The Early Outlaw--_The Frontier of the Past Century_--_The Bad Man East
of the Mississippi River_--_The Great Western Land-Pirate, John A.
Murrell_--_The Greatest Slave Insurrection Ever Planned_.
Before passing to the review of the more modern days of wild life on the
Western frontier, we shall find it interesting to note a period less
known, but quite as wild and desperate as any of later times. Indeed, we
might also say that our own desperadoes could take lessons from their
ancestors of the past generation who lived in the forests of the
Mississippi valley.
Those were the days when the South was breaking over the Appalachians
and exploring the middle and lower West. Adventurers were dropping down
the old river roads and "traces" across Kentucky, Tennessee, and
Mississippi, into Louisiana and Texas. The flatboat and keel-boat days
of the great rivers were at their height, and the population was in
large part transient, migratory, and bold; perhaps holding a larger per
cent. of criminals than any Western population since could claim. There
were no organized systems of common carriers, no accepted roads and
highways. The great National Road, from Wheeling west across Ohio,
paused midway of Indiana. Stretching for hundreds of miles in each
direction was the wilderness, wherein man had always been obliged to
fend for himself. And, as ever, the wilderness had its own wild deeds.
Flatboats were halted and robbed; caravans of travelers were attacked;
lonely wayfarers plodding on horseback were waylaid and murdered. In
short, the story of that early day shows our first frontiersman no
novice in crime.
About twenty miles below the mouth of the Wabash river, there was a
resort of robbers such as might belong to the most lurid dime-novel
list--the famous Cave-in-the-Rock, in the bank of the Ohio river. This
cavern was about twenty-five feet in height at its visible opening, and
it ran back into the bluff two hundred feet, with a width of eighty
feet. The floor of this natural cavern was fairly flat, so that it
could be used as a habitation. From this lower cave a sort of aperture
led up to a second one, immediately above it in the bluff wall, and
these two natural retreats of wild animals offered attractions to wild
men which were not unaccepted. It was here that there dwelt for some
time the famous robber Meason, or Mason, who terrorized the flatboat
trade of the Ohio at about 1800. Meason was a robber king, a giant in
stature, and a man of no ordinary brains. He had associated with him his
two sons and a few other hard characters, who together made a band
sufficiently strong to attack any party of the size usually making up
the boat companies of that time, or the average family traveling,
mounted or on foot, through the forest-covered country of the Ohio
valley. Meason killed and pillaged pretty much as he liked for a term of
years, but as travel became too general along the Ohio, he removed to
the wilder country south of that stream, and began to operate on the old
"Natchez and Nashville Trace," one of the roadways of the South at that
time, when the Indian lands were just opening to the early settlers.
Lower Tennessee and pretty much all of Mississippi made his
stamping-grounds, and his name became a terror there, as it had been
along the Ohio. The governor of the State of Mississippi offered a
reward for his capture, dead or alive; but for a long time he escaped
all efforts at apprehension. Treachery did the work, as it has usually
in bringing such bold and dangerous men to book. Two members of his gang
proved traitors to their chief. Seizing an opportunity they crept behind
him and drove a tomahawk into his brain. They cut off the head and took
it along as proof; but as they were displaying this at the seat of
government, the town of Washington, they themselves were recognized and
arrested, and were later tried and executed; which ended the Meason
gang, one of the early and once famous desperado bands.
[Illustration: TYPES OF BORDER BARRICADES]
From the earliest days there have been border counterfeiters of coin.
One of the first and most remarkable was the noted Sturdevant, who lived
in lower Illinois, near the Ohio river, in the first quarter of the last
century. Sturdevant was also something of a robber king, for he could at
any time wind his horn and summon to his side a hundred armed men. He
was ostensibly a steady farmer, and lived comfortably, with a good corps
of servants and tenants about him; but his ablest assistants did not
dwell so close to him. He had an army of confederates all over the
middle West and South, and issued more counterfeit money than any man
before, and probably than any man since. He always exacted a regular
price for his money--sixteen dollars for a hundred in counterfeit--and
such was the looseness of currency matters at that time that he found
many willing to take a chance in his trade. He never allowed any
confederate to pass a counterfeit bill in his own state, or in any other
way to bring himself under the surveillance of local law; and they were
all obliged to be especially circumspect in the county where they lived.
He was a very smug sort of villain, in the trade strictly for revenue,
and he was so careful that he was never caught by the law, in spite of
the fact that it was known that his farm was the source of a flood of
spurious money. He was finally "regulated" by the citizens, who arose
and made him leave the country. This was one of the early applications
of lynch law in the West. Its results were, as usual, salutary. There
was no more counterfeiting in that region.
