Modern Bad Men--_Murder and Robbery as a Profession_--_The School of
Guerrilla Warfare_--_Butcher Quantrell; the James Brothers; the Younger
Brothers_.
Outlawry of the early border, in days before any pretense at
establishment of a system of law and government, and before the holding
of property had assumed any very stable form, may have retained a
certain glamour of romance. The loose gold of the mountains, the loose
cattle of the plains, before society had fallen into any strict way of
living, and while plenty seemed to exist for any and all, made a
temptation easily accepted and easily excused. The ruffians of those
early days had a largeness in their methods which gives some of them at
least a color of interest. If any excuse may be offered for lawlessness,
any palliation for acts committed without countenance of the law, that
excuse and palliation may be pleaded for these men if for any. But for
the man who is bad and mean as well, who kills for gain, and who adds
cruelty and cunning to his acts instead of boldness and courage, little
can be said. Such characters afford us horror, but it is horror
unmingled with any manner of admiration.
Yet, if we reconcile ourselves to tarry a moment with the cheap and
gruesome, the brutal and ignorant side of mere crime, we shall be
obliged to take into consideration some of the bloodiest characters ever
known in our history; who operated well within the day of established
law; who made a trade of robbery, and whose capital consisted of
disregard for the life and property of others. That men like this should
live for years at the very door of large cities, in an old settled
country, and known familiarly in their actual character to thousands of
good citizens, is a strange commentary on the American character; yet
such are the facts.
It has been shown that a widely extended war always has the effect of
cheapening human life in and out of the ranks of the fighting armies.
The early wars of England, in the days of the longbow and buckler,
brought on her palmiest days of cutpurses and cutthroats. The days
following our own civil war were fearful ones for the entire country
from Montana to Texas; and nowhere more so than along the dividing line
between North and South, where feeling far bitterer than soldierly
antagonism marked a large population on both sides of that contest. We
may further restrict the field by saying that nowhere on any border was
animosity so fierce as in western Missouri and eastern Kansas, where
jayhawker and border ruffian waged a guerrilla war for years before the
nation was arrayed against itself in ordered ranks. If mere blood be
matter of our record here, assuredly, is a field of interest. The deeds
of Lane and Brown, of Quantrell and Hamilton, are not surpassed in
terror in the history of any land. Osceola, Marais du Cygne,
Lawrence--these names warrant a shudder even to-day.
This locality--say that part of Kansas and Missouri near the towns of
Independence and Westport, and more especially the counties of Jackson
and Clay in the latter state--was always turbulent, and had reason to
be. Here was the halting place of the westbound civilization, at the
edge of the plains, at the line long dividing the whites from the
Indians. Here settled, like the gravel along the cleats of a sluice,
the daring men who had pushed west from Kentucky, Tennessee, lower Ohio,
eastern Missouri--the Boones, Carsons, Crocketts, and Kentons of their
day. Here came the Mormons to found their towns, and later to meet the
armed resistance which drove them across the plains. Here, at these very
towns, was the outfitting place and departing point of the caravans of
the early Santa Fé trade; here the Oregon Trail left for the far
Northwest; and here the Forty-niners paused a moment in their mad rush
to the golden coast of the Pacific. Here, too, adding the bitterness of
fanaticism to the courage of the frontier, came the bold men of the
North who insisted that Kansas should be free for the expansion of the
northern population and institutions.
This corner of Missouri-Kansas was a focus of recklessness and daring
for more than a whole generation. The children born there had an
inheritance of indifference to death such as has been surpassed nowhere
in our frontier unless that were in the bloody Southwest. The men of
this country, at the outbreak of the civil war, made as high an average
in desperate fighting as any that ever lived. Too restless to fight
under the ensign of any but their own ilk, they set up a banner of their
own. The black flags of Quantrell and of Lane, of border ruffian and
jayhawker, were guidons under which quarter was unknown, and mercy a
forgotten thing. Warfare became murder, and murder became assassination.
Ambushing, surprise, pillage and arson went with murder; and women and
children were killed as well as fighting men. Is it wonder that in such
a school there grew up those figures which a certain class of writers
have been wont to call bandit kings; the bank robbers and train robbers
of modern days, the James and Younger type of bad men?
