The Suicide of Abraham Lincoln

By Eugene Roome

Ill and facing eminent death, Lincoln’s suicide must look like assassination, but can his Secret Service pull that off while battling the Knights of the Golden Circle who plot to continue the war by unleashing terrorism? Conspirator John Surratt flees, leaving his mother to face the gallows. Who would marry this dishonorable man? A few years later, after meeting Surratt in a bookstore, young Mary Victorine Hunter solves the mystery of the suicide of Abraham Lincoln.

President Lincoln tells stories and has a girlfriend. See jealous Mary Lincoln's final act of revenge. Watch thespian John Wilkes Booth act his most dramatic scene ever. Voices from the past speak to you in real history chapters to substantiate the assertion made in the novel's title. Follow along As Mary Victorine Hunter, conspirator John Surratt's love interest, solves the mystery of the suicide of Abraham Lincoln.

Read along as the Secret Service fights the Knights of the Golden Circle, who conspire to unleash terrorism on post-war America with plots to behead the Federal government, dump anthrax over Manhattan Island, and carry out a Lawrence, Kansas like raid in West Virginia. Ride with John Singleton Mosby as he and his Confederate guerrillas fight one last battle weeks after the war ends. Hear Lincoln propose solutions that may have avoided future failings of the American Experience.

View actual court testimony that says the man shot at Garrett's farm was named "Boyd," not "Booth," and learn how Booth's body was eventually switched for Boyd's. Learn why an enraged Boston Corbett shot the man in the barn in the first place. Visit a Victorian ball and learn how to hold your fan. Attend a secret initiation ceremony of the Knights of the Golden Circle.
Study conspirator George Adzerodt's actual lost confession and learn the names of assassination conspirators you've never heard of before. Read actual quotes and understand why the novel says a "skeletal" Lincoln would conspire with others to commit assisted suicide on that Good Friday and read his last edict, Secret Service Order No. 1.

The author started with 40 academic books about Abraham Lincoln, then found about the same number of original, copyright-expired sources. Picture John Wilkes Booth in the barn in Virginia - he's dressed in a black suit, right? No. Lincoln's close friend writes Booth and Herold were both dressed in gray Confederate uniforms. Did you know that after being shot, Booth's body was put on a wagon and the wagon, driver, and Federal Detective disappeared with it for 10 hours? Later, they told the larger group they got lost. And that night the wagon driver was murdered. Now there's both real history and a mystery.

At the center of the novel is the romance between Mary Victorine Hunter and John Surratt. Their mutual love of mystery novels and some rather shady characters strange interest in helping Mary Victorine become one leads the novel to connect the history dots and results in the premise of the rather shocking title of the book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eugene Roome
• Release date: Aug 18, 2018
• ISBN: 9780983569336

Eugene Roome

Eugene Roome grew up in the Midwest and continues to live there. Like other baby boomers, he grew up in an era without cable T.V., cell phones, or the Internet. Consequently, he learned how to entertain himself. Hopefully, his novels are able to entertain others and give them things to think about.

Book preview

1. The Turnstile

Good Friday, April 14, 1865

Evening

The City of Washington within the District of Columbia

Ford’s Theater - events unfold according to President Lincoln’s plan

After the second act of Our American Cousin, President Abraham Lincoln makes his way out of the theater explaining that he needs to visit the telegraph office in the War Department to find out if the last major Confederate army has surrendered.

A little after ten minutes past ten o’clock, he pushes through a throng of well-wishers and enters his waiting carriage. The coachman drives Lincoln the five short blocks to the President’s House before immediately heading back to Ford’s so he’ll be there to pick up Mrs. Lincoln, Miss Harris, and Major Rathbone.

Under a few dim gaslights the President, with his unmistakable silhouette and gait, makes his way through the murky, misty night straight for the turnstile located where the grounds of the President’s House abut those of the War Department. As he often is when visiting the War Department Telegraph Office late at night, he’s alone.

It’s after eleven o’clock when he reaches the turnstile and halts. For more than a minute, he stands at attention; on the path behind him a single set of feet position and reposition themselves, each time drawing nearer.

