who were taken to the court house to swear not to divulge any information about the raiders for forty-eight hours. Porter freed all militiamen or suspected militiamen to await parole, a fact noted by champions of his character. Citizens expressed their sympathies variously; Porter gave safe passage to a physician, an admitted supporter of the Union, who was anxious to return to his seriously ill wife. A verbally abusive woman was threatened with a pistol by one of Porter's troops, perhaps as a bluff; Mudd intervened to prevent bloodshed. Porter's troops entered the courthouse and destroyed all indictments for horse-theft; the act is variously understood as simple lawlessness, intervention on behalf of criminal associates, or interference with politically motivated, fraudulent charges. At Memphis, a key incident occurred which would darken Porter's reputation, and which his detractors see as part of a consistent behavioral pattern which put him and his men beyond the norms of warfare. According to the "History of Shelby County," which is generally sympathetic to Porter, "Most conceded that Col. Porter's purpose for capturing Memphis, MO. was to seize Dr. Wm. Aylward, a prominent Union man of the community." Aylward was captured during the day by Captain Tom Stacy's men and confined to a house. After rousing him overnight and removing him, ostensibly to see Porter, guards claimed that he escaped. However, witnesses reported hearing the sounds of a strangling, and his body was found the next day, with marks consistent with hanging or strangulation. At Memphis, Porter had been joined by Tom Stacy, generally regarded as a genuine bushwhacker – even the sympathetic Mudd says of him "if one of his men were captured and killed he murdered the man who did it if he could catch him, or, failing him, the nearest man he could catch to the one who did it." Stacy's company was called "the chain gang" by the other members of Porter's command. Supporters of Porter attribute the murder of Aylward to Stacy (who would be mortally wounded at Vassar Hill.) However, a Union gentleman who came to inquire about Aylward and a captured officer before the discovery of the body stated that when he asked Porter about Aylward, the response was, "He is where he will never disturb anybody else." Vassar Hill Union Col. (later General) John McNeil pursued Porter, who planned an ambush with perhaps 125 men according to participant Mudd