Information
Sheet
R United States. Army.
Missouri Infantry Regiment, Phelps’s.
272 Quartermaster account book,
1862.
One volume.
MICROFILM
These are accounts of Lt. Robert B. Owen,
Quartermaster of Phelps’s Regiment at Rolla, Lebanon and Springfield, Missouri,
January—May 1862. Included are records
of receipt and issue of food, forage, clothing and camp equipage, lists of
civilians employed by the army, and notes on wagon trains in quartermaster
service.
Col. John S. Phelps organized the regiment
which bore his name in September—December 1861. It was raised at Rolla, largely of Union
refugees from southwestern Missouri. By special arrangement with the Federal
government, the regiment was classified as an independent unit of Missouri
Volunteer Infantry. It bore no numerical
designation. The members enlisted for a
term of six months rather than the customary three years. After service at Rolla, the regiment joined
the Army of Southwest Missouri in February 1862. It saw action at the Battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas,
losing twenty‑five officers and men killed. The unit was mustered out in
May 1862.
Robert Bentley Owen was a resident of Springfield, Missouri,
who belonged to Colley B. Holland’s company of Home Guards. Owen came to Rolla after the Battle of
Wilson’s Creek in August 1861. He
enlisted in Phelps’s Regiment, and was commissioned lieutenant and quartermaster
of the regiment. He was later promoted
to captain and served as the quartermaster of the District of Southwest
Missouri. He was among the last of the
Federal soldiers to leave Springfield,
remaining there until December 1865 to oversee the dismantling of government
posts in the region.
The records kept by Lt. Owen illustrate
the nature of typical duties of quartermasters, easily the most harried
officers of any command. The post was
one of great responsibility, involving the supply of everything required by
the troops with the exception of arms and ammunition. Clothing, accouterments, tents, camp stoves,
fuel, forage, and the transportation required to move it, all came under the
purvey of the quartermasters. They
directed the movement of government wagons trains, hired civilian teamsters
and craftsmen, and conducted a considerable cash business in supplies gathered
from the local areas.
The quartermaster records of Phelps’s
Regiment cover nearly the entire term of the regiment’s service. They are useful for studying the regiment and
the District of Southwest Missouri. The
accounts include records of clothing and other supplies issued, wheat and forage
received from mills in Laclede County, cash accounts for purchases of subsistence
stores, notes on the movements of wagon trains and repairs made to the same,
and records of government animals issued from the public stables at Springfield. Records which also have genealogical
applications include lists of civilian employees of the quartermaster and
commissary departments at Lebanon
and Springfield,
and a list of the effects of deceased soldiers from Phelps’s Regiment. Among the officers associated with Lt. Owen
in quartermaster service were Capt. E. B. Baldwin, and Captain, later General,
Philip H. Sheridan. The latter in his
memoirs makes reference to the Missouri
activities which are recorded in the accounts of Phelps’s Regiment.
Shelf List
for this collection
Index
cards for this collection
Questions? Use our
Researcher Registration Form
Return to
WHMC-Rolla's home page.