Most people driving north out of Russellville today would never guess that one of the ugliest episodes of Pope County’s Reconstruction history happened along that route.
The place was Shiloh.
The name is much older than the park many of us remember. There was a Shiloh Church and a Shiloh community, with the name also attached to Shiloh Creek. In July 1872, that little country church became the stopping point in a chain of events that left one man dead, another mortally wounded, and helped push Pope County deeper into what became known as the Pope County Militia War.
The trouble had been building.
On July 5, Deputy Sheriff John Williams returned to his farm after warning officials that he believed his life was in danger. According to Capt. James Fitch, someone fired on Williams near his home. One bullet passed through his hat and another struck his belt clasp, knocking him down.
Sheriff E. W. Dodson organized a posse.
On July 8, the group went to Williams’ neighborhood. Dodson and County Clerk Frank Hickox later said they had 28 men, including four Black men. They arrested N. J. Hale, his son William T. Hale, and Joe Tucker.
Then Isham L. West got involved.
West was a blacksmith at Scottsville. He saw the armed party pass through with the Hales under arrest. The prisoners told him they did not know why they had been arrested.
Mrs. Hale was reportedly distraught. West agreed to ride to Dover and find out what was happening.
It was a decision that nearly got him killed.
West asked Dodson to keep the prisoners at Dover long enough to arrange a local hearing. Instead, according to West, Dodson became angry and arrested him too. West, the two Hales, and Tucker were then taken south, supposedly toward Dardanelle.
Somewhere along the way the plans changed.
The party stopped at what West called Shiloh Church, three or four miles from Russellville on the Dover-Russellville road.
That is where this story becomes especially interesting.
The prisoners were ordered off their horses and taken inside the church under guard. Dodson said he was going to find forage for the horses. West said that while Dodson was outside, he watched Dodson, Hickox, and several other men gathered together, apparently discussing something.
Eventually Dodson returned.
There would be no overnight stay at Shiloh, he said. They were going on to Russellville.
They brought the prisoners outside and put them back on their horses. West and Tucker were positioned together. The Hales rode behind them. Dodson and Hickox were toward the front.
West noticed something else.
A lot of the posse had disappeared.
According to West, Dodson looked back and remarked that it appeared “half our men are gone.”
Then he laughed.
The little column rode away from Shiloh Church into the darkness.
They had gone only a short distance when someone remarked that it was “dark as Egypt.”
Another voice answered:
“Egypt has no eyes.”
Then the shooting started.
West said gunfire came from the woods, but what he saw bothered him. The gun flashes appeared to be pointed upward. He also said Dodson and Hickox did not fire toward the supposed attackers.
Then the guards behind the prisoners began shooting.
West immediately threw himself down against the side of his horse, hoping anyone shooting at him would miss. The saddle slipped. The horse bucked, and West fell to the ground.
He crawled into the brush.
And stayed there.
From his hiding place he could hear men talking and laughing. He heard Dodson asking where the prisoners were. Then came more gunfire.
West heard a man crying out in pain. He heard a voice he identified as Dodson saying, “Now… I’ve got you.”
More shotgun blasts followed.
Then the cries stopped.
William Hale told much the same story from another position.
Hale said that just after the “dark as Egypt” remark, a gun fired near him. He was then shot in the right shoulder. He got off his horse, made his way away from the road and sat beside a tree.
From there, he too heard a man crying out and heard a voice he believed was Dodson’s.
Hale survived the night.
He did not survive the wound.
They took his sworn statement three days later, on July 11. He subsequently died.
Joe Tucker died along the road that night.
Dodson and Hickox told a very different story.
They said someone fired from the brush and the prisoners attempted to escape. Their guards had previously been instructed that if the party was attacked, or if the prisoners tried to escape, they could shoot them if necessary. According to their account, the horses became unmanageable, the guards fired, Tucker was killed, and the other prisoners escaped.
They denied accusations that the whole thing had been arranged to provide an excuse for killing the prisoners.
That leaves us with two radically different versions of what happened on that dark road near Shiloh.
Was it an attempted rescue followed by confused gunfire?
Or was the supposed attack staged, allowing prisoners to be shot while claiming they were escaping?
More than 150 years later, there is probably no way to prove every detail.
But West’s statement is hard to read without questions. The unexplained disappearance of much of the posse. The conversation outside Shiloh Church. The strange exchange about Egypt. Gunfire apparently directed into the air. Guards firing from behind the prisoners. And afterward, West hiding in the woods listening to men laughing while shotgun blasts and cries came from the darkness.
Those are not the kinds of details normally associated with a routine prisoner transfer.
And that is what makes Shiloh important.
For many of us, Shiloh brings to mind a road, a creek, an old park or the reclaimed strip-mine country north of Russellville.
But there is another Shiloh buried underneath the familiar landscape.
On a July night in 1872, armed men gathered around a little country church. Four prisoners were taken back onto the road. Minutes later the darkness erupted in gunfire.
Joe Tucker never came home.
William Hale made it out of the woods, but his wound eventually killed him.
Isham West survived because he fell from his horse, crawled into the brush, and stayed very still until the moon went down.
The road eventually became quiet again.
But Pope County did not.
Odds & Ends 020