The most notorious of these border fighters was the bloody leader,
Charles William Quantrell, leader at the sacking of Lawrence, and as
dangerous a partisan leader as ever threw leg into saddle. He was born
in Hagerstown, Maryland, July 20, 1836, and as a boy lived for a time in
the Ohio city of Cleveland. At twenty years of age, he joined his
brother for a trip to California, _via_ the great plains. This was in
1856, and Kansas was full of Free Soilers, whose political principles
were not always untempered by a large-minded willingness to rob. A
party of these men surprised the Quantrell party on the Cottonwood
river, and killed the older brother. Charles William Quantrell swore an
undying revenge; and he kept his oath.
It is not necessary to mention in detail the deeds of this border
leader. They might have had commendation for their daring had it not
been for their brutality and treachery. Quantrell had a band of sworn
men, held under solemn oath to stand by each other and to keep their
secrets. These men were well armed and well mounted, were all fearless
and all good shots, the revolver being their especial arm, as it was of
Mosby's men in the civil war. The tactics of this force comprised
surprise, ambush, and a determined rush, in turn; and time and again
they defeated Federal forces many times their number, being thoroughly
well acquainted with the country, and scrupling at nothing in the way of
treachery, just as they considered little the odds against which they
fought. Their victims were sometimes paroled, but not often, and a
massacre usually followed a defeat--almost invariably so if the number
of prisoners was small.
Cold-blooded and unhesitating murder was part of their everyday life.
Thus Jesse James, on the march to the Lawrence massacre, had in charge
three men, one of them an old man, whom they took along as guides from
the little town of Aubrey, Kansas. They used these men until they found
themselves within a few miles of Lawrence, and then, as is alleged,
members of the band took them aside and killed them, the old man begging
for his life and pleading that he never had done them any wrong. His
murderers were no more than boys. This act may have been that of bad
men, but not of the sort of bad men that leaves us any sort of respect,
such as that which may be given Wild Bill, even Billy the Kid, or any of
a dozen other big-minded desperadoes.
This assassination was but one of scores or hundreds. A neighbor
suspected of Federal sympathies was visited in the night and shot or
hanged, his property destroyed, his family killed. The climax of the
Lawrence massacre was simply the working out of principles of blood and
revenge. In that fight, or, more properly, that massacre, women and
children went down as well as men. The James boys were Quantrell riders,
Jesse a new recruit, and that day they maintained that they had killed
sixty-five persons between them, and wounded twenty more! What was the
total record of these two men alone in all this period of guerrilla
fighting? It cannot be told. Probably they themselves could not
remember. The four Younger boys had records almost or quite as bad.
There, indeed, was a border soaked in blood, a country torn with
intestinal warfare. Quantrell was beaten now and then, meeting fighting
men in blue or in jeans, as well as leading fighting men; and at times
he was forced to disband his men, later to recruit again, and to go on
with his marauding up and down the border. His career attracted the
attention of leaders on both sides of the opposing armies, and at one
time it was nearly planned that Confederates should join the Unionists
and make common cause against these guerrillas, who had made the name of
Missouri one of reproach and contempt. The matter finally adjusted
itself by the death of Quantrell in a fight at Smiley, Kentucky, in
January, 1865.
With a birth and training such as this, what could be expected for the
surviving Quantrell men? They scattered over all the frontier, from
Texas to Minnesota, and most of them lived in terror of their lives
thereafter, with the name of Quantrell as a term of loathing attached to
them where their earlier record was known. Many and many a border
killing years later and far removed in locality arose from the
implacable hatred descended from those days.
As for the James boys, the Younger boys, what could they do? The days of
war were gone. There were no longer any armed banners arrayed one
against the other. The soldiers who had fought bravely and openly on
both sides had laid down their arms and fraternized. The Union grew,
strong and indissoluble. Men settled down to farming, to artisanship, to
merchandising, and their wounds were healed. Amnesty was extended to
those who wished it and deserved it. These men could have found a living
easy to them, for the farming lands still lay rich and ready for them.
But they did not want this life of toil. They preferred the ways of
robbery and blood in which they had begun. They cherished animosity now,
not against the Federals, but against mankind. The social world was
their field of harvest; and they reaped it, weapon in hand.
The James family originally came from Kentucky, where Frank was born,
in Scott county, in 1846. The father, Robert James, was a Baptist
minister of the Gospel. He removed to Clay county, Missouri, in 1849,
and Jesse was born there in 1850. Reverend Robert James left for
California in 1851 and never returned. The mother, a woman of great
strength of character, later married a Doctor Samuels. She was much
embittered by the persecution of her family, as she considered it. She
herself lost an arm in an attack by detectives upon her home, in which a
young son was killed. The family had many friends and confederates
throughout the country; else the James boys must have found an end long
before they were brought to justice.