Behind the president’s head, a single-action revolver cocks.

A full minute ticks by.

Steady, John. It’s all right, President Lincoln says in even tones. Let not your heart be troubled.

The shot that kills Abraham Lincoln rings out and echoes from the nearby buildings.

The shooter runs away and cloaks himself in dreary night.

From the nearby Navy building, a martial voice screams officer of the guard! The cry is taken up around the sentry posts that ring the nearby buildings.

Up and at your posts damn you! shouts Captain Josiah Reynolds, his boot heels clattering loudly on stone steps. Might be a ruse—everyone remain at your posts!

Captain Reynolds details Sergeant Henry Kearns to take two privates—Oliver Whitley and Charles K. Halsey—to the presidential home to make sure everyone there is safe. Their double-time steps halt when they discover the long-limbed, lifeless body splayed on the other side of the turnstile.

Being the first to discover the President’s body earns the men notoriety for the rest of their lives, and rates each man a short notice in the national newspapers upon their demise.

It is an event for the history books, one that sparks debate and conjecture up to modern day: Abraham Lincoln, foully assassinated on Good Friday by person or persons unknown.

2. The Mystery Novel Shelf

1871: Spring

Rockville, Maryland

Mary Victorine Hunter grows up in a large Catholic family in Green Spring Valley, Maryland. Once famous for hosting fox hunts, Green Spring Valley is a suburban park-like valley on the northern outskirts of Baltimore.

Her family is respectable but not socially elite. Still, they enjoy local notoriety as her mother’s cousin is Francis Scott Key, composer of the Star Spangled Banner.

Mary Victorine, who has just turned eighteen, has seven older brothers. Her two older sisters are married and raising young families. Two younger sisters remain with their parents in Green Spring Valley.

Mary Victorine, along with brothers Frank and William, has just moved into the home of their sister Rebecca in Rockville, Maryland. Green Spring Valley is fifty miles northeast of the national capital, while Rockville is twenty miles to the northwest. Rockville’s population barely tops its pre-war population of three hundred and sixty five; it won’t explode until after the railroad arrives.

Rebecca’s husband isn’t wealthy, but his father leaves him a very large house in Rockville, so once the young couple moves there from Philadelphia, there’s plenty of room for his wife’s three siblings.

Frank, twenty-three and William, nineteen, were tomboy Mary Victorine’s childhood companions. Both now clerk here in Rockville: Frank at a clothing store, William at a feed store. Although short on means, both young men spend vast amounts of time considering which local girls they might entice into becoming their wives.

Ostensibly, Mary Victorine is here to help with the new baby, but since first-time mother Rebecca, who is twenty-one, never seems to put him down, she has plenty of time to pursue her passion. Unlike her vague longing for a beau, husband, and lover, here’s something she is in charge of and—unlike her marriage prospects—whose ceiling lies upon ability. In this new-found passion she finds control, and here in the mid-Victorian era, it’s something that, while perhaps a little risqué, doesn’t risk branding her unladylike.

It simply won’t do for Mary Victorine to go about her Saturday shopping unattended. Yes, six years after the War Between the States the strict Southern social code of Maryland is breaking down. Some families no longer require unmarried female family members to be escorted by a male relative. But in the conservative Hunter family, the rule still applies. At least today William is with her. William is better because older brother Frank takes chaperoning seriously.

As do most young women of her social class, Mary Victorine makes do with a limited wardrobe. She considers only a half-dozen of her dresses to be top-shelf. That includes the coming-out dress Mother sent via the stage. How did she ever get the money for it from Father, a notorious penny pincher? On today’s outing, she wears one of her nice outfits. It’s a red wool Garibaldi blouse with puffy sleeves and a thin white collar that buttons up the front.

Too bad Garibaldi blouses are just going out of style.

Inside her black skirt, cords are tied at intervals around her waist so she can adjust the skirt height to keep it from dragging on the ground. She wishes she had red shoes in a shade to match her blouse but makes do with grey ones instead.

