The Turnbo Manuscripts

by Silas Claiborne Turnbo
1844-1925


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"KILLED BY BUSHWHACKERS"
By S. C. Turnbo

An account of the killing of four men in Cole County, Missouri, during the Civil War was furnished me by Frank Stevens who was only a little lad of a boy then and lived in that part of Missouri in war times. "One day," said Mr. Stevens, "four men were captured by the guerrillas. I knew two of the men that were taken, the names of which were John McClure and his son Sam McClure. I cannot call to mind the names of the other two men. The bandits met the four men in the road in the river bottom on the South Morean River and made them go with them 50 yards into a dense growth of timber where they were put to death. I saw the four dead bodies lying there on the following day after they were killed. I had went with several men who prepared the bodies for burial. This was 4 miles south of Russellville. The bodies of McClure and his son received interment in the Lucinda Amos graveyard 3 miles west of the town of Russellville. I remember that the emblem of a saber was carved on John McClure’s headstone and the following words were also cut: "Killed by Bushwhackers"

I do not know where the bodies of the other two men were buried as their friends and relatives taken them away."

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