style="font-size:15px;"> This piece of information led the express agent to take the only sensible step of his whole proceeding. Mrs. Farrington had two negro families with her, some of whom had belonged to her before the war; and, with the personal attachment noticeable in many of the colored people, they were now desirous of going West with her. It occurred to the agent that some of them, from their confidential relations to the family, might be able to give some information as to the whereabouts of the boys. The negroes were, therefore, taken separately and closely examined, until one of the men was urgently persuaded to reveal what he knew. He said that Levi, Hillary, and Barton had committed the robbery, and that they had since been at Mrs. Farrington's together. According to an agreement between the mother and her sons, she was to start for Texas, passing through Nigger-Wool Swamp, on the west side of the Mississippi, and the two eldest sons were to meet her in the swamp, when they would determine where to go.
The agent also learned that the men had arrived at their mother's house Friday evening, November 10, and that a man who had gone there to sell her a wagon had been met by Hillary Farrington with a shot-gun; on seeing that it was a neighbor, however, Hillary had lowered his gun and allowed him to come in. It was also learned that the three desperadoes had been seen at the house of the Farringtons' uncle, named Douglas, on Hurricane Creek, about ten miles from Waverly; again, on Monday, they had been noticed at Hurricane Mills, making their way to Fowler's Landing, on the Tennessee River between Florence and Johnsonville, fourteen miles from the last-named place. It was evident that they intended to strike across the country below Reel's Foot Lake, and cross the Mississippi at some point between Columbus and Memphis. The men were all well mounted and armed, and they had changed their personal appearance somewhat by altering the arrangement of their hair, whiskers, and beards.
The arrest of Mrs. Farrington was a most unfortunate blunder, since it disclosed to the criminals how close had been their pursuit, while little really important information was obtained. It was a good illustration of the danger of taking any decided step in a criminal investigation before knowing to a certainty that some good result would be obtained. The parties thus learned that we were not only aware of their identity, but also that we were very close upon their track, and the danger, as well as the difficulty, of the case was largely increased. These men were desperadoes of the most reckless type, and they would not have hesitated a moment to lie in ambush and kill their pursuers, if they had found it possible to do so.
In order to intercept the fugitives before reaching the swampy country near the Mississippi, the number of scouts and patrolling parties was increased by the superintendent of the express company, and two men, named Ball and Bledsoe, were engaged to follow Mrs. Farrington on horseback until her sons should join her in Nigger-Wool Swamp. This would have been a sensible and necessary move if the right kind of men had been employed; but the selection of untrained men for the delicate and important work of "shadowing" such an experienced gang of villains was risky in the extreme. Had they ever met Barton and the Farringtons, the latter would have undoubtedly murdered both of them without scruple; but there was no danger of such a meeting, since the robbers, and Mrs. Farrington also, were perfectly aware of the presence of their pursuers from the start. Indeed, they afterward stated that it had been their intention to have led the detectives on as far as the wild, unsettled country of Western Missouri, and to have then hanged them in some unfrequented spot, placing the inscription "Horse-thief" upon each of the bodies. Subsequent events prevented them from carrying out this plan, but there was no doubt that they would have taken that or some other equally daring means of ridding themselves of pursuit. The manner in which Ball and Bledsoe exposed their intentions wherever they went showed the inexperience of both men in such work; for, along the whole route over which they passed, they were known as officers tracking a band of thieves; and we afterward learned that, while they were innocently and unsuspectingly following Mrs. Farrington, two of the men, Barton and Clark, were almost continually watching them. However, they had been started on their mission by the superintendent before William could make any other arrangements, as he was away at Lester's Landing when the chase began.
From William's reports to me, I saw the uselessness of maintaining such a body of men in the work of scouting, watching ferries, and beating the cane-brake, for the reason that no good could come of it. I knew that if the robbers could escape from Lester's Landing and make their way to Gillem Station once, they could do it again. Clark (or Hillary Farrington) had been at Lester's early Thursday morning, while guards were stationed all about; yet, on Saturday morning he was at his mother's farm, and no one had even seen him on the way. This convinced me that they had such a knowledge of the country as to make it impossible to stop them by any system of guards or patrols, and I therefore wrote several letters asking that the superintendent discharge this expensive force at once, and allow me to manage the whole operation by my own plans and with my own men. While William, therefore, was at work with indefatigable energy and perseverance, scouting and following up all the reports brought in by the vast army of volunteer detectives in the company's employ, we were both satisfied that the method adopted was useless, and that even the ferry guards would discover nothing. Knowing the character of the three desperadoes, I had no doubt of their sagacity in avoiding observation and pursuit; they would never try to cross without knowing positively whether the ferry was guarded, and if there should be any real danger, they would undoubtedly steal a skiff and make their horses swim across the river, a feat of no great risk in the then low condition of the water.
About this time an incident occurred which added greatly to William's popularity in Union City, and gained for him the respect and kindly feeling of the community. On Sunday two roughs, having drank enough bad whisky to be absolutely fiendish, began to beat an old and inoffensive negro whom they happened to meet. A merchant, named Blakemore, who was passing at the time, stopped to remonstrate with the ruffians, when one of them turned and plunged a knife into his stomach, inflicting a wound which caused his death next day. The murderer was the terror of the town, and so great was the fear of him that he would have probably escaped had not William appeared on the street as he rushed away flourishing his bloody knife and threatening to kill any one who should stand in his way. The sight of William's heavy revolver leveled at his head, backed by the certainty which he saw in William's face that death or surrender was his only alternative, caused him to choose the latter, and he was lodged in jail to await his trial for murder. The people of the town were quite enthusiastic over the way in which William had brought the fellow to bay, and then compelled his surrender; and they even went so far as to say that he was "a good fellow, a very good fellow indeed – for a Yankee."
On the twentieth of November an unfortunate publicity was given to our operations by the publication in the Union City Journal of a long history of the Farringtons, showing their whole career of crime, and terminating with an account of their latest exploit, as developed by our investigations in and about Union City. It is unnecessary to state the source whence this information was derived, further than to say that it was not obtained from any member of my force. It was a very dangerous piece of news to be published, since it might have wholly overthrown all our plans, besides involving the death of two or three men engaged in the operation; fortunately, the robbers were undoubtedly across the Mississippi by that time, and beyond the reach of newspapers for some weeks at least.
On the same day that this matter was published, Mrs. Farrington crossed the Mississippi River at Bird's Point, opposite Cairo, and the fact was reported to William and to me by telegraph. We had previously learned that Mrs. Farrington had relatives in Springfield, Missouri, and in Dade County, in the same State, and the probabilities were that, instead of going to Texas, she was going to visit in one of these places. Meanwhile, though my opinion was that her sons intended to rejoin her somewhere, either in Nigger-Wool Swamp or at her place of destination, I had no certainty that such was their intention; and, bearing in mind the warning they had received by her arrest at Waverly (and possibly by reading the newspaper article previously mentioned), I felt that every clue must be carefully traced, even though it might lead in an exactly opposite direction from that in which our previous suspicions had caused us to look. My correspondents and agents in Louisville, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and New Orleans were, therefore, kept on the alert to capture the men if they should venture into those cities, while I held three determined men ready to go at once
