“Why, I presented the handle of my pistol and asked him to loan me $25 on it.” “Idiot,” said “Snap” Mitchell, the leader, “you don’t know how to soak a pistol; watch me.” So “Snap” went to the store and presenting the _muzzle_ of his pistol asked for a loan. He got it, and went away with the pistol also.
I believe my friend remembers the transaction. Later this same merchant was called upon by a party of secessionists, who accused him of being a —— abolitionist, and talked to him seriously about the penalty, which was hanging. My friend was a foreigner and did not understand our language as well as he does now. I asked him what he said to them when they threatened to hang him, and he replied: “Well, I told them that I had no ‘scruples’.” Of course, he meant that he had no preference for either the Union or Confederate cause. It is certain that he did not mean that he had no scruples about being hanged!
An officer of volunteers bought goods of this same merchant, refused to pay him, swindled him, and because asked to pay called him a —— Jew and other pet names, and finally sent him a formal challenge to fight a duel. The merchant came to me greatly agitated, and declared that he would rather die than suffer such indignities, and asked my advice. I knew that he was in earnest, and the officer was notified to appear at sunrise at the graveyard on the hill, distance ten paces, double-barreled shotguns loaded with buckshot, to fire at the word. The officer declined, declaring the terms “barbarous,” and that ended his career as a valiant son of Mars.
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MURDER AND ROBBERY OF GIDDINGS’ STORE (SHELDON BLOCK).
In 1859 the San Antonio Mail Company had its headquarters on the lot where the Sheldon building now stands. They had in the old adobe house as large a stock of general merchandise as any El Paso merchant now carries. The clerks who slept in the store were a Mr. Atkins, familiarly known as “Ole Dad,” and “Fred” ——, a young German. One night Atkins was absent and Fred was sleeping in the store alone.
The next morning a window in the south side of the building was found to have been dug out of the wall and poor Fred was lying dead in his bed with fourteen knife wounds in his body. A large amount of money had been taken from the store (there were no safes nor banks here then) and quantities of valuable goods had also been carried away. This was evidently the work of robbers from the Mexican side of the river. No trace of the robbers or money or goods was ever discovered.