JAMES D. BRANCH

(From the History of Callaway County Missouri, 1884, page 761)
Transcribed by Kris Breid, 18 December 2004

JAMES D. BRANCH,
a gallant soldier of the Union during the late war, and an industrious farmer of Cedar township, was born in this county in 1841, and was the eldest of nine children of J.S. Branch and wife, previously Miss Mary A. Auglan. The others were Martha A., John W., Mary J., Reuben L., Samuel M., William W., Thomas J., and Amanda E. James D. grew up on his father's farm in this county, and received a fair education in the common schools.

In the first part of the war he took no active part either way, although his sympathies were strongly with the North, but it finally became impossible to stay at home; the bushwhackers became too intolerant and bloodthirsty. One morning while Mr. Branch was riding his horses to water, he was attacked by a squad of bushwhackers, commanded by Jim Brooks, who fired on him, shooting him through the breast and in the foot and leaving him for dead. They then rode on to the house and told his wife (he was then living on the Johnson place, in this township) that they had probably killed her husband, as the whole squad had fired a number of shots each at him, and that she could find his body on the way to the watering place. Such cowardice and bloodthirstiness surpassed in infamy any possible power of characterization, and illustrates to what depths of moral depravity men may fall. Some of these were neighbors with whom he had been reared, with whom he had gone to school and passed many happy hours in boyish sports and play; yet inspired by the evil genius of the war, for no cause (for he had never harmed a hair of their heads, nor an atom of their possessions), they sought to murder him in cold blood while he was unarmed and defenceless. [sic] Could not the still small voice of conscience stay their hands, as she said to each—

“Cast not the clouded gem away.
Quench not the dim but living ray—
My brother man, Beware!
With that deep voice which form the skies
Forbade the Patriarch’s sacrifice,
God’s angel cries Forbear!”

Impossible longer to remain at home, Mr. Branch went North, and in March, 1864, enlisted at Davenport, Iowa, in the 5th Iowa Cavalry, and served until the close of the war, being honorably discharged at Nashville, Tennessee, August 11, 1865. He was in company C, commanded by Capt. Charles A.B. Langdon, and participated in all the battles and nearly all the skirmishes fought during the Atlanta campaign, or Sherman’s march to the sea, and in Wilson’s raid through Georgia and Atlanta.

After the war Mr. Branch returned to Callaway county and engaged in farming, which he has since followed with satisfactory success. He has a neat farm of 80 acres, substantially improved, and is one of the energetic farmers and well-respected citizens of the township. In June, 1862, Mr. Branch was married to Miss Isabella Johnson, a daughter of J.J.P. Johnson, formerly of Ohio, but who came to Missouri in 1865. Mr. B. and wife have eight children, Charles W., Albert J., George F., Samuel W., Lemuel H., Merod J., Missouri B., and James L.

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