CHARLES H. HIGBEE

Charles H. Higbee (1837-1891) was born at Higbee Mill in south Fayette County, Kentucky near Lexington. After his father’s death, Charles Higbee’s mother married Joseph Chrisman who lived in nearby Jessamine County. As a young man, Higbee moved to Independence, Missouri where he married a young widow from Kentucky named Mary Belle Shanks Miller. She was from Lincoln County, Kentucky and was descended from the first white child born in the pioneer Kentucky frontier. Higbee was well-educated and attended universities in Kentucky and Missouri, and studied law under Judge Robinson in Lexington. At the outset of hostilities in Missouri, Higbee joined William Clarke Quantrill’s MO Irregulars and served as “Adjutant” during Quantrill’s unsuccessful visit to Richmond, Virginia in late 1862. Higbee participated in the attack and bloody massacre at Lawrence, Kansas on August 21, 1863. After the town was sacked, Quantrill’s men scattered with Federal cavalry in hot pursuit. Money taken from the Lawrence banks was to have been shared, but as one of Quantrill’s men recalled, “Charley Higbee secured the largest sum that any one man got in Lawrence. Immediately, after our return to Missouri, he left for parts unknown to us at the time. It was reported that he went to Canada.” Higbee and B. Wood reportedly escaped to Canada with nearly $75,000 and joined the Confederate Secret Service – Quantrill’s men never forgave him. Higbee’s name was on Judge William W. Cleary’s list of men to receive pistols for the planned August 28, 1864 attack on Camp Douglas near Chicago to free John Hunt Morgan’s Kentucky Confederates and also on the roster of Lt. Young’s Retributors dated August 31, 1864. Twenty-two of these rebel soldiers, mostly Kentuckians, formed the core of Bennett Young’s command for the attack on St. Albans, Vermont on October 19, 1864. During the St. Albans Raid, Higbee wore a black feather in his hat supposedly given to him by Quantrill. He is also reported to have been the Raider who shot and mortally wounded Morrison during the gunfight in the streets of St. Albans. Higbee himself was severely wounded during the gunfight at St. Albans, “shot through and through” both shoulders according to Bennett Young. As they fled, Higbee couldn’t stay in the saddle impeding the escape and was left behind in Vermont in the care of a well-compensated, but unidentified woman who possibly maintained one of the Confederate safe houses. Higbee survived his injury, and later received sanctuary and medical care from Dr. Montrose Pallen at the Saint John Baptiste Society in Montreal. He briefly returned to Franklin, Kentucky after the war and started a merchandizing business. He then moved to Fort Worth, Texas where he organized the First National Bank, acquired large land holdings, and became a wealthy cattle rancher. Higbee loved books and could lecture on a wide-range of exotic topics. He belonged to numerous civic and fraternal organizations, and was serving as President of the Cattle Association at the time of his death. He was also a member of the Robert E. Lee Camp #158 U.C.V. It was said that C. H. Higbee was, “one of the best men any country ever boasted of.” Charles H. Higbee died of “lock-jaw” [tetanus] and was initially buried at Oakwood Cemetery in Ft. Worth, Texas. In 1903, Higbee and his wife were re-interred in the Lexington Cemetery, Lexington, Kentucky.

REFERENCES

Albans Raid, St. Albans, Vermont October 19, 1864

Anderson, George: “Interview with Bennett Young,” June 1908, Boston, Massachusetts, (unpublished typescript) in The St. Albans Historical Society Museum, St. Albans, Vermont.

Benjamin, L. N.: The St. Albans Raid, 1865, Thomas L. Wilson Printer, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Branch, John: The St. Albans Raid, St. Albans, Vermont, October 19, 1864, 1935, St. Albans, Vermont.

Dutcher, L. L.: History of St. Albans, Vermont, Civil, Religious, Biographical, and Statistical, 1872, A. M. Hemenway, ed., St. Albans, Vermont.

Kinchen, Oscar A.: Daredevils of the Confederate Army, 1959, Christopher Publishing House, Boston, Massachusetts.

War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series II, Government Printing Office, Washington D.C.

Perry, Alfred: “St. Albans Raid Reminiscences” (Part 2) in the Montreal Star June 2, 1893, Montreal, Quebec typescript courtesy of The St. Albans Historical Society Museum, St. Albans, Vermont.

Quisenberry, Anderson Chenault: “The Saint Albans Raid,” (circa 1906), Morgan’s Men Association newspaper clipping courtesy of Mr. Sam Flora, Lexington, Kentucky.

“The St. Albans Raid” On the Garrard County Line, Volume VIV, Number 1, May 1, 1991, The Garrard County Historical Society, Lancaster, Kentucky.

The St. Albans Historical Society and the Franklin Lamoille Bank: The St. Albans Raid October 19, 1864, 1953-87 (at least 14 reprints), The North Country Press, St. Albans, Vermont.

Wilson, Dennis K.: Justice Under Pressure: The St. Albans Raid and Its Aftermath, 1992, University of America Press, New York, New York.

Woodward, Jon: “Rebels Raid Vermont,” Blue & Gray Magazine, December 1990.

Young, Lt. Bennett H.: “Letter to General Samuel Cooper and attached Muster Roll of 5th Company Retributors C.S.A.” dated August 31, 1864, NARA, Washington, D.C.

Young, Bennett Henderson: “Response of Col. Bennett H. Young to an Attack Regarding the St. Albans Raid,” The Louisville Dispatch, March 15, 1899, Louisville, Kentucky.

(Attributed to) “Young, Col. Bennett H. [with notes by the editor]: Secret History of the St. Albans Raid.” The Vermonter, January 1902, Volume VII, Number 6, pages 22-7 (this article was “adapted” from Bennett Young’s newspaper article above, but contains many biased statements and interpretations, or misinterpretations if you like, added by the editor).

The Confederate Secret Service in Canada and the Northwest Conspiracy

Cameron, Stephen F: “The Secret Service of the South” 1866 (unpublished manuscript) in the Eleanor S. Brockenbrough Library, Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia.

Castleman, John B.: Active Service, 1917, Courier-Journal Job Printing Publisher, Louisville, Kentucky.

Headley, John W.: Confederate Operations in Canada and New York, 1906, Neale Publishing Company, New York, New York.

Hines, Thomas H.: “Papers, letters and scrapbook,” Special Collections, Margaret I. King Library, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky.

Hines, Thomas H. and Castleman, John B.: “The Northwest Conspiracy” serial in Southern Bivouac Volume II, New Series, December 1886 – May 1886, Louisville, Kentucky.

Horan, James D.: Confederate Agent: A Discovery in History, 1954, Crown Publishers Inc., New York, New York.

Tidwell, William A.; Hall, James O.; and Gaddy, David W.: Come Retribution: The Confederate Secret Service and the Assassination of Lincoln, 1988, University of Mississippi Press, Oxford, Mississippi.

Charles H. Higbee

“C. H. Higbee” in History of Texas, Together with a History of Tarrant and Parker Counties, 1895, pages 268-73; and Gregg, William H.:

“Memoir,” Connelley Collection, Missouri State Historical Society, Columbia, Missouri quoted in Connelley, William E.: Quantrill and the Border War, 1910 (reprint edition Pagent Books 1956, page 420).

Newspaper clippings courtesy of Clay Fitzhugh, Fort Worth, Texas.

C H Higbee