From precisely the same surroundings came the Younger boys, Thomas
Coleman, or "Cole," Younger, and his brothers, John, Bruce, James, and
Robert. Their father was Henry W. Younger, who settled in Jackson
county, Missouri, in 1825, and was known as a man of ability and worth.
For eight years he was county judge, and was twice elected to the state
legislature. He had fourteen children, of whom five certainly were bad.
At one time he owned large bodies of land, and he was a prosperous
merchant in Harrisonville for some time. Cole Younger was born January
15, 1844, John in 1846, Bruce in 1848, James in 1850, and Bob in 1853.
As these boys grew old enough, they joined the Quantrell bands, and
their careers were precisely the same as those of the James boys. The
cause of their choice of sides was the same. Jennison, the Kansas
jayhawker leader, in one of his raids into Missouri, burned the houses
of Younger and confiscated the horses in his livery stables. After that
the boys of the family swore revenge.
At the close of the war, the Younger and James boys worked together very
often, and were leaders of a band which had a cave in Clay county and
numberless farm houses where they could expect shelter in need. With
them, part of the time, were George and Ollie Shepherd; other members of
their band were Bud Singleton, Bob Moore, Clel Miller and his brother,
Arthur McCoy; others who came and went from time to time were regularly
connected with the bigger operations. It would be wearisome to recount
the long list of crimes these men committed for ten or fifteen years
after the war. They certainly brought notoriety to their country. They
had the entire press of America reproaching the State of Missouri; they
had the governors of that state and two or three others at their wits'
end; they had the best forces of the large city detective agencies
completely baffled. They killed two detectives--one of whom, however,
killed John Younger before he died--and executed another in cold blood
under circumstances of repellant brutality. They raided over Missouri,
Kansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, even as far east as West Virginia, as far
north as Minnesota, as far south as Texas and even old Mexico. They
looted dozens of banks, and held up as many railway passenger trains and
as many stage coaches and travelers as they liked. The James boys alone
are known to have taken in their robberies $275,000, and, including the
unlawful gains of their colleagues, the Youngers, no doubt they could
have accounted for over half a million dollars. They laughed at the law,
defied the state and county governments, and rode as they liked, here,
there, and everywhere, until the name of law in the West was a mockery.
If magnitude in crime be claim to distinction, they might ask the title,
for surely their exploits were unrivaled, and perhaps cannot again be
equaled. And they did all of these unbelievable things in the heart of
the Mississippi valley, in a country thickly settled, in the face of a
long reputation for criminal deeds, and in a country fully warned
against them! Surely, it seems sometimes that American law is weak.
It was much the same story in all the long list of robberies of small
country banks. A member of the gang would locate the bank and get an
idea of the interior arrangements. Two or three of the gang would step
in and ask to have a bill changed; then they would cover the cashier
with revolvers and force him to open the safe. If he resisted, he was
killed; sometimes killed no matter what he did, as was cashier Sheets in
the Gallatin bank robbery. The guard outside kept the citizens terrified
until the booty was secured; then flight on good horses followed. After
that ensued the frantic and unorganized pursuit by citizens and
officers, possibly another killing or two _en route_, and a return to
their lurking place in Clay county, Missouri, where they never had any
difficulty in proving all the _alibis_ they needed. None of these men
ever confessed to a full list of these robberies, and, even years later,
they all denied complicity; but the facts are too well known to warrant
any attention to their denials, founded upon a very natural reticence.
Of course, their safety lay in the sympathy of a large number of
neighbors of something the same kidney; and fear of retaliation supplied
the only remaining motive needed to enforce secrecy.
