In 1861 there were constant threats of invasion from Missouri rebel organizations in Buchanan and Platte counties, and in that year another home guard company was organized with the following officers: Charles Holbert, captain; J. G. Bechtold, first lieutenant; Clem Rhor, second lieutenant; W. Becker, third lieutenant; John Schupp, ensign. During the following year the danger of invasion became still more threatening and 650 men in sixteen companies came to Atchison to protect the town from destruction. The Atchison county companies were commanded by Captains Holbert, Hays, Batsett, Evans and Vanwinkle. It was due to the thoroughness with which the people of Atchison organized themselves against invasion that they were spared from being completely annihilated. On the fifteenth day of September, 1861, another company for home guard service was mustered in at Ft. Leavenworth. J. M. Graham was captain; J. G. Bechtold, first lieutenant; R. N. Bryant, second lieutenant. This company subsequently became Company E of the First Kansas Regiment Home Guards, numbering fifty men, and were ordered back to Atchison for duty, where they were stationed until all danger of invasion had passed, after which the company became a part of the Eighth Kansas. The victories of the Union forces in 1862 were frequent, and as a result many rebel sympathizers came to Atchison for safety, where they became very troublesome. In order to counteract the growing evil over the activities of these men, Mayor Fairchild issued a proclamation in which he warned them that they must not expect to be protected in any manner by the city laws as long as they held to the views which they expounded at even favorable opportunity. “It would be absurd to suppose,” the proclamation said, “that a patriotic community could treat otherwise than its enemies, persons who are in sympathy with base men who have brought upon our country untold misery, almost unlimited taxation and almost inconceivable pecuniary suffering. As a representative of a loyal people I will not encourage men to return among us who have circulated reports that they were refugees from the loyal States on account of their secession doctrines, nor will I give protection to men who unmistakably at heart belong to the Confederacy.” This proclamation met with such favor that a mass meeting of Union men in Atchison county was held at Price’s Hall March 15, 1862. The whole county was well represented and stirring addresses were delivered by Colonel Edge, of Doniphan county, Tom Murphy, the genial proprietor of the Massasoit House, Rev. W. S. Wenz, Lieutenant Price, E. Chesebrough, Mayor Fairchild, Caleb May, and others, after which resolutions denouncing the southern sympathizers and notifying them not to return were unanimously adopted. During the latter part of the same year a call for aid to assist the Atchison county troops met with immediate response and within a few days, commencing August 20, 1862, almost $4,000 was