The Rev. S. S. Headlee Again

I've previously written on this blog and elsewhere about the murder of S. S. Headlee. In fact, I think this is the fourth time I've written about the subject either directly or indirectly on this blog, and I've also published both an article and a chapter in one of my books about it. So, it's a subject I seem to keep coming back to. Part of the reason for that is simply that it's a fascinating subject, in that it illustrates better than almost any other incident I can think of the lingering bitterness that existed between Union and Confederate sympathizers in the wake of the Civil War, particularly in Missouri. But another reason for my continuing interest in the subject is that I seem to keep running on to little tidbits about it that I had not previously been aware of. Which brings me to today's blog entry.
Rev. Headlee, a strong Confederate sympathizer, was murdered on July 28, 1866, for attempting to preach at the Pleasant View Church in northwest Webster County by Union sympathizers who held possession of the church. Before the war the church had been affiliated with the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and that body still held title to the building. However, the war had caused a split in the church, and most of the congregants eventually aligned themselves with the Methodist Episcopal Church (North). By the end of the war, the Pleasant View Church was firmly in the hands of the northern contingent. Headlee, though, determined to re-establish a presence at Pleasant View for the M. E. Church South, if not regain outright possession of it. He was warned by prominent members of the current Pleasant View Church not to attempt such a takeover. This much I knew, but I did not previously know that the warning was a printed one that was published in the Springfield Missouri Weekly Patriot several weeks before the fatal confrontation until I recently discovered it as I was perusing that newspaper. I knew, too, that the confrontation was far from spontaneous, but I was not previously aware that it had been building up quite as long as it apparently had been, because the warning was published in the June 21 issue of the Patriot, almost a month and a half before Headlee was killed. So the dispute between Headlee and the members of Pleasant View Church went back to at least the beginning of the summer and probably some considerable time before that.
The warning was in the form of a letter from Henderson W. McNabb, a leader in both the Pleasant View Church and the Radical Republican Party of Webster County, and it had a dateline of "Pleasant View, June 18, 1866."  Addressed to "Mr. S. S. Headlee, Sir," the letter began, "I am desired to say to you for the class and congregation worshiping in Pleasant View church, that your services will not be acceptable as a preacher of the cross of Christ. You are therefore requested not to attempt to preach in said church, on said first Sabbath of July, 1866."
The letter continued, "I am requested further, to signify to you the reasons why the class and congregation worshiping in said church object to you preaching to them." McNabb pointed out that Headlee had, at the beginning of the war, aligned himself with "the enemies of the government" and sought to destroy "the best government in the world." McNabb went on to malign the Confederacy as a "nefarious confederation" and a "nefarious cabal."
"With your own hand," McNabb continued, "you traduced the flag of the nation and to-day, you adhere to the party that framed iniquity and murder into law." (Actually, Headlee not only denounced the U.S. flag at the beginning of the war, but he also reportedly knocked it down.) "You violated the law of God in resisting the government,... you violated your ordination over which required you to be subject to the government of the United States."
Even now, McNabb said, Headlee continued "to resist the constitutional authority of the state of Missouri." McNabb accused Headlee of merely creating strife rather than trying "to spread the trophies of Christ's Kingdom" and said he was guilty of treason. McNabb ended the letter by renewing his request (which was, in fact, a veiled threat) that Headlee not attempt to preach at Pleasant View. "Yours respectfully, H. W. McNabb."
But Headlee did attempt to preach at Pleasant View, not on the first sabbath of July but on Saturday, the 28th of July. And it cost him his life.
Some time after Headlee was shot dead, McNabb and a man named Drake were arrested and charged with murder, McNabb as the instigator and Drake as the trigger man. Not surprisingly, both were eventually acquitted, since only loyal Union men could serve on juries in Missouri in the years right after the Civil War.