Historioetl IRe-vie-w , The State Historical Society of Missouri COLUMBIA, MISSOURI Thomas Hart Benton's oil-on-canvas paint­ ing entitled "Prelude to Death" is on loan from the artist for the Society's current ex­ hibit, "Conflict: Men, Events and Artists." Benton made the sketches for the painting, sometime in August 1942, at an embarkation dock in the Brooklyn area when American troops were departing for the first Allied landing in North Africa during World War II. The 5'3" x 8' painting was completed three months later. Benton's "Prelude to Death" and its com­ panion painting "Negro Soldier" plus his propaganda series "The Year of Peril" can be viewed in the Society's Art Gallery, 8:00 a.m.- 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. V5g::::::!::::::!::::::::::::::?::::t:::::!::::t:::::::::::::::t MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVIEW Published Quarterly by THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI COLUMBIA, MISSOURI RICHARD S. BROWNLEE EDITOR DOROTHY CALDWELL ASSOCIATE EDITOR JAMES W. GOODRICH ASSOCIATE EDITOR The MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVIEW is owned by the State Historical Society of Missouri and is published quarterly at 201 South Eighth Street, Columbia, Missouri 65201. Send communi­ cations, business and editorial correspondence and change of address to The State Historical Society of Missouri, Corner of Hitt and Lowry Streets, Columbia, Missouri 65201. Second class postage is paid at Columbia, Missouri. The REVIEW is sent free to all members of The State Historical Society of Missouri. Membership dues in the Society are $2.00 a year or $40 for an individual life membership. The Society assumes VOLUME LXVI no responsibility for statements made by contributors to the magazine. NUMBER 3 APRIL 1972 THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI The State Historical Society of Missouri, heretofore organized under the laws of the State, shall be the trustee of this State—Laws of Missouri, 1899, R.S. of Mo., 1959, Chapter 183. OFFICERS 1971-1974 WILLIAM AULL III, Lexington, President L. E. MEADOR, Springfield, First Vice President RUSSELL V. DYE, Liberty, Second Vice President JACK STAPLETON, SR., Stanberry, Third Vice President MRS. AVIS TUCKER, Warrensburg, Fourth Vice President REV. JOHN F. BANNON, S.J., St. Louis, Fifth Vice President SHERIDAN A. LOGAN, St. Joseph, Sixth Vice President ALBERT M. PRICE, Columbia. Treasurer FLOYD C. SHOEMAKER, Columbia, Secretary Emeritus and Consultant RICHARD S. BROWNLEE, Columbia, Director, Secretary and Librarian TRUSTEES Permanent Trustees, Former Presidents of the Society RUSH H. LIMBAUGH, Cape Girardeau *E. E. SWAIN, Kirksville GEORGE A. ROZIER, Jefferson City T. BALLARD WAITERS, Marshfield LEO J. ROZIER, Perryville ROY D. WILLIAMS, Boonville Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1972 GEORGE MCCUE, St. Louis RONALD L. SOMERVILLE, Chillicothe L. E. MEADOR, Springfield JACK STAPLETON, SR., Stanberry W. WALLACE SMITH, Independence HENRY C. THOMPSON, Bonne Terre ROBERT M. WHITE, Mexico Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1973 WILLIAM AULL III, Lexington ALFRED O. FUERBRINGF.R, St. Louis JAMES W. BROWN, Harrisonville JAMES OLSON, Kansas City WILLIAM R. DENSLOW. Trenton JAMES TODD, Moberly ELMER ELLIS, Columbia T. BALLARD WAITERS, Marshfield Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1974 LEWIS E. ATHERTON, Columbia R. I. COI.BORN, Paris ROBERT A. BOWLING, Montgomery City W. W. DALTON, St. Louis FRANK P. BRIGGS, Macon RICHARD B. FOWLER, Kansas City HENRY A. BUNDSCHU, Independence VICTOR A. GIERKE, Louisiana EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE The twenty-nine Trustees, the President and the Secretary of the Society, the Governor, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, and President of the University of Missouri constitute the Executive Committee. FINANCE COMMITTEE Five members of the Executive Committee appointed by the President, who by virtue of his office constitutes the sixth member, compose the Finance Committee. ELMER ELLIS, Columbia, Chairman WILLIAM AULL III, Lexington GEORGE A. ROZIER. Jefferson City WILLIAM R. DENSLOW, Trenton LEO J. ROZIER, Perryville T. BALLARD WAITERS, Marshfield •Deceased P«llglK&!l^^ NEW SOCIETY MEMBERSHIPS The State Historical Society of Missouri is always interested in obtaining new members. For more than seventy years thousands of Missourians who have be­ longed to the Society have been responsible primarily for building its great research collections and libraries. They have given it the support which makes it the largest organization of its type in the United States. The quest for interested new members goes on continually, and your help is solicited in obtaining them. In every family, and in every community, there are individuals who are sincerely interested in the collection, preservation and dissemination of the his­ tory of Missouri. Why not nominate these people for membership? Annual dues are only $2.00, Life Memberships $40.00. Richard