Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
NOTABLE ARKANSANS
The first reference to his existence was in the 1850 census: listed as 15 and living in the City Hotel on Main Street in Little Rock with his mother and James Hutchins, a government clerk.
In 1857, he was working as a printer when he was indicted for the murder of Hardy Foster. The details are sketchy. But the murder must have been highly publicized because his legal team — four prominent Little Rock attorneys, one of whom was future governor Henry Massie Rector — was able to get a change of venue to Saline County on the grounds that Pulaski County citizens were prejudiced against him. He was found guilty of second-degree murder in October 1858 and sentenced to five years in the Arkansas State Penitentiary in Little Rock.
His incarceration did not go well, for in 1860, he was identified as “invalid” on a report and had been disciplined for bad behavior. Nonetheless, he received a parole on the condition that he join the Arkansas war effort. On June 14, 1861, to satisfy that condition, he enlisted for 12 months as a private in a regiment of the Arkansas Mounted Rifles in Fort Smith. It is stated on his service record that his horse and its equipment were valued at $150. He was paid 40 cents a day for use of his horse and arms.
After his year of service, he joined with a 1,200man guerrilla unit led by Col. John Trousdale Coffee. By then, many Arkansas Confederate units had been ordered east of the Mississippi, leaving the state vulnerable to advancing Union troops from Missouri. To slow this advance, “the Cause” in Arkansas used guerrilla bands in a “slash and burn” policy, destroying assets that could fall into enemy hands. This policy placed an extreme hardship on north-central Arkansas farmers. One Union general described Coffee’s band as “the most despicable rough, ragged rascals ever congregated together.”
He became a company captain and earned a personal reputation for brutality and murder. There is oral history that once, in an attempt to get information, he burned off the fingers and toes of a farmer, then killed the farmer and his young daughter.
By many accounts, he was shot between the eyes in 1863 by a Union-sympathizing home guardsman named Jim Berry. Local tradition says he was buried face-down in an unmarked grave.
Who was this legendary ruthless killer, immortalized — along with Jim Berry — in a Jimmy Driftwood song?
Who was this legendary, ruthless killer, immortalized — along with Jim Berry — in a Jimmy Driftwood song?
John William “Bill” Dark