“In telling the story of the Northfield bank robbery and its frightful
results I have only to say that there is no heroism in outlawry, and that
the man who sows is sure to reap. After Lee surrendered I tried my best to
live at peace with the world and earn a livelihood. I’d been made a
guerrilla by a provocation that few men could have resisted. My father had
been cruelly murdered, my mother had been hounded to death, my entire
family had been tormented and all my relatives plundered and imprisoned.”
“From the mass of rubbish that has been written about the guerrilla there
is little surprise that the popular conception of him should be a
fiendish, blood‐thirsty wretch.”
[Cole Younger.]
Cole Younger. In Prison Garb in Minnesota State Prison, Jan. 10, 1877
(left). As he looked “going out”,July 14, 1901 (right).
“Yet he was in many cases, if not in most, a man who had been born to
better things and who was made what he was by such outrages as Osceola,
Palmyra and by a hundred raids in less famous but not less infamous, that
were made by Kansans into Missouri during the war.”
“When the war ceased those of the guerrillas who were not hung or shot or
pursued by posses till they found the hand of man turned against them at
every step, settled down to become good citizens in the peaceful walks of
life, and the survivors of Quantrell’s band may be pardoned, in view of
the black paint that has been devoted to them, in calling attention to the
fact that of the members of Quantrell’s band who have since been intrusted
with public place, not one has ever betrayed his trust.”
“As for myself and brothers I wish to emphasize that we made an honest
attempt to return to normal life at the close of the war, and had we been
permitted to do so the name of Younger would never have been connected
with the crimes that were committed in the period immediately following
the war.”
“That my life was good or clean I do not assert. But such as it was, it
was forced upon me by conditions over which I had no control. Before final
judgment is passed upon the men of my kind who were with me in those days
I ask that the fact be considered that we were born in days when hatred
was the rule and reared among scenes of violence.”
“But I have been accused of many crimes of which I have not been guilty,
and I am willing to take my oath that the crimes that were charged against
me in Missouri were not mine. Never in all my life had I anything to do
with any of the bank robberies in the state of Missouri which had been
charged against myself and brothers.”
“In the fall of 1868 my brothers, Jim and Bob, went with me to Texas. The
next two or three years we spent in an honest life, my sister joining us
and keeping house for us at Syene, Dallas county. In 1870 and 1871 Jim was
deputy sheriff in Dallas county. He and Bob sang in the church choir. At
that time Bob, who was only 17, fell in love with one of the young ladies
in the village.”
“I went down to Louisiana, and the story was that I killed five men and
shot five others because I had been robbed by a lot of crooked cattlemen.
There is just this much truth about this incident: There was a crooked
race, with me as the victim. After the race I fought a duel, but not over
the race.”
“The duel was forced upon me by a man named Captain James White. He
circulated a scandalous tale about the young woman Bob was in love with. I
sent word to him that he would have to apologize or fight. After the race
I referred to White and I went to a neighboring plantation and fought it
out. At first shot his right arm was shattered at the shoulder. When he
thought he was dying he apologized and admitted that he had circulated the
story for the purpose of forcing a fight upon me.”
“It was about this time that the Kansas City fair was robbed. This was
charged against the Younger brothers, although not one of us had anything
to do with it. Bob felt so keenly the notoriety that resulted from my duel
and from the stories of the Kansas City robbery that he left Dallas, and
later Jim and I followed him. About this time my brother John, was only 14
years old when the war closed, was forced into a quarrel and murdered as
wantonly as a man was ever murdered in the history of the west.”
“When I was on the Pacific slope Missouri adopted the famous Drake
constitution, which prohibited Confederate soldiers and sympathizers from
practicing any profession, preaching the gospel or doing many other things
under a penalty of a fine of not less than $500 or imprisonment for not
less than six months. One section of this constitution gave amnesty to
Union soldiers for all they had done after January 1, 1861, but held
Confederates responsible for what they had done either as citizens or
soldiers.”
“The result of this was persecution for all men who were not friendly with
the carpet‐bag adminstration following the war, and there was no mercy
shown to any of them. After a few days of seeing my friends and old
comrades hounded and imprisoned I saw there was nothing left for me to do
but gather together with those that were left and do the best we could.”
