Kate’s notes:
From the old tax records for Greenbrier and Pocahontas counties of West Virginia it is known that the Gilliland and Gillilan families owned a number of slaves and according to various histories, some members of these families were reported to be slave traders. One of these was John C. Gillilan of Greenbrier County who, despite his reputation as a trader in horses and slaves, opposed Virginia's secession from the Union and became a delegate to the first West Virginia Legislature in 1863.
   More information about the imprisonment of John C. Gilliland can be found in the book, Southern Rights: Political Prisoners and the Myth of Confederate Constitutionalism by Mark E. Neely, Jr. (Charlottesville, Va.: University Press of Virginia, 1999.)

The Daily Intelligencer
Wheeling, West Virginia
27 August, 1864

Brutal Murder.

Editors Intelligencer:
    John C. Gilliland of Greenbriar county, was arrested and confined in a southern prison in the early part of the war for eight months, for his adherence to the laws of the United States; and was subsequently released and became a delegate  to the first Legislature of West Virginia. He recently went to visit his family in Greenbriar, and I learn he was shot and almost instantly killed by some of the employees of Jeff Davis & Co., near his own residence. I hardly know what comment to make. I think the property of every rebel sympathizer in the neighborhood should be seized and given to the wife and children of Mr. Gilliland.
B. Griffin.

-transcription by Kate Maynard, 2013