The Fatal Tree

In Bloomfield during the summer of 1862, an elm known as "The Fatal Tree" stood as a grim symbol of violence in a war-weary community. A July 3, 1862, Missouri Democrat article reported seeing the tree on which Lowe had hanged three Union men, describing its bent trunk, the visible rope marks, and the shallow graves where the bodies had been left only partly covered, with bones exposed as a reminder of their deaths. The next day, Pvt. Josiah Ripley White of the 1st Wisconsin Cavalry wrote from a camp outside town that Bloomfield had once had about 1000 inhabitants before the Rebellion, that many had left and some were returning, and that he could see the same tree and the graves nearby. He wrote that men suspected of Unionism had been forced to join the Secessionists or face hanging or shooting, and that dead Union men had been left unburied in the woods. White also recounted that Pomroy had placed ropes on the same tree to hang three Secessionists in retaliation for the killing of Doc Gregory, with coffins before them and caps over their eyes, but ultimately did not carry out the execution.

Bloomfield, Missouri · United States