S. Brownlee Director and Secretary State Historical Society of Missouri Hitt and Lowry Streets Columbia, Missouri 65201 CONTENTS PORTRAIT OF A WESTERN FARMER: JOHN LOCKE HARDEMAN OF MISSOURI, 1809-1858. By Nicholas P. Hardeman 319 CONSERVATION OF A BINGHAM PORTRAIT. By Sidney Larson 336 THE NATURE OF AN IMMIGRANT COMMUNITY: ST. LOUIS GERMANS, 1850-1920. By Sister Audrey Olson 342 How TO BECOME A UNION GENERAL WITHOUT MILITARY EXPERIENCE. By James E. Kirby, Jr 360 DAVID RANKIN "CATTLE KING" OF MISSOURI. By Dorothy J. Caldwell 377 DISINHERITED OR RURAL? A HISTORICAL CASE STUDY IN URBAN HOLINESS RELIGION. By Charles Edwin Jones 395 PRESIDENT TRUMAN'S COMMITTEE ON CIVIL RIGHTS: THE URBAN IMPLICATIONS. By Philip H. Vaughan 413 THE ST. LOUIS TORNADO OF 1896. By Mary K. Dains 431 HISTORICAL NOTES AND COMMENTS Editorial Policy 451 Views from the Past: Missouri Mills 452 News in Brief 454 Local Historical Societies 457 Errata 469 Gifts 470 Missouri History in Newspapers 474 Missouri History in Magazines 478 In Memoriam 48] BOOK REVIEWS 483 BOOK NOTES 487 CHAUTAUQUA DAYS. By Edna McElhiney Olson 491 JESSIE BENTON FREMONT Inside Back Cover George Caleb Bingham's Portrait of John Locke Hardeman, A recent Society acquisition Portrait of a Western Farmer: John Locke Hardeman of Missouri, 1809-1858 BY NICHOLAS P. HARDEMAN* * Nicholas P. Hardeman is a professor of History at California State College, Long Beach. He received his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. 319 320 Missouri Historical Review Risking life and fortune on far frontiers was a Hardeman family trait for a century and a half. But John Locke Hardeman, or Locke, as he was called, was more cautious than his westward wandering kin. "To be a Californian is, with us, equivalent to being a bankrupt," he chided his brother Glen who had joined the gold rush, "and the man [who returns from that place] at best is looked upon much in the light of one who has lately obtained his enlargement [release] from an assylum [sic] for the insane and we rejoice over his re­ covery."1 Nor was Locke's caution confined to his view of frontier- ing. Whether in relation to career, place of abode, business, war, politics, or love, he moved with indecision, with reluctance. It was ironic that he suffered an earlier death than most of his headstrong, venturesome relatives who gambled with the untamed West. The well-known Missouri artist, George Caleb Bingham, pic­ tured John Locke Hardeman with a serious countenance and with the prominent nose and chin characteristic of the Hardeman family. (See portrait, page 319.) The Binghams and Hardemans were long­ time friends in Central Missouri. John Locke's brother, Dr. Glen O. Hardeman, performed medical services for several members of the Bingham family in the Saline County area.2 Family legend holds that Locke was tall and straight. One of his acquaintances remembers his appearance best as striding across his fields, walk­ ing stick in hand.8 His acreage near Arrow Rock was the center of Locke Harde­ man's occupational focus. To be sure, he dabbled in law, specula­ tion, inventions and politics, but he was born to the life of the gentleman farmer and he would live his life and breathe his last in that role. He had the landed gentry's usual hunger for culture and the aristocracy's sense of stewardship, coupled with a sense of history. Those who would achieve lasting fame, he believed, had to write.4 "Think that, when you are writing," he told his brother, "you are recording thoughts that may be perused by the curious of future ages."5 Locke himself wrote, and wrote well i J. Locke Hardeman to Glen O. Hardeman, August 26, 1851, Glen Harde­ man Papers, State Historical Society of Missouri Manuscripts Collection, Colum­ bia, Missouri. Glen was in California at this time. 2 Glen O. Hardeman Medical Record Book, Glen Hardeman Papers. 3 J. H. Cordell to Glen O. Hardeman, December 19, 1858, Glen Hardeman Papers. 4 J. Locke Hardeman to Glen O. Hardeman, February 24, 1841, Glen Harde­ man Papers. 5 Ibid., January 25, 1841. though not voluminously, and he carefully preserved large quantities of docu­ ments on the family his­ tory.6 At the knee of his af­ fectionate grandfather, Thomas Hardeman, Locke learned something of the family history, and he com­ mitted it to paper in his literate style shortly after Thomas's death.7 From roots in England, Wales and the Isle of Wight, the Hardemans branched across the Atlantic to Vir­ ginia, probably in the 1680s. Thomas Hardeman was born in Albemarle Courtesy Ruth Rollins Westfall County, Virginia, in 1750. George Caleb Bingham At the age of eighteen, he joined a small group of long hunters and trekked to the Cumber­ land Basin of the future Tennessee. After moving to the Holston Valley, and doing a stint of soldiering in the American Revolution, including the Battle of King's Mountain,8 Thomas Hardeman took his family on a perilous flatboat trip down the Holston and Ten­ nessee rivers, up the Ohio, and up the Cumberland to a point about three miles from the present Nashville.