Missouri Law Review Volume 77 Issue 2 Spring 2012 Article 2 Spring 2012 Getting Away with Murder (Most of the Time): Civil War Era Homicide Cases in Boone County, Missouri Frank O. Bowman III. Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/mlr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Frank O. Bowman III., Getting Away with Murder (Most of the Time): Civil War Era Homicide Cases in Boone County, Missouri, 77 MO. L. REV. (2012) Available at: https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/mlr/vol77/iss2/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at University of Missouri School of Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Missouri Law Review by an authorized editor of University of Missouri School of Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Bowman: Bowman: Getting Away with Murder (Most of the Time) Getting Away with Murder (Most of the Time): Civil War Era Homicide Cases in Boone County, Missouri Frank 0. Bowman, III* I. MURDER AT THE UNIVERSITY - AN INTRODUCTION On March 4, 1851, at the State University in Columbia, Missouri, there occurred one of those incidents that from time to time break up the stately progress of the academic year. It seems that young George Clarkson got in a brawl with a fellow student. Upon hearing of this unseemly affair, the faculty convened and docked each of the combatants fifty marks. Professor Robert Grant, coming late to the meeting, encountered Clarkson on the steps and asked how the matter had been resolved. Clarkson replied, "I am very well satisfied but I will give him a whipping yet."' Divining from this remark that Clarkson had not gotten the faculty's message and that further breaches of the peace might be expected, Professor Grant reported it to University president James Shannon, who reconvened the faculty and summoned Clarkson to re- turn.2 Clarkson did not respond gracefully. The outraged scholar confronted Professor Grant on the portico of the college building, accused him of schem- ing to have Clarkson put out of the University, slashed at him with a whip, and struck him with a cane.3 President Shannon intervened and told Clarkson to behave himself, to which the young man replied by cursing Shannon and saying "that if he did not mind his business [Clarkson] would cane him." 4 For his part, Professor Grant exhibited remarkable sangfroid and walked * Floyd R. Gibson Missouri Endowed Professor of Law, University of Mis- souri School of Law. This article could not have been written without the indefatiga- ble toil of my research assistants Scott Snipkie, Eoghan Miller, Caleb Grant, and Burke Bindbeutel. Special thanks to Professors Alfred Brophy and Chuck Henson for their insightful comments. 1. Letter from Mary Guitar to her brother, Odon Guitar (March 10, 1851) (on file with the Western Historical Manuscript Collection-Columbia, Collection Number 2952) [hereinafter Mary Guitar letter]. Several contemporary sources recount the events that led to George Clarkson's death at the hands of Professor Grant. The ac- count given here is drawn from Mary Guitar's letter and the record of the preliminary hearing published in the local newspaper two weeks later. State vs. Rob't A. Grant, Mo. STATESMAN, Mar. 28, 1851, at I [hereinafter Preliminary Hearing]. 2. Preliminary Hearing, supra note 1 (testimony of President James Shannon). 3. Id. (testimony of Prof. Leffingwell, Prof. Matthews, W.C. Shields, Homer J. Luce, and President James Shannon). 4. Id. (testimony of Prof. Hudson). Published by University of Missouri School of Law Scholarship Repository, 2012 1 Missouri Law Review, Vol. 77, Iss. 2 [2012], Art. 2 324 4MSSOURI LAW RE VIEW [Vol. 77 away.5 Once Clarkson was restrained, the faculty resumed its conclave and voted to expel him.6 Clarkson was enraged and would not be mollified. He armed himself with a pistol, told fellow students that he intended to kill Grant before the night was out, and began searching the town for the unsuspecting academic. Alarmed by Clarkson's threats, several students sought out Professor Grant at a nearby tavern where he was taking a guitar lesson and warned him. In addition, a faculty colleague who encountered Clarkson searching for Grant dispatched a slave to the tavern with a note bearing "six or eight lines appris- ing [Grant] that I apprehended Clarkson was seeking another conflict with him." 9 Grant responded by scratching out a message to a friend asking him to send "one of his best revolvers" over to the tavern.10 The revolver arrived. The lesson concluded. Grant stepped out into the street and was confronted by Clarkson, who held a pistol in one hand and a stick in the other and struck Grant with the stick." The professor told his assailant to go away or quitl2 or that "he did not want to have any fuss with him," 13 and tried to pass on, but Clarkson struck him again.14 Professor Grant drew his gun, turned, and 16 fired. 