The Rockville Pike runs in a southeasterly direction from Rockville to Washington City. Just a block off the pike in the short, linear business district of Rockville is Vroman’s Bookstore. While

she’s browsing in Vroman’s you can be sure William will be across the street doing his best to strike up a conversation with marriageable young women who enter the dry goods store. Sure enough, after stepping into Vroman’s, William, the youngest Hunter son, takes his leave.

Oh, Mr. Vroman, Mary Victorine calls out in a pleasing tone.

The store appears to be empty. It’s always hard to tell since patrons may be ensconced in some little false-aisle off one of the many cluttered, intersecting ones.

Soon, Mr. Vroman appears. Well hello Mary Victorine, he says. It’s out on the shelf.

"Wonderful! Oh, which one? Man and Wife or Checkmate?"

That’s a mystery only you can solve, Mary Victorine. His joke makes him grin broadly.

Oh, Mr. Vroman, you are a delight!

And how’s your little nephew?

Good as gold, sir, thank you for asking, she replies.

Mr. Vroman busies himself behind the front counter while Mary Victorine hurries off . It’s a good thing she’s wearing a modern oval hoop skirt to throw her dress out behind her; she’d never have made it down any of the rows wearing an old-style round one.

She passes shelves containing the literary works of men such as Audubon and Wilson in natural history, Prescott and Motley in history, Washington Irving and Cooper in fiction, Longfellow and Poe in poetry, Bryant and the other respectables in rhyme, and Emerson the essayist.

But our Mary Victorine heads for the shelf containing mystery novels, which always feature the search for a secret. With inspiration often gleaned from newspaper police reports, their authors write about shocking subject matters like adultery, theft, kidnapping, insanity, bigamy, forgery, seduction and murder.

When she turns the last corner she pauses: a man stands opposite her shelf. She freezes in her tracks so he won’t notice her and studies him from afar. Reddish hair, thin face, lithe body, carefully polished boots. His suitcoat is made of cheap cloth, yet to her it seems very stylish. He’s definitely not as old as her oldest brother John Henry; maybe a little older than Frank, so her brother Edward’s age? She watches his expression as he reads from the book he holds.

Everything about him to her is ... pleasing.

She should probably retire to another section of the store until this gentleman leaves, but there’s no other section in the store that holds her interest like the mystery aisle. Besides, Mr. Vroman has set out one of the novels she’s been dying to read, and she needs to get her hands on it. Surely it isn’t beyond propriety to address this man to let him know she needs to be given access?

As soon as he detects the rustle of her dress, he looks up. Oh, good morning, he says. He looks her over from head to toe before, with some embarrassment, tipping his hat.

Might I trouble you? She nods toward her shelf.

Oh, certainly. The open book in his one hand rests upon a second unopened one. Taking her meaning, he shuts the open one and steps back to give her access so she can run her fingers along the line of books.

Her fingers trace the books a second time and then a third. Abruptly, she excuses herself and returns to the front counter. Mr. Vroman, she says, "I can’t find either title."

"There should be two copies of Man and Wife; could I have shelved them wrong?" he mutters out loud. Mr. Vroman can’t locate the novel in question, either.

"Never mind Man and Wife, Mary Victorine says So when do you expect Checkmate?"

The stranger, who has politely moved aside for Mr. Vroman, speaks. "Man and Wife? Is that what you search for? I was going to mail a copy to a priest in Richmond, but here, please—take one." He hands Mary Victorine a copy.

The front door opens, and the sound of voices reaches them, so Mr. Vroman hurries off. Mary Victorine starts to follow.

So what other mystery novels have you read? the man asks.

She stops.

By the way, I’m John, he says.

Mary Victorine.

He points to her shelf. "What else is good? I’ve read The Woman in White and of course, Bleak House."

Mary Victorine begins pointing at various novels. "The Moonstone, The Notting Hill Mystery, The Count, The Trail of the Serpent, Aurora Floyd, Monsieur Lecoq—"

"In French? You read Monsieur Lecoq in French?" he asks.

Oui, mon ami mystérieux.

What do you find endearing? At the word endearing his ears turned a shade of red, but he is committed, so he continues. Mystery novels, I mean? What’s the attraction? Now he blushes.

