Iron Father Atticus

“Gentlemen, I want to show you how a Confederate soldier dies.” This is John Nichols. 22 years old. He is seated in leg irons attached to a ball and chain. A guard’s leg and revolver are visible at the edge of the frame. He was born in Kentucky in 1841 and raised in Pettis County, Missouri. During the Civil War, Nichols and partner James Johnson ran one of the smallest guerrilla bands in the region. Through late 1862 and early 1863 they robbed isolated farms and travelers in Johnson, Pettis, and Henry counties. Union authorities in Sedalia issued a shoot-on-sight order against them. Nichols was captured in Morgan County on April 25, 1863. A military commission tried him at Jefferson City that June. Witnesses described him as “a guerrilla and a highway robber” and “a terror to that county more than any other living man.” One man testified that Nichols had taken him prisoner, threatened to kill him with buckshot, then robbed him of $100 and his horse after he fled. The sentence of death was reviewed and approved by Missouri Governor Hamilton Gamble and President Lincoln. He attempted to escape and was wounded by a guard. On October 30, 1863, he was taken from the guardhouse in a wagon, seated on his own coffin, dressed in a white shroud with his arms pinioned. Four companies of Wisconsin infantry and a troop of cavalry escorted him to a gallows set in a ravine a mile outside Jefferson City. He placed the noose around his own neck and told the crowd, “Gentlemen, I want to show you how a Confederate soldier dies.” A priest told him to hush. Nichols replied, “Go away, I mean what I say.” His last words were: “Yes, I have shot at soldiers and they have shot at me. I have threatened people, and people have threatened me.” He was the first bushwhacker hanged in Missouri by sentence of a military court. Image from Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield; WICR 30211