I was told that the deputy U.S. marshals would on occasion have to take extreme measures for identification of wanted criminals. Fort Smith was so far from the extremities of the Indian Territory, Deputies would have to put a killed felons head in a gunny sack and take it back to Ft. Smith for proof of identification. Has anyone found written evidence of this? I did read an article on Charlie Glass, well known Colorado cowboy, son of Dick Glass. Charlie carried a picture of his father's decapitated head with him the duration of his life. Charlie cowboyed in the Glenwood Springs area of Colorado.

I first read the head in a gunny sack applied not to the Marshals but the U. S. Army in Dr.Rodney Gilsen's book, "Journal of Army Life" published 1874. According to that story Col. Jessie Stem and Wm Lepperman were murdered in 1854 by a band of Kickapoo later tracked to Mosqua's village on the Washita near Fort Arbuckle. Black Beaver learned three men in village were responsible.The Arbuckle commander instructed Mosqua to bring the guilty parties in. The next day a corpse of a Piankashaw and his (live) teen brother in law were presented. The army informed the Mosqua that this was not good enough and the suspected Kickapoo must also be found. The deal was also made that if the Kickapoo had to be killed, that the army was to be summoned if the execution took place less than 20 miles from the post, or the victim's head presented if more than 20 miles. Eleven days later, Mosqua dumped a severed head from a sack and watched as it rolled to the feet of Capt. Simmon's. I've not heard any such stories connected to Marshals but, Charley Stewart, in the 1880's, over at Cherokee Town had to kill a wanted man near there and told that the policy of the Fort Smith Court was that if a wanted man was killed, then the body had to be transported to Arkansas for inspection. Stewart also claimed that it was the policy of the court that the Marshal had to foot the bill for burial.