After telling the populace they were purloining the goods for the Confederacy, they rode away.
Suspecting the men were nothing more than common thieves, a local posse was formed to track them down, and a messenger was sent to Fort Riley to enlist the military s help to retrieve their possessions.
The unanswered question was, did soldiers really come to help the Salina townspeople? And were the bushwhackers ever caught?
Local writer and historian Judy Magnuson Lilly was intrigued enough to research and write about this little-known piece of Salina history.
“I would see this story referenced in newspaper accounts and personal memoirs of the era,” she said. “So I decided to write a small book where people could learn a small part of our history.”