This is a transcription of an article that appeared in the Armstrong Herald Newspaper on 17 NOV 1938. The article was recently given to Dr. Steve Jones by Patsy Kauffman of Armstrong. Steve passed it on to J. Y. & Mary Miller.
The writer of the original article was Walter Henderson Sr, the father of Bill Henderson and Walter Henderson Jr. and Mary Elsie Miller’s grandfather. The Hayden house in the article is now known as Inglewood and the Donohoe house is the former home of Fr. Jerry Stockman. Both, of course, are on Randolph St. Osborne Henderson was the founder of Henderson’s Drug Store.
The morning of the Battle of Glasgow, Great-Grandmother Donohoe, who lived almost across the street from Grandfather Hayden ran over to get in the cellar which was filled with women and children, neighbors and friends driven out of town by the Confederate batteries shelling the town, then occupied by Union soldiers, from across the Missouri River. Shells from these cannons were flying over and into the town and many houses were set on fire by them.
Just as she left the house a Confederate battery wheeled into the yard at her front door. As she passed through the front yard a Minnie ball fired from Turner’s Hill south of town fell in front of her and she picked it up still hot and carried it in her apron to the house.
The cellar walls of Grandpa Hayden’s house were of large cemented stones, and afforded a very good protection against stray shots. During the battle a wounded officer was brought in the cellar and Grandpa, fearing he would be killed if found, removed the officer’s uniform and hid it in the icehouse. The man he hid in the cellar behind some boxes.
Before the battle here a company of boys and men were organized into a Home Guard. Father was in this group and I suppose they had great fun drilling. But when it came time for the battle here many of them, no doubt, wished they were out of it. The morning of the battle, they were marched through town to the rifle pits dug on Herryford Hill, now where the Catholic Church and parish house are located.
As they marched along, Father, who was only eighteen, stepped out of line and into a stable nearby. As he entered he saw a soldier in uniform sitting in the other end of the building. Just then the big guns began to roar and shake the earth, so Father sat down beside the soldier and waited until the firing was over. Then he crawled out and went home.
During the Civil War a company of Calvary was stationed in the pasture just back of Great-Grandma Donohoe’s house for several years. They were Federal soldiers and a sentry was stationed all of the time, on a platform with steps leading to the street that was in front of Grandpa Hayden’s. Grandpa and Grandma would not both leave home at the same time for fear the soldiers would break in and steal something. I think those soldiers were known as Merrill’s Horse, and at times there were different commands there. At one time a part of the 17th Illinois were camped on these grounds.
Grandpa Osborne Henderson had a drug store on Water Street. One day a soldier told some others that he had a barrel of whiskey in his store and they agreed to go and get it. Grandpa heard they were coming and so he hid the barrel in the back room and piled a lot of boxes over it. When the soldiers came they asked for some whiskey and Grandpa told them if they could find any in the store then they could have it. They searched high and low, but I guess they were too lazy to move the big stack of boxes, so they failed to find it. They were angry at the man who had told them they would find whiskey and they caught him by the arms and legs and bumped him good and hard against the side of the building.
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