Getting Away with Murder (Most of the Time): Civil War Era Homicide Cases in Boone County, Missouri

On March 4, 1851, at the State University in Columbia, Missouri, there occurred one of those incidents that from time to time break up the stately progress of the academic year. It seems that young George Clarkson got in a brawl with a fellow student. Upon hearing of this unseemly affair, the faculty convened and docked each of the combatants fifty marks. Professor Robert Grant, coming late to the meeting, encountered Clarkson on the steps and asked how the matter had been resolved.

Clarkson replied, "I am very well satisfied but I will give him a whipping yet."' Divining from this remark that Clarkson had not gotten the faculty's message and that further breaches of the peace might be expected, Professor Grant reported it to University president James Shannon, who reconvened the faculty and summoned Clarkson to return.