She notes his discomfiture. A flirtation at the book store? She’s never thought of this situation. Hoping to put him at ease, she smiles. I like how the protagonist must use intuition, observation, inference, and investigation to solve a mystery.

"For me, it was discovering The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allen Poe. Mr. Poe, I believe, had it absolutely right."

In what regard, sir? she responds.

That justice systems fail, he replies. That in a very public murder in which many supposed facts were faithfully printed in the newspapers—in even such a case as that—important clues aren’t seen for what they are, meaning neither the public nor authorities truly understand what’s taken place.

Enter the protagonist, she replies. That’s the fun of a mystery novel, isn’t it? The race to read along and solve the mystery before the characters do. She laughs before saying, It seems you place no faith in constables, judges, nor juries.

You are right; I hold no faith in them, he says softly. The color drains from his face.

Their flirtation is evaporating, so she seeks to restart it. I plan on taking a nom de plume and becoming the next Mrs. Henry Wood.

I’m drawing a blank. What has she written?

"Only two-dozen novels! She’s English. You simply must read The Shadow of Ashlydyat."

How about you becoming the next Mrs. Grey? he asks.

But I know nothing of vampires, sir.

He points to her shelf. Please, we are kindred souls. Call me John. May I call you Mary? Mary Victorine seems so formal.

I have a sister named Mary Eugenia, so I’ve always been called Mary Victorine.

That’s quite a few Marys in one family. Are you by chance Catholic? he asks.

"You are observant. Perhaps you should be a mystery detective. Some say girls named Mary are supposed to become nuns, but I want to raise a family someday. I live with my sister here in Rockville and help care for my nephew."

Mary Victorine! It’s William calling her name.

John steps past her. Will you be attending the Montgomery County Ball? he asks as the distance between them shrinks momentarily.

With bells on.

As I expect your card will be in demand, I hope you’ll save at least one dance for me. He bows, turns, and walks away. As he goes around the corner, he encounters William. They nod to one another.

William hurries up to her. Geez, Mary Victorine—I can’t turn my back on you for a minute! Don’t sell me a dog, did that old gal-sneaker take liberties? I’ll sock him a good one if he did. He glares in John’s direction.

No, he was a perfect gentleman. Except that John didn’t offer her his carte de visite. Wait, is that proper etiquette? No matter, she’ll see him at the dance. She absolutely beams.

As they approach the front counter, she catches one last glimpse of John through the front window as he steps off the wooden sidewalk.

William steps outside to get a belated look at him.

Who was that, Mr. Vroman? Mary Victorine asks.

Well ... he’s a teacher at the Rockville School for Young Catholic Ladies.

William returns, and through the window catches a glimpse of a rough-looking man with a red eyepatch standing across the street. The man writes something down in a small notebook before tucking it into his inside coat pocket and starting off in the same direction as has John.

Here’s for my book, says Mary Victorine while trying to hand over a silver dollar.

It’s been paid for. By the gentleman, Mr. Vroman says. "And he’s prepaid for your copy of Checkmate as well."

Who was that, Mr. Vroman? William Hunter asks.

One of the teachers at the School for Young Ladies, Vroman repeats.

The Hunters depart.

They really don’t recognize him? Mr. Vroman wonders. Too young, maybe? Should I a told ’em?

3. The Little Grove

Monday, April 10, 1865

Just after midnight

The grounds of the President’s House, Washington City

4 days until assassination

During the Civil War, the President’s House and its surroundings have much the same appearance as a Southern plantation—straggling and easy-going. On the east side of the main house, beyond the extension—since removed—that corresponds to the conservatory on the west, is a row of outhouses, a carriage-house, and a woodshed. Back and east are the kitchen-garden and the stable housing the President’s two horses.

South of the President’s House proper is a short stretch of lawn bounded by a tall iron fence. Still beyond that rough undergrowth and marshland extend to the Potomac River.

To the northwest is a garden divided from the rest of the grounds by tall fences. It is a real country garden, with peach trees and strawberry vines among the flowers.

There’s quite a space between the President’s House and the War Department, about half a block on the west end of the same block. The passageway, paved with brick, is along the north side of a wall four feet high, in summer and fall it’s densely shaded. Late at night this walkway—President Lincoln’s exclusive province—is dimly lit by a few flickering gas jets.