A very noted desperado of these early days was Harpe, or Big Harpe, as
he was called, to distinguish him from his brother and associate,
Little Harpe. Big Harpe made a wide region of the Ohio valley dangerous
to travelers. The events connected with his vicious life are thus given
by that always interesting old-time chronicler, Henry Howe:
"In the fall of the year 1801 or 1802, a company consisting of two
men and three women arrived in Lincoln county, Ky., and encamped
about a mile from the present town of Stanford. The appearance of
the individuals composing this party was wild and rude in the
extreme. The one who seemed to be the leader of the band was above
the ordinary stature of men. His frame was bony and muscular, his
breast broad, his limbs gigantic. His clothing was uncouth and
shabby, his exterior weather-beaten and dirty, indicating continual
exposure to the elements, and designating him as one who dwelt far
from the habitations of men, and mingled not in the courtesies of
civilized life. His countenance was bold and ferocious, and
exceedingly repulsive, from its strongly marked expression of
villainy. His face, which was larger than ordinary, exhibited the
lines of ungovernable passion, and the complexion announced that
the ordinary feelings of the human breast were in him
extinguished. Instead of the healthy hue which indicates the social
emotions, there was a livid, unnatural redness, resembling that of
a dried and lifeless skin. His eye was fearless and steady, but it
was also artful and audacious, glaring upon the beholder with an
unpleasant fixedness and brilliancy, like that of a ravenous animal
gloating on its prey. He wore no covering on his head, and the
natural protection of thick, coarse hair, of a fiery redness,
uncombed and matted, gave evidence of long exposure to the rudest
visitations of the sunbeam and the tempest. He was armed with a
rifle, and a broad leathern belt, drawn closely around his waist,
supported a knife and a tomahawk. He seemed, in short, an outlaw,
destitute of all the nobler sympathies of human nature, and
prepared at all points of assault or defense. The other man was
smaller in size than him who lead the party, but similarly armed,
having the same suspicious exterior, and a countenance equally
fierce and sinister. The females were coarse and wretchedly
attired.
"These men stated in answer to the inquiry of the inhabitants, that
their name was Harpe, and that they were emigrants from North
Carolina. They remained at their encampment the greater part of
two days and a night, spending the time in rioting, drunkenness and
debauchery. When they left, they took the road leading to Green
river. The day succeeding their departure, a report reached the
neighborhood that a young gentleman of wealth from Virginia, named
Lankford, had been robbed and murdered on what was then called and
is still known as the "Wilderness Road," which runs through the
Rock-castle hills. Suspicion immediately fixed upon the Harpes as
the perpetrators, and Captain Ballenger at the head of a few bold
and resolute men, started in pursuit. They experienced great
difficulty in following their trail, owing to a heavy fall of snow,
which obliterated most of their tracks, but finally came upon them
while encamped in a bottom on Green river, near the spot where the
town of Liberty now stands. At first they made a show of
resistance, but upon being informed that if they did not
immediately surrender, they would be shot down, they yielded
themselves prisoners. They were brought back to Stanford, and there
examined. Among their effects were found some fine linen shirts,
marked with the initials of Lankford. One had been pierced by a
bullet and was stained with blood. They had also a considerable
sum of money in gold. It was afterward ascertained that this was
the kind of money Lankford had with him. The evidence against them
being thus conclusive, they were confined in the Stanford jail, but
were afterward sent for trial to Danville, where the district court
was in session. Here they broke jail, and succeeded in making their
escape.
"They were next heard of in Adair county, near Columbia. In passing
through the country, they met a small boy, the son of Colonel
Trabue, with a pillow-case of meal or flour, an article they
probably needed. This boy, it is supposed they robbed and then
murdered, as he was never afterward heard of. Many years afterward
human bones answering the size of Colonel Trabue's son at the time
of his disappearance, were found in a sink hole near the place
where he was said to have been murdered.
"The Harpes still shaped their course toward the mouth of Green
river, marking their path by murders and robberies of the most
horrible and brutal character. The district of country through
which they passed was at that time very thinly settled, and from
this reason, their outrages went unpunished. They seemed inspired
with the deadliest hatred against the whole human race, and such
was their implacable misanthropy, that they were known to kill
where there was no temptation to rob. One of their victims was a
little girl, found at some distance from her home, whose tender age
and helplessness would have been protection against any but
incarnate fiends. The last dreadful act of barbarity, which led to
their punishment and expulsion from the country, exceeded in
atrocity all the others.
