Nimrod Hankins enlisted as a private in Company E, Ninth Regiment, Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, in October 1861. By March 1863, First Lieutenant Hankins was commanding a small detachment of soldiers from Company E, in Shawnee Town, Kansas.
In late March, the thirty-two year old Hankins received complaints from local citizens concerning stolen horses. “I thought prudent to take a small scout,” Hankins wrote in a report to his commanding officer. With four men, he headed north, picking up tracks near the Kaw River Bridge. The soldiers followed the trail three miles west of the “Six Mile House,” a dwelling already notorious in Kansas. Located on the Leavenworth Road, the building was owned and operated by Joseph A. Bartles. On returning to either the Six Mile House or to Shawnee Town, (his report is ambiguous), Hankins detained two men. “I arrested two “Red Legs” Jeff Davis and A. Sayvor,” he declared. Both men already had warrants out for their arrest from local military authorities.
Almost immediately however, a dispatch arrived from Major Wyllys C. Ransom, an officer in the Sixth Regiment, Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, who since the spring of 1862, had been serving on detached duty, appointed to a “separate command” designed to protect the Kansas-Missouri border from Missouri guerillas. He informed Hankins that Davis and Sayvor could not possibly have committed the offense because they were with him on the night the horses disappeared. Ransom claimed that he had already arrested Davis and Sayvor “and accepted their parole to report to Headquarters Fort Leavenworth immediately.” Feeling he had little choice in the matter, Hankins released both men.
The next evening, while Hankins was away on another scouting mission, a large group of men rode through Shawnee Town. “There was about fifty Red Legs passed here Saturday evening going home to Lawrence, [Kansas] all leading horses,” Hankins informed his commander. He also reported that all of them were carrying “passes from Major Ransom.”