MURDER OF DR. RICE AND OTHERS.

ON the night of July 15th, 1862, Dr. Rice, Benjamin Daniels, and John Barnes, Union men, were brutally hung by a gang of guerrillas near Tennessee Ridge twenty-five miles from Nashville, for no other cause than that they had, a day or two before, allowed the men employed in erecting a telegraph line for the use of the United States army, to stay at their houses.

HANGING OF MR. STEWART.

THE father of a family, named Stewart, residing near Robinson's Springs, Tennessee, among the Cumberland Mountains, was brutally murdered by a party of Confederate soldiers. He had served in the army of the United States under General Jackson, at New Orleans, in 1814-15.

On all occasions he was true to the Union-and to secession decidedly opposed.

At the breaking out of the rebellion, he became a conspicuous object for the vengeance of the rebel leaders, although seventy-five years of age. He was soon waited upon by a deputation of these miscreants, and informed, that he must aid the rebellion. He frankly declared his unwillingness to break up a government under which he had so long and so happily lived; but he would remain at home and not molest any one in the enjoyment of his opinions.

This declaration would not satisfy them, yet he was allowed to remain in quietness for a few days. One day,

however, as he was tottering through his yard, a squad of Confederate soldiers rode up, and one of them, Lawson Hill, told him "That he was a dangerous man, and had harbored Union men."

He declared that no one had been about his house for months, but his own family and their connections; they maintained that they knew better, and required him to go some twenty miles to a place for trial. The old man told them, he was not able to do it, if it were to save his life. "Well," said one of them, Lawson Hill, "if you will not go to trial, we must try you ourselves, and, be sure, hang you, guilty or not guilty." After some further discussions, they told him "that it was the policy of the Confederates, to destroy the last Union man in the country." They then took this poor old man to an apple tree in his own yard, and hung him till he was dead, in the presence of his horror-stricken family. This man Hill was formerly a member of Congress from Tennessee, and glorified in the murder of a man of seventy-five years of age simply because he was a Union man.*

MURDER OF A DERANGED WOMAN.

IN April, 1862, two rebel murderers in the garb of soldiers, named Wood and Ingersoll, went to the house of Mrs. Ruth A. Rhea, on Lick Creek, in Greene county, Tennessee, with the determination to conscript her son, her only support, she being partly deranged. As she saw them approaching the house, she seized a stick, and commanded them to leave the premises, and raised her stick to strike. One of them, well aware that she was

*General J. B. Rodgers.

ATTACK ON GENERAL RODGERS'S HOUSE. 109

deranged, said he would run her through with his bayo-net. His threats were of no avail, for she instantly brought down the stick with all her force on his cowardly person. He proved his bravery by shooting her through the breast, killing her almost immediately, and then went off, rejoicing at having murdered a deranged woman, old enough to be his mother, leaving her body upon the ground, to be buried by her distressed son, when he might venture forth from his hiding-place.

*

ATTACK ON GENERAL J. B. RODGERS'S HOUSE.

ON the night of the 20th of September, 1863, three guerrillas came to the house of General John B. Rodgers, in Van Buren county, Tennessee.

Their names were French (raised in Warren county, son of Mason French), Lamb, and Hembree. They rushed into the house, and, with cocked pistols in their hands, demanded to know where General Rodgers was, for they had come, they said, to kill him that night.

Mrs. Rodgers informed them that the general had been at home, but had remained there only four hours, and was then in Memphis.

One of these abominable murderers swore that it was a lie; that the general was concealed about the premises, and they intended to have him. They then searched the house, destroying everything in their way, like madmen, and causing consternation and terror to the family.

The youngest son of the general, named William, took the hint, and concluded it was time for him to leave. Willie is only about twelve years of age; but thinking

* Colonel R. T. Crawford, of Tennessee.

that the boy would be a man some day, and a Union man, one of them tried to shoot him.

The child bounded out of the house, and fled in the darkness. One of the guerrillas followed in hot pursuit, still endeavoring to shoot him (a child twelve years of age). But little Willie knew the ground too well for the guerrilla. He made good his escape, and secreted himself in a clump of briars. His pursuer still pushed on, but finding his efforts vain, abandoned the chase as fruitless. As soon as the child found the way clear, he left his hiding-place and made for the woods, where he lay out in the wet and cold all night. The result was a

serious cold.

After these efforts, the bandits robbed the general's farm of the last horse and mule, and then betook themselves to Mr. Isaiah Hatson's, whom they shot three times, killing him almost instantly. Thence they went to the house of Mr. Hunter, whom calling out on the piazza, they shot and instantly killed. They also shot his son at the same time, all for being Union men.*

MURDER OF OLD MR. WOOD.

ON or about the 15th of January, 1862, Champ Furguson, for some reason greatly exasperated, came to Albany, Kentucky, cursing all the Unionists in the place. He swore that he would kill some d-m Lincolnite before he left that night, and a horse he must have, he said, as the one he was riding was not good enough. Mr. D. Kozier, a citizen of Clifton county, having ridden a very fine one to Albany that day, left it standing fast

*S. C. Wilson, of Tennessee.

ened in the road while he went into a friend's house to attend to some business. Champ seeing it, rode up and immediately appropriated it for his own use, at the same time asking to be shown the owner, as he wanted to put a ball through him, as a compensation, we suppose, for the horse. But Mr. Kozier, not wishing to receive such pay, and being unarmed, fled.

Toward evening Champ left Albany, still swearing that he would kill some one that evening. On his way he passed the dwelling of Mr. Wood, who was standing in the door-way as the fiend came up; drawing his pistol, he told Mr. Wood that he had come to kill him. "No, you won't," said Mr. Wood, "for.I have trotted you on my knee many a time when you was a baby; we have lived together since you were a child, and have always been good neighbors, and I never harmed you." "You are a d-d Lincolnite," cried Champ; "you ran off your mules, and besides you packed the d-d Union flag at Camp Dick Robinson" (Mr. Wood was a colorbearer in the Union army, but being too old he left the army). "I will kill you anyhow;" suiting the action to the word, hè fired, shooting the old man in the abdomen, who immediately fled into the house. Champ jumped from his horse, and followed the old man, still firing at him. Mr. Wood seeing this, seized a small hatchet, turned round, and struck Furguson a severe blow on the head, nearly stunning him, and would have killed him, had not one Philipot, who had come from Albany with Champ, interfered, threatening Mr. Wood with_instant death if he struck another blow. The old man, seeing that he was deprived of the liberty of defending his life, ran up stairs. Mrs. Wood and her daughter, hearing the fracas, came to the rescue. Champ and his companion