Early War Incidents.—From this time on the county itself was in comparative peace during the war, except during Price's raid, which was made in 1864. Price's army entered the county September 30, and remained in the county until October 4. It consisted of about 16,000 men, and, at a low estimate, the amount of property destroyed, including horses and mules driven away, amounted to $500,000. The number of men killed by his army was never definitely ascertained, but it was estimated at about sixty.

Previous to Price's raid there were five men killed in Frank­lin County by Union soldiers. Morton Bournes was killed by Home Guards for resisting arrest. Benjamin Horine was killed by some troops from Jefferson County. August Dolle killed two of Capt. Maupin's men who had been discharged and were on their way home. He was afterward captured near Eolla, by Union troops, and sent home to be tried; but, upon arriving within the county, he was taken charge of by the militia and killed. Capt. James H. Barnes was taken out in 1863, four miles south of Union, by Capt. Fink's company, and was shot. The troops reported that he was shot in an attempt to escape, but his friends thought that he was murdered. Capt. Murphy and Herman Gehlert were afterward indicted for the killing of Barnes by the grand jury of Franklin County, and, on the application of Murphy, the case was transferred to the United States Court at St. Louis. Murphy was discharged upon pleading the constitution of the State of Missouri of 1865, which provided that no soldier should be punished for acts committed in the service of the United States, and Gehlert's indictment was nolle prosequied. But the severest crime committed in Franklin County, during and on ac­count of the war, was the killing of Maj. James Wilson and six of his men, on or near the farm now owned by William H. Bolte, by Tim Beeves' band of soldiers, to whom Maj. Wilson and his men had been turned over by Gen. Sterling Price, and most likely with the knowledge, or at least reasonable ground for suspicion, as to the fate in store for them. While Tim Reeves and his men were never directly punished for this cruel and cowardly murder, yet Maj. AVilson's fate did not go unavenged, for, later, in St. Louis, six rebel soldiers were, by order of Gen. Rosecrans, executed in retaliation for Reeves' crime.
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