Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 2.djvu/138

 send a portion of the company to waylay and kill the officers. The plot was executed, but not without heroic resistance. Though taken by surprise, shot from ambush, and mortally wounded, Captain Bashore shot Gleason through the thigh, and he was left disabled in the road by his companions, when they fled from the scene of the murders.

Gleason made a partial confession, in which he admitted that the gang had pledged themselves to resist the arrest of any of the number who might be drafted, and that he broke his rifle over Bashore’s head in the murderous attack. Upon order of the Governor, Adjutant-General Baker went to Grinnell and instituted an investigation. Captain Mathews had six men arrested and, with Gleason, lodged in jail at Oskaloosa. One of the men, by the name of Fleener, fled and was never found. When Gleason recovered from his wounds he was tried in the United States court at Des Moines, convicted of murder, and sentenced to be hung. His wife went to Washington and appealed to the President to spare the life of the convict. President Lincoln commuted the punishment to imprisonment for life. After a few years in prison Gleason died.