Away from the path is a little grove. It’s spring, so the trees the two men stand under are only beginning to bud. Abraham Lincoln has just returned from two weeks at the front lines at City Point, Virginia.

After a nine-month siege, Union armies finally burst through Confederate entrenchments and force both Confederate army and government to flee, allowing Lincoln to visit nearby Richmond and sit behind Jeff Davis’s desk in the Confederate White House.

The Army of Northern Virginia surrendered the previous day. Yet, instead of enjoying the sleep of the just, in these wee hours before dawn, President Lincoln has convened a clandestine meeting. He has summoned William P. Wood, former Warden of Old Capital Prison and accomplished Union spymaster.

Wood’s demeanor changes from incredulity to distress, and for a time tears stream down his cheeks. He carefully considers his words. The intentional surrender of one’s life ... is suicide. It’s a mortal sin ... what about Tad, Mr. President? I cannot, in good conscience ... I will be unable—

Wood?

Mr. President?

Abraham Lincoln puts a hand on the much shorter man’s shoulder. You must do everything in your power to assist me, for the country cannot—we must not!—become Missouri.

Real History: Confederate Missouri During the War

Material presented in real history chapters provides context for the various plot lines and its significance may not be immediately obvious.

Note that the copyright-expired historical accounts (published before 1923) used in this novel often have punctuation that’s strange to you, the modern reader (e.g. a space before a semi-colon). Original punctuation has been preserved 1) to indicate use of original, copyright-expired material and 2) as a reminder that you read original, often eye-witness-to-history testimony.

Later on, you’ll notice events in the novel are not presented in strict chronological order. Since quite a lot is happening, proximity to assassination day provides a convenient timeframe to gauge interactions between different characters and plot lines.

The novel is designed like a rollercoaster. The historical background you receive on the way up allows for a more twisting, thrilling conclusion.

-E.R.

_____

We who lived in the border counties of Missouri which were adjacent to Kansas recall with a shudder even now those dark days when the Kansas militia, or Jayhawkers, as they were called, swooped down on us day and night, searching our homes for money or contraband goods. They usually appropriated whatever they desired on their raids that was obtainable. They came to search our houses. They frequently ran their bayonets through all the clothing in the wardrobe or through the mattress to see if there was any one concealed there.

When making a dash into Missouri towns they would order the men in the town to erect the Union flag and command the women not to give food to southern soldiers or Bushwhackers under penalty of death, telling us if we failed to comply with this command they would return and sack and burn the town, shoot the men and take the women and children prisoners. ¹

* * *

The political bitterness engendered between the adjoining states of Missouri and Kansas just preceding the war between the states precipitated a border strife which, for the barbarity of its execution, was almost unprecedented in the annals of American history. One atrocity succeeded another in brutal revenge for the last.

Missouri was almost equally divided in political sentiment. One neighbor was arrayed against another. Hostile bands entered the state from Kansas, burning homes and arresting or killing all who dared to side with the south. These were not at first regular Union soldiers, but their deeds were winked at by those in authority.

So atrocious were their deeds that southern sympathizers who could not reach the southern army were compelled in self-defense to organize as Guerrillas. So the outraged Quantrill, in desperate revenge, repaid them in exaggerated coin by the massacre and burning of Lawrence, Kan. ²

* * *

The militia under Colonel Moore of LaGrange [Union] were guilty of some barbarous acts, one of which was committed on two of our neighbors, Flannagan and Ewing. A few of the soldiers went to their houses and represented themselves as rebels seeking information about the rebels, and so drew from them information that showed they were sympathizers with the rebels, and when they had gained enough of incriminating evidence they arrested them and started to LaGrange with them, and when they were about half way there they took them out away from the road into the woods and shot them like dogs and left them lying there, and sent word to their friends where they might find their bodies, but when found they were so decayed they had to be buried where they lay. ³

* * *

One case or horror that occurred just before Order No. 11 comes vividly before my mind today. Mr. Crawford, an old man with a large family of children, was a southern sympathizer, but had never taken up arms against the government. He went to mill one day with a sack of corn to have it ground to make bread for his wife and children. He left home early in the morning—was to be back by noon.

