Robert H. Christian was (1) 1st Lieutenant of Company I, 76th Enrolled Missouri Miltia from December 17, 1862 to March 31, 1863; (2) 1st Lieutenant of Company C, 7th Provisional Enrolled Missouri Militia ("PEMM") from April 1, 1863, to September 18, 1863; (3) 1st Lieutenant of Company K, 7th PEMM from September 19, 1863 to July 28, 1864; and (4) 1st Lieutenant of Company K, 15th Missouri Cavalry from August 27, 1864 (muster date) to his death October 28, 1864.

In the 1850 census for McDonald County, Missouri, Christian was shown as 20 years old, born in Tennessee, a farmer with real property valued at $300 (page 96B).  His wife Nancy C. was shown as age 19, born in TN.  In March, 1856, he received a patent on 80 acres of land in section 12-T23N-R30W in McDonald County (BLM GLO Records website).  The descriptive roll of the 15th MO Cavalry says he was born in Haywood County, TN; was 34 years old and a farmer in 1864; and was 5' 7" tall with blue eyes, gray hair and a fair complexion.

For reasons that will be obvious from the following accounts of his Civil War service, Christian was one of the most notorious figures of the war in Southwest Missouri:

One of the most noted guerrillas in the country at that time was a fellow by the name of Christian who claimed to be a Union man or Home Guard.  He had a number of followers.  His gang killed Ace Chilcutt, Tom Dillworth, Dock Harris and Elias Price who were hiding in the hills west of where Exeter now is.  The men were all shot in the right eye and the top of their heads blown off.  Their brains were taken out and put in their hats which were set beside their bodies.  Tom Sallee's father helped haul the men in and bury them.  They were all buried in one large grave in the old Packwood cemetery.

The Christian gang burned many houses in that part of the country, claiming that the owners were Confederate sympathizers.  Later on a man by the name of Moore, who was one of General Joe Shelby’s scouts and whose father Christian had killed, asked his commander for a few days’ furlough in order that he might kill Christian.  The furlough was granted.  He killed Christian near Newtonia, cut off his scalp and beard, tied it to his horse’s bridle and rode over the country showing the scalp to many people whose homes Christian had burned.  Mr. Sallee’s wife, then a young girl named Nancy Hale, saw the scalp.  Moore rode over the country and gave every widow whose house Christian had burned $10.00.  This incident marked the ending of the Christian gang in Southwest Missouri.

SOURCE:  Interview, February 15, 1931.  Bill Landers found this in the McClure Family Book and was generous enough to pass it along.  It probably appeared orginally in a story by Eunice Arnaud in the Monett Times.

On the border, both in Arkansas and Missouri, they are murdering every Southern man going north or coming south.  West of Cassville, in Barry County, a first lieutenant (Robert H. Christian) of the Missouri militia committed one of the most diabolical, cold-blooded murders that I heard of during my trip.  Four old citizens of that county had gone to the brush, fearing that by remaining at home they would be murdered.  Their names were Asa Chilcutt (who was recruiting for the C. S. Army), Elias Price, Thomas Dilworth, and Lee Chilcutt.  Asa Chilcutt was taken very sick, and sent for Dr. Harris, a Southern man.  The doctor came as requested, and, while there, this man Christian and 17 other militia came suddenly upon their camp.  Lee Chilcutt made his escape.  The others were captured, and disposed of as follows:  Asa Chilcutt, the sick man, was shot to death while lying on his pallet unable to move.  He was shot some six or seven times by this leading murderer, Christian.  They marched the others 150 yards to a ridge, and, not heeding their age or prayers for mercy, which were heard by the citizens living near by, they shot and killed the doctor and the others, all of them being shot two or three times through the head and as many more times through the body.  They (the Federals) then left them, and, passing a house near by, told the lady that they "had killed four old bucks out there, and if they had any friends they had better bury them."  This man Christian also tried to hire two ladies, with sugar, coffee, &c., to poison Southern men lying in the brush.  Christian proposed furnishing the poison and also the subsistence, and would pay them well if they accepted his proposition.  The names of the ladies are Rhoda Laton and Mrs. Simms, and every word of all the above can be proven in every particular.

I have given you the above narrative of Christian’s acts at the request of the public living in that section.  They look to you as the avenger of their wrongs.

NOTE

The full text of this report is here

SOURCE:  OR, Series I, Volume 22 (Part II), Pages 823-825.

John K. Burton was killed within his own house, in 1862, by Maj. Moore's men.  It is stated by Mr. Drake, of the Fountain and Journal, of Mount Vernon, that he heard Maj. Moore make the charge that Burton succored bushwhackers. . . .  William Moore was killed by Maj. Moore' Federal company. . . .  J. N. Pharis was killed by Capt. [Lt.] Christian's men on Sugar Creek. . . .  Asa Chillcut was killed by Federal troops about eight miles from Cassville. . . .   Elias Ferguson was strung up by Capt. Ray's company, to extract a confession, but escaped death. . . .  John S. Bowen, of Shoal Creek, was accused of harboring bush-whackers and hanged up until almost at the point of death, for the purpose of extracting from him some statement relating to the rebels.  Capt. William Ray's State Militia were the actors in this grim joke. . . .  J. Y. Thomas was taken prisoner by the Federals while sick at his refuge in Arkansas.  Maj. Moore's company left a boy there to watch him, with instructions to shoot the old man.  The boy Davis told Mr. McConnell the facts of the case, stating that Thomas asked his executioner to be sure and kill at the first shot. . . .

