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In the last days of September 1864, a column of Union infantry came up out of the wet bottomlands of southeast Missouri, passed through a small county seat, and kept marching north. One of the men in that column kept a diary. What he wrote on September 30, 1864 is one of the few eyewitness descriptions of Poplar Bluff to survive the Civil War years.
The wider campaign
That September, Confederate Maj. Gen. Sterling Price led a large force north out of Arkansas into Missouri — an operation remembered as Price's Missouri Expedition, or Price's Raid. Price hoped to take St. Louis, then Jefferson City, and to draw Union troops away from the fighting further east. Union commanders answered by sending columns after him.
The 81st Illinois Volunteer Infantry was one of the regiments caught up in that pursuit. The regiment's official service record lists "March through Arkansas and Missouri in pursuit of Price, September 17–November 21, 1864."
Among its soldiers was Edmund Newsome of Company B, a resident of Carbondale, Illinois. He kept a diary through the war and in 1880 published it at Carbondale as Experience in the War of the Great Rebellion. The two scans reproduced here are pages 63 and 64 of that book — the stretch where the regiment crossed the Black River, worked its way through the Dismal Swamps, and passed through Poplar Bluff.
September 28–30, 1864: the approach
Sept. 28 — "Marched at 6 A. M. Cloudy with rain. 81st in advance to-day. Crossed Black River at 11 A. M. at Matthew's Perry, by making a pontoon of trees felled from both sides and floored it with rails. The train forded the river. We marched 19 miles through the Dismal Swamps. No forage. Destitute of the marks of civilization. Crossed and camped on Cane Creek."
Sept. 29 — "Rained last night in torrents. The supply train did not get up last night, but arrived at 9 this morning. Rations were issued and again we pulled out at 11 o'clock, and marched 9 miles through the same terrible swamps, over the worst roads on which an army ever marched."
Sept. 30 — "Marched at 5 A. M. Rained a lively shower, and as a consequence the roads were very bad. We marched 2 miles to the hills, passed through Poplar Bluffs, crossed Black River again 7 miles above town by wading knee deep and went into camp, having marched 20 miles. The country from the swamps is hilly, rocky and poor, with but few farms. Poplar Bluff, the county seat of Butler County, Mo. contains a fine brick court-house in the course of construction, and about 30 houses."
What the diary tells us about Poplar Bluff
About thirty houses. That is the whole of the town Newsome saw. Poplar Bluff had been the seat of Butler County since the county was organized in 1849, but in 1864 it was still a small place on the edge of the swamps, and the war years were not years of growth here.
A brick courthouse going up. Newsome's note that the county's "fine brick court-house" was "in the course of construction" in September 1864 is contemporary evidence of when Butler County's second courthouse was built. The county's first courthouse was a plank building raised in 1851 on the public square; a much larger brick courthouse replaced it. A passing Union soldier, writing in the middle of the war, shows that the brick building was already under way that fall.
The river. The regiment had crossed the Black River two days earlier at Matthew's Perry, and on September 30 it crossed again seven miles above Poplar Bluff, wading knee deep. It is a reminder of how completely the river governed movement in and out of the town before there were bridges here.
The land. The men came up out of "the Dismal Swamps" into country Newsome called "hilly, rocky and poor, with but few farms" — a hard description of the countryside north of Poplar Bluff after four years of war had disrupted the region's farms and trade.
Where the regiment went next
The column kept moving north and east. On October 2 it forded the St. Francis River knee deep and reached Greenville by 4 P.M. On October 3 it took the Cape Girardeau road, passed the small village of Hog Eye a mile before the Castor River, and forded the river into camp. On October 4 the men covered 28 miles to Dallas, the seat of Bollinger County, where they finally struck a turnpike "in good order" and camped on Widow Dougherty's Plantation on White Water Creek.
The source
Experience in the War of the Great Rebellion by Edmund Newsome (Carbondale, Illinois, 1880). Newsome served in Company B, 81st Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry. The digitized pages 63 and 64 reproduced with this article were contributed to the archive by Michael Bub in 2026; this article was written and annotated by Historic Poplar Bluff from the pages he shared.
