rest long at any one time since the surrender of the Confederate
armies. Some dastardly deeds had been done against them, too, in
the name of the law. Take for example, Pinkerton’s midnight raid
upon the house of Mrs. Zerelda Samuels, mother of the James boys.
The family was wrapped in profound sleep. Only women and children
were about the premises, and an old man long past his prime. The
cowards--how many is not accurately known, probably a dozen--crept
close to this house through the midnight, surrounded it, found its
inmates asleep, and threw into the kitchen where an old negress was
in bed with her children, a lighted hand grenade, wrapped about
with flannel saturated with turpentine. The lurid light from this
inflammable fluid awakened the negro woman and she in turn awakened
the sleeping whites. They rushed to subdue the flames and save
their property. Children were gathered together in the kitchen,
little things, helpless and terrified. All of a sudden there was a
terrible explosion. Mrs. Samuels’ right arm was blown off above the
elbow, a bright little boy, eight years old, had his bowels torn
out. Dr. Samuels was seriously cut and hurt, the old negro woman
was maimed, and several of the other children more or less injured.
The hand grenade had done its work, and there had been a tragedy
performed by men calling themselves civilized, in the midst of a
peaceful community and upon a helpless family of women and children
and what would have disgraced Nero or made some of the monstrous
murders of Diocletian was as white is to black. Yet Pinkerton’s
paid assassins did this because his paid assassins knew better how
to kill women and children than armed men in open combat.
Dear Reader, what would you have done under the same circumstances?
Put yourself in the Jameses’ and Youngers’ places, and think it
over.
When Jesse James was killed at St. Joseph, Missouri, Governor
Crittenden, then governor of the state of Missouri, wired me to
know if I would go up and identify him.
I wired him I would, providing I could go armed.
He answered, “Perfectly satisfactory to me. Meet me at Union
Station, Kansas City, Missouri, tomorrow morning.”
I secured several of my old Guerrilla friends to accompany the
Governor and myself to St. Joseph, Missouri, unbeknown to the
Governor, however, for I did not know how I stood with the people
at St. Joseph. I was just playing safety first. I met the Governor
at the depot. He asked me what attitude I thought Frank James would
take towards him for offering a reward and having Jesse killed. I
told him “If Frank wanted to kill him for revenge, he surely would.”
He looked pale, but not half so pale as he did the day Frank
surrendered. A heavy reward hanging over Frank James’ head, he made
his way past the guards and sergeant-at-arms, stationed at the
Governor’s mansion at Jefferson City, the capital of Missouri, and
surrendered to Governor Crittenden in his office. On entering his
office, Frank said:
“Is this Governor Crittenden?”
“Yes,” was the reply.
“This is Frank James. I came to surrender,” at the same time
pulling two heavy dragoon pistols and handing them to the Governor.
“Here are arms, Governor, but not all I have, nor will I give them
up until I know you will give me protection.”
Frank told me afterwards that “Governor Crittenden’s face will
never be whiter when he is dead than it was the day I surrendered.”
I identified Jesse James at St. Joseph, Missouri, to the Governor’s
entire satisfaction. Since then it has been said that Jesse was
still alive and that it was a wax figure that was buried, but this
is all a lie.
There is one good act the James boys did while they were outlaws.
A southern widow woman some time soon after the war had mortgaged
her farm to an old Redleg who had moved from Lawrence, Kansas, to
Kansas City.
When the loan expired he drove out to see her and informed her that
if she did not have the money by ten o’clock the next morning he
would foreclose.
Soon after he had left, up rode Jesse and Frank James, and found
the lady crying and taking on. They inquired what was wrong, and
she related the whole story.
Frank said, “You send your son in the morning and tell the old
Federal to bring all releases and all papers fully signed and you
will pay him in full. Jesse and I will let you have the money.”
Next morning the boy went with the message, and in the evening out
came the old Federal in his bus with his negro driver, drove up
to the house, went in, and the lady paid him in full with cash,
getting all releases and papers fixed up. The old man bowed and
scraped and, tipping his hat, said, “Goodbye, lady,” and he and his
“nigger” driver started back to Kansas City. When but a few hundred
yards or so from the house and close to a ravine, Jesse and Frank
held him up and relieved him of the money they had loaned the lady,
together with all the rest he had for interest.
* * * * *
During the World War, in conversation with friends, I told them
to take away from Germany her airplanes, gases and machine guns,
and if it were possible to call Quantrell’s old band together, of
which at no time were there over three hundred and fifty men, all
told, under Todd, Poole, Yager, Anderson, Younger, Jarrett, Haller,
Quantrell and myself, I could take these three hundred and fifty
men and go to Berlin in a gallop, for history does not now and
never will know the power there was in the Quantrell band. It has
been given up long ago that they were the most fighting devils the
world has ever known or ever will know.
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes
Transcriber added six missing chapter references to the Table of
Contents.
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise
they were not changed.
Many simple typographical errors were silently corrected, but
several words that today would be considered misspelled have not
been changed.
Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs
and outside quotations.