Some of the most noted bank robberies in which the above mentioned men,
or some of them, were known to have been engaged were as follows: The
Clay County Savings Association, of Liberty, Missouri, February 14,
1866, in which a little boy by name of Wymore was shot to pieces because
he obeyed the orders of the bank cashier and gave the alarm; the bank of
Alexander Mitchell & Co., Lexington, Missouri, October 30, 1860; the
McLain Bank, of Savannah, Missouri, March 2, 1867, in which Judge McLain
was shot and nearly killed; the Hughes & Mason Bank, of Richmond,
Missouri, May 23, 1867, and the later attack on the jail, in which Mayor
Shaw, Sheriff J. B. Griffin, and his brave fifteen-year-old boy were all
killed; the bank of Russellville, Kentucky, March 20, 1868, in which
cashier Long was badly beaten; the Daviess County Savings Bank, of
Gallatin, Missouri, December 7, 1869, in which cashier John Sheets was
brutally killed; the bank of Obocock Brothers, Corydon, Iowa, June 3,
1871, in which forty thousand dollars was taken, although no one was
killed; the Deposit Bank, of Columbia, Missouri, April 29, 1872, in
which cashier R. A. C. Martin was killed; the Savings Association, of
Ste. Genevieve, Missouri; the Bank of Huntington, West Virginia,
September 1, 1875, in which one of the bandits, McDaniels, was killed;
the Bank of Northfield, Minnesota, September 7, 1876, in which cashier
J. L. Haywood was killed, A. E. Bunker wounded, and several of the
bandits killed and captured as later described.
These same men or some of them also robbed a stage coach now and then;
near Hot Springs, Arkansas, for example, January 15, 1874, where they
picked up four thousand dollars, and included ex-Governor Burbank, of
Dakota, among their victims, taking from him alone fifteen hundred
dollars; the San Antonio-Austin coach, in Texas, May 12, 1875, in which
John Breckenridge, president of the First National Bank of San Antonio,
was relieved of one thousand dollars; and the Mammoth Cave, Kentucky,
stage, September 3, 1880, where they took nearly two thousand dollars in
cash and jewelry from passengers of distinction.
The most daring of their work, however, and that which brought them into
contact with the United States government for tampering with the mails,
was their repeated robbery of railway mail trains, which became a matter
of simplicity and certainty in their hands. To flag a train or to stop
it with an obstruction; or to get aboard and mingle with the train crew,
then to halt the train, kill any one who opposed them, and force the
opening of the express agent's safe, became a matter of routine with
them in time, and the amount of cash they thus obtained was staggering
in the total. The most noted train robberies in which members of the
James-Younger bands were engaged were the Rock Island train robbery near
Council Bluffs, Iowa, July 21, 1873, in which engineer Rafferty was
killed in the wreck, and but small booty secured; the Gad's Hill,
Missouri, robbery of the Iron Mountain train, January 28, 1874, in which
about five thousand dollars was secured from the express agent, mail
bags and passengers; the Kansas-Pacific train robbery near Muncie,
Kansas, December 12, 1874, in which they secured more than fifty-five
thousand dollars in cash and gold dust, with much jewelry; the
Missouri-Pacific train robbery at Rocky Cut, July 7, 1876, where they
held the train for an hour and a quarter and secured about fifteen
thousand dollars in all; the robbery of the Chicago & Alton train near
Glendale, Missouri, October 7, 1879, in which the James boys' gang
secured between thirty-five and fifty thousand dollars in currency; the
robbery of the Rock Island train near Winston, Missouri, July 15, 1881,
by the James boys' gang, in which conductor Westfall was killed,
messenger Murray badly beaten, and a passenger named MacMillan killed,
little booty being obtained; the Blue Cut robbery of the Alton train,
September 7, 1881, in which the James boys and eight others searched
every passenger and took away a two-bushel sack full of cash, watches,
and jewelry, beating the express messenger badly because they got so
little from the safe. This last robbery caused the resolution of
Governor Crittenden, of Missouri, to take the bandits dead or alive, a
reward of thirty thousand dollars being arranged by different railways
and express companies, a price of ten thousand dollars each being put
on the heads of Frank and Jesse James.
Outside of this long list of the bandit gang's deeds of outlawry, they
were continually in smaller undertakings of a similar nature. Once they
took away ten thousand dollars in cash at the box office of the Kansas
City Fair, this happening September 26, 1872, in a crowded city, with
all the modern machinery of the law to guard its citizens. Many acts at
widely separated parts of the country were accredited to the Younger or
the James boys, and although they cannot have been guilty of all of
them, and, although many of the adventures accredited to them in Texas,
Mexico, California, the Indian Nations, etc., bear earmarks of
apocryphal origin, there is no doubt that for twenty years after the
close of the civil war they made a living in this way, their gang being
made up of perhaps a score of different men in all, and usually
consisting of about six to ten men, according to the size of the
undertaking on hand.
