The battle in the street was now at its height, and the spirit in which it
was waged on the part of the citizens showed how grossly the robbers had
mistaken the mettle of the people with whom they had to deal. The
community was taken by surprise and at a great disadvantage. It was at the
height of the prairie-chicken season, and a majority of the men who had
guns were away in the field. The excellent hunting in the neighborhood had
drawn many sportsmen from the larger cities, accustoming the people to the
presence of strangers, while they had no reason to expect a hostile
invasion. When the mounted bandits on Bridge Square and Division Street
began riding and shooting, the first impression was that of surprise. Some
thought it the reckless fun of drunken scapegraces. Some took the riders
to be the attaches of a traveling show, advertising their performance.
When the bullets began to fly about people’s ears, and the character of
the invaders became evident, every body was stunned and dazed, and there
was a general scramble for shelter. But the next moment there was an
equally prompt rally of brave men to repel the attack.
Dr. Wheeler, who had been one of the first to give the alarm, and who had
been driven from the street by the imprecations and bullets of the
robbers, hastened to the drug-store where he usually kept his gun.
Remembering as he went that he had left it at the house, he did not
slacken his pace, but kept on through the store, heading first for the
house of a neighbor, where he hoped a weapon might be found, but on second
thought turning into the Dampier Hotel, close at hand, where he remembered
to have seen one. There, instead of the fowling-piece he looked for, he
found an old army carbine, for which, with the help of Mr. Dampier the
clerk, three cartridges were discovered in another part of the house. All
this was so quickly done, that he was at a second-story chamber window,
with his gun loaded, in time for the beginning of the fight.
[HENRY M. WHEELER.]
HENRY M. WHEELER.
Meantime Mr. Allen, who had also sounded so prompt and vigorous an alarm,
ran to his store where he had a number of guns, and loading them with such
ammunition as came to his hand, gave them to anybody who would take them.
One of them was taken by Mr. Elias Stacy, who used it to good purpose in
the battle that followed.
As Mr. Allen went to his own store, he had passed that of Mr. Manning, to
whom he shouted his warning concerning the robbers. Up to this time
Manning had no suspicion of what was going on. One of the robbers had been
in the store in the forenoon, looking about and pretending he wanted to
buy a gun. He was a genteel, well-dressed fellow, and Manning supposed him
to be some stranger who had come to Northfield to hunt; though he did not
believe that he wanted any gun, and thought there was something wrong
about him. Even when the three horsemen dashed through the Square so
noisily and belligerently, he thought little of it. But when he heard
Allen’s shout, and made out the words “Robbing the Bank,” he recalled what
he had seen and the meaning of it all flashed upon his mind. Abruptly
leaving the customer he was serving, he rushed for a weapon, thinking hard
and fast. Pistols? No, they would be of little account, His shotgun?
Yes—No; he had left all his loaded cartridges at home. His breach-loading
rifle! That was the thing; and here it was in the window; and there in a
pigeon-hole of his desk were the cartridges, where they had been
carelessly thrown months before. All this came to him without an instant’s
loss of time. He forgot nothing and he made no mistakes. Stripping the
rifle of its cover, and seizing a handful of cartridges, he hurried to the
scene of battle, loading as he ran.
The scene on the street is indescribable. People had not only made haste
to get out of the way of the leaden hail-storm that had burst forth, but
had also taken measures to protect themselves and their property against
the raiders, whose intention was believed to be not only to rob the bank
but to pillage the entire town. Stores and offices were hastily closed.
The postmaster, Capt. H. S. French, who chanced to have an exceptionally
heavy registered mail on hand that day, hastened to lock it in the safe
and close the Office. Jewelers and others who had valuable and portable
stock pursued a similar course. The news of the invasion, emphasized by
the sound of the shooting, spread swiftly through the town. Warning was
sent to the public school and to Carleton College to keep the students off
the streets. The general impression was that the town was in possession of
a horde of robbers, numbering nobody knew how many, and coming nobody knew
whence, and bent on ruthless plunder, nobody knew to what extent.
