On July 2, 1863, during a Federal campaign to rid the Yellow Creek valley of Confederate guerrillas, a forward detachment of the 8th Kentucky Cavalry (US) approached Irish Shanty, a grocery store and tavern about two miles west that was rumored to be popular with guerrillas. Several cavalrymen later said that about twenty men in front of the site fired on them as they approached, and the cavalry charged and captured Dr. Aaron James, Euphrates Shelton, James Shelton, William Few, Jonas Spicer, and Dr. Payton Washburn as suspected guerrillas. Taken to Fort Donelson for trial before a military commission, the accused were defended by attorneys who argued that they were not guerrillas and had not fired on the troopers but were boiling ten dozen eggs in front of the building, and that the cavalrymen mistook the smoke and crackle of the fire for gunfire. The tribunal convicted James, Spicer, and Euphrates Shelton, sentencing James and Spicer to death and Shelton to five years of hard labor. Because regulations required review in Washington, D.C., Joseph Holt examined the record and told President Abraham Lincoln that the evidence was insufficient for conviction and that the military commission trial had been improper. On December 12, 1863, Lincoln disapproved James’s sentence and soon reversed the verdicts against Spicer and Shelton, and the men were released and returned home by the end of the year.