The Bee Creek Massacre occurred in December 1861, when Union Army troops of the 18th Missouri Infantry Regiment summarily executed two Confederate prisoners of war.
Southern bushwhacker Silas M. Gordon had been operating out of Platte County, Missouri for several months before regional Federal military authorities attempted to capture him and his followers.
In November 1861, two Federal soldiers were killed near the Bee Creek Bridge, a few miles north of Weston, Missouri.
By mid-December, elements of the 18th Missouri Infantry had seized neighboring Platte City and captured three Confederate soldiers: Black Triplett, Gabriel Close, and William Kuykendall.
In his history of Platte County, W. M. Paxton, a resident, related that he spoke to the 18th Missouri's colonel, W. James Morgan, asking on behalf of Triplett's father that he be allowed to speak with his son.