Meantime, all these years, the list of homicides for each of them was
growing. Jesse James killed three men out of six who attacked his house
one night, and not long after Frank and he are alleged to have killed
six men in a gambling fight in California. John and Jim Younger killed
the Pinkerton detectives Lull and Daniels, John being himself killed at
that time by Daniels. A little later, Frank and Jesse James and Clel
Miller killed detective Wicher, of the same agency, torturing him for
some time before his death in the attempt to make him divulge the
Pinkerton plans. The James boys killed Daniel Askew in revenge; and
Jesse James and Jim Anderson killed Ike Flannery for motives of robbery.
This last set the gang into hostile camps, for Flannery was a nephew of
George Shepherd. Shepherd later killed Anderson in Texas for his share
in that act; he also shot Jesse James and for a long time supposed he
had killed him.
The full record of these outlaws will never be known. Their career came
to an end soon after the heavy rewards were put upon their heads, and it
came in the usual way, through treachery. Allured by the prospect of
gaining ten thousand dollars, two cousins of Jesse James, Bob and
Charlie Ford, pretending to join his gang for another robbery, became
members of Jesse James' household while he was living _incognito_ as
Thomas Howard. On the morning of April 3, 1882, Bob Ford, a mere boy,
not yet twenty years of age, stepped behind Jesse James as he was
standing on a chair dusting off a picture frame, and, firing at close
range, shot him through the head and killed him. Bob Ford never got much
respect for his act, and his money was soon gone. He himself was killed
in February, 1892, at Creede, Colorado, by a man named Kelly.
[Illustration: THE OLD FRITZ RANCH]
[Illustration: A BORDER FORTRESS]
Jesse James was about five feet ten inches in height, and weighed about
one hundred and sixty-five pounds. His hair and eyes were brown. He had,
during his life, been shot twice through the lungs, once through the
leg, and had lost a finger of the left hand from a bullet wound. Frank
James was slighter than his brother, with light hair and blue eyes, and
a ragged, reddish mustache. Frank surrendered to Governor Crittenden
himself at Jefferson City, in October, 1882, taking off his revolvers
and saying that no man had touched them but himself since 1861. He was
sentenced to the penitentiary for life, but later pardoned, as he was
thought to be dying of consumption. At this writing, he is still alive,
somewhat old and bent now, but leading a quiet and steady life, and
showing no disposition to return to his old ways. He is sometimes seen
around the race tracks, where he does but little talking. Frank James
has had many apologists, and his life should be considered in connection
with the environments in which he grew up. He killed many men, but he
was never as cold and cruel as Jesse, and of the two he was the braver
man, men say who knew them both. He never was known to back down under
any circumstances.
The fate of the Younger boys was much mingled with that of the James
boys, but the end of the careers of the former came in more dramatic
fashion. The wonder is that both parties should have clung together so
long, for it is certain that Cole Younger once intended to kill Jesse
James, and one night he came near killing George Shepherd through
malicious statements Jesse James had made to him about the latter.
Shepherd met Cole at the house of a friend named Hudspeth, in Jackson
county, and their host put them in the same bed that night for want of
better accommodations. "After we lay down," said Shepherd later, in
describing this, "I saw Cole reach up under his pillow and draw out a
pistol, which he put beside him under the cover. Not to be taken
unawares, I at once grasped my own pistol and shoved it down under the
covers beside me. Were it to save my life, I couldn't tell what reason
Cole had for becoming my enemy. We talked very little, but just lay
there watching each other. He was behind and I on the front side of the
bed, and during the entire night we looked into each other's eyes and
never moved. It was the most wretched night I ever passed in my life."
So much may at times be the price of being "bad." By good fortune, they
did not kill each other, and the next day Cole told Shepherd that he had
expected him to shoot on sight, as Jesse James had said he would.
Explanations then followed. It nearly came to a collision between Cole
Younger and Jesse James later, for Cole challenged him to fight, and it
was only with difficulty that their friends accommodated the matter.
The history of the Younger boys is tragic all the way through. Their
father was assassinated, their mother was forced to set fire to her own
house and destroy it under penalty of death; three sisters were arrested
and confined in a barracks at Kansas City, which during a high wind fell
in, killed two of the girls and crippled the other. John Younger was a
murderer at the age of fourteen, and how many times Cole Younger was a
murderer, with or without his wish, will never be known. He was shot
three times in one fight in guerrilla days, and probably few bad men
ever carried off more lead than he.
