Civil War and Death
Hughes was a cousin to Sterling Price and like Price professed Conditional Unionism until the Camp Jackson Affair, after which he joined the Missouri State Guard and was elected colonel of the 1st Regiment, 4th Division. He participated in the Battle of Carthage and the Battle of Wilson's Creek. He was slightly wounded in the Siege of Lexington.
At the Battle of Pea Ridge in March 1862, Hughes took over command of a brigade from the wounded Brigadier general William Yarnell Slack. Hughes returned to Missouri in the summer of 1862 to recruit for the Confederacy. At this time he may have been appointed as either an acting Confederate or Missouri State Guard brigadier general. No record of the appointment has been found but he was known as "general."
He, his recruits, and several other recruiting or partisan bands united to attack the garrison of Independence, Missouri on August 11, 1862 with Hughes in overall command. During this battle (the First Battle of Independence), he was killed instantly by a shot to the head while leading a charge, but the city was captured. He is interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in Independence. He left behind a wife, Mary, and five young sons.
Read more about this topic: John T. Hughes
Famous quotes containing the words civil war, civil, war and/or death:
“Luxury, or a refinement on the pleasures and conveniences of life, had long been supposed the source of every corruption in government, and the immediate cause of faction, sedition, civil wars, and the total loss of liberty. It was, therefore, universally regarded as a vice, and was an object of declamation to all satyrists, and severe moralists.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“Civil servants and priests, soldiers and ballet-dancers, schoolmasters and police constables, Greek museums and Gothic steeples, civil list and services list—the common seed within which all these fabulous beings slumber in embryo is taxation.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“Armageddon. The slaughter of humanity. An atomic war no one wanted, but which no one had the wisdom to avoid.”
—Edward L. Bernds (b. 1911)
“During these fits of absolute unconsciousness I drank, God only knows how often or how much. As a matter of course, my enemies referred the insanity to the drink rather than the drink to the insanity. I had indeed, nearly abandoned all hope of a permanent cure when I found one in the death of my wife.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)