15 Nearly simultaneously, Clarkson's pistol discharged. Clarkson 5. Id. (testimony of Prof. G.H. Matthews) (Prof. Matthews reported that, after Clarkson's attack on Grant, "I expressed my sentiment as to Mr. Grant's self-control - remarked to him that I would not have so commanded my temper. That I had never seen a person that exhibited so much self-possession or restraint."). 6. Id. (testimony of W.C. Shields). 7. Id. (testimony of Cornelius Small, Edward Stark, and John McBride); Mary Guitar letter, supra note 1. 8. Preliminary Hearing, supra note I (testimony of W. Alexander, H.C. Cocker- ill, and Charles Jeffries); Mary Guitar letter, supra note I (Ms. Guitar's letter asserts that Professor Grant was taking a drawing lesson; however, the testimony at the pre- liminary hearing makes it clear that the instruction was musical.). 9. Preliminary Hearing, supra note 1 (testimony of Prof. Hudson). 10. Id. (testimony of John W. Watson); Mary Guitar letter, supra note 1. 11. Preliminary Hearing, supra note 1 (testimony of Mr. Pierpoint, Mr. Broad- head, James H. Walker, John McBride, William P. Richardson, and Robert Barber). 12. Id. (testimony of Mr. Pierpoint and Robert Barber). 13. Mary Guitar letter, supra note 1. 14. Preliminary Hearing, supra note I (testimony of Robert Barber). 15. Id. (testimony of Mr. Pierpoint, Dr. Spotswood, R.L. Todd, James H. Walk- er, and John McBride). 16. There was some initial disagreement about whether Clarkson also fired his weapon. Robert L. Todd and Joseph A. Brown described only one shot, while John Pierpoint, George C. Kimbrough, John McBride, and John Corbit each heard two. Id. However, after the shooting, Pierpoint inspected Clarkson's pistol and found it was "was empty and had an exploded cap on it." Id. Even Clarkson's father later conced- ed that his boy fired, though he maintained that the shot probably resulted from a muscle spasm caused by receiving Grant's bullet. H.M. Clarkson, Public Letter, MO. STATESMAN, Aug. 22, 1851. Likewise, there was considerable uncertainty about why https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/mlr/vol77/iss2/2 2 Bowman: Bowman: Getting Away with Murder (Most of the Time) 2012] GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER 325 missed. Grant did not.' 7 Mortally wounded, Clarkson lingered a few days, but ultimately expired.' 8 Professor Grant immediately surrendered himself to the sheriff.19 At a preliminary hearing before a justice of the peace held on March 14, 1851,20 Grant was released after a finding of self-defense.21 The circuit attorney nonetheless presented the case to the grand jury in August, but it refused to indict. 22 Free, but perhaps dismayed by the turbulent character of mid- 23 Missouri college life, Grant promptly relocated to California. Murder always fascinates. It is central to much of the world's most en- duringly popular literature, from Oedipus to Hamlet to The Sopranos. In real life, the stories of why and how people kill each other and how the law re- sponds can reveal a great deal about a time, place, and culture. That the Civil War and its aftermath defined modern America is a historical truism.24 Here in mid-Missouri where I teach law, the truism is a palpable truth, discernible in the names on our streets and buildings, the racial geography of our towns, and the nature of our political and social arrangements. Grant turned and fired when he did. Mary Guitar says that he fired after hearing Clarkson cock his pistol, Mary Guitar letter, supra note 1, but none of the eyewitness- es who testified at the inquest made this connection, and at least one mentioned seeing Clarkson cock the pistol well before he struck Grant the first blow with his stick. Preliminary Hearing, supra note 1 (testimony of John McBride). 17. Preliminary Hearing, supra note 1 (testimony of Dr. J.B. Thomas, describing track of Grant's bullet as passing through Clarkson's lung and lodging against his spine). 18. NORTH TODD GENTRY, BENCH AND BAR OF BOONE COUNTY MISSOURI 248 (1916) [hereinafter GENTRY, BENCH AND BAR OF BOONE COUNTY], available at http://digital.library.umsystem.edu (search text collections for "The Bench and Bar of Boone County, Missouri"; then select "get results details"; finally, under "The Bench and Bar of Boone County, Missouri" select "view first page"); Mary Guitar letter, supra note 1 (noting that as of March 10, 1851, Clarkson was still alive, but "there is little hope entertained of his recovery."). 19. Mary Guitar letter, supra note 1. 20. Id. (stating that the preliminary hearing was delayed until the Friday follow- ing Ms.