Ed,

Well, I missed that one for sure, and your interpretation of the report fits the details of the murders that we have from the southern side. The Captain Smith has to be Captain James Smith of Company C, 7th Kansas Cavalry. and Company C was one of the three companies of the 7th Kansas Cav that garrisoned Patterson in Wayne County at that time. He must have been the officer in charge of the patrol who recognized Joe Dennis' masonic hand signal of distress and spared Dennis' life as a fellow mason. This made Dennis the sad witness to the Yanks' murder of the rest of the southerners. And, you may well be correct about why sending the patrol report by courier instead of by telegraph. Unless, they couldn't keep southerners from cutting the telegraph line.

I really don't think Dennis and the others were guerrillas, because Dennis' version has them putting back on their Confederate uniforms in order to ride south from Wayne County to Wittsburg, Arkansas to give their oath and receive their amnesty. Of course, some southerners were regulars at some times during the war and guerrillas at other times, too.

Somebody may ask, why did Captain Smith's patrol deliberately murder men who had obviously just surrendered? Dennis' version had the captured men showing the Yanks their copies of the paroles, which was specified by both General Thompson and the Union side that the Union troops who took the Union side had to keep one copy of each parole and give the surrendering individual the second copy to prove he fulfilled his part of the amnesty deal. I don't think the Kansans were interested in the paroles, because I think they were out for revenge. I read a number accounts of revenge-taking by both sides who wanted to "get their evens" before civil law returned to this region and such killing became murder and not just killing by one armed combatant of another. But, that's just my conjecture, and I cannot prove it.

Thanks for pointing out this patrol report to me. It does fit the time, the place, and the rest. I think you are correct.

Bruce Nichols