Hi List, I just happened to run into this story on my hard disk. Knew it was there and had wanted to send it before when some other thing had reminded me of it but then, of course, it was not to be found. At any rate, we all know the sterotype which we ourselves (( "we ourselves"??... I must be playing jokes on myself... (for in Irish that can be read as "Sinn Fein")... but the play on words was entirely unintentional)) are often guilty of perpetuating. However this is a true story, the account of which was given in 1919 in the Eldon Advertiser, the local newspaper in Miller County, Missouri. Official accounts of the action can be found online, written at an earlier date and in more formal tones, when this somewhat whimsical recounting would have been found less amusing. It is harder to find the humor when the bodies, still fresh in the earth, are one's contemporaries rather than one's ancestors. So, with that, I'll let you have it... Slan agat, Phil December 11, 1919 Eldon Advertiser COURTHOUSE AT TUSCUMBIA FORTIFIED FOR ATTACK Sixteen Men Killed at Mining Post Ford on Osage River above Bagnell Sanford Jefferies, 82 years old, now of Eldon, came to Miller County when 16 years old. His parents moved her from Russell County, Kentucky coming from there on the Mississippi river to St. Louis and on the Missouri to Jefferson City, and from there they followed the Osage river, driving an ox team, to Tuscumbia and located on the Wet Glaze. Mr. Jefferies cast his first vote for president for Abraham Lincoln. He remembers distinctly the following war incident. During Price's raids in Missouri while Mr. Jeffries' regiment was stationed at Jefferson City under command of his brother, Captain Ben Jeffries, it became known that Price's army would make an attack on Tuscumbia and Captain Jeffries regiment was ordered to Tuscumbia to prepare for the attack. A large cannon was mounted on a platform in the door of the court house, the barrel pointing straight down the old road which at that time was the only road leading to the courthouse. The courthouse was full of soldiers, two were stationed at each window with their guns ready for immediate action and others ready to take their places as fast as they would fire. Guards were placed along the river below the hill to give warning of the approach of the enemy, One of these guards, Mike Gleson, an Irishman, happened to be stationed near a small warehouse where several barrels of whiskey had been stored. The odor created too strong a temptation for his appetite and by making use of his bayonet, he bored a hole in one of the barrels taking an oversupply for good service. While thus intoxicated he was disturbed by a dark object approaching and having been given orders to call halt three times and then fire if no response was made, one of the other guards heard his say, "Halt couple o' three time" and then the report of his gun aroused the regiment on the hill to alert readiness for the enemy which proved to be a stray cow Mike had killed in the dark. After this Captain Jeffries, Joe Worth, Albert Harrison and Sam Salsmon were killed by bushwhackers in the lane near Kiaser and a company of soldiers stationed at Linn Creek, hearing of the fight, went in pursuit and overtook the rebels at Mining Post Ford, above Bagnell where they killed sixteen. Mr. Jefferies camped near where Eldon is now located at one time during the war when it was dangerous to camp out in the open here.