In an after-action report regarding these unrepentant Rebels, 14th Missouri Cavalry Lt. Cpl. Joseph Gravely wrote: "The band that crossed the railroad near Knobnoster on the 23rd instant were all that I could obtain any reliable information of. At Warsaw and other points, I learned that the above-named band committed horrid outrages, murdering some ten or twelve discharged soldiers and citizens in Hickory and Benton Counties."
Unable to find the guerrillas, the soldiers returned to camp -- "men and horses in good condition" according to Gravely.
Following a divorce from his first wife during the Civil War, Bolin married Elizabeth Ferrell in 1868, and the couple had seven children. After Elizabeth's death in 1922, James had no one to help with chores. So in 1936, James Jackson recommended his daughter, Helen, then a 17-year-old high school student.
The kindly old man and teen grew close, but according to Helen, not in that way, as she began to help him with chores around the house, cleaning and washing.
One day, Bolin made an unusual proposal to Jackson. According to Helen, he said: "I do not believe in accepting charity and I don't have money to pay you, so why don't you marry me so I can give you my Civil War pension when I'm gone?"
For a girl of modest means like Helen, James' pension check, perhaps $30 a month or more in the depression era was too enticing to decline.
--Old Secesh
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