“Memorial and Biographical History of Dallas County,” published:  
Chicago;  The Lewis Publishing Company, 1892.

COLONEL JOHN M. STEMMONS, deceased, was born in Logan county, 
Kentucky, August 21, 1830.  His parents were well-to-do in their possession 
of this world’s goods, but they appreciated the importance of labor in all the 
successes of life, and consequently trained their children to work with their 
hands as well as with their minds.  At the proper age Colonel Stemmons was 
placed in the Cumberland College, in Princeton, Kentucky, where he 
received a collegiate education, and at once began the study of law, under 
the tutorship of the Hon. F. M. Bristow, father of the gentleman who served 
in President Grant’s cabinet, as Secretary of the Treasury.  Having 
acquainted himself with the elementary principles, and with the great authors 
in legal literature, he at once entered the law department at Lebanon, 
Tennessee, where he graduated, and at once set out to build for himself the 
honor- able name and enviable reputation he afterward enjoyed.  He located 
at Greenfield, Missouri, September 10, 1855, and was not long in forming 
acquaintances and in establishing himself in the paying practice of his 
profession.  In politics Colonel Stemmons was devoted to the principles and 
teachings of the old-time Whig party, and as a member of the same he 
supported Bell and Everett in the great campaign of 1860.  With the defeat 
that followed that canvas, and the victory that perched upon the banners of 
the Republican party, he saw the signs of war, and began to prepare for the 
struggle that followed.

He was in sympathy with the South and when Colonel Clarkson’s Fifth 
Regiment of Missouri State Guards was organized, the name of John M. 
Stemmons appeared in the list of its privates.  This command was one of the 
first to gather round the standard that was raised by that fearless chieftain, 
General Sterling Price, when he drew from its scabbard his trusty sword and 
rushed to the South.  Thirteen days after his enlistment Colonel Stemmons 
was promoted to the rank of Captain, and assigned to duty as a staff officer, 
in which capacity he witnessed the overthrow of General Lyon, at Wilson’s 
creek, where General Price and McCulloch gained one of the signal victories 
of the late war.  Colonel M. W. Buster, then Adjutant of Clarkson’s 
regiment, having been disabled by a bayonet wound in this engagement, 
Colonel Stemmons was ordered to take his place, and as such he bore 
himself gallantly in the engagement at Dry Woods, which soon followed.  It 
was Clarkson’s regiment that brought on this battle, and for over thirty 
minutes, in the open prairie, it withstood the onslaught of the entire Federal 
force with its line unbroken.  Colonel Stemmons had his horse wounded 
under him in this engagement.  In all the marches and counter-marches made 
by General Price in 1861, and in all the battles and skirmishes he fought with 
the enemy, Colonel Stemmons bore his part, and when the enlistment of the 
regiment expired, he declined to lay down his arms, and again enlisted as a 
private in a battalion of State troops.  While serving as a picket, with no 
notice or knowledge of the compliment he was receiving, he was elected 
Lieutenant Colonel of the command, and as its leader he rode at its head at 
the battle of Elk Horn, in Arkansas, where he was slightly wounded. 

The term of enlistment of this regiment expiring in a short time, Colonel 
Stemmons volunteered for the third time as a private soldier, but this time he 
went into the Confederate army, determined that whatever destiny might fall 
upon the South the same should be his fate.  He did not long remain a 
private, for just as the battle of Lone Jack was coming on, he was elected to 
the Captaincy of a splendid company, which he led in this engagement.  The 
Colonel was severely, and by his surgeon pronounced fatally, wounded in 
this battle, and before his recovery the country fell into the hands of the 
enemy, and he became a prisoner of war while endeavoring to pass their 
lines.  He was sent to the military prison on Gratiot street, St. Louis, which 
place he reached during the Christmas week of 1862.  There were ninety-one 
Confederate prisoners sent into St. Louis, none of them more than half-
clothed, and all forced to march through deep snow, to wade all the streams 
that appeared along their route, without even being permitted to take off 
their shoes, and at night they were forbidden to secure a sufficiency of wood 
to keep them warm against a terrible winter.  After reaching Springfield, in 
the face of fierce snow storm, those ninety-one heroes were run into St. 
Louis on flat cars, exposed to every torture that could be inflicted by winds 
that pierced like icicles their emaciated forms; and when the prison was at 
last reached one of their party fell dead at the door, while their persons were 
being searched for arms.  Major Campbell, of the Eighteenth Iowa 
Regiment, commanded the escort, and to his credit be it said that he 
denounced in unmeasured terms the brutality of the prison commanders in 
not providing some sort of shelter and protection for the prisoners.  In less 
than two months thirty-five of these men were called to their final rest, but 
they breathed their last as Confederates, preferring death rather than 
disgrace.

