  Evidently his exoneration meant much to him, as did the right to be addressed as “Colonel Barnes.”  He must have carried a lifelong burden of regret for the flash of temper that led to his dismissal and his failure to  rejoin his men and perhaps earn honor and later political preferment for gallant and meritorious war services as so many of his contemporaries did. 

Bibliography

Colonels in Blue Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin, by Roger D. Hunt 2016

 Duty, Honor and Country, the Civil War Experiences of Captain William P. Black  Camp Pope Books, Iowa City, IA, 2006

Jottings from Dixie, the Civil War Dispatches of Sergeant Major Stephen F. Fleherty, Phil Reyburn and terry Wilson, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, 1999.

Portraits and Biographical Album of Knox County, Illinois, Chicago, IL 1886

Find a Grave:  Computer website entry for Myron S. Barnes, Illinois