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The May 24, 1861 edition of the Alexandria Gazette & Virginia Advertiser carried the news of a gang operating in Butler County, Missouri. This is a particularly interesting account for two reasons:
The first is the fact that the Civil War (for the most part) had not yet arrived in Southeast, Missouri.
The second is that the paper states the gang’s leader was from Indiana
“Colonel: Can you inform me whether the officers and men who were surrendered by General Robert E. Lee were permitted to pass within the Confederate lines or not? My reason for making this inquiry is that many of those I am called upon to surrender will prefer to go to Texas and Louisiana to remaining in neighborhoods where private animosities will keep the community in tumult, after the military authorities are withdrawn. Some will desire to take their families. Others think that their families will be safe will be absent themselves after being paroled. This is a very important matter to many on the border of Missouri and Arkansas, and you, will therefore , please let me know your understanding of this case.
M. Jeff Thompson
Brigadier General, Commanding North Sub-District of Arkansas.”
I took this photo of the Laflin Store in July, 2017. If one looks at it long enough they can see a hint of the once prosperous establishment that still remains. That being said, there’s also no denying that the structure is “on borrowed time”.
” A large number of people were out to enjoy the excellent entertainment and manifest a due appreciation of the laudable work of Professor E. R. Graham who has had charge of this institution for the past term. He has been laboring under disadvantages that would have discouraged most men, nevertheless his work has been successful to a marked degree.”
While William T. Leeper was willing to go to most any lengths to achieve success and become a man of means he was unable to achieve what he most wanted from many of his contemporaries, which was respect.
Col. W.T. Leeper overtook and sounded them and in attempting to prevent arrest one of them was killed and another probably mortally wounded. Hanging is too good for such fiends.
It is said by the old inhabitants that the first day the saloon was opened in Mill Spring a man was killed in it, and now the last hours of the saloon business adds a last victim to the nefarious traffic.
Captain Leeper seems to have done more harm locally than good. Bitterness abounded for many generations thereafter toward him. He became known locally as the chief “Jayhawker.”
“Thomas A. Haynes , private, Company L, 3’rd Missouri State Militia is to be shot for horse stealing and robbing the store of John J.L. Collins of Logtown, Iron County, Missouri.”
“My mother’s grandfather, Jonas Myers served in the Confederate Army and was killed in Northeast Arkansas after the conflict ended while on his way home to Bollinger County in Southeast Missouri. Some accounts say that he and several other local men on their return journey were robbed and then lined up and executed by so-called bushwhackers, lawless men who preyed on both sides.
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