In July 1864 the Perry County Jayhawkers scouted toward Pinewood, insulting and abusing citizens along the way. At one point, they encountered Lafayette Turbeville, one of Cross’ men, stole his knife, hat and tobacco, beat him severely and forced him to take the oath of allegiance to the United States. Captain Cross promptly assembled a squad that night and ambushed the Yankees on their way back from Pinewood, killing and wounding 11 without loss to the guerrillas. During another scout that year, the Jayhawkers captured two soldiers from the 1st (Confederate) Tennessee Cavalry and murdered the pair. They later crashed a dancing party on Cane Creek and killed another man there. Riding down the creek, the Federals clubbed a man to death with their pistols and rode off toward Linden, killing one more prisoner along the way.

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The deaths of two young men named Pointer and Buford illustrate how the opposing factions reacted to events during the internecine madness. Lieutenant Jordan W. Creasy, Company E, 12th (Union) Tennessee Cavalry, was described as being proficient in ‘the burning of houses, the robbing of defenseless homes, and the insulting of unprotected women.’ He was also responsible for what was termed by one local authority as ‘the most cowardly and brutal murder in the history of the county.’ According to the Southern account, Pointer and Buford had stopped for breakfast at a residence near the mouth of Lick Creek, when the house was surrounded by 50 troops under Lieutenant Creasy. Trapped inside a bedroom that offered no escape, the cornered fugitives gave the Masonic sign of distress and cried out, ‘We surrender!’ Ignoring their pleas, Creasy stepped into the doorway and fired away until both men lay dead on the floor.

The Federal version of this affair differed greatly. According to Captain Russ B. Davis, 10th (Union) Tennessee Cavalry, Creasy and 25 soldiers pursued the two men ‘o’er hill and dale until finally he was upon them.’ Pointer and Buford were concealed ‘in a house of ill-fame, situated in a most secluded spot’ when the lieutenant arrived. Fearing they might escape, Creasy ‘dashed upon them alone and shot them both before any of his party were on the spot.’ A search disclosed four army pistols. Captain Davis praised his subordinate in the official report of this incident, writing, ‘Much credit is due Lieutenant Creasy for his gallantry in this single contest.’ Davis concluded his report with the remark, ‘Perfect order was kept throughout the entire march, and the rights of law-abiding citizens respected by my entire party.’

Murder and midnight justice became so commonplace in Hickman County that normally heinous crimes went virtually unnoticed. In 1864, about two miles west of Vernon, David Seymour and Howell Luten were killed in their beds by an assailant wielding an ax. The murderer was never caught, and amid the stirring events of that year, the crime was soon almost forgotten.

By this stage of the war, Hickman County was a desolate place. Blackened chimneys marked where homes had once stood. Stables, barns and smokehouses were empty. Farm implements had vanished. Fertile land grew only thorns and briers. Menfolk lay buried in graves on battlefields across the South. Hickman’s Confederate residents hated the Federal invaders who had brought this desolation into their quiet community, and looked to their guerrilla neighbors to protect them from any further depredations.

Unaware of Hickman County residents’ intense hatred of the Yankees, Brig. Gen. Joseph A. Cooper’s brigade of Union infantry left Johnsonville on November 24 and marched toward Centerville on the Reynoldsburg road. Rainy weather quickly turned the roads into what were described as ‘lines of mud, without a bottom.’ Despite the mire, Cooper’s men marched about 16 miles on the 25th and 20 miles on the 26th. They forded several streams along the route, including Piney Creek, near which the soldiers camped that night.

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