NOTE

Lt. Christian, Captain Ray and Major Moore were all part of the 76th EMM, 7th PEMM and 15th Missouri Cavalry group operating in Barry and Newton counties, Missouri.  Christian was in the Newton County companies and Ray in the Barry County companies, while Moore was the battalion commander over both counties.  Goodspeed's attributes many more killings simply to Federal troops.  Given his reputation, it seems likely that Christian was involved in more than a few of these incidents.

SOURCE:  Goodspeed's History of Barry County, Missouri (1888), pages 75-78.

Robert Christian, who was first lieutenant of Capt. Ritchey's company, known among the Confederates as 'Old Grizzley,' was captured at Newtonia, October 8 [actually October 28], 1864, and while in the act of being taken off the field, the son of a man who had previously been killed by Christian came up, and crying out, 'Let me shoot the _____ that killed my father,' fired at the prisoner repeatedly, killing him instantly.  It is said that the slayer of Christian scalped him, and for years after carried the scalp around Texas.  In connection with this terrible reminisence of the war, it is related that when Christian killed the rebel (old man Moore) he took the head home to show his family, and his wife, seeing the head without the ears, gave birth to a child without ears.

NOTE

According to correspondence with Lt. Christian's great, great grandson, Lt. Christian's son Robert was born with a deformed right ear, giving rise to the various legends on this subject.

For more information on Captain Ritchey, see these biographical notes.

SOURCE:  Goodspeed's History of Newton County, Missouri (1888), page 262.

My parents were Samuel and Poly Moore, nee Beeler, both born and raised and married in East Tennessee, near Knoxville.

I was the youngest of several children and was born February 7, 1854 on Indian Creek in Newton County, Missouri...

We left our Missouri home the last year of the War, after Price made his raid from Missouri to Texas, and our family moved to Texas and stayed till after the War.

Old Bob Christian, who lived near Newtonia, Missouri, was the head of a bunch that bushwacked in our part of the county.  They robbed, stole, and killed; burned houses and tortured as well.

Old Bob, trying to force the women to tell where the men were, would pull off the finger nails of the women with bullet molds.  He would go so far in his torture as to cut off their ears.

He and his bunch burned our house twice and would not let us save anything; he forced us to stand by and see our home and all our belongings burn; our beds, bedding and what we had to eat as well as the children's clothes, etc.

He hated my father, as we were rebels, and when Uncle Lewis Moore came or rather stopped to see his step-mother, Bob Christian thought Uncle Lewis was my father.  Bob shot Uncle Lewis and then, hanging his body to a tree, shot it to pieces.

After that, on the way to our house this raiding party met my Sister Nan, who lived near, and Bob said to her, "I am the man that killed your G__d__ Daddy."

Reaching our house, they set fire to it.  He struck my mother over the head with a fire chunk, and she carried to her grave a big scar of the burn.

Shortly after that, Father met Bob and told him, "I am going to kill you for killing Lewis."  He shot and crippled him, disarming him.  Bob begged him not to kill him, but was told that he was going to get some of the torture that he had been giving others.  Father scalped him while he was still alive and hollering.  Afterwards he took the scalp, washed it in the creek, rolled it up and put it in his pocket.  General Price had offered a reward for the capture of Christian, but my father's hatred of Bob for the murder of Uncle Lewis was so intense that he killed him instead of taking him alive...

Sitting before the fire that evening with Mother sitting on his right, he pulled the rolled up scalp from his pocket and tossed the roll into her lap.  She drew back and the scalp fell to the hearth and partially unrolled.  In the light of the fire, she saw it, and she said, "That's Bob Christian's scalp."  He made me dry it before the fire and when he left he had a square of the skin just above and in front of each ear fastened on each side of this bridle.

Bill, a son of Bob Christian, was born with only one ear.  Shortly after this, my family went to Texas...

NOTE

Samuel Moore, the slayer of Bob Christian, was alleged to have been a member of Quantrill's band and was himself killed by John Lacey and H. W. Goodykoontz in Newton County in 1867.  One of the Beelers was shot and killed from the brush on the Neosho/Pineville road a few months later by unknown parties.

SOURCES:  Interview #7604 of F. L. Moore (Pioneer Stage Driver) Indian-Pioneer Papers, Vol. 37 p.92-95.  There are two versions of these papers bound in a different order.  An online index shows this interview in volume 64.  Ken Martin brought the item to my attention.  The Samuel Moore and Beeler killings were reported in the Missouri Weekly Patriot published at Springfield.

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