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Gen.
J. 0. Shelby
Joseph Orville Shelby was born on December
12, 1830, in Lexington, Kentucky. The Shelby family was one of
Kentucky's wealthiest and influential families. J. O. Shelby attended
Transylvania University and was engaged in rope manufacturing until
1852 when he moved to Waverly, Missouri. In Waverly, he engaged in
various enterprises including steam-boating on the Missouri and a hemp
plantation. Being successful, Shelby became a member of the Missouri's
social and political elite.
CONFEDERATE PERSISTENCY.
Last Desperate Utterances of Gen. J. 0, Shelby. After Lee Had
Surrendered.
The following is from an old clipping, dated Pittsburg, Tex., 'April
26, 1865.
Soldiers of Shelby's Division, the crisis of a nation's
fate is upon you. I come to you in this hour of peril and of gloom as I
have come when your exultant shouts of victory were proud on the breeze
of Missouri, relying upon your patriotism, your devotion, your heroic
fortitude and endurance. By the memory of our past efforts, our
brilliant reputation, our immortal dead, our wrecked and riven
hearthstones, our banished and insulted women, our kindred fate and
kindred ruin, our wrongs unrighted and unavenged, I conjure you to
stand shoulder to shoulder and bide the tempest out. In union there is
strength, honor, manhood, safety, success; in separation, defeat,
disgrace, disaster, extermination, death. I promise to remain with you
until the end, to share your dangers, your trials, your exile, your
destiny; your lot shall be my lot and your fate shall be my fate; and
come what may-poverty, misery, exile, degradation-O never" let your
spotless banner 'be tarnished by dishonor! If there be any among
you that wish to go from our midst when the dark hour comes and the
bright visions of peace are paling beyond the, sunset shore, let him
bid farewell to the comrades that no danger can appall and no disaster
deter, for the curse of the sleepless eye and the festering heart will
be his reward as the women of Missouri-the Peris of a ruined paradise -
shall tell how Missouri's braves fought until the Confederate flag was
torn by inches from the mast.
Stand by the ship, boys, as long as there is one plank upon
another. All your hopes and fears are there; all that life holds
nearest and dearest is there; your bleeding motherland, pure and
stainless as an angel-guarded child, is there. The proud, imperial
South - the nurse of your boyhood and the priestess of your faith- is
there, and calls upon you, her children, her best and bravest, in the
pride and purity of your manhood, and your blood to rally round her
altar-shrine, the blue skies and green fields of your nativity, and
send your scornful challenge forth: "The Saxon breasts are equal to the
Norman steel!" .
Meet at your company quarters, look the matter fairly and
squarely in the face, think of all that you have to lose and the little
you have to gain, watch the fires of your devotion as you would your
hopes of heaven, stand together, act together, keep your discipline and
your integrity, and all will be well as you strike for God and
humanity. I am with you until the last; and 0 what glad hozannas will
go up to you when our land, redeemed, shall rise beautiful from its urn
of death and chamber of decay; the storms of battle and the anguish of
defeat floating away forever!
If Johnston follows Lee and Beauregard and Maury and Forrest-all
go-and the Cis-Mississippi Department surrenders their arms and quit
the contest, let us never surrender. For four long years we have taught
each other to forget that word, and it is too late to learn it now. Let
us all meet as we have met in many dark hours before, with the hearts
of men that have drawn the sword and thrown away the scabbard, and
resolve with the deep, eternal, irrevocable resolution of freemen that
we will never surrender. If every regiment in this department goes by
the board, if coward fear and dastard treachery dictate submission, we
will treat every man that leaves his banner now as a base recreant, and
shoot him as we would a Federal. This Missouri Division surrender? My
God, soldiers! it is more terrible than death. You, the young and the
brave of poor Missouri, who have so often marched away to battle,
proudly and gaily, with love in your hearts and light in your eyes, for
the land that you loved best; you, who are worshiped by your friends
and dreaded by your enemies; you who have the blood of cavaliers in
your veins-it is too horrible to contemplate!
No! no! We will do this: we will hang together, we will keep our
organization, our arms, our discipline, our hatred of oppression, until
one universal shout goes up from an admiring age that this Missouri
Cavalry Division preferred exile to submission, death to dishonor.
Jo. O. SHELBY, Brigadier-General Commanding.
Pittsburg, Tex., April 26, 1865.
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