1894: The Rainwater Rifles

In a recent essay here about Augustus Eichele, the match king of Lafayette Square, his obituary mentioned his membership in the Rainwater Rifles.  Curiosity roused, I plunged into a deep pool of Rainwater. 

St. Louis booster L.U. Reavis profiled Cavender in his 1876 book about the city. He praised Cavender’s knack for being in the right place at the right time. This gift began with his participation in the fur and hides business of the early 1840s. He then spent a decade manufacturing and selling boots and shoes. The fur trade fueled the early growth of St. Louis, and shoe manufacturing became a boom industry in the later 19th century. Prosperity in both enabled the general to retire early. He then joined the Missouri legislature in 1860, and was a vocal opponent of the state’s secession from the Union.

Under General Lyon at the battle of Wilson’s Creek, Cavender suffered three bullet wounds. Promoted to major upon his recovery, he proceeded to Shiloh, and then home to recruit men for an infantry regiment. Having accomplished this, Cavender was promoted to colonel and dispatched to Vicksburg, where he lost two-thirds of his men. Finally a brigadier general, he gave up his commission to return home. His father was ill and business urgently required his tending. 

In 1866, Cavender regained his seat in the Missouri State Senate. He served four years and remained active in Republican politics thereafter. Cavender, his wife and their four sons then looked for a permanent home in St. Louis.

Montgomery Blair in 1870 transferred twenty-one lots in what is now Benton Place to banker William Maurice. William’s brother John Maurice designed Cavender’s home, among others in the area, during the early 1870’s.

Moving into the world of real estate, Cavender partnered with Edward Rowse. The latter lived in a Peabody and Stearns designed house across the street from his, at 10 Benton Place. The two formed the Cavender and Rowse Company on Olive Street. They were close enough friends that Cavender named a son Edward Rowse Cavender. They were also two of the original incorporators of the Church of the Unity at 1322 MacKay Place.

Introducing Major Rainwater

According to his obituary, Rainwater was “said to be the most universally beloved ex-Confederate in Missouri.” He belonged to various clubs, lodges, and charities. In 1876, he became St Louis Police Commissioner. C.C Rainwater was also, as earlier indicated, founder of the Rainwater Rifles. 

Banding back together

The vast majority of participants on both sides in the Civil War came from local volunteer militias. Their states of origin raised and financially supported these forces. For example, C.C. Rainwater belonged to the secessionist Missouri State Guard, and served the Confederacy as a major.

After the War, interest in the militia dropped off, then began growing again in the 1870s. As the horrors of war gave way to a certain nostalgia for it, various militias were in demand to provide parade and drill entertainment at civic celebrations. They also entered competitions and tournaments, on sites like the St. Louis Fair Grounds. These groups lodged on-site, resembling military encampments. 

In 1885, there were several competing companies. These included the Lafayette Guards, Morgan Cadets, Tredway Rifles and the Rainwater Rifles. Anheuser-Busch even sponsored a contingent, the Busch Zouaves. C.C. Rainwater’s organization dated back to at least 1877. These gatherings staged drills, drum contests, bugle contests, and band concerts. Many continued in a rollicking atmosphere well into the evening. 

An 1885 encampment featured a game of base-ball between the Lafayette Guards and the Jacksonville Blues, with the Blues winning 6-1. Private Lightner of  the Lafayette Guards lost his rubber coat and ten dollars in a wager on the game. A sham battle would often wind up the tournament. Eating facilities were “all that could be desired,” and young ladies were numerous and pretty.  

The Rainwater Rifles Excel

The Post Dispatch in 1886 ran a long feature on the “finest looking military company in the National Guard,” the Rainwater Rifles.  And what dandies they were! Company E, First Regiment was lauded by the paper for its reputation of “solidity and general excellence.” It admired the  “noticeable absence of the silk stocking and la-de-dah element, so common among the citizen soldiery.” 

There were national encampments, with interstate competition, and the Rifles acquitted themselves well every year. They also sponsored an annual “hop” or dance at the St. Louis Armory Hall, and later at the swanky Lindell Hotel. This became a highlight on the city’s social calendar. 

Men will be boys

A conclave at Armory Hall in September of 1886 led to some misbehavior. The St. Louis Light Cavalry Company provided the Armory Building free of charge to the Ivanhoe Commandery. They, in turn, hosted the California Knights Templar commanders. “Wines and liquors flowed freely.” The apartments there were painstakingly decorated by the hosting groups. The Rainwater Rifles and Busch Zouaves papered the walls and carpeted the floors before turning their rooms over to the Knights. Unfortunately, the guests proceeded to trash the premises. One California commandery kept a live bear in their room. Punch bowls were dumped and sandwiches ground into carpets. The newspaper dryly noted that at the conclusion of such events, festivities were to be expected, and reparations would be made. What really riled everyone was theft of the champagne by parties unknown. Suggestions ranged from quietly dropping the subject to filing charges and initiating court marshal proceedings. 

