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Benjamin Ratcliff (October 21, 1841 - February 7, 1896) was a homesteader near Jefferson in Park County in central Colorado, who was hanged for the murders of three members of his local school board with whom he had quarreled regarding the education of his children and slurs against his own reputation. ==Background== Born in Hocking County in southern Ohio, Ratcliff was the sixth of ten children of Elias Ratcliff and the former Elizabeth Dutcher. The family, including his younger sister Mary, moved in 1844 to Moniteau County〔〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=1850 Census: Moniteau County, Missouri )〕 near the capital city of Jefferson City in central Missouri. Elias died when Benjamin was ten years of age.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Elias Ratcliff tombstone )〕 In 1861, at the beginning of the American Civil War, Ratcliff at nineteen enlisted in the Missouri Home Guard Service.〔Transcript of the Triple Murder Trial of Benjamin Ratcliff. Defendant testimony as given on July 18, 1895, Buena Vista, Chaffee County, Colorado〕 A private in Company A of the 43rd Regiment Enrolled Missouri Militia, Ratcliff fought in the Battle of Shiloh, a Union victory in western Tennessee in early April 1862. While headed three weeks later to the Siege of Corinth in Corinth in northern Mississippi, Ratcliff's horse fell, tossed him from the saddle, and rolled onto Ratcliff's hip and legs. The accident caused a painful and permanent injury. During his life, Ratcliff had recurring hip problems, kidney stones,〔 and a dislocated shoulder sustained in an 1880 cattle roundup in Fairplay, the county seat of Park County, Colorado.〔''The Flume'', Fairplay, Colorado, July 15, 1880〕 In July 1862, he went to Jefferson City to join the regular United States Army.〔Benjamin Ratcliff Enrollment Card information〕 In 1864, Ratcliff fought in the Second Battle of Lexington in Lexington in Lafayette County, Missouri. There he was captured by the Confederates, who were successful in that battle. He escaped two days later on his 23rd birthday.〔 While on the run, he spent a night hiding in a rut of wet grass, having recalled, "I took cold and the trouble has remained with me ever since."〔 Ratcliff managed to avoid the Missouri raid of Confederate General Sterling Price and spent the remainder of the war within Union lines about Jefferson City.〔Laura King Van Dusen, "Benjamin Ratcliff: Park County Pioneer, Civil War Veteran, Triple Murderer; What Happened and Why", ''Historic Tales from Park County: Parked in the Past'' (Charleston, South Carolina: The History Press, 2013), ISBN 978-1-62619-161-7, pp. 127-134.〕 From August 25 to November 1, 1862, Ratcliff was a federal hay inspector in the office of the Army quartermaster in Washington, D.C. In 1865, an Army surgeon who had treated Ratcliff for his recurring earlier wound sent him to the Rush Medical College in Chicago, where he remained for eighteen months. Ratcliff was urged to resettle in Colorado.〔 While subsequently in rehabilitation from the horse injury, Ratcliff was an internal revenue assessor in Denver from the summer of 1869 until November 1871.〔''Missouri Weekly Patriot'' newspaper, Springfield, Missouri, December 23, 1869〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Benjamin Ratcliff」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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