“In passing swiftly over the scenes of violence in which we took part, I
will take up the Northfield case by saying that we had decided to find a
good bank, make a big haul, get away with the money, leave the country and
start life anew in some foreign land.”
[Convicts entering train at Stillwater bound for new prison.]
Convicts entering train at Stillwater bound for new prison.
[Warden Wolfer chaperoning convicts to their new “home”]
Warden Wolfer chaperoning convicts to their new “home”
“We were told that General Benjamin F. Butler had a big lot of money in
the First National bank at Northfield, and that A. A. Ames, son‐in‐law of
Butler, who had been carpet‐bag governor of Mississippi after the war, had
a lot there also. We were not very friendly to Butler because of his
treatment of Southerners during the war, and accordingly decided to make a
raid on the Northfield bank.”
“My brothers, Jim and Bob, Clell Miller, Bill Chadwell and three men named
Pitts, Woods and Howard, were those who decided to take up the expedition.
This was in the middle of August, and we spent a week in Minneapolis
picking up what information we could about Northfield and the bank and
playing poker. Then we passed another week in St. Paul, also looking for
information as to the amount of money and the precautions taken in the
bank to take care of it.”
“Chadwell, Pitts, Bob and myself procured horses at St. Peter, where we
stayed long enough to break them and to train them for the hard riding to
which we knew they would be submitted later on. It was at St. Peter that I
made the acquaintance of a little girl who afterwards was one of the most
earnest workers for our parole.”
“A little tot then, she said she could ride a horse, too, and reaching
down, I lifted her up before me, and we rode up and down. I asked her her
name and she said it was ‘Horace Greeley Perry,’ and I replied:”
“ ‘No wonder you’re such a little tot with such a great name.’ ”
“ ‘I won’t always be little,’ she replied. ‘I’m going to be a great big
girl and be a newspaper man like papa.’ ”
“Will you still be my sweetheart then, and be my friend?” I asked her, and
she declared she would, a promise I was to remind her of years later under
circumstances of which I did not dream then.
“Many years afterward with a party of visitors to the prison came a girl,
perhaps 16, who registered in full, ‘Horace Greeley Perry.’ ”
“I knew there could not be two women with such a name in the world, and I
reminded her of her promise, a promise which she did not remember,
although she had been told how she had made friends with the bold, bad man
who afterwards robbed the bank at Northfield.”
“Very soon afterward, at the age of 18, I believe, she became, as she had
dreamed, in childhood, ‘a newspaper man’, editing the St. Peter Journal,
and to the hour of my pardon she was one of the most indefatigable workers
for us.”
“A few years ago failing health compelled her removal from Minnesota to
Idaho, and Minnesota lost one of the brightest newspaper writers and
staunchest friends that a man ever knew. Jim and I had a host of advocates
during the latter years of our imprisonment, but none exceeded in devotion
the young woman, who as a little tot, had ridden unknowingly with the
bandit who was soon to be exiled for life from all his kin and friends.”
“Preliminary work on the Northfield robbery was got down to during the
last week of August 1876, and while Pitts and I were waiting for Bob and
Chadwell, who had gone up there to look over the ground, we scouted all
over the country thereabouts and around Madelia in order to get ourselves
familiar with the lay of the land. When the two boys joined us we divided
into two parties and started for Northfield along different routes.”
“On Monday night, September 4, the party I was with reached Le Sueur
Center, where we had trouble finding places to sleep, as court was in
session. Tuesday night we put in at Cordova, and Wednesday we were in
Millersburg. At the same time Bob and his crowd rounded up in Cannon City,
which was south of Northfield.”
“On Thursday morning, September 7, we all came together on the Cannon
river, on the outskirts of Northfield. That afternoon I took a look at the
bank, and in camp at dinner I told the gang that no matter what came off
we mustn’t shoot anybody. While I was making this point as strong as I
could one of the crowd asked what we should do if they began shooting at
us. Bob at once said that if I was so particular about not having any
shooting the best thing for me to do was to stay outside and take my
chances.”
[Convicts entering new prison]