The Rifles take the stage

1886 was a big year for the boys. They had practiced banging along with a very popular song of the time – Giuseppe Verdi’s Anvil Chorus. The song, Coro di Zingari, depicts Spanish gypsies striking their anvils at dawn and singing the praises of hard work, good wine and gypsy women. Sounds about right for a group of peacetime soldiers. Here’s a sample of the part the Rainwater Rifles played – a real crowd pleaser:

https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxELzYwIcwsT-z35v7bTDe4v9mtWLziI52

This became a feature of the group, even becoming an event unto itself:

A particularly large encampment was held on the shores of Lake Contrary, near St. Joseph, MO in 1891. The guardhouse there held prisoners from nearly all of the 78 companies in the camp. Several failed to offer the proper password to a challenge. One was held for absconding with a hog from a farmer across the lake. Provided as evidence were “fragments of fresh pork found around the camp of the Third Regiment.”

It seemed all in good fun, except for the wounds. For the Rainwater Rifles, these victims included Captain Warren, overcome by the heat, Private Smith, “laid up with ivy poisoning and in a badly swollen condition”, and Private Sturgis, “picked up for drunk and treated roughly by the police before his friends could interfere.” Two young guardsmen jumped into the lake to escape capture. After a half hour chase, they were pulled, half drowned, from a tangle of moss and water lilies. 

A showboat excursion

The Rainwater Rifles were, strictly speaking, a land-based group. They did, however, prove themselves adept on the water as well. They brought their drill routines to the river in early promotional cruises sponsored by the Post-Dispatch: 

A summer attraction in St. Louis was the exposition hosted by the Agricultural and Mechanical Association from 1856 through 1902 at Fairgrounds Park. It was, in effect, a giant county fair on a 143 acre site on North Grand Avenue. The fairgrounds featured the largest amphitheater in America at the time, capable of seating 12,000. There was a racetrack, zoo, fine arts pavilion, buildings for showing off mechanical and agricultural advances, and a three story “Chicken Palace” for displaying poultry.

A Rainwater Rifles Day took place in 1894 at the Expo. They drilled in the evening, between musical events on the Music Hall stage, and “their admirers, of whom there are a very large number, will pack the large auditorium to witness their evolutions.” They also sold souvenir programs, with photos and the history of the unit.  

An ad for the 1894 Exposition warned – “To miss seeing it is to be guilty of  an act of uncalled-for self sacrifice.”

A surprisingly refined entertainment

Tableaux vivants, staged static scenes featuring living people, were a rage in Europe at the turn of the 20th century. America was generally too impatient for this sort of passive entertainment. We wanted active simulations of great events. Below, a dramatization called the Battle of Shanandoah, boasted 165 players, including those ubiquitous Rainwater Rifles.

The end of Rainwater

C.C. Rainwater, the founder of the group, died at his home at 21 Benton Place in 1902. Along with the re-defining moment of the 1904 Worlds Fair, and the advancing age of most of the original members, the Rainwater Rifles dissolved. Indeed, military drill units everywhere were disbanding, and the Civil War was becoming the province of historians. 

Charles Rainwater regularly attended the Lafayette Park United Methodist Church. One of the western stained glass panels in the church is a tribute from C.C. to his parents, there for you to see today.

Robert E.Lee once wrote, “It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it.” World War I, soon followed the Worlds Fair era. It had little nobility or sentiment to recommend it. Much of the war was fought from trenches in the mud. Soldiers rose occasionally into the indiscriminate scything of machine gun fire, or poison gas. It was difficult to romanticize. The perceived need to settle differences with arms persists as part of the human condition.

Epilogue

Drill teams largely devolved into halftime entertainment at high school football games. At a Lindbergh High School game about a decade ago, it struck me as odd that girls in sparkly outfits threw wooden rifles in the air, and to each other. It would have been completely incongruous except as a vestige of the time when it was part of an ingrained paramilitary past in America.

Perhaps it’s best to appreciate the simple gesture of 21 Benton Place transferring peacefully from a highly placed Republican Union officer to a similarly well-regarded Democratic Confederate officer. It became home in the mid-1940’s to John Albury Bryan, the initial mover of the eventual restoration of Lafayette Square. The house certainly sits on solid ground.  

Thanks to research sources, including:

Historic American Buildings Survey; Library of Congress; https://www.loc.gov/resource/hhh.mo0270.photos/?sp=1

Photo of John Cavender from Library of Congress, via Picryl, a huge collection of open source photography at https://picryl.com

The Rainwater Collection: A Genealogial Archive, Susan Chance-Rainwater & R. Steven Rainwater; 2018; 

The remarkably useful Find A Grave website, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/19342/john-smith-cavender

Saint Louis The Future Great City Of The World; L.U. Reavis; C.R. Barns, St Louis; 1876

A good history of militias from the founding of the U.S. through the creation of the National Guard is at https://angrystaffofficer.com/2017/03/20/a-short-history-of-the-militia-in-the-united-states/

Wikipedia entry for The St Louis Exposition at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Louis_Exposition

The Compton Dry Pictorial Map of St Louis is truly unbelievable in its detail of the city in 1875. A wonderful version is in the Library of Congress. The image of Fairgrounds Park extracted for this essay is from plate 85, here: https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4164sm.gpm00001/?sp=85&r=-0.047,0.152,0.966,0.56,0

Rainwater obituary from St Louis Republic; November 11, 1902; page 9 and St Louis Post-Dispatch of the same date; page 6.

Thanks to long time residents and parishioners Tom and Lynne Keay for the tour of the Methodist Church, and for pointing out the Rainwater window.