Words on Fire

In May, 1861, when Kelso stood in front of his hometown’s courthouse, voiced support for the Union, and denounced his secessionist neighbors as traitors, he had a lot to lose. He had remarried, graduated from college, opened his own school, and lived with his wife and three children on a beautiful little farm in Buffalo, Missouri. But conscience and a sense of virtuous manhood made him declare his unpopular political sentiments as Missouri fractured with the beginning of the Civil War. A week later he interrupted a secessionist rally and, risking getting shot down in front of a crowd of angry, armed men, gave a rousing speech to rally Unionists to the American flag. He became a major in the Home Guard militia, but then, after the disastrous Union loss at the Battle of Wilson’s Creek, headed to the state capital to join the Union army.