Noon came, the wife had prepared dinner as best she could, but was waiting for her husband’s return so she could have bread for their dinner. Two o clock came and the husband was still absent. The children were hungry, crying for something to eat. The mother would say, Papa will soon be here, then my darlings shall have something to eat.

Three o clock came, and the mother saw a company of soldiers approaching. They rode up to the door; the mother looked out and saw her husband a prisoner in their midst. He was told to dismount. Then they shot him down before the eyes of his wife and children— shot down like a wild beast. The mother was told to get out of the house with her children, as they were going to burn the house. She asked them to let her give her little children something to eat as they had had nothing to eat since early morning. In answer to her appeal one of them snatched a brand from the fire and stuck it in the straw bed. Everything was soon in flames.

The mother hastened from the house, snatching up a few things as she went. Her husband killed, her house burned, she and her little children turned out in the cold world homeless and destitute. Her only son, 14 years old, went to Quantrill—he had no other place to go. Such acts as this is what made Bushwhackers. O, how strange that men, made in the image of God, could be so cruel and heartless. ⁴

* * *

Another incident comes to my mind. At this time I, with my family, had moved from our home in the bottoms up on the prairie with my father for better protection more of us together and about two miles south of my father lived a widow lady. Her house was on a hill surrounded by trees.

One morning six soldiers from Quantrill’s band came to her house for breakfast—one of the number was the lady s brother. One was stationed outside to watch while the others ate breakfast. He rode down the hill to a spring to water his horse. While he was there the Federals surrounded the house—they cut him off, so he got away without giving the alarm.

So the lady ran in the room and said, Boys, your horses. But alas, they had no time for horses. They ran out the door pistols in each hand. Some went one way, some ran another. The yard had a plank fence, and as they jumped over one was shot and fell dead, left behind on the fence ; one ran half way down the hill and was killed; one ran about a mile and ran in some thick bushes.

The soldiers passed by the thicket and rode on up the hill. I thought they had gone out of sight and came out. The thicket was right in the prairie, and he soon ran out, scared so he hardly knew what he was doing. They saw him and galloped back and killed him. One poor fellow outran them; he jumped the fence and didn’t touch it and ran; he said he hardly knew if his feet touched the ground or not.

One of the Yanks ran in pursuit; he gave the fleeing boy a tight race. He said he could hear him breathing. Finally the soldier stumbled and fell, and the boy heard him cursing and said, Let him go, I can’t get him. He ran on and on, and when he came to himself he was about 12 or 15 miles away from where he started. He said he must, it seemed to him, have fairly flew; he was so frightened.

But he got away.

The troops came back to the house and told the lady they had killed them all and to get some one to bury them. She came down to our house to get some one to go with her and help her find the dead boys. So I went with her.

Men were scarce those days at home, so we and some other ladies went and searched for them and found four; they were found from one-half to a mile apart. In the neighborhood two old men were living. We got them to get their wagon and put them all in it. There was a large tree growing alone out on the prairie, and there the grave was dug so it could be found when their friends should come for them.

We were going to put them all in one big grave, but as we were putting them in the grave their friends, who had heard in some way about the fight, came and took them to their homes. But the poor boy that ran so hard and so far sometime afterwards was killed. ⁵

_____

¹ Missouri Division, United Daughters of the Confederacy, Reminiscences of the Women of Missouri During the Sixties (Jefferson City: The Hugh Stephens Printing Co., circa 1913), p. 35.

² Ibid., p. 124.

³ Ibid., p. 244.

⁴ Ibid., pp. 266-267.

⁵ Ibid., pp. 262-263.

Real History: Union Missouri During the War

.... Bill Anderson’s band of guerillas, numbering about 175 men, it seems, were being pursued by Major Johnson [Union] in command of about one hundred and fifty men detached from Col. Kutzner’s regiment of Northeast Missourians, included in which were also a few militiamen from Paris, Monroe county. The guerillas had been chased out of Monroe county and were on their way to the South, when they came upon the town of Centralia, on the line of the railroad. They entered the town about eleven o’clock. They were dressed in Federal uniform and were well armed, mounted and equipped.