The story of the Northfield bank robbery in Minnesota, which ended so
disastrously to the bandits who undertook it, is interesting as showing
what brute courage, and, indeed, what fidelity and fortitude may at
times be shown by dangerous specimens of bad men. The purpose of the
robbery was criminal, its carrying out was attended with murder, and the
revenge for it came sharp and swift. In all the annals of desperadoes,
there is not a battle more striking than this which occurred in a sleepy
and contented little village in the quiet northern farming country,
where no one for a moment dreamed that the bandits of the rumored bloody
lands along the Missouri would ever trouble themselves to come. The
events immediately connected with this tragedy, the result of which was
the ending of the Younger gang, were as hereinafter described.
Bill Chadwell, alias Styles, a member of the James boys gang, had
formerly lived in Minnesota. He drew a pleasing picture of the wealth
of that country, and the ease with which it could be obtained by bandit
methods. Cole Younger was opposed to going so far from home, but was
overruled. He finally joined the others--Frank and Jesse James, Clel
Miller, Jim and Bob Younger, Charlie Pitts and Chadwell. They went to
Minnesota by rail, and, after looking over the country, purchased good
horses, and prepared to raid the little town of Northfield, in Rice
county. They carried their enterprise into effect on September 7, 1876,
using methods with which earlier experience had made them familiar. They
rode into the middle of the town and opened fire, ordering every one off
the streets. Jesse James, Charlie Pitts and Bob Younger entered the
bank, where they found cashier J. L. Haywood, with two clerks, Frank
Wilcox and A. E. Bunker. Bunker started to run, and Bob Younger shot him
through the shoulder. They ordered Haywood to open the safe, but he
bluntly refused, even though they slightly cut him in the throat to
enforce obedience. Firing now began from the citizens on the street, and
the bandits in the bank hurried in their work, contenting themselves
with such loose cash as they found in the drawers and on the counter.
As they started to leave the bank, Haywood made a motion toward a drawer
as if to find a weapon. Jesse James turned and shot him through the
head, killing him instantly. These three of the bandits then sprang out
into the street. They were met by the fire of Doctor Wheeler and several
other citizens, Hide, Stacey, Manning and Bates. Doctor Wheeler was
across the street in an upstairs room, and as Bill Chadwell undertook to
mount his horse, Wheeler fired and shot him dead. Manning fired at Clel
Miller, who had mounted, and shot him from his horse. Cole Younger was
by this time ready to retreat, but he rode up to Miller, and removed
from his body his belt and pistols. Manning fired again, and killed the
horse behind which Bob Younger was hiding, and an instant later a shot
from Wheeler struck Bob in the right elbow. Although this arm was
disabled Bob shifted his pistol to his left hand and fired at Bates,
cutting a furrow through his cheek, but not killing him. About this time
a Norwegian by the name of Gustavson appeared on the street, and not
halting at the order to do so, he was shot through the head by one of
the bandits, receiving a wound from which he died a few days later. The
gang then began to scatter and retreat. Jim Younger was on foot and was
wounded. Cole rode back up the street, and took the wounded man on his
horse behind him. The entire party then rode out of town to the west,
not one of them escaping without severe wounds.
As soon as the bandits had departed, news was sent by telegraph,
notifying the surrounding country of the robbery. Sheriffs, policemen
and detectives rallied in such numbers that the robbers were hard put to
it to escape alive. A state reward of $1,000 for each was published, and
all lower Minnesota organized itself into a determined man hunt. The
gang undertook to get over the Iowa line, and they managed to keep away
from their pursuers until the morning of the 13th, a week after the
robbery. The six survivors were surrounded on that day in a strip of
timber. Frank and Jesse James broke through, riding the same horse. They
were fired upon, a bullet striking Frank James in the right knee, and
passing through into Jesse's right thigh. None the less, the two got
away, stole a horse apiece that night, and passed on to the Southwest.
They rode bareback, and now and again enforced a horse trade with a
farmer or livery-stable man. They got down near Sioux Falls, and there
met Doctor Mosher, whom they compelled to dress their wounds, and to
furnish them horses and clothing. Later on their horses gave out, and
they hired a wagon and kept on. Their escape seems incomprehensible, yet
it is the case that they got quite clear, finally reaching Missouri.
