which he was known to have in
his possession, and the cruel treatment of my mother at the hands of the
Missouri Militia. My father was in the employ of the United States
government and had the mail contract for five hundred miles. While in
Washington attending to some business regarding this matter, a raid was
made by the Kansas Jayhawkers upon the livery stable and stage line for
several miles out into the country, the robbers also looting his store and
destroying his property generally. When my father returned from
Washington and learned of these outrages he went to Kansas City, Mo.,
headquarters of the State Militia, to see if anything could be done. He
had started back to Harrisonville in a buggy, but was waylaid one mile
south of Westport, a suburb of Kansas City, and brutally murdered; falling
out of his buggy into the road with three mortal bullet wounds. His horse
was tied to a tree and his body left lying where it fell. Mrs. Washington
Wells and her son, Samuel, on the road home from Kansas City to Lee's
Summit, recognized the body as that of my father. Mrs. Wells stayed to
guard the remains while her son carried the news of the murder to Col.
Peabody of the Federal command, who was then in camp at Kansas City. An
incident in connection with the murder of my father was the meeting of two
of my cousins, on my mother's side, Charity Kerr and Nannie Harris
(afterwards Mrs. McCorkle) with first my father and then a short distance
on with Capt. Walley and his gang of the Missouri Militia, whose hands are
stained with the blood of my father.

[Illustration: Nannie Harris and Charity Kerr]

Nannie Harris and Charity Kerr

Walley afterwards caused the arrest of my cousins fearing that they had
recognized him and his men. These young women were thrown into an old
rickety, two-story house, located between 14th and 15th streets on Grand
avenue, Kansas City, Mo. Twenty-five other women were also prisoners
there at that time, including three of my own sisters. The down-stairs
was used as a grocery store. After six months of living death in this
trap, the house was secretly undermined and fell with the prisoners, only
five of whom escaped injury or death. It was noted that the groceryman
had moved his stock of groceries from the building in time to save it from
ruin, showing that the wrecking of the house was planned in cold blood,
with the murder of my sisters and cousins and