Richard White Hancock and the American Civil War

In April of 1862, when Dick Hancock was a few months short of his seventeenth birthday, he joined the Missouri State Militia, supporting the Union troops.  He was a member of the 6th Missouri Regiment, Company E, cavalry unit.  He inflated his age by a bit, in order to enlist.  The company Descriptive Book gives details:
 
Richard W Hancock; Co E, 6th Regt Mo State Militia Cavalry;  enlisted 12 April 1862 at Cameron Missouri by Capt Murphy for a term of 3 years; age 18; 5 feet 10 inches; fair complexion; blue eyes; dark hair; born Scott Kentucky; occupation farmer.

Richard White “Dick” Hancock was born in 1845 in Scott county Kentucky, one of the younger of Edward Hancock and Jemima White’s nine children.  About 1855 his family removed to Missouri, where the Hancock family lived for a number of years near the community of Victoria in Daviess County.  In the early years of America’s Civil War young Dick answered the call to serve with the Union.

Dick Hancock’s military “returns” show him serving in several different capacities through the war years.  In February of 1863 he was recorded as a hospital nurse, and in January 1864 he was “absent” doing recruiting service in Northwest Missouri.  Several returns listed him as “away for service in the field”.  By late 1864, during the months of November and December, he was working as a cook for the troops.  

The Missouri State Militia forces were authorized, subsidized, and equipped by the federal government.  Their primary activity remained within the state.  The war in Missouri was more of a local affair.  Union supporters were in the majority.  Confederate sympathizers and secessionists made guerilla style attacks on their neighbors.  Engaging these guerilla bands became the primary work of the State Militia.  After enlistment, Dick Hancock was stationed at Cameron Missouri, but within a short time the troops of the 6th Regiment began to move around the state.  In the Fall of 1862, “guerrilla bands of every size and description, sometimes operating in conjunction with small Confederate forces based in Arkansas, swarmed out of the woods and swamps and attacked towns and railroads, carried off horses and weapons, and killed Unionist civilians by the hundreds.”

The leaders of the State Militia began an effort to “starve out” the opposition by identifying the civilian population that provided food, shelter, horses, and new recruits.  Relatives and supporters of the guerillas were often fined or imprisoned; their properties and communities were sometimes put to the torch.  “This was a war of stealth and raid without a front, without formal organization, and with almost no division between the civilian and the warrior.”

Toward the close of the War the 6th Regiment was called to Westport (today a part of Kansas City).  The Battle of Westport occurred on the 23rd of October 1864, and is sometimes referred to as the “Gettysburg of the West”.  It is probably the only formal battlefield that Dick Hancock attended.  The Union forces of Major General Samuel R Curtis soundly defeated the Confederates.  This was one of the largest actions to occur west of the Mississippi River, involving more than thirty thousand troops.  It was also the last major action in the area.  

Dick Hancock continued with his regiment for several months after the Westport battle.  This was the time period when he was noted as a cook for the troops.  Discharges began for the 6th Regiment in February of 1865.  About this time Dick Hancock’s horse and equipment was valued by the government at sixty-five dollars. After his service, young Dick, still a teenager, returned home to the family farm near Victoria Missouri.  He was soon to turn twenty years of age, and in the following year he married Elizabeth Taylor, and settled in neighboring Dekalb county Missouri.  


For more details on Richard White Hancock, visit his page at Family Stories, pamgarrett.com.

About the Photo:  Encampment of Union cavalry scouts near Hancock Maryland; WW Charles for Harper's Weekly, 1 Feb 1862; from the National Park Service Historical Collection.

Moving back in time:  Otis Sylvester Garrett 1894 > Margaret Susan Hancock 1869 > Richard White Hancock 1845.
Richard White Hancock is my husband’s greatgreat-grandfather.

