HUNTING CLUES.
After the affair at Glendale, the marshal of Kansas City, Major
James Liggett, a cool-tempered, clear-headed man, took charge of
the case and directed all movements intended to result in the
discovery of the robbers. It was soon ascertained beyond a doubt
that Jesse James had been in Kansas City only a few days before the
robbery. Then the inquiry proceeded as to who else had probably
been participants. It came to the knowledge of the marshal that
Jim Cummings, Ed. Miller, and a hard character named Blackamore,
had been moving about the country in a suspicious way. Little
by little, fragmentary scraps of information were secured, and
a generalization of all the facts led to the general conclusion
that the train robbery at Glendale had been effected under the
direction of the James Boys; that certainly Jesse, and probably
Frank, had participated in it, and that Jim Cummings, Ed. Miller
and Blackamore were probable accomplices.
The next important point to gain, was information concerning the
route travelled by the bandits in their retreat from the scene
of their lawless depredation. This was not so easy a task as the
uninitiated might conclude. The character of much of the country
in western Missouri, with the thorough knowledge of the region
possessed by the principals in the outrage, forbade an easy
discovery of the route which they had taken. But the marshal had
called about him men as well acquainted with the country as any
of Quantrell's old raiders could be, and the little information
gathered by each one, finally brought together, led to the
inference that they had gone in a southerly direction toward the
Indian Territory. The inference afterward became a certainty. Their
"trail" was discovered.
Men were at once placed at various points on their probable line of
retreat; men were dispatched on their trail to hunt them to their
places of concealment. There were men in western Missouri who had
ridden with the old Guerrilla band, bold, daring men, who laid
aside the weapons of destruction when the war closed; men who had
never learned the meaning of the word fear, who yet became weary of
turmoil and strife, and settled down in life as quiet citizens, who
long ago ceased to sympathize with their old comrades in their acts
of outlawry, and who, notwithstanding their peaceable demeanor,
were subjected to annoying suspicions at every recurrence of the
visitations of their former associates; who felt when the train
was robbed at Glendale that it was time to take a positive stand
on the side of the law and to co-operate with the officers in
every endeavor to put an end to such depredations for all time by
capturing the depredators. These persons became active allies of
Marshal Liggett in his efforts against the bandits, and materially
contributed to the discovery of the robbers and the line which they
had chosen on their retreat. So the active campaign began. There is
reason to believe that after the robbery was consummated, at least
a part of the band went into Clay county, and remained in seclusion
there for some days. Then they started south.
It was pending these events that Marshal Liggett made an
arrangement with George W. Shepherd, formerly a Guerrilla captain,
under whom Jesse James served near the close of the war, to take
part in the campaign, then about to be prosecuted against the
bandits. As subsequent events have brought Shepherd prominently
before the public, and the mystery which attaches to some of the
proceedings will continue to excite the interest of the public
until it is cleared up, it is deemed best to present a brief
history of the career of George W. Shepherd in this connection.