SAM HILDEBRAND KILLED
Farmington News Exchange Article from the Ironton Register Newspaper by W. H. Webb

Now as to the end of the career of this desperate man. About two years after the battle at John Williams' Hidlebrand drifted back to Pinckneyville, Ill., bringing his children with him. His wife having in the meantime died in Texas. They secured a vacant house in Pinckneyville and a day or two afterwards went out into the country and rented a farm. [this was in April/May 1872.] In the evening he returned and went into a saloon and began drinking - something he was never known to do before - and got into a difficulty with the saloon keeper. Following his old tactics, he walked out of the door and around to a window and was just in the act of shooting the saloon keeper through the window when the marshal of the town happened to come along and picked up a picket from a fence and struck him over the head and downed him. He took from him two big Remington revolvers, a bowie knife, and two pocket knives, and then hauled him before a justice of the piece and had him fined $500. In the meantime, the saloon keeper swore out a warrant for assualt with intent to kill. The justice ordered the prisoner to jail "until tomorrow." Three of the marshals started to take him to jail. Sam said that he would never go to jail. After they got outside of the office, he got another pocket knife out of his vest pocket and cut John Ragland from the knee to the hip, laying the flesh open to the bone all the way. Ragland put his pistol to the right side of Hildebrand's head behind the ear killing him instantly - thus ending the career of one of the most desperate men that this country ever saw. An inquest was held and he was buried as an unknown man the next day. A full account of which was in the St. Louis Republic the next morning. The writer of this article was then on the St. Louis police force. Reading the article in the paper, he showed it to another policeman by the name of Dennis O'Leary, who had grown up from boyhood with Hildebrand. We at once agreed that it must be Sam Hildebrand. We took the paper and at once went to our chief and told him what we thought. He sent us to Pinckneyville to identify him, advising the authorities at Pinckneyvill by wire who he thought it was, and that two officers were on the road then to identify him. When we arrived there they had dug him up and had the body in the coffin up stairs in the circuit court room. With the head of the coffin leaning against the judge's stand, the foot resting on the floor, and the lid off, so that any one coming into the court room could distinguish his features plainly. We at once recognized him, but for further identification had him stripped and found the wound in his thigh where Peterson had shot him and also the wound in the left ankle were he had been shot in the war. The wound across the forehead where he was shot at the battle at Williams' house was still very plain. We then went to the house where the children were, who knew both of us very well, but we had hard work making them own it up. Hildebrand's body was shipped to Farmington, and was hauled from there to a graveyard near John Williams' and buried [Hampton Cemetery]. And the children were distributed around among relatives. Ragland collected about $1500.00 of the reward. At one time there was a reward of about $10,000.00 for Hildebrand's capture or death, but at the time of his killing could not be collected. John Ragland is now dead, but he was never able to go without crutches after Hildebrand cut him.