Information
Sheet
R Bradford, Moses Jasper, 1833‑1865.
360 Letters, 1861‑1865.
Two folders.
These are Civil War letters of Moses J.
Bradford, a native of Relfe, Phelps
County, Missouri,
and an officer of the Missouri State Guard and the 10th Missouri Infantry
(CSA). He wrote from camps in Missouri and Arkansas,
and, after his capture in 1863, from Union prison camps in Ohio,
Maryland, Delaware,
South Carolina, and Georgia.
Moses Jasper Bradford was the youngest
son of Adam and Frances Neely Bradford.
The Bradfords came to Missouri from Kentucky about 1817, settling on Spring Creek in what was
then Pulaski County, Missouri.
Adam Bradford established a sawmill near the mouth of Spring Creek, the
first of five mills which he and his sons operated in the extensive pineries of
the Big Piney River watershed. Later,
Adam Bradford operated a general store.
The Bradfords were prominent members of
the Spring Creek community, which came to be called Relfe. It became part of Phelps County
when that county was created in 1857.
Moses Jasper Bradford was born and grew
up on Spring Creek. He married Malissa
Jane Stephens (1839‑1932), a native of Kentucky, in 1859. At the beginning of the Civil War, Bradford joined Gen. James H. McBride’s division of the
Missouri State Guard and was appointed quartermaster. Bradford
left the state organization sometime after April 1862, but remained active in
the war. A Union military patrol from
the post at Rolla captured him in June 1862.
The officer who filed the report on the patrol referred to Bradford as “a noted guerrilla ... who has caused us much
trouble.”
Bradford apparently was paroled or
exchanged. By April 1863, he was captain
of Company G of the 10th Missouri Infantry (CSA), a unit organized the
previous November. He took part in the
futile and costly attack on Helena,
Arkansas, on 4 July 1863. Captured for the second time, Bradford was
among the 271 men of the 10th Missouri who
were killed, wounded, or captured at Helena. He was incarcerated with other Confederate
officers at various Union prisons, including Johnson’s Island (Ohio), Camp Hammond (Md.), Fort Delaware
(Del.), Morris Island (S.C.), and Fort Pulaski
(Ga.). He died from the effects of scurvy and
malnutrition at Fort
Pulaski on 13 February
1865.
The Bradford
collection includes a total of forty letters, thirty-eight of which were
written to his wife and family. There
are twenty‑six originals in the collection, and photocopies of another
fourteen. There are no envelopes with
any of the letters. Some are addressed
to Malissa Jane Bradford in care of Solomon King, a resident of Rolla and
friend of the family. Ten of the letters
were written in 1861‑1863 during service with the Missouri State Guard
and 10th Missouri Infantry at Lebanon,
Springfield, and Cassville,
Missouri, and Camp
Bolin and Little Rock, Arkansas. They include advice on family business
matters, news of acquaintances in the army, and comments on his duties and on
the course of the war. The remainder of Bradford’s letters were written from prisoner of war
camps. They note his homesickness and
fears for the welfare of his family, his treatment while in captivity, and the
deteriorating condition of his health.
His last letter, written less than two weeks before his death, mentions
his ill health and “needy circumstances.”
The collection also includes two letters
concerning Bradford’s death. One, written by Lt. William Halliburton, a
fellow soldier and prisoner of war, was probably the first news of Bradford’s fate to reach his family. The last letter is from Kitty Morse of
Jefferson City, who had heard of Bradford’s
death and wrote of it to Malissa Jane Bradford, thinking perhaps that the news
had not reached her.
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