“Springfield don’t look like it did during the war” – A Hancock Family Letter

In 1912, Richard W Hancock, age sixty-four, wrote a letter to his son Ed who was living in Seiling Oklahoma.  The letter was postmarked 23 February 1912, Memphis Tennessee.  For family historian, the letter is of value because it lists the birthdates of the nine children of Richard White Hancock and his wife Elizabeth Ann Taylor.  It also mentions a few bits of family miscellany.

For more general historians, Dick Hancock’s description of Springfield Missouri in 1912 might be of interest.  At the time of the letter the Richard Hancock family had been living, farming and pursuing the building trade near Maysville, Dekalb county Missouri for nearly forty years. The town of Springfield Missouri resided about two hundred and thirty miles to the south of Maysville – a long trip.  During the Civil War Dick Hancock had served more than three years with the Missouri State Militia (Federal Troops), and was stationed at Springfield in the Spring of 1863. Following the War, he stood witness to the growth and change of the town.  

Reading through his letter, it was fun to note his mention of “. . . a wagon factory that turns out 100 wagons a month.”  This must have been impressive to a man whose father, Edward Hancock, had been noted as a “wagon-maker” in the 1850 census of Scott county Kentucky.

Enjoy the letter:

RW Hancock to his son Ed Hancock of Seiling Oklahoma, postmarked 23 Feb 1912, Memphis Tennessee -

I have had several calls for mill work and may go back to Springfield soon if things go alright.  Your mother said to send you all the dates of the childrens births:

Charley was born 5 July 1867
Maggie, 27 Feb 1869
Kate, 28 Jan 1871
Bess, 28 Jan 1875
Julia, 17 Apr 1877
Jack, 20 Aug 1879
Spencer, 5 Nov 1882
Fred, 13 Nov 1884
you, 2 Feb 1873.

We have letter from Maggie . . . 12 days.  They were all well.  Their children had the measles.

I have not seen any of Jhn Ballingers folks since I came home.  Jack weights 170 Spencer 150 and Fred about 130.

We have 2 spring calves and will have 2 or 3 more during the summer.  We will not raise any colts this year.  Springfield dont look like it did during the war.  It is a large town now.  Two railroads and both have large . . . and employ a great many men.  Electric lights and water works and is a good manufacturing town.  Iron works and a wagon factory that turns out 100 wagons a month.  A furniture factory and lime works 3 large mills corn plant and . . . small concerns.  Brewing and everthing namely found in large cities.  Population between 25 and 20 thousand.  I would like to live there if it was not so full of negroes  they number 5 or 6 thousand and steal everything thats loose.

Mr E H Brant moved to Maysville and went in the Poultry business.  Ben Taylor rented his farm and went to Excelsior Springs  . . .

Your mother is doing her work but she suffers with rheumatism all the time.

Hoping this will find you and family well

I will close write soon
Your father RW Hancock


For more details on Richard White Hancock, visit his page at Family Stories, pamgarrett.com.

Moving back in time:  Otis Sylvester Garrett 1894 > Margaret Susan Hancock 1869 > Richard White Hancock 1845.
Richard White Hancock is my husband’s greatgreat-grandfather.

About the photo:
The image above come from Springfield, Missouri, and Surroundings, a 35-page illustrated booklet containing numerous engraved prints of Springfield scenes . . . The digital collections of the Local History and Genealogy Collection of the Springfield-Green County Library (Springfield, Missouri) are excellent.  Be sure to visit.
 

The Margaret Hancock Garrett Photo Collection

Back in the 1980’s my husband’s grandfather, Otis Sylvester Garrett, shared some photos with me that had belonged to his mother, Margaret Susan Hancock Garrett. The envelope contained about thirty-five photos of Margaret’s Hancock family members around Dekalb County Missouri.  I would estimate that most of the photos were taken in the 1920’s and 1930’s.  At the time Otis showed me the photos, I had negatives and copies made at a local photo store, and then returned them to Otis.  Otis Garrett died in 1994, at the age of ninety-nine years, and I don’t know where the photos are today.  But, I am so thankful for the copies I made.  Recently I have digitized the copies for storage and sharing on my Family Stories website. 