"Assuming the guise of Methodist preachers, they obtained lodgings
one night at a solitary house on the road. Mr. Stagall, the master
of the house, was absent, but they found his wife and children, and
a stranger, who, like themselves, had stopped for the night. Here
they conversed and made inquiries about the two noted Harpes who
were represented as prowling about the country. When they retired
to rest, they contrived to secure an axe, which they carried with
them into their chamber. In the dead of night, they crept softly
down stairs, and assassinated the whole family, together with the
stranger, in their sleep, and then setting fire to the house, made
their escape. When Stagall returned, he found no wife to welcome
him; no home to receive him. Distracted with grief and rage, he
turned his horse's head from the smoldering ruins, and repaired to
the house of Captain John Leeper. Leeper was one of the most
powerful men in his day, and fearless as powerful. Collecting four
or five men well armed, they mounted and started in pursuit of
vengeance. It was agreed that Leeper should attack 'Big Harpe,'
leaving 'Little Harpe' to be disposed of by Stagall. The others
were to hold themselves in readiness to assist Leeper and Stagall,
as circumstances might require.
"This party found the women belonging to the Harpes, attending to
their little camp by the roadside; the men having gone aside into
the woods to shoot an unfortunate traveler, of the name of Smith,
who had fallen into their hands, and whom the women had begged
might not be dispatched before their eyes. It was this halt that
enabled the pursuers to overtake them. The women immediately gave
the alarm, and the miscreants mounting their horses, which were
large, fleet and powerful, fled in separate directions. Leeper
singled out the 'Big Harpe,' and being better mounted than his
companions, soon left them far behind. 'Little Harpe' succeeded in
escaping from Stagall, and he, with the rest of his companions,
turned and followed on the track of Leeper and the 'Big Harpe.'
After a chase of about nine miles, Leeper came within gun-shot of
the latter and fired. The ball entering his thigh, passed through
it and penetrated his horse and both fell. Harpe's gun escaped from
his hand and rolled some eight or ten feet down the bank. Reloading
his rifle, Leeper ran to where the wounded outlaw lay weltering in
his blood, and found him with one thigh broken, and the other
crushed beneath his horse. Leeper rolled the horse away, and set
Harpe in an easier position. The robber begged that he might not be
killed. Leeper told him that he had nothing to fear from him, but
that Stagall was coming up, and could not probably be restrained.
Harpe appeared very much frightened at hearing this, and implored
Leeper to protect him. In a few moments, Stagall appeared, and
without uttering a word, raised his rifle and shot Harpe through
the head. They then severed the head from the body, and stuck it
upon a pole where the road crosses the creek, from which the place
was then named and is yet called Harpe's Head. Thus perished one of
the boldest and most noted freebooters that has ever appeared in
America. Save courage, he was without one redeeming quality, and
his death freed the country from a terror which had long paralyzed
its boldest spirits.
"The 'Little Harpe' afterward joined the band of Meason, and became
one of his most valuable assistants in the dreadful trade of
robbery and murder. He was one of the two bandits that, tempted by
the reward for their leader's head, murdered him, and eventually
themselves suffered the penalty of the law as previously related."
Thus it would seem that the first quarter of the last century on the
frontier was not without its own interest. The next decade, or that
ending about 1840, however, offered a still greater instance of
outlawry, one of the most famous ones indeed of American history,
although little known to-day. This had to do with that genius in crime,
John A. Murrell, long known as the great Western land-pirate; and surely
no pirate of the seas was ever more enterprising or more dangerous.
Murrell was another man who, in a decent walk of life, would have been
called great. He had more than ordinary energy and intellect. He was not
a mere brute, but a shrewd, cunning, scheming man, hesitating at no
crime on earth, yet animated by a mind so bold that mere personal crime
was not enough for him. When it is added that he had a gang of robbers
and murderers associated with him who were said to number nearly two
thousand men, and who were scattered over the entire South below the
Ohio river, it may be seen how bold were his plans; and his ability may
further be shown in the fact that for years these men lived among and
mingled with their fellows in civil life, unknown and unsuspected. Some
of them were said to have been of the best families of the land; and
even yet there come to light strange and romantic tales, perhaps not
wholly true, of death-bed confessions of men prominent in the South who
admitted that once they belonged to Murrell's gang, but had later
repented and reformed. A prominent Kentucky lawyer was one of these.
Murrell and his confederates would steal horses and mules, or at least
the common class, or division, known as the "strikers," would do so,
although the members of the Grand Council would hardly stoop to so petty
a crime. For them was reserved the murdering of travelers or settlers
who were supposed to have money, and the larger operations of negro
stealing.
The theft of slaves, the claiming of the runaway rewards, the later
re-stealing and re-selling and final killing of the negro in order to
destroy the evidence, are matters which Murrell reduced to a system that
has no parallel in the criminal records of the country. But not even
here did this daring outlaw pause. It was not enough to steal a negro
here and there, and to make a few thousand dollars out of each negro so
handled. The whole state of organized society was to be overthrown by
means of this same black population. So at least goes one story of his
life. We know of several so-called black insurrections that were planned
at one time or another in the South--as, for instance, the Turner
insurrection in Virginia; but this Murrell enterprise was the biggest of
them all.
