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McAlester Guardian 1929
The Tilghman boys, Richard, aged 23 and Woodie, aged 16, are charged with having one with three other men to raid a poker game near Minco, a few nights ago, and to hi-jack the players. James Chitwood, 60-year old farmer, resisted by pulling his gun and starting firing. The raiders retuned the fire and Chitwood was killed. Two others in the game were wounded and Richard Tilghman was so badly shot that his life is despaired of. He is in a hospital in Oklahoma City. His injury was the key to the identity of the raiders. The younger Tilghman confessed that he and his brother and uncle, Alfred Stratton, Due Brown, and Jack Reynolds planned to hold up the game and get the money, the jack-pot consisting of several hundred dollars.
All five are charged with murder. Mrs. Tilghman, mother of the boys, is prostrated by the tragedy. The family now live in Oklahoma City, and Richard Tilghman had been prominent in school athletics in that city.
October 31, 1929—The McAlester Guardian—Richard Tilghman, aged 21, son of the famous old peace officer Bill Tilghman, passed away in a hospital in Chickasha, last Monday night, from the effects of a gun shot wound received on the night of October 6, when young Tilghman and his young brother, Woodrow, and their uncle Alfred Stratton, together with a fourth man, Jack Reynolds, are alleged to have held up and hi-jacked a poker game at the home of James Chitwood, near Minco, and ruing which Chitwood is alleged to have been slain by the hi-jackers.
Richard Tilghman is alleged to have been shot by one of the men who were sitting in on the game, when the raiders entered and started to hi-jack the party. Chitwood was killed instantly and one of the hi-jackers is declared to have robbed his body as it lay on the floor. Tilghman was hot in the abdomen and is said to have been carried to a waiting car by his uncle and later taken to a hospital in Chickasha, where he was treated. His wound proved fatal, however. His mother, who lives in Oklahoma City, was prostrated by the whole affair. All four of the men alleged to have been implicated in the hold up were charged with murder, but death, of course, stops any prosecution in Richard Tilghman’s case.
Tilghman’s father, as will be recalled, was shot and killed by a man named Lynn, while Tilgman was serving as chief of police of the town of Cromwell, in its early days as an oil town.
November 7, 1929—The McAlester Guardian—The following dispatch from Oklahoma City indicates that the proposed reunion of veterans of the contending armies of the Civil War period, as suggested recently by some of the more enthusiastic veterans has finally gone on the rocks.
It says:
A further break in negotiations for a reunion of Civil War forces came today with the rejection by Gen. R. A. Sneed, commander-in-chief of the Confederate Veterans, of a proposal of Edwin J. Foster of Boston, commander-in –chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, for a joint parade providing southern soldiers will march under the stars and stripes without a Confederate flag in the ranks.
“Commander Foster has completely blown himself out of the water with his offer so far as I am concerned,” General Sneed said.
Sneed received the letter from Foster here today. The Confederate commander said he would take his time in replying, but would tell the G. A. R. chief that the south did not propose to be dictated to.
General Sneed last summer sent a message to the national encampment of the G. A. R. at Portland, Maine, proposing a reunion of the Confederate and Union Veterans. The encampment declined to consider the proposal General Foster, in his letter to Sneed said:
“In regard to the action of the Grand Army of the Republic regarding a reunion of the Blue and the Gay, which has caused so much criticism from our southern friend, I believe such a reunion is possible.
“The boys in blue always have been ready to extend the hand of fellowship to our southern friends and never more than now. To the end that a happy result may be obtained, wil say I shall be glad to meet you in Washington or Boston, and confer with you on the question of a joint parade.
“So far as I know there can be but one condition which stands in the way of our coming together, and that is for you, as head of your organization, to pledge to us that the stars and bars, or your Confederate flag, shall have no place in the parade, either by any organization or individual, but that you will march under the stars and stripes. With this pledge I have but little doubt that we can arrive at a happy solution of the problem.