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 [decorative delimiter] Class of 1857

Vol. II
p692 1783

(Born Va.)

John T. Magruder

(Ap'd at Large)

24

Military History. — Cadet at the Military Academy, July 1, 1853, to July 1, 1857, when he was graduated and promoted in the Army to

Bvt. Second Lieut. of Cavalry, July 1, 1857.

Served at the Cavalry School for Practice, Carlisle, Pa., 1857‑58.

Died, June 28, 1858, at Maryville, Neb.: Aged 21.⁠a

Buried, Camp Floyd Cemetery, Fairfield, UT.

Thayer's Note:

a That Lt. Magruder should have died in Nebraska when he was posted to Pennsylvania may catch our attention; the Find-a‑Grave page linked to above states that he was killed in a cavalry charge against Mormons, but also includes a photostat of a notice that appeared in the Sacramento Daily Union, Aug. 17, 1858:

Information has been received of the sudden death of Lieut. Magruder, of Washington City, while on his way to Great Salt Lake with the Utah army. His death was caused by another man, a quarrel having arose between them, which resulted in the shooting of Lieut. Magruder. His parents reside at Washington.

Although Lieut. Magruder is not given his first name in the article, there is no doubt he is our graduate: Heitman's Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army lists no other Army officer by that last name who died in 1858. If then — as seems likely to me — the news­paper notice is accurate and Gen. Cullum intentionally chose to ignore it, the question then becomes, "Why?"

The July 23, 1858 issue of Cooper's Clarksburg Register among its miscellaneous army news includes the following report that might explain Cullum's silence:

Further from the Utah Army. — A letter in the St. Louis Democrat, dated "head-quarters of the sixth column, camp on Big Blue, July 2d," states that the murderer of Lieutenant Magruder had been tried and acquitted by the citizens of Marysville.º Subsequently Lieutenants Crittenden and Indicates a West Point graduate, Class of 1858: a link to his biographical entry in Cullum's Register.Ingraham, with seventy-five men, were sent in pursuit of the murderer, but failed to find him. The letter adds:

On the 29 Lieut. Magruder was buried. The whole of the 6th column turned out and followed his remains in solemn funeral procession. Dr. J. R. Smith officiated as chaplain in the funeral service. The last resting place of the deceased is on the point of a considerable eminence, overlooking the surrounding country. To‑day they are erecting a large stone mound over the grave.

I haven't a shred of evidence for the following, but we can harmonize "cavalry charge against Mormons" and "murder" to some extent by imagining that in the notoriously wild frontier town there was some kind of brawl between Lt. Magruder of the U. S. Army and a Mormon, more likely a local civilian than a soldier, and maybe even involving a horse; which could be viewed as either a hostile cavalry attack or a murder depending on one's sympathies, and account both for a civilian court finding the killer innocent and Magruder's fellow soldiers tracking the man down as a murderer.

Finally, and more factually, it should be noted that there is (and was) no town named either Maryville or Marysville in Nebraska. The town is Marysville, Kansas; although it's very near the Nebraska border.

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