LOYAL WOMEN OF HOWELL COUNTY.
On reaching the stable, I heard the men quarreling on the public square. A man by the name of Jones, who had been a Confederate and then was prosecuting attorney of the county, and another citizen, who appeared to be leading the mob, were having an altercation. Jones remarked to the other man that he had never met Col. Monks until to-day and that he appeared to be a perfect gentleman, that the war was over, and that he had the same right to come here and transact business as any other man; to which the other declared, with an oath, that a man who had fought them through the war shouldn't come there, and they intended to take him out and shoot him before daylight; and further charged that Jones was not a good Confederate. Jones then gave him the lie. The two appeared to be about to come together, but others interfered to keep them separated. I returned to the hotel and said to Mr. Harris that the seat of war had moved up onto the square.
Mr. Maxey informed me that just outside of the door of the hotel he met the mob, and they declared that they intended to take Monks out and shoot him before daylight. He replied to them that they might do it, but they had better take their stretchers along, for some other persons would have to bring some of them out; that he had just been in the house and in a moment he was confronted by Col. Monks with a revolver presented at his left breast and the very devil was in his eye, and if they entered the room he would shoot as long as he could move a finger.
When bedtime came, I was placed in an upper room and locked the door, expecting that if they located my room they would shoot through the windows. I could still hear them cursing and threatening to take me out until late in the night. The next morning everything was quiet. I went to the stable and took my horse down to the spring to water; a number of men were standing at the side of the street, and one said: "Where do you suppose the captain and his men are?" I remarked to them that they were just like a pack of wolves; they were in the brush this morning, waiting for night to again renew their howling. There was one, Capt. Wagoner, who resided in town, who remarked to me the next morning that he never was as proud of anything in his life; that if they could have scared me and I had attempted to leave town in the night, they intended to murder me.
After circuit court convened, I went into court, and at noon of that day the court adjourned. And I, with a number of others, went to Thomasville, put up at the hotel, had my horse fed and took supper. While on the road, the man that led the mob passed me on his way to Thomasville, where he resided. The defendants and their attorneys failed to produce a single witness to testify in the case. I returned home to West Plains.
I was notified to meet them at other places in the country, to take depositions in said cause. The political feeling was strong then between the parties, and they sent the suits to a county over a hundred miles distant from where the suits were instituted; this county, at that time, was completely controlled by the democratic party.
When the suits came up to be tried, over half of the jury had been late rebels, yet they failed to introduce a single witness to support their charges, and I recovered a verdict in each case. Judge Fian, who tried the case, said that he was never so surprised in his life; that he opened up the floodgates and let them bring in all their evidence from the beginning of the war up to the time of the trial. Judge Fian had been a colonel on the Federal side in the Civil war.
On the account of failure to get any proof the juries were compelled to give a verdict in both cases for Col. Monks, although it was against the will and feeling of them. It cost the defendants between five and seven hundred dollars. After the trials, all parties returned to Howell county. The defendants, after they had procured a change of venue to Laclede county, boasted openly before trials, that they were going to beat both cases, that they had got them into a democratic county. The defendants being beaten at all points, returned, but not being satisfied, and being backed by the late bushwhackers and Kuklux (the most desperate set of men that ever lived,) at the next term of the Howell county circuit court they procured the appointment of a special prosecution attorney, who had been a late rebel and selected a jury of men composed of liberal Republicans and so-called democrats, with the express purpose of indicting the writer for killing one of the most desperate bushwhackers and rebel desperadoes that ever was in South Missouri. The men who composed the jury knew well that he was killed in an open hand to hand fight during the Civil war. The writer soon found out that they were trying to get a bill of indictment against the writer, so the writer watched the proceedings of the grand jury. On Saturday the grand jury came into court and turned in their indictments and reported to the court that they had no more business. The court discharged them.