Editor’s note: This is the final installment of a three-part series on the restoration of the Big Blue Battlefield in Kansas City, Missouri. The engagement on the Big Blue Battlefield was pivotal in the larger Battle of Westport, an October 1864 clash that effectively ended organized Confederate military operations in Missouri. As the years receded, a continuum of reconciliation following the Battle of Westport can be traced forward from the late 19th century. There was the 1897 death and Kansas City funeral for Joseph O. (J.O.) Shelby, a Confederate commander who had fought at the battle. Prominent among those attending Shelby’s graveside services was John Philips, the same Union cavalry commander who had helped drive Confederate forces from Bloody Hill in 1864. Joseph O. Shelby (Courtesy | Missouri Valley Special Collections) “When Shelby died John Philips gave the eulogy,” Daniel Smith, Monnett Battle of Westport chair, noted at an Oct. 3 unveiling ceremony for new interpretative panels at the Big Blue Battlefield at 4800 E. 63rd St. It’s complicated. A lawyer from Pettis County, Philips had attended the 1861 Missouri State Convention, during which delegates voted overwhelmingly to not secede from the Union. “Philips was not an abolitionist but he was for the Union,” said Dick Titterington, treasurer of the Civil War Round Table of Kansas City. Elected to Congress in 1875, Philips left office two years later and practiced as a lawyer in Kansas City.  Previous Installments A Better Big Blue Battlefield | Part I A Better Big Blue Battlefield in Kansas City | Part II In 1888 President Grover Cleveland nominated him to serve as a judge for the U.S. District Court of Western Missouri. Five years earlier Philips had served as a member of the successful defense team during the Gallatin, Missouri, murder trial of Frank James, older brother of Jesse James. Serving as a trial witness on behalf of Frank James had been Shelby; both he and Philips were on the same side in the courtroom. Following the Union victory at Westport and the end of the war the following April, Shelby had taken some of his forces to Mexico.  But he had returned to western Missouri in 1867 to work farms in Lafayette and Bates counties, near Kansas City. In 1893 Shelby had been appointed U.S. Marshal for the Western District of the U.S. District Court in Kansas City — where Philips served as a federal judge. Shelby and Philips were on the same side again. “Philips is a U.S. district judge and Shelby is his marshal,” said Smith. “It was total Kumbuya.” The Burial Before his interment at Forest Hill Cemetery, veterans of both the Union and Confederate forces stood as honor guards at Shelby’s casket at the Kansas City federal building at Ninth and Walnut streets. A long procession, including many Union and Confederate veterans, then began to Forest Hill Cemetery. Reconciliation continued in the years that followed. In 1912 veterans signed in at the Harris House hotel on the northeast corner of Westport Road and Pennsylvania Avenue for a nine-day observance called the “Westport Reunion.” That would include a re-enactment of the struggle on “The Meadow” from 48 years before. One Union veteran wearing blue, noticing the Confederate badge of a man beside him at the registration desk, said it was better for both of them that their much younger selves were not meeting at that moment. “ ‘Yes,’ laughed the Confederate,” a reporter for the Kansas City Star recorded. “ ‘Times have changed and they ought to.’ “ A reported 30,000 spectators later converged on Swope Park to watch the “sham battle,” or re-enactment of the Big Blue clash. More Commemorations In 1926 a meeting to demonstrate support for a Kansas City military park attracted 10 Union veterans along with four Confederate veterans to an organizational meeting at a Westport restaurant. Upon the battle’s centennial in 1964, a crowd of about 500 gathered in Loose Park to dedicate memorials and listen to a speech by Missouri Gov. John Dalton. Upon the 125th anniversary of the Battle of Westport in 1989, Civil War re-enactors staged another mock battle at Swope Park. (Courtesy | Missouri Valley Special Collections) In 1989, on the battle’s 125th anniversary, living history interpreters staged another re-enactment at Swope Park. Tours this past Oct. 19 marked the battle’s 160th anniversary. “The Battle of Westport signaled the beginning of the reconciliation of our people that allowed us to have a much greater triumph than we might have had individually,” Smith said. In 1896, according to Smith, Confederate commander Shelby — a year before his death — remarked, “We probably could have resolved this dispute in a better way.” Coolness and dash Lt. Patrick Henry Minor [a Black Union officer introduced in Part I of the series] didn’t live to see the Confederacy’s April 1865 surrender. He died the month before at age 36, possibly from pneumonia. The Leavenworth Bulletin on March 30 reported that Minor had “never recovered from the fatigues and exposures” he experienced during the Battle of Westport the previous October. The uncommonly cold temperatures in late October had been accompanied with occasional light snow as well as a consistent drizzle. Union troops, like those of the Confederacy, suffered accordingly. Nevertheless Minor, according to the Leavenworth Daily Times, had commanded his two-gun artillery battery “with coolness and dash.” Relegated to Tents After October 23, Minor’s battery had joined the chase of Confederate forces retreating to the south, following them into northwest Arkansas before turning around. The path back north in early November featured much of the same wintry mix. But even after the battery’s return, its members found little shelter from it. “Minor’s command was relegated to tents on the grounds of Fort Leavenworth,” said Smith. “If Minor had been housed in a barrack at the fort, it is reasonable to assume his chances of recovery from the respiratory illness would have been greatly increased.” Further, Union Gen. Samuel R. Curtis — who originally had received permission to commission a Black artillery battery commanded by Black officers — had left Fort Leavenworth in February, Smith said. “One might speculate that had Curtis remained, Minor would have received better care,” he added.  Clarence Franklin, Jr. of Independence portrayed Lt. Patrick Henry Minor during the Oct. 19, 2024, commemoration tours at the Big Blue Battlefield. (Brian Burnes | Flatland) “My less-than-charitable view is that Minor ultimately died due to racist attitudes.” After Minor’s death 160 members of Minor’s artillery battery, plus many of Leavenworth’s Black residents, followed his coffin’s carriage through the streets to the Church of the Immaculate Conception.  There a priest delivered a sermon that, according to the Leavenworth Bulletin, “was most Catholic in its spirit — very explicit in its recognition of the whole human family…Christ died for all, without distinction of race or color…” Portraying Minor at battlefield tours last month, at the Monnett Fund’s invitation, was Clarence Franklin, Jr. The 53-year-old Independence resident, a case manager for Quest Diagnostics, found the lieutenant’s story — as described at the October 3 unveiling — heartening. “I didn’t know his importance until I did some research,” Franklin said. “Actually, on the page, it was just a lot of numbers and dates. “But hearing it vocalized here resonated with me. I realized how important he was, and what went before me, and how much sacrifice people made over the years to get me to the place I am now. “It was good to hear it.” Flatland contributor Brian Burnes is a Kansas City area writer and author.  The post A Better Big Blue Battlefield in Kansas City | Part III first appeared on Flatland.