The scene of the actual conflict was that part of Division Street on which
the bank faced, and scarcely a full block in length. Here the five mounted
robbers went riding back and forth, up one side of the street and down the
other, doing their utmost with voice and arms to keep up the reign of
terror which they had begun. The citizens whom they had driven in were
looking for weapons, and the bolder ones were coming back, some armed and
some unarmed, around the margin of the field. Capt. French, having made
Uncle Sam’s property as secure as possible, stood in front of the locked
door, wondering where he could soonest find a gun. Justice Streater and ex
policeman Elias Hobbs stepped out into the Square, empty handed but
undaunted, and determined to do something by way of resistance to the
invasion. A few were so fortunate as to have not only the courage but the
means for an armed defence. Mr. Stacy, already referred to, came out with
a fowling-piece, and confronting Miller, just as the latter was mounting
his horse, fired at his head. The fine bird shot marked the robber’s face,
and the force of the charge knocked him back from the saddle, but
inflicted no serious wound. There was a poetic justice in the incident, as
it was Allen, whom Miller had seized and threatened at the bank, who owned
and loaded the gun, and sent it out in the hands of his neighbor to draw
first blood from the very man that had assaulted its owner.
Later on in the battle Messrs. J. B. Hyde, Ross Phillips and James Gregg
also did their best with similar weapons, and it was not their fault that
the shotguns they used upon the bandits were inadequate to the occasion.
Mr. Hobbs, who had no weapon at all, fell back upon more primitive
methods, and at the height of the fray came on shouting, “Stone ’em! Stone
’em!” and suiting the action to the word, and choosing not “smooth stones
from the brook,” but big and formidable missiles, more fit for the hand of
Goliath than for the sling of David, hurled rocks and curses at the enemy,
and not without effect. Col. Streater also joined in this mode of warfare,
which, if not the most effective, certainly evinced a high a degree of
courage as they could have shown in the the use of the most approved
weapon. Other citizens, too, took a hand in the affair, as opportunity
offered, and some of them had narrow escape from the bullets with which
the robbers responded to their attentions.
But while there was no lack of good intentions on the part of others, it
was the two men with rifles, Manning and Wheeler, who were able to do real
execution upon the enemy, and finally to put them to rout. We go back,
therefore, to the moment when Manning came running from his store with the
rifle in his hand. Taking in the situation at a glance, and intent only
upon getting at the robbers, he stepped out into the open street, and amid
a shower of bullets, coolly looked for his game. Before him stood the
horses of the men who were still in the bank, and over the heads of the
horses he saw the heads of two men, upon whom he instantly drew a bead.
The men ducked behind the horse, whereupon Manning, without lowering his
gun, changed his aim and shot the nearest horse, rightly judging that this
would cripple the band almost as effectually as shooting the men. He then
dropped back around the corner to reload; but finding to his chagrin that
the breach-lever would not throw out the empty shell, he was obliged to go
back to the store and get a ramrod with which to dislodge it, thus losing
valuable time. The interruption proved a good thing for him, however,
moderating his excitement and rashness, and preparing him to do better
execution. Soon he was at the corner again. Peering around the corner, he
saw one of the robbers between the horses and the bank door, and fired at
him. The ball grazed the edge of a post, deflecting it slightly; but it
found Cole Younger, wounding him in a vulnerable though not vital place.
Again Manning dropped back to reload. The shell gave him no trouble this
time, and he was quickly at his post once more. As he looked cautiously
around the corner, he saw Stiles sitting on his horse, some seventy-five
or eighty yards away, apparently doing sentry duly in that part of the
street. Manning took deliberate aim at him—so deliberate as to excite the
impatience and call forth the protests of some who were near him—and
fired, shooting the man through the heart. Manning, as before, stepped
back to reload, the robber fell from his saddle, dead, and the horse ran
to a livery-stable around the corner.
While these things were going on, Dr. Wheeler was not idle. His first shot
was at the head of Jim Younger, who was riding by. The gun carried high,
and the ball struck the ground beyond him. Younger looked first at the
spot where it struck, and then turned to see where it came from, but did
not discover the sharp-shooter at the window above him. Wheeler’s next
shot was at Clel Miller, whom Stacy had already peppered with bird-shot.
The bullet passed through his body almost precisely as Pitts’ bullet had
passed through Bunker’s; but in this case the great artery was severed and
almost instant death ensued. Wheeler’s third and last cartridge had fallen
upon the floor, bursting the paper of which it was made, and spilling the
powder. Hurrying in search of more, he met his friend Dampier coming with
a fresh supply.