The plan was to have the uprising occur all over the South on the same
day, Christmas of 1835. The blacks were to band together and march on
the settlements, after killing all the whites on the farms where they
worked. There they were to fall under the leadership of Murrell's
lieutenants, who were to show them how to sack the stores, to kill the
white merchants, and take the white women. The banks of all the Southern
towns were to become the property of Murrell and his associates. In
short, at one stroke, the entire system of government, which had been
established after such hard effort in that fierce wilderness along the
old Southern "traces," was to be wiped out absolutely. The land was
indeed to be left without law. The entire fruits of organized society
were to belong to a band of outlaws. This was probably the best and
boldest instance ever seen of the narrowness of the line dividing
society and savagery.
Murrell was finally brought to book by his supposed confederate, Virgil
A. Stewart, the spy, who went under the name of Hues, whose evidence,
after many difficulties, no doubt resulted in the breaking up of this,
the largest and most dangerous band of outlaws this country ever saw;
although Stewart himself was a vain and ambitious notoriety seeker.
Supposing himself safe, Murrell gave Stewart a detailed story of his
life. This was later used in evidence against him; and although
Stewart's account needs qualification, it is the best and fullest record
obtainable to-day.[C]
[Footnote C: "Life and Adventures of Virgil A. Stewart." Harper and
Brothers, New York. 1836.]
"I was born in Middle Tennessee," Murrell personally stated. "My
parents had not much property, but they were intelligent people; and my
father was an honest man I expect, and tried to raise me honest, but I
think none the better of him for that. My mother was of the pure grit;
she learned me and all her children to steal as soon as we could walk
and would hide for us whenever she could. At ten years old I was not a
bad hand. The first good haul I made was from a pedler who lodged at my
father's house one night.
"I began to look after larger spoils and ran several fine horses. By the
time I was twenty I began to acquire considerable character, and
concluded to go off and do my speculation where I was not known, and go
on a larger scale; so I began to see the value of having friends in this
business. I made several associates; I had been acquainted with some old
hands for a long time, who had given me the names of some royal fellows
between Nashville and Tuscaloosa, and between Nashville and Savannah in
the state of Georgia and many other places. Myself and a fellow by the
name of Crenshaw gathered four good horses and started for Georgia. We
got in company with a young South Carolinian just before we reached
Cumberland Mountain, and Crenshaw soon knew all about his business. He
had been to Tennessee to buy a drove of hogs, but when he got there pork
was dearer than he calculated, and he declined purchasing. We concluded
he was a prize. Crenshaw winked at me; I understood his idea. Crenshaw
had traveled the road before, but I never had; we had traveled several
miles on the mountain, when we passed near a great precipice; just
before we passed it, Crenshaw asked me for my whip, which had a pound of
lead in the butt; I handed it to him, and he rode up by the side of the
South Carolinian, and gave him a blow on the side of the head, and
tumbled him from his horse; we lit from our horses and fingered his
pockets; we got twelve hundred and sixty-two dollars. Crenshaw said he
knew of a place to hide him, and gathered him under the arms, and I by
his feet, and conveyed him to a deep crevice in the brow of the
precipice, and tumbled him into it; he went out of sight. We then
tumbled in his saddle, and took his horse with us, which was worth two
hundred dollars. We turned our course for South Alabama, and sold our
horse for a good price. We frolicked for a week or more and were the
highest larks you ever saw. We commenced sporting and gambling, and
lost every cent of our money.
"We were forced to resort to our profession for a second raise. We stole
a negro man, and pushed for Mississippi. We had promised him that we
would conduct him to a free state if he would let us sell him once as we
went on our way; we also agreed to give him part of the money. We sold
him for six hundred dollars; but, when we went to start, the negro
seemed to be very uneasy, and appeared to doubt our coming back for him
as we had promised. We lay in a creek bottom, not far from the place
where we had sold the negro, all the next day, and after dark we went to
the china-tree in the lane where we were to meet Tom; he had been
waiting for some time. He mounted his horse, and we pushed with him a
second time. We rode twenty miles that night to the house of a friendly
speculator. I had seen him in Tennessee, and had given him several
lifts. He gave me his place of residence, that I might find him when I
was passing. He is quite rich, and one of the best kind of fellows. Our
horses were fed as much as they would eat, and two of them were
foundered the next morning. We were detained a few days, and during that
time our friend went to a little village in the neighborhood, and saw
the negro advertised, with a description of the two men of whom he had
been purchased, and with mention of them as suspicious personages. It
was rather squally times, but any port in a storm; we took the negro
that night to the bank of a creek which runs by the farm of our friend,
and Crenshaw shot him through the head. We took out his entrails and
sunk him in the creek; our friend furnished us with one fine horse, and
we left him our foundered horses. We made our way through the Choctaw
and Chickasaw Nations, and then to Williamson county, in this state. We
should have made a fine trip if we had taken care of all we got.
