I suffered much from my wound; and as my well known crippled condition emboldened parties afterwards to attempt my arrest, under the assumption that I was just about dead, I attribute all my sufferings and privations during the three months that followed to that attempted assassination. For many months afterwards I believed that it was James McLaine who did the deed, but I will here state that the man who shot me, as I am informed, was Cyrus A. Peterson, from Fredericktown, and that Walter E. Evans was along with him.
Neither of those two men did I ever harm; Peterson I did not know, and Evans I had met a few weeks before, and shook hands with him.
The Evans family resided on Big river, and we were raised up within a few miles of each other. The widow and her daughter remained at home in perfect safety during the whole war, although the family was known to be Union (with one or two exceptions), and two of her boys, Ellis G. and William C. Evans, were known to be two of the most uncompromising Unionists in the State. I heard Dick Berryman once tell his men, after calling them all up in a line, that he would not suffer them to interfere with the widow Evans, or with any property that she possessed. This order I sanctioned, and governed myself accordingly.
While I still lay at my uncle‘s, confined to my bed, Sheriff Breckinridge and a party of about six men concluded that they would secure the reward offered by the Governor without any personal danger, as it was thought by some that I had died of my wounds.
During the night he went with his party to Mr. Highley‘s, and got near the house by keeping behind a gate-post. Mr. Highley was called out, and when he assured them that I was not there they made a valiant charge upon the house, and entered it just as Mrs. Highley was endeavoring to put on her dress. The gallant Breckinridge thrust his gun against her dress and threw it to the other side of the room, denoting thereby that cowardice and ruffianism are blended together. From here they went on the balance of the night in search of “Sam Hildebrand”—and they found him!
They reached Uncle William‘s about daylight. Finding him at the crib they made a breastwork of him, by making the old man walk in front, while they marched on behind with their guns presented. I fastened the front door and refused to open it. The back door, however, was only latched, and a child could have opened it. I pulled a little rag out of a crack near the jamb, and as they attempted to pass I fired four shots at them before they fired at all; one tumbled up behind the ash-hopper, and the others dashed back around the corner to the front side of the house. They fired several shots through the door, which struck the wall at the back of the house a few inches over the bed where the little girl lay. She raised a terrible yell; Aunt Mary ran to her, supposing that she had been shot. “Come away with her,” said I, “and both of you stand in yon corner; break her a piece of pie to stop her crying, so that I can hear what is going on.” I got two more shots through the crack near the chimney, one of which was at Noah Williams; he got in the chimney corner, and was hunting for a crack, but I found it first, and sent a shot after him that raked across his breast, and tore his clothes in such a manner that he left in disgust. They kept firing through the door; the beds were literally riddled; aunt got a shot on her chin; a whole volley was now fired through the door; one little shot struck her on the head, and five holes were shot through her dress.
They now marched the old man in front of them to the door; he stood with his right hand against the door-facing, and cried out: “Sam, open the door or they will kill me!”
“Hold on, Uncle,” I replied, “and step out of the way.”
Just then I opened the door, and crossing my arms I fired to the right and left with my pistols. Uncle‘s hand being in the way, I could only shoot Breckinridge through the groin, and another man through the shoulder.
Andy Bean broke to run, and jumped the fence by a walnut tree just as a shot passed through his fiery red whiskers, grazing his face sufficiently to saturate them, and to make him believe that they were one huge stream of blood. The whole party now broke, and on leaping the fence fired off their guns, some of their shots piercing the door, one passed through my uncle‘s wrist, some struck the house, and some missed creation.