On a cold winter day in Jefferson City in the winter of 1861-62, Odon Guitar received notice he was to appear in circuit court in Columbia the next morning. He was with the Union army. There was no bridge across the ice-covered Missouri but he decided to cross anyway and told friends to have horses waiting on the other side. He fell through the ice and was carried downstream before finally reaching the other shore, cold and exhausted. His friends had decided he wasn’t coming and had left. Guitar found a farm, bought a horse, rode all night, and was in Columbia for court the next morning.

AOWM – August 31