I know that name Brantley Y. Bond sounded familiar. I wrote about him a few months ago for a writing project I will soon be completing.

A group of Quantrill's guerrillas mostly with Clay County background left the main group in east Jackson County and Lafayette County to return to Clay County in late May and early June 1864 to settle old scores. The group was headed by young Charles Fletcher "Fletch" Taylor, born in Zanesville, Ohio but prewar was living in Independence. Taylor lost an arm fighting in August 1864 nearby but survived and after the war prospered as owner of lead mines in southwest MO and eventually served in the Missouri General Assembly. Riding with him on this quest were Peyton Long, Jim Cummins (who wrote his memoirs which survive--see sources below), Doc Rupe, Allen Parmer, Frank James [all the preceding were Clay Countians except for Taylor]. Other non-Clay Countians accompanying the others were Archie Clements and James Bissett, and perhaps others.

I quote now from my earlier writing: "Between June 1 and June 6 these Quantrill men executed several vulnerable, local men who were either informants to the Union military or Yankee soldiers who had caused them grief. The guerrillas' blue uniforms may have helped four of them to trick, capture, and murder Private Brantley Y. Bond of the 6th Cavalry MSM at his home near Claysville in northeast Clay County where he was evidently on furlough. Bond was a veteran of the tough Lone Jack battle of August 1862, and lore says that he had helped hang the James' step-father, Reuben James, almost to death."

My narrative continues to describe how this bushwhacker group sought out and killed several other northern men of the Clay County area during June. Sometime during these actions, but probably after the Brantley Bond killing, Frank brought his sixteen-year-old, younger brother Jesse into the group. Evidently, a group of these guerrillas sought out Bond to kill as one of the first of several victims.

My sources for the Bond information indicated above include these sources which all mention Bond by name except Jim Cummins' book:
--"Liberty Tribune" newspaper of 10 June 1864 (killings of Bond and other local men mentioned in the editorials);
--National Historical Company, "History of Clay and Platte Counties, Missouri," St. Louis: National Historical Company, 1885, pp. 247-8;
--W. H. Woodson, "History of Clay County, Missouri," Topeka: Historical Publishing Company, 1920, p. 135;
--Carolyn Bartels, "Clay County Missouri: The Civil War Years, vol. I," Shawnee Mission, Kansas: Two Trails Publishing, 1993, p. 84;
--Jim Cummins, "Jim Cummins' Book," Denver: Reed Publishing Company, 1903, reprinted Provo, Utah: Triton Press, 1988, pp. 54-5 (although Cummins does not mention Bond specifically by name);
--John N. Edwards, "Noted Guerrillas, or The Warfare of the Border," St. Louis: H. W. Brand and Company, 1877, reprinted Dayton, Ohio: Morningside Bookshop, 1976, p. 364.

I hope this will be of some help to you.

Bruce Nichols