John Newman Edwards
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Major John Newman Edwards, CSA, (January 4, 1839–May 4, 1889) was General Joseph O. Shelby’s adjutant, journalist and was the founder of the Kansas City Times. He was born in Warren County, Virginia.
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[edit] Childhood
As a child, Edwards learned type-setting in the town of Front Royal, Virginia in the Gazette office for The Sentinel. At the age of fourteen years old, testified a contemporary[attribution needed], he produced a story that gave him "wide celebrity." While still a boy, he was induced to come to the state of Missouri in either 1854 or 1855. On his arrival in Lexington, Missouri, Edwards soon became a printer in the office of The Expositor. Being quite a shy boy[citation needed], he loved solitude, something that would continue through out his life.
[edit] Soldier
In the year 1862, Gen. Jo Shelby organized a regiment near Waverly, Lafayette County, Missouri. Assisting the command of this regiment were Lieutenant Colonel Frank Gordon, Colonels Shanks and Beal G. Jeans, and Captain Ben Elliott. This command moved on the day of the Lone Jack fight with a view of forming a junction with Cockrell and Coffee. The forces of Shanks, Jeans, and Elliott, with Shelby's own regiment, constituted the original force under Shelby. In the month of September, 1863, upon the retirement of Captain Arthur, John N. Edwards received the appointment of Brigade-Adjutant, with the rank of Major. When Shelby was finally promoted to the command of a division, Edwards became the Adjutant of the division. Edwards continued in this position until the disbanding of the whole command after Lee's surrender.
[edit] In Mexico
After the close of the war Edwards, together with other soldiers, followed General Shelby to Mexico. Edwards spent two years there, during the time of Maximilian's Empire. Edwards gained favor with Maximilian, obtaining a grant which enabled Shelby, and perhaps fifty others, to establish the Cordova Colony of Carlotta. He and Governor Allen of Louisiana established a newspaper, The Mexican Times, devoted to the restoration of an era of peace, prosperity, and good government. While in Mexico, Edwards wrote one of his books, "An Unwritten Leaf of the War".
In 1867, having returned from Mexico, Major Edwards joined the Republican as a reporter. The following year 1868 he inaugurated the Kansas City Times, with the financial support of R. B. Drury & Co. Edwards also married that year, on March 28, 1871, to Mary Virginia Plattenburg, of Dover, Lafayette County, Missouri. The Edwards raised two boys and one girl.
Major Edwards remained with the Times until 1873. In this same year, he went to the St. Louis Dispatch, owned and controlled by Mr. Stilson Hutchins, whom he followed into the St. Louis Times. It was while at work on the Times that his duel with Col. Emory S. Foster took place.
[edit] Journalist
After leaving the St. Louis Times Edwards went to Santa Fe to engage in sheep-raising, but visiting Dover to make his farewells, he was dissuaded from the undertaking, and remained at the home of his wife's father, Judge J. S. Plattenburg, and wrote the "Noted Guerrillas," a wonderful record of the border warfare. Subsequently he went to Sedalia taking editorial charge of the Democrat. Retiring from this paper he started the Dispatch, which had a brief, but singularly brilliant career. He was then called to the editorial management of the St. Joseph Gazette, by the late Col. J. N. Burnes, the owner of the paper. Again, in 1887, he was recalled to the editorial chair of the Kansas City Times, which place he held at the time of his death.