"I had become a considerable libertine, and when I returned home I spent
a few months rioting in all the luxuries of forbidden pleasures with the
girls of my acquaintance. My stock of cash was soon gone, and I put to
my shift for more. I commenced with horses, and ran several from the
adjoining counties. I had got associated with a young man who had
professed to be a preacher among the Methodists, and a sharper he was;
he was as slick on the tongue as goose-grease. I took my first lessons
in divinity from this young preacher. He was highly respected by all
who knew him, and well calculated to please; he first put me in the
notion of preaching, to aid me in my speculations.
"I got into difficulty about a mare that I had taken, and was imprisoned
for near three years. I shifted it from court to court, but was at last
found guilty, and whipped. During my confinement I read the scriptures,
and became a good judge of theology. I had not neglected the criminal
laws for many years before that time. When they turned me loose I was
prepared for anything; I wanted to kill all but those of my own grit;
and I will die by the side of one of them before I will desert.
"My next speculation was in the Choctaw region; myself and brother stole
two fine horses, and made our way into this country. We got in with an
old negro man and his wife, and three sons, to go off with us to Texas,
and promised them that, if they would work for us one year after we got
there, we would let them go free, and told them many fine stories. The
old negro became suspicious that we were going to sell him, and grew
quite contrary; so we landed one day by the side of an island, and I
requested him to go with me round the point of the island to hunt a
good place to catch some fish. After we were hidden from our company I
shot him through the head, and then ripped open his belly and tumbled
him into the river. I returned to my company, and told them that the
negro had fallen into the river, and that he never came up after he went
under. We landed fifty miles above New Orleans, and went into the
country and sold our negroes to a Frenchman for nineteen hundred
dollars.
"We went from where we sold the negroes to New Orleans, and dressed
ourselves like young lords. I mixed with the loose characters at the
_swamp_ every night. One night, as I was returning to the tavern where I
boarded, I was stopped by two armed men, who demanded my money. I handed
them my pocketbook, and observed that I was very happy to meet with
them, as we were all of the same profession. One of them observed, 'D--d
if I ever rob a brother chip. We have had our eyes on you and the man
that has generally come with you for several nights; we saw so much
rigging and glittering jewelry, that we concluded you must be some
wealthy dandy, with a surplus of cash; and had determined to rid you of
the trouble of some of it; but, if you are a robber, here is your
pocketbook, and you must go with us to-night, and we will give you an
introduction to several fine fellows of the block; but stop, do you
understand this motion?' I answered it, and thanked them for their
kindness, and turned with them. We went to old Mother Surgick's, and had
a real frolic with her girls. That night was the commencement of my
greatness in what the world calls villainy. The two fellows who robbed
me were named Haines and Phelps; they made me known to all the
speculators that visited New Orleans, and gave me the name of every
fellow who would speculate that lived on the Mississippi river, and many
of its tributary streams, from New Orleans up to all the large Western
cities.
"I had become acquainted with a Kentuckian, who boarded at the same
tavern I did, and I suspected he had a large sum of money; I felt an
inclination to count it for him before I left the city; so I made my
notions known to Phelps and my other new comrades, and concerted our
plan. I was to get him off to the _swamp_ with me on a spree, and when
we were returning to our lodgings, my friends were to meet us and rob us
both. I had got very intimate with the Kentuckian, and he thought me one
of the best fellows in the world. He was very fond of wine; and I had
him well fumed with good wine before I made the proposition for a
frolic. When I invited him to walk with me he readily accepted the
invitation. We cut a few shines with the girls, and started to the
tavern. We were met by a band of robbers, and robbed of all our money.
The Kentuckian was so mad that he cursed the whole city, and wished that
it would all be deluged in a flood of water so soon as he left the
place. I went to my friends the next morning, and got my share of the
spoil money, and my pocketbook that I had been robbed of. We got seven
hundred and fifty dollars of the bold Kentuckian, which was divided
among thirteen of us.
"I commenced traveling and making all the acquaintances among the
speculators that I could. I went from New Orleans to Cincinnati, and
from there I visited Lexington, in Kentucky. I found a speculator about
four miles from Newport, who furnished me with a fine horse the second
night after I arrived at his house. I went from Lexington to Richmond,
in Virginia, and from there I visited Charleston, in the State of South
Carolina; and from thence to Milledgeville, by the way of Savannah and
Augusta, in the State of Georgia. I made my way from Milledgeville to
Williamson county, the old stamping-ground. In all the route I only
robbed eleven men but I preached some fine sermons, and scattered some
counterfeit United States paper among my brethren.
