Give Him Up Or We Burn Your City

In an attempt to capture Confederate Silas M Gordon, Union troops burnt Platte City, Missouri December 16^th 1861.

Silas M Gordon lived in Platte County, Missouri and had been fighting a kind of guerrilla war fare against Union troops and supporters in the area, including the September 1861 Platte Bridge Railroad Tragedy that killed and injured over a hundred.  Union troops had tried to capture Gordon in November at Bee Creek, but he got away after killing two Union soldiers.  In early December Gordon along with about 35 men captured the town of Weston, Missouri, and captured two Union soldiers.  They moved to Platte City, where the Confederates camped on the Platte County Courthouse lawn. 

Union General David Hunter issued orders from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas for the people of Platte City to deliver Gordon up or their city would be burned.  Union Colonel W James Morgan commanding the 18^th Missouri marched from St Joseph, Missouri to Platte City where they set fire to the city and the courthouse on December 16^th 1861.  While in that town they found two Confederate soldiers who were home on a furlough and took them prisoner.

Morgan ordered the two prisoners killed.  Despite pleas from the father of one the men, Black Triplett, Morgan took him and the other man Gabriel Case to Bee Creek.  At the same place where Union soldiers were killed Morgan had Triplett executed, and Case was bayonetted trying to get away on December 17^th 1861.

Was It A Military Target

The Platte Bridge Railroad Tragedy on September 3^rd 1861 occurred when some Confederate Irregulars derailed a train with about 100 passengers east of St Joseph, Missouri.

Confederate Irregulars weakened the lower timbers of the 160 foot long bridge that crossed the Platte River on September 3^rd 1861 on the Hannibal & St Joseph Railroad.  There was no moon that night when the westbound train from Hannibal, Missouri headed for St Joseph, Missouri crossed the bridge.  The supports gave way and the train, locomotive, and cars; including two passenger cars with about 100 passengers plunged 30 feet into the river.  The dead, which number about 20, and injured were carried to the Patee House a luxury hotel in St Joseph, Missouri.

The Union Army in the area were ordered to hunt down the Irregulars and execute them.  Confederate Major General Sterling Price protested this order stating that under the rules of warfare those captured should be treated as prisoners of war.  He argued that the train was a military target because it carried Union soldiers.  Union General Henry W Halleck replied that the Confederate Irregulars were "spies, marauders, robbers, incendiaries, guerrilla bands".