Johnson County KS Archives Biographies.....Lesueur, J. P. 1836 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ks/ksfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 October 8, 2008, 5:08 pm Author: Ed Blair J. P. Lesueur, a Johnson county pioneer and one of the successful men of affairs of this county, is now living retired in Olathe. Mr. Lesueur is a native of Kentucky, born November 10, 1836. He is a son of Jasper C. and Catherine (Price) Lesueur. Catherine Price, the mother, was born in Kentucky, in 1811, and was a descendant of a prominent Southern family, and a first cousin of Gen. Sterling Price, the well known Confederate general. Jasper C. Lesueur was also a native of Kentucky, his parents being Virginians, and of French descent. He was one of a family of six children, as follows: Norcissa, Eliza, Mary, Susan, Jasper and John. To Jasper C. and Catherine (Price) Lesueur were born the following children: Susan, Mary, Sydney, Bettie, John M. and J. P., the subject of this sketch. J. P. Lesueur was educated in private schools and lived the life of the average boy in the early-day surroundings of his Missouri home, until the Civil war broke out. His sympathies were with the South by reason of environment and inheritance, and it was not by mere accident that he cast his lot with the lost cause. He enlisted at Antioch Church, four miles north of Kansas City, Mo., in the State militia and served under General Price. Later he enlisted in the regular Confederate army, April 1, 1862, at Van Buren, Ark. He served four years in all, and at the close of the war was paroled, at Meridian, Miss., in 1865. Mr. Lesueur had a long and eventful military career, and was a participant in many of the important engagements of that great conflict. He was at the battle of Lexington, Mo., Elk Horn Tavern, or Pea Ridge, Ark., Farmington, Tenn., Corinth, Miss., Champion Hill, Miss., Iuka, Miss., Grand Gulf, Miss., and many other engagements and skirmishes, besides the memorable siege of Vicksburg, where he was under fire for forty-seven days and nights continuously. He had been under fire ten consecutive days before that, which made fifty-seven days under continuous bombardment. Mr. Lesueur's description of the siege of Vicksburg gives a very good idea of the horrors of the war in the sixties. He was wounded at Vicksburg, being struck on the head by a fragment from a bursting shell. He relates many instances, some pathetic and others humorous, of the days of his military experience. He relates an instance of finding a sentry, who was a raw recruit, asleep on duty one night. Mr. Lesueur took the gun from the sleeping sentinel, and the next day he was ordered to take the sentinel who had slept on duty to General Price's headquarters, which was about fifteen miles away. General Price asked what the charge was against the soldier, and when told that it was sleeping at his post, while on duty, the general looked the young man in the eye, and said : "Do you know that the penalty for going to sleep while on duty, is death?" Mr. Lesueur says that General Price then proceeded to give the young man one of the most tender and touching lectures on the duties of a sentry that he ever heard fall from the lips of a man, and when he had finished the general turned to Mr. Lesueur and said, "Return him to his command." Two years later while Mr. Lesueur was campaigning in the South a Confederate soldier who recognized him asked if he remembered taking a gun from a sleeping sentinel at Horse Creek, Mo., and when Mr. Lesueur answered that he did, the soldier said, "Well, I'm the man, but no d—m man has ever gotten my gun since." Mr. Lesueur not only experienced four years of real military life, but his home in Clay county, Missouri, was in the heart of the border war which was being waged for a number of years before the Civil war. Mr. Lesueur tells of a visit to his home by Jennison's Jayhawkers. They rode up to his mother's place, and demanded any firearms on the place and other valuables. Mrs. Lesueur had hidden their revolver, and after searching the place the Jayhawkers endeavored to take one of the horses from the place, but the animal seemed to know the nature and intent of the Jayhawker visitors and would not permit itself to be caught, and in making its escape from the Jayhawkers the horse jumped over a five-rail fence, and did not show up around the place again for five days. Mr. Lesueur first came to Kansas in 1857, but when he was here the county had not yet been surveyed and he did not remain long, but returned to Clay county, Missouri. After the close of the Civil war, he returned to his Clay county home where he remained until 1873 when he came to Johnson county, and bought 320 acres, six miles northwest of Olathe, for which he paid $10 per acre. He improved this place and followed farming and stock raising until 1904 when he sold it and removed to Olathe, and purchased ten and one-half acres within the city limits, which has since been his home. Mr. Lesueur was united in marriage in Clay county, Missouri, March 5, 1867, to Miss Frances Elizabeth Woods, a native of Clay county, whose parents were very early settlers of that section. To Mr. and Mrs. Lesueur have been born eight children, as follows: Mattie, bookkeeper for T. M. Jones, Kansas City, resides in Olathe; Kittie, employed at the Institute for the Blind, Kansas City, Kan.; Nora, clerk in the Kansas City, Kan., postoffice; Nancy Wolverton, who resides in North Dakota; Mary, resides at home with her parents; H. Clay, farmer in Monticello township; Jasper C, a farmer in Lexington township, and James, also a farmer in Lexington township. The Lesueur family is well known and highly respected in Johnson county. If Mr. or Mrs. Lesureur live until March 5, 1916, they will celebrate their golden wedding anniversary. Additional Comments: Extracted from: HISTORY OF Johnson County Kansas BY ED BLAIR AUTHOR OF Kansas Zephyrs, Sunflower Sittings and Other Poems and Sketches IN ONE VOLUME ILLUSTRATED STANDARD PUBLISHING COMPANY LAWRENCE, KANSAS 1915 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ks/johnson/bios/lesueur202nbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/ksfiles/ File size: 6.5 Kb