May 1865Cobb P. Hill
Guest at Quantrill Reunion
Keatsville, Missouri
I never had no quit in me.
The night we voted quit we stayed in Billy Drury’s barn. I wasn’t for hiding out there because I never trusted him. Jess said Billy’s people were good people, but Billy was not trustworthy in my eyes.
“You all make yourselves to home, now,” Billy said.
He was a stubby man with a beard that most times had food stuck in it. He was good with horses, but he liked them better than he liked people, and I could never trust such a man as that.
He brought us supper—beans boiled in salt pork but no meat or bread. There was less than a dozen of us left in what had once been Bub Howell’s command, but Billy still didn’t have enough plates.
“You boys be leaving in the morning?” he asked, ladling out t
