Before reaching Arkansas, however, for the purpose of laying in our winter‘s supplies, we diverged about twenty miles from our usual course to pay our respects to an old Union man living at the crossroads, who had caused the expulsion of two families from the neighborhood by reporting on them.
He still had the remnants of what had once been a full country store. No Federal soldiers happened to be near the premises at the time, so we rode up to his house about sunset, and while I left one man at his door to prevent any one from leaving the house, we went with the old crusty fellow to the store. He was not disposed to be accommodating, but we bought everything that we could put upon our horses and upon a mule that we borrowed of him, and, after telling him to charge it to Uncle Sam, with the Big river mob for security, we left, and before morning were out of the reach of danger. On reaching camp, we relieved the needy, not forgetting the two families that “Old Crusty” had driven from his neighborhood.
CHAPTER XII.
Trip with three men.—Captured a Spy and shot him.—Shot Scaggs.—At night charged a Federal camp of one hundred men.—Killed nine men.—Had one man wounded.—Came near shooting James Craig.—Robbed Bean‘s store and returned to Arkansas.
My family still remained in Cook settlement, in St. Francois county, Mo., and as they were in the enemy‘s country, I did not think it prudent to pay them a visit, knowing that it would only bring ruin upon them if the fact of my visit should ever become known to the Unionists in that county. But I determined by some means or other to effect their escape to Arkansas as soon as it would be prudent to make the attempt. Capt. Bolin and his men had promised me their co-operation if called upon for that purpose; but I was well aware that our whole force would be insufficient for the accomplishment of the object, if attempted by force of arms, for two or three thousand men could be brought against me in less than twenty-four hours.
To keep myself well posted in regard to the strength of the enemy along the route, I selected three of Quantril‘s men, and in the latter part of September, started on another raid into Missouri. On arriving at the St. Francis river we found it swimming, but made no halt on that account, having by this time become inured to all kinds of hardships and dangers.
On the second day after we started we left the main road and diverged several miles to our right, for the purpose of traveling in day time. On getting within sight of a house we discovered some one run into the yard, and immediately afterwards we saw a little boy running toward a barn. The movement being a little suspicious, we dashed forward and were soon on each side of the barn. We discovered a man through a crack, and demanded his surrender; he came to the door and threw up his hands. On taking him back into the barn, we discovered his bundle to contain a complete Federal uniform, and when we noticed that the citizen‘s dress which he had on was much too small for him, we at once pronounced him a Federal spy. We found a letter in his pocket, written by a man by the name of Scaggs, to the authorities at Fredericktown, containing the names of his rebel neighbors, whom he was desirous of having burned out. One of the men in the list I happened to know, and by that means I knew that Scaggs lived about seven miles from there. We took the spy half a mile and shot him, then, changing our course, we started on the hunt for Scaggs, whose residence, however, we did not find until after dark. Dressed in Federal uniform, we rode up to the gate and called him out. On arresting him we took him to the house of a friend, who told us that Scaggs had already made two widows in that neighborhood by reporting their husbands. We took him with us until daylight appeared, hung him to a limb in the woods, and made our way toward Castor creek, in Madison county.
The next night, on crossing Castor creek, we discovered a camp of Federals; judging them to be about twenty or thirty strong, we concluded to charge them for a few minutes; but on getting into their camp we found that there were three or four times as many as we expected; so we charged on through as quick as possible, still two of our horses were killed and one of my men was slightly wounded in the fleshy part of his thigh. After getting through their camp, we captured the four pickets who were placed in a lane on the opposite side. As we came from the wrong direction, they mistook us for their own men, until we had taken them in. My two men who had lost their horses, now mounted those taken from the pickets. As soon as the pickets told us that they were Leeper‘s men, we shot them and hurried on.
On our return, at another time, we were told by the citizens that we killed five and wounded several more in our charge through their camp; making nine men killed, including the pickets.