 Confederate Major General Sterling Price, who had been invading northern Missouri at the time, wrote Union commanding general Henry Wager Halleck to protest, stating the sabotage was "lawful and proper" according to the rules of warfare and that the captured men should be treated as prisoners of war.Halleck replied that the bushwhackers were "spies, marauders, robbers, incendiaries, guerrilla bands...in the garb of peaceful citizens" The bushwhackers were to also say that it was a military target because there were soldiers on it bound for Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.One of the soldiers killed was Barclay Coppock, a member of John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry.