KERN, Charles

KERN, PARSONS

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 4/27/2015 at 05:17:00

Obituary ~ Charles Kern

Lineville Tribune
Lineville, Wayne County, Iowa
February 21, 1863

BUSH-WACKING IN DECATUR COUNTY, IOWA

Army Correspondence.
Camp 30th Iowa Volunteers, An Out-post below Vicksburg

On Saturday, Feb. 28th, one Charles Kern, a Union man, was shot down while returning home from a neighbor's house, where he had been getting some repairing done to his harness, the ball entering his temple, causing instant death. The assassin, whose name is James Parsons, is a Butternut of the most boisterous kind. Kern had just returned from the United States Service, bearing his discharge for inability. He was an uncompromising Union man, a good citizen, and stood fair in the community in which he lived. Parsons, after shooting, took to the brush. News was immediately sent to the Sheriff of Decatur county, who after receiving a warrant and hearing the circumstances and learning the names of the parties, refused to serve in the case, assigning as a reason, that he had no time to spend on such cases. The assassin is still at large. The military company of Decatur county, are out making every possible effort for his arrest, but owing to the fewness in number on detail, and the length of the time receiving the information, we fear the murderer will go unpunished. Parsons is a man, of perhaps 27 years, five feet eleven inches high, black hair, black eyes, black whiskers on the chin, and weighs 180 lbs. If these things are allowed to continue, and a man is permitted to shoot down his neighbor merely because they differ in sentiment, and the civil authorities refuse to act, we may well say we tremble for the future.

~ M.S.M

NOTE: Charles was aged 28 years and 1 month at the time of his death, leaving his wife Vittie and a one-year-old daughter, Amanda. He was interred at Manchester Cemetery.

Transcription and note by Sharon R. Becker, April of 2015