Does anyone know the whereabouts of Riley Crawford’s three older brothers at the time their father, so-called “neutralist” Jeptha Crawford, was executed by Colonel Penick’s men on January 29, 1863? According to the 1860 census, William (22), Marshall (17), Marion (15) were all living in their parents’ home with Riley (13). All Riley’s older brothers survived the war. None are listed as having been guerrillas. I also can’t find any confederate or union military records for them. William Connelly in Quantrill and the Border Wars says after Jeptha was executed, Mrs. Crawford took her “sons” to join Quantrill’s band, implying it was more than just Riley. Knowing more about the older brothers would help to shed light on which parts of the Crawford story are true, or just legend. Are we to believe that Riley’s older brothers, who in 1863 would have been ages 18-25, older than Riley when he died, remained on the sidelines until their father was killed?

The notion that Jeptha was a “neutralist” apparently comes from guerrilla Frank Smith’s memoirs, which were used by historian Albert Castel in his biography of Quantrill. Neither John Edwards nor William Gregg use that descriptive. The term “neutralist” has been picked up by other historians. Jeptha’s family certainly had ties to guerrillas. Crawford’s wife, Elizabeth, nee Harris, was the sister of Reuben Harris. Reuben was the uncle, by marriage, of Cole Younger and the father-in-law of guerrilla Jabez McCorkle. I believe he was also the father of guerrilla Thomas Harris. In his 2016 book Bushwhackers, historian Joseph Beilein states that the Crawford family supported the guerrilla war effort and were tied in to a kinship network of families—the Fristoe system--who supported the guerrillas, but he doesn’t provide enough detail to know if the Crawfords’ support for guerrillas pre-dated Jeptha’s killing or was a result of it.

Just to provide context, Colonel Penick, at the time Jeptha Crawford was killed, was urgently trying to find the guerrillas who murdered and mutilated 5 men under his command in early January in one of the most barbaric atrocities, if not the most, committed by guerrillas up to that time. It clearly shocked Penick, his superior, General Ben Loan, and one of his lieutenants who told his hometown newspaper that the murders left “a terrible picture of savagism, which I did not think even bush-whackers could perpetrate.” Furthermore, Penick was operating under draconian new orders from General Loan, issued on January 20, that positively ordered his officers to extend the black flag to aiders and abettors of the guerrillas. This order, which has been little mentioned in the histories, can be found at OR series 1, volume 22, part 2, pages 64-65. Loan’s orders exceeded Federal policy, drew the attention of General Halleck, and were corrected by General Curtis by early February. The order exceeded Federal policy because if the elderly Crawford had been suspected of aiding and abetting the guerrillas, and was not found in arms, he should have been arrested and tried by a military commission rather than summarily executed. I don’t know why Penick and Loan felt they couldn’t operate that way, but they had an intractable problem to deal with.

Anyway, what about Riley’s brothers? Does anyone know? Larry Dishman—please correct me if I’ve stated anything incorrectly about Penick.