Howard County, Missouri - Civil War Happenings
9/10/1864
Major Austin A. King, Howard County, had a run-in with sixty of Holtsclaw's command east of Roanoke in Howard County. Captain Turner (militia) succeeded in a running fight that covered five miles in killing six of them and capturing a quantity of their shotguns.
'Following this report, General Fisk, from his headquarters in St. Joseph writes King-. 'I congratulate you on the good beginning of the bushwhacking campaign. Strike with vigor and determination Take no prisoners. We have enough of that sort on hand now. Pursue and kill. I have two of Holtzclaw's men, just captured. They state the he camps when in Howard County, in the rear of old man Hackley's farm, not far from Fayette. [J.P. Hackley is shown as owning a tract in the north half of Section 29, Township 50, Range 17 in the 1876 Illustrated Atlas Map of Howard County. The same source indicates that S.C. Hackley owns a tract in the south half of Section 20, Township 50, Range 17.1 Make a dash in there at night and get him if possible. Let a detachment secretly watch his mother's residence (Lucinda Holtlzclaw is shown as owning a tract in Sections 31 of Township 51, Range 16, on p. 25 in the 1876 Illustrated Atlas Map of Howard County, and in Section 36, Township 51, Range 17 on p. 32. This would be north of E highway in the vicinity of the water tower north of the Bill Brown farm and south of the Mike Schewe place.] He is home almost daily, and his sisters are great comforters of the bushwhackers. Old man Hackley has a son in the brush. I shall soon send out of the district the bushwhacking families. Go ahead and give us a good report.' (-.Day by Day, Bartels, p. 120; see also OR, Vol. 41, Chapter 53, pp. 759-760, for the reports of Fisk and King regarding this incident.)