* * * * *
"After I returned home from the first grand circuit I made among my
speculators, I remained there but a short time, as I could not rest when
my mind was not actively engaged in some speculation. I commenced the
foundation of this mystic clan on that tour, and suggested the plan of
exciting a rebellion among the negroes, as the sure road to an
inexhaustible fortune to all who would engage in the expedition. The
first mystic sign which is used by this clan was in use among robbers
before I was born; and the second had its origin from myself, Phelps,
Haines, Cooper, Doris, Bolton, Harris, Doddridge, Celly, Morris, Walton,
Depont, and one of my brothers, on the second night after my
acquaintance with them in New Orleans. We needed a higher order to carry
on our designs, and we adopted our sign, and called it the sign of the
Grand Council of the Mystic Clan; and practised ourselves to give and
receive the new sign to a fraction before we parted; and, in addition to
this improvement, we invented and formed a mode of corresponding, by
means of ten characters, mixed with other matter, which has been very
convenient on many occasions, and especially when any of us get into
difficulties. I was encouraged in my new undertaking, and my heart began
to beat high with the hope of being able one day to visit the pomp of
the Southern and Western people in my vengeance; and of seeing their
cities and towns one common scene of devastation, smoked walls and
fragments.
"I decoyed a negro man from his master in Middle Tennessee, and sent him
to Mill's Point by a young man, and I waited to see the movements of the
owner. He thought his negro had run off. So I started to take possession
of my prize. I got another friend at Mill's Point to take my negro in a
skiff, and convey him to the mouth of Red river, while I took passage on
a steamboat. I then went through the country by land, and sold my negro
for nine hundred dollars, and the second night after I sold him I stole
him again, and my friend ran him to the Irish bayou in Texas; I
followed on after him, and sold my negro in Texas for five hundred
dollars. I then resolved to visit South America, and see if there was an
opening in that country for a speculation; I had also concluded that I
could get some strong friends in that quarter to aid me in my designs
relative to a negro rebellion; but of all people in the world, the
Spaniards are the most treacherous and cowardly; I never want them
concerned in any matter with me; I had rather take the negroes in this
country to fight than a Spaniard. I stopped in a village, and passed as
a doctor, and commenced practising medicine. I could ape the doctor
first-rate, having read Ewel, and several other works on primitive
medicine. I became a great favorite of an old Catholic; he adopted me as
his son in the faith, and introduced me to all the best families as a
young doctor from North America. I had been with the old Catholic but a
very short time before I was a great Roman Catholic, and bowed to the
cross, and attended regularly to all the ceremonies of that persuasion;
and, to tell you the fact, Hues, all the Catholic religion needs to be
universally received, is to be correctly represented; but you know I
care nothing for religion. I had been with the old Catholic about three
months, and was getting a heavy practice, when an opportunity offered
for me to rob the good man's secretary of nine hundred and sixty dollars
in gold, and I could have got as much more in silver if I could have
carried it. I was soon on the road for home again; I stopped three weeks
in New Orleans as I came home, and had some high fun with old Mother
Surgick's girls.
"I collected all my associates in New Orleans at one of my friend's
houses in that place, and we sat in council three days before we got all
our plans to our notion; we then determined to undertake the rebellion
at every hazard, and make as many friends as we could for that purpose.
Every man's business being assigned him, I started for Natchez on foot.
Having sold my horse in New Orleans with the intention of stealing
another after I started, I walked four days, and no opportunity offered
for me to get a horse. The fifth day, about twelve o'clock, I had become
very tired, and stopped at a creek to get some water and rest a little.
While I was sitting on a log, looking down the road I had come, a man
came in sight riding a good-looking horse. The very moment I saw him I
determined to have his horse if he was in the garb of a traveler. He
rode up, and I saw from his equipage that he was a traveler. I arose
from my seat and drew an elegant rifle pistol on him, and ordered him to
dismount. He did so, and I took his horse by the bridle, and pointed
down the creek, and ordered him to walk before me. We went a few hundred
yards and stopped. I hitched his horse, then made him undress himself,
all to his shirt and drawers, and ordered him to turn his back to me. He
asked me if I was going to shoot him. I ordered him the second time to
turn his back to me. He said, 'If you are determined to kill me, let me
have time to pray before I die.' I told him I had no time to hear him
pray. He turned round and dropped on his knees, and I shot him through
the back of the head. I ripped open his belly, and took out his
entrails, and sunk him in the creek. I then searched his pockets, and
found four hundred and one dollars and thirty-seven cents, and a number
of papers that I did not take time to examine. I sunk the pocketbook and
papers and his hat in the creek. His boots were brand new, and fitted me
very genteelly, and I put them on, and sunk my old shoes in the creek to
atone for them. I rolled up his clothes and put them into his
portmanteau, as they were quite new cloth of the best quality. I mounted
as fine a horse as ever I straddled, and directed my course to Natchez
in much better style than I had been for the last five days.
