My wounded man could not be kept in Missouri with any degree of safety, and according to the usage of the petty tyrants who commanded the little squads of Federals, it would have been death to any man under whose roof the wounded man might have taken refuge; the man, without any questions asked, would have been shot, his house and property burned, and his wife and children turned out into the world, houseless, forlorn and destitute. To avoid the infliction of such a calamity upon any of our friends, my wounded man was under the necessity of making his way alone back into Arkansas.
My other two men and myself traveled the remainder of the night in the direction of my old home in St. Francois county. I learned that a prolonged effort was made on the following day to trail us up to our camp in the woods; but a rain having fallen about daylight, our tracks were entirely destroyed. On the following night we made our way to the house of a friend, near the ruins of my once happy home. Here I remained, resting myself and scouting over the country on foot, two whole days and nights, trying to shoot some of the miscreants who had belonged to the old mob, but they kept themselves so closely huddled that I had no chance at them.
On the second day, however, while lying near the road, James Craig, captain of the mob—which by this time had assumed the name of Militia—with two men whom I did not recognize, came along, riding very fast. I got a bead on Craig, but my gun did not fire; and I will say here, that this was the only time during the war that old “Kill-devil” deceived me.
On returning to my friend near my old home, he stated to me that our horses, which we had concealed in a nook in one of the bluffs of Big river, had been discovered by some boys who were hunting, and that they had gone to report to the militia. Upon receiving this intelligence, we started at once to our horses, found them all right, and, not being satisfied with the results of our trip, we concluded to obtain some supplies from our good Union friends before leaving. We got on Flat river about the middle of the afternoon, and rode up to a store kept by the sons of John Bean, one of whom belonged to the Vigilance mob—but he was not there.
The boys had sense enough to make no demonstration, so, without damaging anything whatever, I took such things as we needed, in part payment for my property which the mob had destroyed.
The boys looked a little displeased; they considered us bad customers, and did not even take the trouble to book the articles against us.
The militia, having received the report of the boys, mustered their whole force and, on the following day, struck our trail and overtook us between Pilot Knob and Fredericktown; they followed us about ten miles, but only got sight of us occasionally on the tops of hills we had to pass over. Night came, and we neither saw nor heard them any more. We traveled all night and about daylight we rode up to the house of a man named Slater, in the southern part of Wayne county, Missouri, for whom we had been watching for some time. He had made himself very busy ever since the beginning of the war by reporting Southern men. He succeeded in having several of them imprisoned, and their families impoverished. We found him at home; his manhood wilted like a cabbage leaf; we took him about a mile from home and shot him.
We then pursued our way home to Green county, Arkansas, and divided our spoils amongst the destitute families driven there by the ruthless hands of Northern sympathizers.