JEFFERSON CITY — Condemned as a guerrilla, John Nichols rode to the gallows with his arms tied back, dressed in a shroud and seated on his coffin.

“When the executioner helped him out of the wagon, his sister, the only relative that was here at the time, met him and kissed him, and bid him goodbye,” policeman Henry Kerone, one of 1,500 spectators, wrote to Lt. Andrew Hamilton of the St. Louis Police Department.

The scaffold was in a “sort of a ravine” about a mile from town, providing an amphitheatre-like view to the audience, Kerone reported in a letter that was quoted or paraphrased extensively by St. Louis newspapers. The wagon bearing Nichols led a procession that included a band playing a funeral dirge, 550 soldiers of the 9th Minnesota Infantry and three companies of mounted militia.

Before he was taken from the guardhouse, Nichols, 22, dictated a statement to regimental chaplain Aaron Kerr of the 9th Minnesota.

“I am willing to acknowledge anything I have done, but I positively deny the charge of acting as a guerrilla or injuring any person in Missouri, unless in the act of battle, or when I killed the Negro, who was seeking to betray me,” Nichols said.

The statement was printed in the Missouri State Times.

The man he admitted killing was a slave named George. “He was seeking my life by leading men to capture me — he deserved death and I would do the same act again, under the same circumstances,” Nichols said.

Eight witnesses testified at his trial before a military commission that Nichols had terrorized Pettis, Henry and Johnson counties. They said he threatened them, shot at them, robbed them and took their horses. The commission issued the death sentence, which was approved by President Abraham Lincoln.

Nichols claimed to have been a soldier and commissioned officer since 1861. When he took horses and guns in Missouri, he said, he was on recruiting missions. “There was no Federal force in that region, and I always had more men with me than I found opposed to me,” Nichols said. “Hence they surrendered and I took what I wanted.”

As he closed his statement, Nichols struck a conciliatory tone. “In this hour I have nothing to gain by making false statements,” he wrote. “And now I freely forgive those who have wronged me as I seek forgiveness from that God in whose presence I must soon appear.”

But he was defiant on the gallows. “On ascending the scaffold, he took hold of the rope, placing the noose around his neck and then turning to the spectators, said, ‘gentlemen, I am going to show you how a Confederate soldier dies,’ ” he said.

Nichols, a Catholic, was interrupted by the priest who accompanied him to the platform, who said: “ ‘John, John, remember!’ ” Kerone wrote. “He turned around to the priest, saying ‘go away — I mean what I say.’ ”

As District Provost Marshal Thomas Switzler read the death warrant, the priest, who is not named in reports, spoke privately with Nichols. “The Priest, then said, ‘John you forgive everybody and are sorry for whatever you have done to your fellow citizens, are you not?’ He hesitated a while, and then replied, ‘Yes, I have shot at soldiers and they have shot at me, I have threatened people and they have threatened me.’ ”

As the hangman pulled the hood over his face, Nichols said, “Goodbye boys, everybody.”

The trap was sprung, Nichols fell and his neck broke. He was cut down after 19 minutes, declared dead and his body was turned over to his sister. And Kerone collected a macabre memento.

“I hereby enclose you a strand from the rope, the part that was around his neck,” he wrote to Hamilton. “As this was the first rebel hung in this state by regular military authorities, I thought you would like to have a memento of the occasion.”