I am out of town, and our museum is closed today, so I am going to share an old post again. This one was originally intended to be posted on the Fouth of July in 2018, but there were some glitches that made that impossible. This post was written by our friend, Fred Eggers, who spent much time researching this story about a Perry County connection to the Civil War.
This post tells the story of 3 Luckey boys originally from Brazeau, Missouri who went off to fight in the Civil War. I know many of you have heard stories about how brothers from the same family went off to this war with one serving in the Union Army and one serving in the Confederate Army. In this tale, 2 Luckey boys fought for the North and one, Joseph Luckey, fought for the South. A local legend (possibly true) states that these 3 boys met at Brazeau Presbyterian Church to shake hands before parting their ways to serve in 2 competing armies.
On this year’s Independence Day, perhaps you can take a step back to the year 1863 when 2 major battles were taking place during the Civil War. One was the famous Battle of Gettysburg, and the other was the Battle of Vicksburg. That day has gone down in the history books as a pivotal day in the War Between the States. For Joseph Luckey, it was on July 4, 1863 that he was wounded and became a prisoner of war when he was captured during another clash that took place a few hundred miles north of Vicksburg, the Battle of Helena, Arkansas
I happen to be in Memphis today, so I am not far from that place where a Perry County boy was taken prisoner on this Independence Day 161 years ago. However, I guess you could say it was not a day to celebrate freedom for Joseph Luckey.
