Jacob Friedrich Roedel (1846-) was a German-American outlaw and Confederate bushwhacker who served in the 1st Missouri Irregulars during the American Civil War.
Biography[]
Roedel in 1861
Jacob Friedrich Roedel was born in Germany, the son of Otto Roedel. His family emigrated to the United States while he was an infant, and he was raised in Lexington, Lafayette County, Missouri. There, he became assimilated into American society, as all of his friends were Southerners, and he became especially close to Jack Bull Chiles, whose father Asa Chiles saw Roedel as a son of his own. Unlike his father, an Unconditional Unionist, Jake became a Southern Democrat who opposed Abraham Lincoln's Republican Party and the abolitionist cause.
Roedel and Chiles as bushwhackers
In 1861, on the outbreak of the American Civil War, Unionist "Jayhawkers" from Kansas raided Lexington and murdered Asa Chiles and burned his estate as Jake and Jack Bull watched helplessly from the yard. The two friends ran off and joing Black John Ambrose's 1st Missouri Irregulars, a unit of Confederate bushwhackers that waged guerrilla war against the Union Army on the Kansas-Missouri border. Roedel was never fully trusted by his comrades, who called him "Dutchy" and were suspicious of his German heritage; most Missouri Germans were affiliated with the Republicans and the Union.
Roedel as a bushwhacker
Roedel rode with Black John, Jack Bull, George Clyde and his freedman friend Daniel Holt, Pitt Mackeson, Riley Crawford, Cave Wyatt, and Turner Rawls, and they were nearly killed in a Union ambush in 1862 at Clark's Farm, where Roedel lost his pinky finger to a Union bullet. The unit returned to their main base after a desperate escape, and it was there that Roedel confronted the captured Alf Bowden, the son of his Unionist neighbor George Bowden. Roedel arranged for Alf and a few other Union prisoners to be traded for two Confederate bushwhackers who were due to be hanged, but, not long after, Roedel received news from Cave that Alf had ridden straight into town and murdered Roedel's father before dragging his body through the street. Roedel swore vengeance, as he was angered that his innocent father was killed; Cave warned him that he and the others were developing a reputation for their misdeeds. The gang took shelter at Confederate sympathizer Zachary Evans' farm when winter came, where Chiles struck up a romance with Evans' widowed daughter-in-law Sue Lee Shelley. Meanwhile, Roedel overcame his initial racism towards Holt and came to befriend the unit's sole Black partisan.
The Jayhawkers eventually caught up to the partisans, murdering Evans and ambushing the bushwhackers at their cave hideout. The Confederates escaped, but Chiles was mortally wounded; while Roedel, Shelley, and Holt amputated Chiles' arm, he succumbed to gangrene. Roedel and Holt entrusted Shelley to Orton Brown's care as the two men rejoined their unit, only to find that the Union Army had been able to isolate and hunt down many of their former comrades. The survivors joined forces with William Quantrill's feared "Quantrill's Raiders", and they participated in the Lawrence massacre, during which Roedel and Holt were dismayed that they faced no resistance, and especially at the murder of Black freedmen and Unionist civilians. The two men walked into a nearby restaurant to eat breakfast and defended their female host from Mackeson, who wanted to bring them into the street for potential execution; Mackeson swore vengeance against Roedel for this slight, and also out of jealousy for Roedel being Ambrose's favorite. As the guerrillas made their escape, Ambrose questioned Roedel's loyalty based on some of Mackeson's private insinuations about Roedel's leniency towards the restaurant owners. Not long after, the bushwhackers were caught up in a skirmish near Brooklyn as the 5th Kansas Cavalry Regiment pursued them, and Roedel and Holt were wounded, while Clyde was killed. With Mackeson attempting to murder Roedel amid the chaos, Roedel and Holt fled to the Brown family, who took them in.
Roedel taking care of Grace Shelley Chiles
Roedel and Holt reunited with Shelley, who gave birth to Jack Bull's posthumous daughter, Grace Shelley Chiles. Wyatt, who was also staying with the Browns, advised Roedel that the Brown family believed him to be the child's father due to his having dropped Shelley off at their home while she was pregnant, and he said that the Browns expected him to marry her. Roedel and Shelley initially expressed disinterest towards each other, but Roedel frequently watched Shelley breastfeed her baby, and he came to develop a quiet interest in her. When Brown returned home one day with a priest by his side, Roedel initially attempted to flee with Holt, but Holt refused to help him, and he and Shelley eventually made amends and agreed to marry. Holt then persuaded Roedel to join Shelley in bed that night, and they consummated their marriage. Roedel then shaved and cut his hair, as he had previously swore that he would not do so until the war was over, but Holt told him that, for him, the fight had already ended. At the same time, however, Holt cautioned Roedel that Mackeson was said to be riding south, gunning for him. Roedel and Shelley made plans to move to California, while Holt expressed his intention to go to Texas to find his enslaved mother; Holt insisted that he would not go until he helped Roedel see his business through.
Holt bidding Roedel farewell
Mackeson and Rawls came across Roedel, Holt, and Shelley as they camped by a stream with their wagon, and Mackeson told Roedel that both Quantrill and Black John were dead, and that he intended to ride into his hometown of Newport, despite knowing that he would be shot by the Union. Detecting that Mackeson was unhinged, Roedel and Holt drew their guns and persuaded Mackeson to ride off with Rawls; the two men presumably rode into town and were shot on sight. This resolved, Roedel and his family rode towards California until his and Holt's roads parted, and they exchanged farewells and a handshake before parting. After Holt tipped his hat to Roedel and rode off, Roedel, Shelley, and their child continued on to California to start new lives for themselves.