New historical marker tells the story of Nevada burning in Civil War

By Steve Moyer

Herald-Tribune

NEVADA, Mo. -- It was an early summer day 147 years ago when the new municipality of Nevada City, less than a decade old, was to experience its defining moment -- it was burned to the ground May 26, 1863, by Union militiamen. Only the homes of Thomas Austin and James Moore were spared.

During Bushwhacker Days a plaque was dedicated to preserve the memory of that event. Bushwhacker Museum director Terry Ramsey said the plaque, located on the west side of the courthouse lawn in Nevada, was the result of grants from Metz Banking Company and I.M.P.A.C.T. Nevada Tourism.

"I really appreciate this," Ramsey said. "Scott (Buerge, president of Metz Banking Company) is a former member of the board and is very interested in preserving the area's history."

Buerge said that he was happy to have helped with erecting the plaque.

"We got involved partly because I used to be on their board and I have quite a bit of interest in history," Buerge said. "To me the history of this part of the country, and the whole United States for that matter, is maybe more important now than it ever has been in the life of this country because things are not good. History will usually tell you why things have gone awry. If you go study the history of this country and compare it to what we're doing now, it's easy to see why things aren't working. So that provides the basis for our interest in things historical that go on here and we think the more of those things we can preserve the more contribution it is to the environment in which we live."

In addition to the story of the burning of Nevada the plaque lays out parts of Nevada's history preceding the war. It also documents the decrease in population the war brought to Vernon County's seat.

"At the time of the 1860 census, Nevada City was a thriving hamlet of some 450 people," the plaque reads. "Three years later, war had cut the population at least by half, leaving mostly women, children and old men. County officials had fled south with the Confederate forces. The courthouse, a frame building on the southwest corner of the square, sat locked and deserted,"

Nevada City wasn't burned in a vacuum.

Two days before the burning a group of Union militiamen returning home to Cedar County stopped to rest in Nevada City. A group of Bushwhackers led by William Marchbanks had been following the militia, swept into town and attacked them as they rested, killing two. Austin and Moore had cared for the bodies of the two dead militiamen and promised to return them to their homes, thus sparing their own domiciles when the rest of the town burned.

Nevada's fate wasn't a singular one, many communities in the area met a similar one. Montevallo was burned a year earlier, April 14, 1862, and Osceola was burned in September 1861.

However Captain Anderson Morton, leader of the militia which burned Nevada christened it "the Bushwhacker Capital," despite the fact that none of the men who attacked the Union party which precipitated the burning lived in Nevada.

The plaque also recalls how DeWitt C. Hunter came to name the town and of another service he provided the citizens.

"DeWitt C. Hunter built the first house in what would become Nevada, he named the town (a tribute to his experience in the 1849 gold rush) and he was the town's first postmaster. At the beginning of Missouri's Civil War, Hunter raised a regiment for the Missouri State Guard and went to fight for the South ...

"Hunter performed one other service to Nevada during the war. As incumbent county clerk, in 1862 Hunter visited the area and spirited away the county records in a Confederate army wagon. Vernon County is as a result one of the few counties on the Missouri-Kansas border that has property and probate records that precede the war."