Colonel Stemmons made his escape from this prison with two others, and in 
finding his way back to the Southern Army experienced some of the rarest 
evidences of patriotic devotion at the hands of the women of Missouri, and 
one of her most gifted sons.  He was clad in good clothes, mounted upon a 
reliable buggy horse, and having received all the information and directions 
necessary, he set out for Little Rock, where he rejoined his command.  He 
was again wounded, shortly afterward, in the battle of Helena, and was one 
of the few who escaped death or capture in the terrible slaughter that 
followed in the charge upon Fort Curtis.  When General Banks undertook his 
Red River expedition, Colonel Stemmons was in the number of those who 
opposed him.  He served in all the campaigns conducted by Kirby Smith, 
and surrendered at Shreveport, where he was Lieutenant Colonel of the 
Sixteenth Regiment of Missouri Infantry, and as such brought the command 
to St. Louis, where it was disbanded.  The Colonel went to Richmond, where 
he joined his wife and children, but was permitted to enjoy only a few days 
of peace, surrounded by his family.  He was arrested by militiamen, 
commanded by Fletcher, under some pretext, and not fancying the company 
that was thus unceremoniously thrust upon him, effected his escape and 
went to Illinois.  Having no money he engaged with a Mr. French, who 
resided eight miles west of Springfield, and was put by him to cutting corn, 
at the rate of fifty cents per shock, at which he was able to earn from $1.40 
to $1.65 per day.  He was not long in finding out that Mr. French was a 
Southern sympathizer, and he told him his true story, and gratefully accepted 
the position of schoolmaster, which his new-made friend was able to secure 
for him, at a point some eighteen miles east of Springfield.  He taught this 
school under, an assumed name, until he was able to defray his expenses to 
Oxford, Mississippi, where he again obtained employment as a teacher, and 
in the meantime sent for his family to join him in his new home and new 
sphere of section.  Being unable to see any remuneration from the practice of 
his profession, and being desirous of returning to it, he determined to 
emigrate to Texas, which he accordingly did.  May 16, 1868, he reached 
Dallas, and at once established his home in this city, with less than $80 in his 
pocket.  His subsequent success teaches its own lesson.  Colonel Stemmons 
became one of the leading men in this community, capable as a lawyer, true 
as a friend, and enterprising as a citizen.  In testimony of his great personal 
worth, the following episode of the war, in which he bore a prominent part, 
is here committed for the first time in print:

During his captivity the army was reorganized under General Hindman, who 
issued orders that no one should be elected to office unless present and ready 
for duty.  In the face of this order his old company unanimously re-elected 
him to be its Captain.  Gen. Hindman disapproved of the election and 
ordered another, but his men without a dissenting voice again named him as 
their leader, and this time the General approved of their action.  For this 
expression of their regard Colonel Stemmons declined the Lieutenant-
colonelcy of a cavalry regiment, preferring to remain a Captain with men 
who had proved themselves so sincere in their friendship for him.

In 1857 Colonel Stemmons married Rebecca Serena, a daughter of Judge 
Matthias W. and Mary A. Allison, of Greenfield, Dad county, Missouri.  To 
this union were born ten children, as follows: Walter E., born in 1858; 
Beverly L., born in 1860, married Miss Addie Ballard, and was accidentally 
killed in 1890; Harriet Ann, born in 1863, married William L. McDonald, 
who died in 1888; Mary Belle, born in 1867, died when young; Lillia 
Belsterling, born in 1869, died in childhood; Cora Lucille, born in 1872; 
Leslie A., born in 1874; John J., born in 1878, died in infancy; Sidney A., 
born in 1879; Robert L., in 1882.  Judge Allison died in Missouri in 1877, 
and his widow, who was born in 1803, now resides with her daughter, Mrs. 
Stemmons.  Colonel Stemmons died of consumption May 4, 1890, and was 
buried with distinguished honors.

Submitted by: Justina Cook