The earliest notes I have on the Hancock family introduce Edward Hancock and his wife Jemima White who were living in Scott county Kentucky in the 1850’s.  Edward Hancock was noted as a wagon maker.  By 1860 the census places them in Daviess county Missouri with four of their younger children still in the household.  My husband’s family branch comes down from their son, Richard White Hancock, who lived most of his life in the adjoining counties of Daviess and Dekalb in the northwest corner of Missouri. 

Richard White Hancock, and his wife Elizabeth “Betty” Taylor, were the parents of nine identified children.  Six of these children, along with their spouses and offspring, are the subjects of the photograph collection. At the Family Stories website, you can find these photographs among the families of Kate Hancock (Henry Murray); Ben Hancock (Stella Peaslee); Julia Hancock (Worthy Redman); Jack Hancock (Alice Estes); Spencer Hancock (Vesta Fisher); and Fred Hancock (Fannie Baker).  

The photos are representative of everyday farm life in rural Missouri – couples, children, and cousins, doing the things that families do – with horses and cars, washtubs and hogs.  It is a lovely collection of photos.  Besides running their farms, several of the Hancock men were involved in construction, and there are photos identifying Hancock building projects.  Like their wagon-making ancestor, the Hancock’s were noted as builders.  One of the more thought provoking photos remembers Vesta Fisher Hancock and her young son Randall visiting Mount Moriah Cemetery in Kansas City, shortly after the 1928 death of her husband Spencer Hancock, at the age of forty-six.

Finding ancestor photos has been an inspiring piece of the family history puzzle.  Perhaps this blog post will be the spark that reconnects a Hancock descendent with faces from their past.



For more details on Richard White Hancock and his family, visit his page at Family Stories, pamgarrett.com.

Moving back in time:  Margaret Susan “Maggie” Hancock 1869 (wife of Isaac Sylvester “Ves” Garrett) > Richard White Hancock 1845 > Edward Hancock 1808.

Back to Blogging

Life Happens, . . . and sometimes it changes our direction.  Over the past year I have needed to focus more attention on my living family, and have mostly set aside my search for family in the past.  Now I have an opportunity to return to some work on my Family Stories website and blog, and I am delighted to be posting new notes and stories on some of my husband’s family lines.

Richard William “Dick” Garrett, born 1925 to Otis S Garrett and Elba J Hoffman.

I will be adding all that I know about my husband’s Garrett and Hancock families to my database at the Family Stories Website, and I hope to add a few articles here at the Family Stories Blog to introduce these family branches.

So far, I can only carry the Garrett line back to the 1820’s in Benton county Tennessee, where my husband’s 3xgreat-grandfather, John Garrett, was living with his wife Jemima Walker.  All the research I have done seems to point to John Garrett being a descendant of Stephen Garrett of Buckingham county Virginia, but the connection remains elusive.  Recent DNA evidence is suggesting that there might be more to the Stephen Garrett story than researchers have credited.

I am also excited to share a collection of mostly early 20th century photographs for the Hancock family of Dekalb County Missouri.  Isaac Sylvester Garrett, grandson of the above mentioned John Garrett and Jemima Walker, married Margaret Susan Hancock in 1890 Dekalb County Missouri. She was the daughter of Richard White Hancock and Elizabeth “Betty” Taylor, and the granddaughter of Edward Hancock and his wife Jemima White.  The Hancock photos will appear, along with family data, at the Family Stories website. 

Coming up next – The “Turkey Herding” Garretts.


For more details on John Garrett and Edward Hancock, visit their pages at Family Stories, pamgarrett.com.

Moving back in time:   Richard William “Dick” Garrett 1925 > Otis Sylvester Garrett  1894 > Isaac Sylvester Garrett 1860 > Isaac Walker Garrett 1831 > John Garrett 1805.