Full transcription, pages 63–64
Page 63 begins mid-entry.
...the forenoon, but cleared up at 10 A. M. Traveled 17 miles through a desolate country, on very bad roads, and camped on a small creek.
Sept. 28. — Marched at 6 A. M. Cloudy with rain. 81st in advance to-day. Crossed Black River at 11 A. M. at Matthew's Perry, by making a pontoon of trees felled from both sides and floored it with rails. The train forded the river. We marched 19 miles through the Dismal Swamps. No forage. Destitute of the marks of civilization. Crossed and camped on Cane Creek.
Sept. 29. — Rained last night in torrents. The supply train did not get up last night, but arrived at 9 this morning. Rations were issued and again we pulled out at 11 o'clock, and marched 9 miles through the same terrible swamps, over the worst roads on which an army ever marched.
Sept. 30. — Marched at 5 A. M. Rained a lively shower, and as a consequence the roads were very bad. We marched 2 miles to the hills, passed through Poplar Bluffs, crossed Black River again 7 miles above town by wading knee deep and went into camp, having marched 20 miles. The country from the swamps is hilly, rocky and poor, with but few farms. Poplar Bluff, the county seat of Butler County, Mo. contains a fine brick court-house in the course of construction, and about 30 houses.
Oct. 1. — Reveille at 5:30 A. M., marched at 6:30. It poured an incessant rain from reveille until 10 o'clock and was thick and cloudy the remainder of the day. Roads terribly bad.
Page 64 continues the entry:
Marched 15 miles without seeing any signs of civilization, over a rocky, barren and mountainous country. It seemed a wonder that the army moved a single mile over such a terrible road. The teams are fagged out.
Oct. 2. — Marched at 6 A. M. Immediately, we struck a better country, though still very poor, with occasionally an old looking farm-house. After marching 5 miles, we took the Iron torn road, marched 2 1/2 miles, countermarched, and took the Greenville road, arriving at Greenville at 4 P. M., after fording the St. Francis River, knee deep. Marched 20 miles.
Oct. 3. — Marched at 6 A. M. and took the Cape Girardeau road, and traveled 17 miles to Castor River. The country is still barren, rocky, mountainous and poor. One mile before reaching Castor River, we passed a small village named Hog Eye. We forded the river and went into camp at 4 P. M.
Oct. 4. — Marched at 2 A. M. Commenced raining at 10 o'clock and rained in torrents until 2 P. M. when it broke away. The roads are in a terrible condition and seemed almost impassible. We marched over the same barren, mountainous country 14 miles to Dallas, the county seat of Bollinger County, where we struck the turnpike, and, as it was in good order, we moved with ease. Day's march was 28 miles. We camped on Widow Dougherty's Plantation on White Water Creek.
Transcription note
Spelling, punctuation and paragraphing follow the printed 1880 text. Two readings remain uncertain on these scans: the crossing named "Matthew's Perry" (September 28) and the road named on October 2, given here as "Iron torn road." Both are difficult to make out in the original letterpress, and anyone working from another copy of the book may be able to settle them.
Subjects: Price's Raid · Civil War in southeast Missouri · 81st Illinois Volunteer Infantry · Black River · Cane Creek · Dismal Swamps · Butler County Courthouse · Poplar Bluff before the railroads
Photos
Page 63 of Edmund Newsome's "Experience in the War of the Great Rebellion" (1880), containing the September 30, 1864 diary entry describing the march through Poplar Bluff.
Page 64 of the memoir, covering October 1–4, 1864: the march to Greenville by way of the St. Francis River, the Castor River and the village of Hog Eye, and the 28-mile march to Dallas in Bollinger County.
Michael Bub
Story Contributor
Source:
Edmund Newsome, Company B, 81st Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry. Pages 63–64 of his memoir-diary, published at Carbondale, Illinois, in 1880. The two scanned pages were contributed to the archive by Michael Bub in 2026.
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