Noted Guerrillas by Edwards
This is part of page 303 and 304 combined

Other Guerrillas also had their way in this portion of Missouri before Quantrell, Todd, and Anderson began to operate there, notably the Holtzclaw family. Capt. Clifton Holtzclaw led the first Guerrillas Howard county produced. Capt. William Holtzclaw raised one of the first companies that was raised for Price's army in the State. His brother Clifton was a lieutenant in the company, and his other brothers, James, Benjamin and John were privates. William was killed at Corinth, John and Benjamin at Vicksburg, while James and Clifton survived the war. Here were five brothers who were brave alike, who fought side by side, who were renowned for personal prowess and personal courage, and who sacrificed everything they possessed for the cause and the Confederacy. A tragic circumstance called Capt. Clifton Holtzclaw back to Missouri. His aged father and mother, together with three sisters, had been robbed of everything they possessed, horses, household effects, clothing, even bread. Yet the old patriarch's spirit remained all unsubdued and undaunted. As far advanced as he was in life, and as little fitted for warlike operations, he nevertheless secreted several kegs of powder against a day when they might be worth their weight in gold. Some of this powder becoming damp, old Mr. Holtzclaw attempted to dry it before a fire. There was a terrible explosion, one sister was killed and the two others dreadfully burnt. To care for and protect these, and his two aged parents, Capt. Cliff Holtzclaw hurried home after the Corinth battle, where a gallant brother had been killed, and sought to be at peace and to rest in quiet. Such things in those savage days were impossible things. Several efforts were made to capture and kill him. Four or five scouting parties went to his house, insulted his parents, abused his sisters, and made all sorts and kinds of terrible threats against his own life. In self defense he organized speedily a splendid company and fought a desperate Guerrilla fight all through the summer of 1863 and 1864. But did he not have terrible provocation? In the summer of 1863, Lieutenant Jo Strett of Guitar's regiment, a cruel militia officer who tied Southern men to trees and sabred or shot them, went to Capt. Holtzclaw's house, took the aged father from the arms of his aged wife and remorselessly killed him. The son avenged him. He fought thereafter as some savage wild beast. He killed by day and by night. He never took a prisoner. As desperate as Anderson, as unforgiving as Todd, as untiring as Taylor or Jesse James, the timber sent him forth as a scourge and received him back again as though he was a part of its solitude

Keith