Ebenezer "Ben" Magoffin was a Confederate officer in the American Civil War who carried a Missouri State Guard's colonel's commission and became a prominent figure in the early phase of the war in Missouri.
11 Facts About Ebenezer Magoffin
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Ebenezer Magoffin was sentenced to death by a Union Army military commission in 1862, but was spared execution after Kentucky Governor Beriah Magoffin pleaded for the life of his brother with Abraham Lincoln.
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Ebenezer Magoffin was born in Harrodsburg, Kentucky to Beriah Magoffin, Sr.
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In May 1861, Ebenezer Magoffin presented himself to Missouri Governor Claiborne F Jackson and received an instruction to raise a regiment of cavalry for the Missouri State Guard.
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The regiment took part in the Battle of Boonville under the command of Major Thomas E Staples while Magoffin stayed at his farm; he joined his regiment in the Battle of Carthage where he acted as an aide to Governor Jackson.
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Ebenezer Magoffin raised another regiment for General Price on Jackson's request, of which he was elected a colonel.
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Frederick Steele, Union Army of the West to see his wife who was dying; Union military authorities assumed that Ebenezer Magoffin asked for and was paroled.
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On his return from Prairie Lea, Magoffin was taken prisoner with his two sons, Elijah H Magoffin, 24 years old, and Beriah Magoffin, 19 years old, at Milford, Johnson County, Missouri, while traveling with a detachment of Confederate troops under Col.
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On orders of Union General Henry W Halleck, commanding the Department of Missouri, Ebenezer Magoffin was brought to St Louis and charged with the murder of Sergeant Glasgow in Georgetown in August 1861 and violation of his alleged parole after rejoining the Confederates.
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Lincoln suspended the sentence pending review but Ebenezer Magoffin escaped Alton Prison, where he had been confined, on July 25,1862.
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Elijah Ebenezer Magoffin traced the killer from Arkansas to Texas and hanged him to avenge his father's death.