location along rail lines with the large cities of Indianapolis, Chicago, and Detroit to the north and St. Louis to the west, Seymour was an important waypoint for the movement of men and supplies to the front during the war. On January 20, 1864, during the transfer of Confederate prisoners of war, six officers escaped. One was later recaptured in town. The New York Times reports that on January 22, 1864, a "Soldier's riot" wherein two soldiers were killed, and several others were injured. Post War After the war, local veterans organized the Ellsworth Post 20 of the G.A.R. At its zenith, the post included two hundred and twenty-two local citizen who had served the Union during the war as members. During its long existence, the organization included many prominent community members. The Ellsworth Post was active in local charities, organized burial services for local veterans and conducted official observances on Decoration Day. The final member of the post, James H Boak, lived to be 98 years old. He died in 1942 closing one of the longest running G. A. R. chapters in existence. An infamous local murder occurred in January 1866 when a traveling merchant, Moore Woodmansee, 42, on his way to Cincinnati, OH, disappeared while staying at the Rader House. The Rader House was operated by proprietor Captain George Rader and was the center of gambling, theft, prostitution, and a string of mysterious disappearances. Months after he disappeared the headless body of Moore Woodmansee was found downriver in the East Fork of the White River; then known as the Driftwood River. Rader was implicated in the murder. Two local witnesses were murdered. Rader and his son-in-law were ultimately acquitted but forced to leave town. A robbery of the Adams Express Car on the east-west Ohio and Mississippi line near Brownstown was reported in July 1866. That night the perpetrators were chased by a local vigilance committee of 300 men that continued into the Rockford area. Three days later the Reno brothers had been identified as the leaders of the gang and newspapers were recounting the notorious deeds of the family. Later that year, Seymour was the site of the world's first successful peacetime train robbery, in which the train was moving. It was committed by the local Reno Gang, on October 6, 1866, just east of town, starting in the Adams Express Company car of the Ohio and