The Turnbo Manuscripts
by Silas Claiborne Turnbo
1844-1925
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SHOCKING AND CRUEL
By S. C. Turnbo
In relating horrible incidents of Civil War times as they occurred in Madison County, Arkansas, Mrs. Mary Ann Fritts, widow of Charley P. Fritts, furnished the writer with the following account.
"Monroe Christian and Rhoda Christian, his wife, lived on Richland Creek. They had 4 sons and 3 daughters, the names of the sons were Joe, Jim, Henry and Thomas, that of their daughters were Eliza, Nancy and Annie. Mr. Christian was a soldier in the union army and had come home on a leave of absence to remain with his family a few days and return back to his command, but that visit proved to be his death for one night while he was thinking he was comparatively safe a band of guerrillas surrounded the house to take him alive and kill him at their leisure. Knowing that it was certain death to be captured alive he attempted to run the gauntlet of men and guns, but was shot to death before he got out of the door yard. His poor grief stricken wife was so shocked at seeing husband shot down in her presence that she was Prostrated and sank into death in 24 hours after her husband was killed. The women and a few very old men dug two graves in Lawless hollow and the bodies of man and wife were laid to rest in them never more to be disturbed by the rumors and horrors of bloody warfare."
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