The citizens at first took them for the State Militia. Shortly after their arrival, a gravel construction train came along, which was seized and stopped. A few minutes later the passenger train from St. Louis arrived, which they also immediately seized. Three civilians, who made some resistance, were shot in the cars, and either killed or wounded, and were left on board. The other passengers, including between thirty and forty soldiers, were all ordered out of the cars, and plundered of all their money and valuables.

As soon as the stripping was completed, the vile miscreants commenced firing upon their captives, the unarmed soldiers, some of whom attempted to escape by running into the houses and out into the fields, but were pursued and shot down like wild game. Twenty-four of these soldiers were thus butchered, seven of whom were of the First Iowa Cavalry, stationed at Mexico, and ten of whom were discharged soldiers, veterans returning to their homes from Atlanta, after faithful three years and four months service in the cause of their country, the four months being extra service generously given by them to the Government.

After these men were thus hunted and shot down, their bodies were beaten, their heads cut off and hacked with swords, and every possible indignity inflicted upon them. Mr. ROLAND, express agent at Centralia, was among the killed. The murderous work having been accomplished, the torch was applied to the depot, and the train containing the three wounded civilians was fired and started on its way up the road. It ran about six miles, when it stopped and was slowly consumed ....

This completes our account of the most horrible butchery our State has yet been afflicted with. The shocking details bear some resemblance to the Lawrence massacre of last year. In brutality and fiendishness these horrible deeds were never surpassed. The people of the surrounding country are terribly excited. They say these guerrillas have their homes and their hiding places in Callaway County, and that they never will have peace and protection until that and the adjoining counties, which are so notoriously disloyal, shall be thoroughly purged of rebels and rebel sympathizers. ¹

* * *

.... This is the twelfth night since Bill Anderson [Confederate], accompanied by Capt. Berry, of Callaway County, forced his way into this house, and made a negro pilot him up stairs to the bedroom of Mr. and Mrs. Lewis. There finding Mrs. Lewis in bed alone, with her babe, he demanded where her husband was, She replied that she did not know. He then advanced toward the bed and turned down the clothes, as if to satisfy himself that Mr. Lewis was not there, all the while talking in the most insulting manner to Mrs. Lewis.

Having thus began his work by a ruthless intrusion upon the sanctity of a lady’s bedchamber, this brute proceeded for several hours with a series of acts which the demons inhabiting the lowest hell could not surpass in cruelty ....

Mrs. Lewis brought a thousand dollars in silver, an leave it [archaic] to Anderson -- all the money in the house. Anderson threw the bag containing it down upon the floor, saying that he did not want silver; he had come for gold, and gold he would have ....

In one room he amused himself by firing at Mr. Lewis legs, and putting his pistol up to his knees and shooting down at his bare feet. As I write, the pants worn by Mr. Lewis at the time are before me, perforated with bullet-holes, some of them powder-burned, showing that the muzzle of the pistol was placed close against the leg of the pants. The evident intention was to break Mr. Lewis’s legs, and it is a wonder how he escaped. He was choked, and pistols ran into his mouth, two or three at a time, besides being punched in the ribs every few moments with the muzzles of the pistols of his tormentors ....

While at Lewis’s house, Anderson said he had killed Union men until he had got sick of killing them, It there was any such thing; and he also said he had killed Union women, and was going to kill more of them ....

Going into the room occupied by the negro woman. Anderson asked her something about her master, when she spoke of him as Mr. Lewis (which Mr. L. teaches all his negroes to do), he cursed her for not calling him master, and fired a pistol at her, which fortunately missed her ....

I mentioned in my former dispatch the ravishing of a young negro girl by Anderson. Not only was that true, but I am obliged to add another chapter to this brutality ...

They then inquired for a grown daughter of Mr. Lewis, and being told (which was the case) he had none, they insisted that he had, and swore they would carry her away with them. They were especially bent on gaining possession of what they supposed to be Mr. Lewis’ daughter, and had any young lady been stopping at the house at the time, as is often the case, she might have met a dreadful fate ....

