WERE THEY DRIVEN TO OUTLAWRY?
"Those misnamed men
Whom damned custom had brazed so
That they were proof and bulwark against sense."
Were the James boys driven to outlawry?
A strange question, no doubt, many readers will think, in the light
of the history of their lives. And yet it is a pertinent question,
when we consider the tendency of the human mind and conscience to
deteriorate under the pressure of circumstances. Environments have
much to do in molding character. Perhaps there is not as wide a
space between the natural characteristics of mind and heart in boys
of eight as is generally supposed. But philosophizing aside. Are
there not mitigating circumstances in the case of the James boys?
We do not undertake to defend them--their course is indefensible;
we cannot apologize for them; for outlawry cannot be palliated. But
let justice be done even to these renowned outlaws. Though sinners,
have they not been sinned against? Though slayers of men, have they
had no provocation? Let facts speak.
When the banner, beloved by the Southern people, whether wisely or
unwisely, it matters not, was folded away forever at Appomattox,
that event brought peace and repose to hundreds, nay, thousands of
grim, worn soldiers who had bravely striven to uphold the ensign
they loved so well. The war ended for them, never to be commenced
again.
But all along the bloody borderland there existed a distinctly
different condition of affairs. The warfare was that of community
against community, of neighbor against neighbor, and of relative
against relative. Cole Younger, the Guerrilla, engaged in mortal
combat with Charles Younger, the Union militia officer; it was
kindred blood that strove. In such a warfare the common ties of
humanity are severed, and fury and hate come in where love and
friendship have expired. Such was the situation in Missouri. The
dissolution of the Confederate Government did not restore peace
in such communities. The quarrel was no longer political, and for
principle, but personal, and for vengeance. For others there might
be peace, but for contestants in such a strife there was no peace.
If Jesse James took vengeance on Bond, it must be remembered that
in the dreadful days of the bitter border war, Bond had gone with
his band of militia to the Samuels' place, taken Dr. Samuels,
Jesse's step-father, out, and hanged him by the neck until they
supposed he was dead, and left him there while they went to find
Jesse, who was plowing in the field. He was but a lad then. But
they took him, tied him like a felon, and castigated him like a
slave with a plow line, until faint from loss of blood and crazed
from the agony of the infliction, he fell in a swoon--a mere
quivering mass of flesh and blood. Jesse James was like other
youthful human beings. Could he then forget such treatment? Was
it not natural that he should seek vengeance? And the hour came;
the tormentor fell into his hands; the strong passion overcame
the young man, and he slew his enemy. And so, too, with Banes and
others who fell victims to his relentless purpose. They met a
fate at the hands of the boys which, perhaps, better men than the
Jameses would have connived at under similar circumstances. Thus,
during the long, dark struggle, old scores were paid, but at the
same time new causes of offense were given.
The regularly organized armies of the late contending sections
had been disbanded, and peace ostensibly reigned in the land. But
old wounds had not healed along the border. There were malignant
stars in the zenith of the Guerrillas. Hope animated them for a
space. They sought their childhood's homes. Doubtless they loved
the scenes familiar to them in the old days, before they had
learned to be slayers of men, as well as others of the race do that
anchor-spot of memory. But the bright gleam of hope faded; the
clouds of anguish overspread their sky. The lurid lightning of the
old bitterness flashed athwart their heavens, and the ex-Guerrillas
were pursued and hunted, like felons, beyond the pale of hope or
pardon.
The resources of the James family had been impaired, absorbed,
wasted, in the crucial time of strife. But they were not permitted
to make a peaceful effort to build up and restore wasted fortunes.
Harassed on every hand, these boys, who were naturally of a strong
temperament, and perhaps of revengeful natures, were yet mere boys
who had learned to be self-reliant; impatient of restraint, bold
in action, and acquainted with the art of slaughter, turned upon
their hunters and revealed the desperate character of the game
they pursued. They were not left in peace after the light of peace
blessed the land and made glad other hearts; and they would have
been more than human not to have undertaken their own protection
under such circumstances. If others attempted to murder them, they
did not hesitate to slay. So their lives have become lurid with
slaughter.
It must be remembered that we are not attempting to justify such a
line of conduct; but there are many things in connection with human
affairs that cannot be defended. We look at things as they are,
and not as they ought to be. Doubtless, it will be admitted on all
hands that the James boys ought not to have led such a wild career
of outlawry; that they ought not to have entered upon such a course
of action; and finally it will be urged that it would have been far
better for them, and everything and everybody connected with them,
to have quietly yielded to the inevitable, and voluntarily exiled
themselves forever from the scenes of childhood and all the dear
associations of their tenderer and more hopeful youth. Certainly,
it would have been best for them. But such a course would have been
contrary to the world's experience of human nature.
So when vigilance committees were hanging their comrades who had
been with them by the camp fires in the deep forests, and in many a
bloody foray; and when armed men, fours and sixes, hunted for them;
when repose was banished from their home, and the phantom shadow of
death peered out at them from every forest thicket, and from the
sombre shades of the silent night, these boys rose up in rebellion
against that society which refused to own them, and that order
which organized the cohorts of vengeance. Jesse W. and Frank James,
the terrible Guerrillas of the war-time, were henceforth to "become
enemies of every man," or at least outlaws from society, and free
companions of the highways. It might have been different with them.
But the long, lingering fires of hate burned after the lurid days
of slaughter, and they were not the persons to refuse the gauntlet
when thrown at their feet. Never too good by nature, circumstances
have made them desperate, and hence, after concluding their bloody
Guerrilla record, we proceed with their history as outlaws and
highwaymen of the most remarkable character of any known in the
annals of history.