Murdered ancestor

One-hundred-thirty-nine years ago yesterday the American Civil War ended and my 3rd great-grandfather, David W. Wells (c 1815-1865), was reputedly murdered. There is more than one account of how this happened. Here is the event as related very briefly by Lucy Jane Bentley Hyder (1875-1948), my great-grandmother:

On the 9th day of April 1865, (the day the surrender was made) during the Civil War my grandfather, David Wells, and my uncle, Hiram Creech, were murdered (shot) by the Raiders of the Ku Klux Klan as they were sometimes called. They first removed his (David Wells') Sunday vest which he was wearing, and then shot him.

A more detailed account is written by Tom Smith, a descendant of Hiram Creech (c 1827-1865), and thus a distant cousin of mine. He appears to have supplemented his account from Lucy Jane's recollections, as found on my own genealogical pages. I have corrected his spelling.

Hiram Creech and at least one of his daughters were visiting family in Lee County, Virginia. On the 9th day of April 1865, the day the Civil War surrender was made, Hiram Creech and his brother-in-law David Wells, were murdered (shot) by Rebel [i.e., Confederate] guerrillas (sometimes referred to as the Raiders of the Ku Klux Klan). They removed Hiram Creech's boots and David Wells' Sunday vest, and then shot them. Hiram's daughter managed to get away. They apparently were sitting on a rail fence when the Rebels approached them. One of the Rebels supposedly had been like a brother to Hiram many years earlier there in Virginia. This is the one that shot him and then took the boots off his feet. From all the traditional stories I conclude this may also have been true. When they saw the Rebels coming, they hid but the Rebels saw them and told them to come out and they would not be harmed. So they came out and climbed up on a rail fence. The Rebels then proceeded to shoot them. Hiram's boots were made by his son, Alexander. After the war Alexander spent some time looking for the man who killed his father.

David Wells and Hiram Creech were married to two sisters, Nancy Jane Elkins (1822-1887) and Mary "Polly" Elkins (1824-1875) respectively.