Do not think you can avoid the issue by saying that Anderson does not belong to the Confederate army - that Price is not responsibly [sic] for his acts ... From the aged cripple to the tender infant, none were exempt. And these claimed to be regular Confederate soldiers. ²

* * *

Once, relates a Lieutenant of a Kansas regiment, "I was shot down by a Guerrilla and captured. I knew it was touch and go with me, and so I said what prayers I remembered and made what Masonic signs I was master of. The fellow who rode up to me first was stalwart and swarthy, cool, devilish-looking and evil-eyed. Our dialogue was probably one of the briefest on record ...

‘Are you a Mason?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Are you a Kansas man?’

‘Yes.’

‘G-d d-n you!’

This did not require an answer, it appeared to me, and so I neither said one thing nor another. He took hold of his pistol and I shut my eyes. Something began to burn my throat. Presently he said again, as if he had been debating the question of life and death rapidly in his own mind: ‘You are young, ain’t you?’

‘About twenty-five.’

‘Married?’

‘Yes.’

‘Hate to die, I reckon?’

‘Yes.’

‘You are free!’

I tried to thank him, although I did not at first realize his actions or understand his words. He got mad in a moment, and his wicked eyes fairly blazed.

‘You are free, I told you! D-n your thanks and d-n you!’

From that day to this, the Lieutenant continued, I am at a loss to know whether my wife saved me or the Masons.

Neither; and yet the Guerrilla himself might not have been able to tell. Perhaps it was fate, or a passing tenderness, or something in the prisoner's face that recalled a near one or a dear one. Some few among them, but only a few, believed that retaliation should be a punishment, not a vengeance; and these, when an execution was unavoidable, gave to it the solemnity of the law and the condonement of civilization. The majority, however, killed always and without ado. ³

* * *

Col. Hays [Confederate] and his little party [seven men] rode into Westport where there was a garrison fifty strong ... The fifty soldiers garrisoning Westport were part of Jennison's regiment [Union], especially obnoxious to the citizens, and given up, more or less, to predatory excursions in the country round about. It was the same old story of splendid personal recklessness and prowess. As Hays trotted leisurely in at the head of his squad, an orderly [Union] at a corner saluted him, supposing him to be a Federal officer; the salute was returned. As Dick Yager followed on behind, the orderly, looking upon him only as a private, did not salute.

Why do you refuse? asked Dick.

You are a fool, said the orderly.

But I am a fine shot, replied Yager, and he was, for he put a dragoon pistol ball fair through the man's forehead.

The Jayhawkers [Union defenders] swarmed. Seizing upon houses, fifty men under cover [Union] fought five [Confederate Guerillas]. Hays separated his soldiers and kept up an incessant fusillade. A German living in the place had boasted a few days before of a desire to lead a [campaign] of extermination against rebel women and children; it was an effective way to end the war, he said. Younger [later of the Jesse James Gang] treed the Dahomey [German] man in a house, which was barricaded, and swept the street in front of it, while Yager was battering down the door to get in. The doomed man fought like a wolf, but they killed him in his den and flung his body out of a window. ⁴

* * *

Quantrell [Confederate] sat upon his horse looking at the Kansans. His voice was unmoved, his countenance perfectly indifferent as he ordered : Bring ropes; four on one tree three on another.

All of a sudden death stood in the midst of them, and was recognized. One poor fellow gave a cry as piercing as the neigh of a frightened horse. Two trembled, and trembling is the first step towards kneeling. They had not talked any save among themselves up to this time, but when they saw Blunt busy with some ropes, one spoke up to Quantrell : Captain, just a word : the pistol before the rope ; a soldier’s before a dog’s death. As for me, I’m ready.

Of all the seven this was the youngest how brave he was !

The prisoners were arranged in a line, the Guerrillas opposite to them. They had confessed to belonging to Jennison, but denied the charge of killing and burning.

Quantrell hesitated a moment. His blue eyes searched each face from left to right and back again, and then he ordered: Take six men, Blunt, and do the work. Shoot the young man and hang the balance.

The oldest man there some white hairs were in his beard prayed audibly. Some embraced. Silence