While resting in the Courthouse park yesterday, W. A. Bacon, an old soldier and a native of Appleton, who had celebrated his 30th birthday a few days previous, recalled the time he had seen a mob of soldiers take Fugate Bolan, a notorious guerilla of Civil War days, from the dungeon in the basement of the Common Pleas Courthouse and hang him to a gate post on the Bloomfield road, near where Henderson avenue now crosses Bloomfield street.
Bacon has spent most of his life in Stoddard county and is now here visiting his son, who runs a restaurant on Main street. He was born at Appleton, but moved with his father, Thomas Bacon, and the remainder of the family when he was 3 years of age to Bloomfield.
In 1861, the veteran stated, the family moved to Cape Girardeau. He went to school in a brick building, standing, he thinks, on or near the site now occupied by the Presbyterian Church. He remembers that an attorney by the name of Wilson was his teacher. The family lived somewhere in the block in which the Missourian building is located. His father died in 1862 and the mother and children moved back to Stoddard county, near Leora.
It became too hot for a Union sympathizer in Stoddard county so in 1863, although he was only 17 years old, Bacon came to the Cape and enlisted in the 2nd Cavalry Regiment of the Missouri State Militia.
The young soldier served with the state troops a year, then enlisted, November, 1864, in the regular army. It was while on duty here that he saw the mob hand Bolan. The later belonged to a gang of bushwhackers known as the Bolan gang, who lived in Welsh township. Their operation extended from Cape Girardeau to Arkansas points and they were feared all over this district. Bacon said his Colonel, Rodgers, tried to prevent the hanging, but was unsuccessful. Bolan made a detailed statement before he was hung, Bacon said, telling of some of the killings he had been implicated in.
Bacon said his regiment of regular troops was sent west to look after Indian troubles. It went as far as Colorado. In November, 1865, he was mustered out at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. He cast his first vote for Abraham Lincoln for president in St. Louis in 1864, while only 18 years old, Bacon stated. All the soldiers, regardless of age, were given ballots, he said.
The old soldier said he hauled cotton and other farm products with ox team to Dave Glenn and other Cape merchants from Stoddard county in those early days. People drove here along Crowley's Ridge from way down in Arkansas during that period to trade. There were no railroads in Southeast Missouri and it was impossible to reach the Mississippi river ports to the east on account of the swamps.