In May, 1864, Col. George S. Jackson and a force of about 300, myself
among the number, were sent across the staked plains into Colorado to
intercept some wagon trains, and to cut the transcontinental telegraph
line from Leavenworth to San Francisco. We cut the line and found the
trains, but empty, and on our return were met at the Rio Grande by orders
to detail a party to cross the continent on a secret mission for the
Confederate states.
Two vessels of the Alabama type, built in British waters, were to be
delivered at Victoria, B.C., and a secret service officer named Kennedy,
who was entrusted with the papers, was given an escort of twenty men,
including myself, Capt. Jarrette and other veteran scouts.
While on this expedition we had a brief tilt with Comanches, but in the
country which Gen. Crook afterward fought over inch by inch, we had a real
Indian fight with Apache Mojaves which lasted through two days and the
night between practically without cessation.
We had a considerable advantage in weapons, but the reds were pestiferous
in spite of that, and they kept us busy for fully 36 hours plugging them
at every opportunity. How many Indians we killed I do not know, as we had
no time or curiosity to stop and count them. They wounded some of our
horses and we had to abandon one wagon, but we did not lose a man.
From El Paso we went down through Chihuahua and Sonora to Guaymas, where
the party split up, Capt. Jarrette going up the mainland, while Kennedy
and I, with three men, took a boat to San Francisco, disguised as Mexican
miners. We were not detected, and then traveled by stage to Puget Sound,
sailing for Victoria, as nearly as I have since been able to locate it,
about where Seattle now is. On our arrival at Victoria, however, we found
that Lee had surrendered at Appomattox and the war was at an end.
For a long time I was accused of the killing of several people at
Centralia, in September, 1864, but I think my worst enemies now concede
that it is impossible for me to have been there at the time.
Another spectre that rose to haunt my last days in prison, and long stood
between my parole and final pardon, was the story of one John McMath, a
corporal in an Indiana cavalry company, in Pleasanton’s command, that I
had maltreated him when he lay wounded on the battle field close by the
Big Blue, near my old home in Jackson county. McMath says this occurred
Oct. 23, 1863. It is true that I was in Missouri on that date, but
McMath’s regiment was not, nor Pleasanton’s command, and the war
department records at Washington show that he was injured in a fight at
the Big Blue Oct. 23, 1864—3 full year later—much as he says I hurt him.
This was eleven months after I had left Missouri and while I was 1,500
miles away, yet this hideous charge was brought to the attention of Chief
Justice Start, of Minnesota, in 1896 by a Minneapolis newspaper.
In his _Noted Guerrillas,_ Maj. John N. Edwards wrote: “Lee’s surrender at
Appomattox found Cole Younger at Los Angeles, trying the best he could to
earn a livelihood and live at peace with all the world. The character of
this man to many has been a curious study, but to those who knew him well
there is nothing about it of mystery or many-sidedness. An awful
provocation drove him into the army. He was never a bloodthirsty or a
merciless man. He was brave to recklessness, desperate to rashness,
remarkable for terrible prowess in battle; but he was never known to kill
a prisoner. On the contrary, there are alive today (1877) fully 200
Federal soldiers who owe their lives to Cole Younger, a man whose father
had been cruelly murdered, whose mother had been hounded to her death,
whose family had been made to endure the torment of a ferocious
persecution, and whose kith and kin, even to remote degrees, were
plundered and imprisoned. His brother James did not go into the war until
1864, and was a brave, dauntless, high-spirited boy who never killed a
soldier in his life save in fair and open battle. Cole was a fair-haired,
amiable, generous man, devoted in his friendships and true to his word and
to comradeship. In intrepidity he was never surpassed. In battle he never
had those to go where he would not follow, aye, where he would not gladly
lead. On his body today there are the scars of thirty-six wounds. He was
a Guerrilla and a giant among a band of Guerrillas, but he was one among
five hundred who only killed in open and honorable battle. As great as
had been his provocation, he never murdered; as brutal as had been the
treatment of every one near and dear to him, he refused always to take
vengeance on those who were innocent of the wrongs and who had taken no
part in the deeds which drove him, a boy, into the ranks of the
Guerrillas, but he fought as a soldier who rights for a cause, a creed, an
idea, or for glory. He was a hero and he was merciful.”