Man's Best Friend:
The Old Drum Story

Missouri’s Big Four

Probably more remarkable than the subject debated during the trial, a slain dog, were the lawyers involved. All the lawyers involved in the September 1870 Burden v. Hornsby trial achieved considerable success in later years.

Immediately following the Civil War, two Union officers, John Finis Philips and Thomas Theodore Crittenden, formed law partnerships with two Confederates, Francis Marion Cockrell and George Graham Vest. Philips and Vest in Sedalia and Cockrell and Crittenden in Warrensburg became influential attorneys and major political figures in the Democratic Party earning them the title of Missouri’s “Big Four.”

And now the Movie Adaptation 2001

The Trial of Old Drum, Movie Info 2001

Adaptation

Synopsis

In the 1950s, a young boy, Charlie Burden Jr. (Bobby Edner), and his Golden Retriever known as Drum, share adventures in their rural town, many of which require the dog to save the boy's life: they have a boating accident and the dog pulls him from the lake; they encounter a pack of wild dogs and the dog slays them, but is gravely wounded. Then they run head-long into a grumpy old neighbor (John Schuck), who is convinced Drum has been killing his sheep. Like Dorothy's Toto, Drum is hauled away to be executed, but Charlie's dad (Ron Perlman) hires gilded tongue attorney George Graham Vest (Scott Bakula) to defend the canine before a jury and a judge. Vest's climactic closing argument had better be good, or they'll be playing "Taps" for Drum.