"I reached Natchez, and spent two days with my friends at that place and
the girls under the Hill together. I then left Natchez for the Choctaw
nation, with the intention of giving some of them a chance for their
property. As I was riding along between Benton and Rankin, planning for
my designs, I was overtaken by a tall and good-looking young man, riding
an elegant horse, which was splendidly rigged off; and the young
gentleman's apparel was of the gayest that could be had, and his
watch-chain and other jewelry were of the richest and best. I was
anxious to know if he intended to travel through the Choctaw nation, and
soon managed to learn. He said he had been to the lower country with a
drove of negroes, and was returning home to Kentucky. We rode on, and
soon got very intimate for strangers, and agreed to be company through
the Indian nation. We were two fine-looking men, and, to hear us talk,
we were very rich. I felt him on the subject of speculation, but he
cursed the speculators, and said he was in a bad condition to fall into
the hands of such villains, as he had the cash with him that twenty
negroes had sold for; and that he was very happy that he happened to get
in company with me through the nation. I concluded he was a noble prize,
and longed to be counting his cash. At length we came into one of those
long stretches in the Nation, where there was no house for twenty miles,
on the third day after we had been in company with each other. The
country was high, hilly, and broken, and no water; just about the time I
reached the place where I intended to count my companion's cash, I
became very thirsty, and insisted on turning down a deep hollow, or
dale, that headed near the road, to hunt some water. We had followed
down the dale for near four hundred yards, when I drew my pistol and
shot him through. He fell dead; I commenced hunting for his cash, and
opened his large pocketbook, which was stuffed very full; and when I
began to open it I thought it was a treasure indeed; but oh! the
contents of that book! it was richly filled with the copies of
love-songs, the forms of love-letters, and some of his own
composition,--but no cash. I began to cut off his clothes with my knife,
and examine them for his money. I found four dollars and a half in
change in his pockets, and no more. And is this the amount for which
twenty negroes sold? thought I. I recollected his watch and jewelry, and
I gathered them in; his chain was rich and good, but it was swung to an
old brass watch. He was a puff for true, and I thought all such fools
ought to die as soon as possible. I took his horse, and swapped him to
an Indian native for four ponies, and sold them on the way home. I
reached home, and spent a few weeks among the girls of my acquaintance,
in all the enjoyments that money could afford.
"My next trip was through Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina,
Virginia, and Maryland, and then back to South Carolina, and from there
round by Florida and Alabama. I began to conduct the progress of my
operations, and establish my emissaries over the country in every
direction.
"I have been going ever since from one place to another, directing and
managing; but I have others now as good as myself to manage. This
fellow, Phelps, that I was telling you of before, he is a noble chap
among the negroes, and he wants them all free; he knows how to excite
them as well as any person; but he will not do for a robber, as he
cannot kill a man unless he has received an injury from him first. He is
now in jail at Vicksburg, and I fear will hang. I went to see him not
long since, but he is so strictly watched that nothing can be done. He
has been in the habit of stopping men on the highway, and robbing them,
and letting them go on; but that will never do for a robber; after I rob
a man he will never give evidence against me, and there is but one safe
plan in the business, and that is to kill--if I could not afford to kill
a man, I would not rob.
"The great object that we have in contemplation is to excite a rebellion
among the negroes throughout the slave-holding states. Our plan is to
manage so as to have it commence everywhere at the same hour. We have
set on the 25th of December, 1835, for the time to commence our
operations. We design having our companies so stationed over the
country, in the vicinity of the banks and large cities, that when the
negroes commence their carnage and slaughter, we will have detachments
to fire the towns and rob the banks while all is confusion and dismay.
The rebellion taking place everywhere at the same time, every part of
the country will be engaged in its own defence; and one part of the
country can afford no relief to another, until many places will be
entirely overrun by the negroes, and our pockets replenished from the
banks and the desks of rich merchants' houses. It is true that in many
places in the slave states the negro population is not strong, and would
be easily overpowered; but, back them with a few resolute leaders from
our clan, they will murder thousands, and huddle the remainder into
large bodies of stationary defence for their own preservation; and then,
in many other places, the black population is much the strongest, and
under a leader would overrun the country before any steps could be taken
to suppress them.
"We do not go to every negro we see and tell him that the negroes intend
to rebel on the night of the 25th of December, 1835. We find the most
vicious and wickedly disposed on large farms, and poison their minds by
telling them how they are mistreated. When we are convinced that we have
found a bloodthirsty devil, we swear him to secrecy and disclose to him
the secret, and convince him that every other state and section of
country where there are any negroes intend to rebel and slay all the
whites they can on the night of the 25th of December, 1835, and assure
him that there are thousands of white men engaged in trying to free
them, who will die by their sides in battle. We have a long ceremony for
the oath, which is administered in the presence of a terrific picture
painted for that purpose, representing the monster who is to deal with
him should he prove unfaithful in the engagements he has entered into.