The robbers were now badly demoralized. Their shooting had been wild and
fruitless. They had lost two men and a horse killed; a third man was
wounded; two riderless horses had escaped from them, and an armed force
had cut off their proposed line of retreat. It was at this juncture that
Cole Younger rode to the door of the bank and shouted to the men inside to
come out, which they made all haste to do. Two of the men mounted their
horses, which still stood before the door. There was no horse for Bob
Younger, and he was compelled to fight on foot.
By this time Manning and Wheeler had both reloaded, and returned to their
places. As Manning showed himself, ready to renew the battle, Bob Younger
came running toward him down the sidewalk. Manning raised his rifle to
shoot at the approaching robber, and at the same instant Younger drew his
revolver to shoot Manning. In the effort to get out of each other’s range,
Younger dodged under the outside stairway of the Scriver Block, while
Manning stood at the corner beyond it. The stairs were thus between them,
and neither of them could get a shot at the other without exposing himself
to the fire of his adversary. For a time they kept up a game of hide and
seek, each trying in vain to catch the other off his guard and get the
first shot. At this point Wheeler, though he could but imperfectly see
Younger’s body beneath the stair, took a shot at him. The ball struck the
robber’s elbow, shattering the bone. He then coolly changed his pistol to
his left hand and continued his efforts to shoot Manning.
It then occurred to Manning that by running around through the store he
might reach the street on the other side of the robber, and so drive him
from his hiding-place. This plan he instantly put in execution. At the
same moment Wheeler was engaged in reloading his gun. But the robbers had
their plans, too, and took advantage of this momentary lull to make their
escape. Bob Younger sprang from his hiding-place and ran up Division
street, where he mounted behind his brother Cole; and the entire band,—or
at least what was left of it, turned and fled. Wheeler returned to his
window and Manning emerged upon the sidewalk only to find that their game
had flown. Even then there was an excellent chance for long-range
shooting; but the intervening distance was immediately filled with people,
making it impossible to shoot without endangering innocent lives.
This battle between desperados and peaceful citizens has well been cited
as proof that the prowess, courage and dead-shot skill at arms commonly
ascribed to the border ruffian are largely imaginary. On the one side was
a band of heavily armed and thoroughly trained and organized banditti,
carrying out a carefully made plan, in their own line of business, after
weeks of preparation. On the other side was a quiet, law-abiding
community, unused to scenes of violence, taken utterly by surprise and at
a fearful disadvantage, with no adequate means of defence except two
long-disused rifles in out-of-the-way places, and one of them on the
retired army list. Yet the banditti were beaten at their own game, and
their courage lasted only while the odds were in their favor. As to
marksmanship, they were vastly outdone by their citizen opponents.
Excepting the cold-blooded murder of a defenceless spectator, they did not
in the entire fight fire one effective shot. It is said that at least
thirty shots were fired at Manning alone; yet he escaped without a
scratch.
In the bank, heroism of another order had displayed itself. Without the
excitement of open battle, or the stimulus of numbers, and without the
slightest means or opportunity for defence, the three unarmed young men
balked the three armed ruffians who held them in their power, meeting
threats and violence with passive resistance, and in the face of death
itself refusing to yield one jot to the demands of their assailants.
The brunt of this unequal contest fell upon poor Heywood. How he met it
has been already related. Threatened, assaulted, dragged about, brutally
struck down, menaced with the knife, ostensibly shot at, he could not be
persuaded or bullied into surrendering his trust or becoming the
accomplice of robbers. It is interesting to know that before this ordeal
came to him he had been led to ask himself what he would do in such an
emergency, and had made up his mind that he would under no circumstances
give up the property of his employers. His steadfast resistance to the
robbers’ demands, therefore, was not due to a hesitating policy, or to the
mere obstinate impulse of the moment, but was the result of a deliberate
purpose and conviction of duty. The fatal cost of his fidelity was
something which he could not have failed to take account of all along, as
the most probable end of a struggle with such desperate men as he was
dealing with. At a time when we hear so often that persons in similar
circumstances have been compelled to unlock vaults or to open safes at the
dictation of robbers, there is a wholesome tonic in the example of a man
who proved that there is not in the whole world of criminal force a power
that can overcome one brave man who chooses at all hazards to do his duty.