Of the other bandits there were left Cole, Jim and Bob Younger and
Charlie Pitts; and after these a large number of citizens followed
close. In spite of the determined pursuit, they kept out of reach for
another week. On the morning of September 21st, two weeks after the
robbery, they were located in the woods along the Watonwan river, not
far from Madelia. Sheriff Glispin hurriedly got together a posse and
surrounded them in a patch of timber not over five acres in extent. In a
short time more than one hundred and fifty men were about this cover;
but although they kept up firing, they could not drive out the concealed
bandits. Sheriff Glispin called for volunteers; and with Colonel Vaught,
Ben Rice, George Bradford, James Severson, Charles Pomeroy and Captain
Murphy moved into the cover. As they advanced, Charlie Pitts sprang out
from the brush, and fired point blank at Glispin. At the same instant
the latter also fired and shot Pitts, who ran a short distance and fell
dead. Then Cole, Bob and Jim Younger stood up and opened fire as best
they could, all of the men of the storming party returning their fire.
Murphy was struck in the body by a bullet, and his life was saved by his
pipe, which he carried in his vest pocket. Another member of the posse
had his watch blown to pieces by a bullet. The Younger boys gave back a
little, but this brought them within sight of those surrounding the
thicket, so they retreated again close to the line of the volunteers.
Cole and Jim Younger were now badly shot. Bob, with his broken right
arm, stood his ground, the only one able to continue the fight, and kept
his revolver going with his left hand. The others handed him their
revolvers after his own was empty. The firing from the posse still
continued, and at last Bob called out to them to stop, as his brothers
were all shot to pieces. He threw down his pistol, and walked forward to
the sheriff, to whom he surrendered. Bob always spoke with respect of
Sheriff Glispin both as a fighter and as a peace officer. One of the
farmers drew up his gun to kill Bob after he had surrendered, but
Glispin told him to drop his gun or he would kill him.
It is doubtful if any set of men ever showed more determination and more
ability to stand punishment than these misled outlaws. Bob Younger was
hurt less than any of the others. His arm had been broken at Northfield
two weeks before, but he was wounded but once, slightly in the body, out
of all the shots fired at him while in the thicket. Cole Younger had a
rifle bullet in the right cheek, which paralyzed his right eye. He had
received a .45 revolver bullet through the body, and also had been shot
through the thigh at Northfield. He received eleven different wounds in
the fight, or thirteen bad wounds in all, enough to have killed a half
dozen men. Jim's case seemed even worse, for he had in his body eight
buckshot and a rifle bullet. He had been shot through the shoulder at
Northfield, and nearly half his lower jaw had been carried away by a
heavy bullet, a wound which caused him intense suffering. Bob was the
only one able to stand on his feet.
Of the two men killed in town, Clel Miller and Bill Chadwell, the former
had a long record in bank robberies; the latter, guide in the ill-fated
expedition to Minnesota, was a horse thief of considerable note at one
time in lower Minnesota.
The prisoners were placed in jail at Faribault, the county seat of Rice
county, and in a short time the Grand Jury returned true bills against
them, charging them with murder and robbery. Court convened November
7th, Judge Lord being on the bench. All of the prisoners pleaded guilty,
and the order of the court was that each should be confined in the state
penitentiary for the period of his natural life.
The later fate of the Younger boys may be read in the succinct records
of the Minnesota State Prison at Stillwater:
"_Thos. Coleman Younger_, sentenced Nov. 20, 1876, from Rice county
under a life sentence for the crime of Murder in the first degree.
Paroled July 14, 1901. Pardoned Feb. 4, 1903, on condition that he
leave the State of Minnesota, and that he never exhibit himself in
public in any way.
"_James Younger_, sentenced Nov. 20, 1876, from Rice county under a
life sentence for the crime of Murder in the first degree. Paroled
July 13, 1901. Shot himself with a revolver in the city of St.
Paul, Minn., and died at once from the wound inflicted on Oct. 19,
1902.
"_Robt. Younger_, sentenced Nov. 20, 1876, from Rice county under a
life sentence for the crime of Murder in the first degree. He died
Sept. 16, 1889, of phthisis."
The James boys almost miraculously escaped, traveled clear across the
State of Iowa and got back to their old haunts. They did not stop, but
kept on going until they got to Mexico, where they remained for some
time. They did not take their warning, however, and some of their most
desperate train robberies were committed long after the Younger boys
were in the penitentiary.
In view of the bloody careers of all these men, it is to be said that
the law has been singularly lenient with them. Yet the Northfield
incident was conclusive, and was the worst setback ever received by any
gang of bad men; unless, perhaps, that was the defeat of the Dalton gang
at Coffeyville, Kansas, some years later, the story of which is given in
the following chapter.