This picture is highly calculated to make a negro true to his trust, for
he is disposed to be superstitious at best.
"Our black emissaries have the promise of a share in the spoils we may
gain, and we promise to conduct them to Texas should we be defeated,
where they will be free; but we never talk of being defeated. We always
talk of victory and wealth to them. There is no danger in any man, if
you can ever get him once implicated or engaged in a matter. That is the
way we employ our strikers in all things; we have them implicated before
we trust them from our sight.
"This may seem too bold, but that is what I glory in. All the crimes I
have ever committed have been of the most daring; and I have been
successful in all my attempts as yet; and I am confident that I will be
victorious in this matter, as in the robberies which I have in
contemplation; and I will have the pleasure and honor of seeing and
knowing that by my management I have glutted the earth with more human
gore, and destroyed more property, than any other robber who has ever
lived in America, or the known world. I look on the American people as
my common enemy. My clan is strong, brave, and experienced, and rapidly
increasing in strength every day. I should not be surprised if we were
to be two thousand strong by the 25th of December, 1835; and, in
addition to this, I have the advantage of any other leader of banditti
that has ever preceded me, for at least one-half of my Grand Council are
men of high standing, and many of them in honorable and lucrative
offices."
The number of men, more or less prominent, in the different states
included: sixty-one from Tennessee, forty-seven from Mississippi,
forty-six from Arkansas, twenty-five from Kentucky, twenty-seven from
Missouri, twenty-eight from Alabama, thirty-three from Georgia,
thirty-five from South Carolina, thirty-two from North Carolina,
twenty-one from Virginia, twenty-seven from Maryland, sixteen from
Florida, thirty-two from Louisiana. The transient members who made a
habit of traveling from place to place numbered twenty-two; Murrell said
that there was a total list of two thousand men in his band, including
all classes.
To the foregoing sketch of Murrell's life Mr. Alexander Hynds, historian
of Tennessee, adds some facts and comments which will enable the reader
more fully to make his own estimate as to this singular man:
"The central meeting place of Murrell's band was near an enormous
cottonwood tree in Mississippi county, Arkansas. It was standing in
1890, and is perhaps still standing in the wilderness shortly above
Memphis. His widely scattered bands had a system of signs and
passwords. Murrell himself was married to the sister of one of his
gang. He bought a good farm near Denmark, Madison county,
Tennessee, where he lived as a plain farmer, while he conducted the
most fearful schemes of rapine and murder from New Orleans up to
Memphis, St. Louis and Cincinnati.
"Nature had done much for Murrell. He had a quick mind, a fine
natural address and great adaptability; and he was as much at ease
among the refined and cultured as with his own gang. He made a
special study of criminal law, and knew something of medicine. He
often palmed himself off as a preacher, and preached in large
camp-meetings--and some were converted under his ministry! He often
used his clerical garb in passing counterfeit money. With a clear
head, cool, fine judgment, and a nature utterly without fear, moral
or physical, his power over his men never waned. To them he was
just, fair and amiable. He was a kind husband and brother, and a
faithful friend. He took great pride in his position and in the
operations of his gang. This conceit was the only weak spot in his
nature, and led to his downfall.
"Stewart, who purports to be Murrell's biographer, made Murrell's
acquaintance, pretended to join his gang, and playing on his
vanity, attended a meeting of the gang at the rendezvous at the Big
Cottonwood, and saw the meeting of the Grand Council. He had
Murrell arrested, and he was tried, convicted and sent to the
Tennessee penitentiary in 1834 for ten years. There he worked in
the blacksmith shops, but by the time he got out, was broken down
in mind and body, emerging an imbecile and an invalid, to live less
than a year.
"Stewart's account holds inconsistencies and inaccuracies, such as
that many men high in social and official life belonged to
Murrell's gang, which his published lists do not show. He had
perhaps 440 to 450 men, scattered from New Orleans to Cincinnati,
but his downfall spread fear and distrust among them.
"At Vicksburg, on July 4, 1835, a drunken member of the gang
threatened to attack the authorities, and was tarred and feathered.
Others of the gang, or at least several well-known gamblers,
collected and defied the citizens, and killed the good and brave
Dr. Bodley. Five men were hung, Hullams, Dutch Bill, North, Smith
and McCall. The news swept like wildfire through the Mississippi
Valley and gave heart to the lovers of law and order. At one or two
other places some were shot, some were hanged, and now and then one
or two were sent to prison, and thus an end was put to organized
crime in the Southwest forever; and this closed out the reign of
the river cutthroats, pirates and gamblers as well."
Thus, as in the case of Sturdevant, lynch law put an effectual end to
outlawry that the law itself could not control.