T. J. Stiles

by Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War

  24. St. Louis Globe, March 20, 1874.

  25. The ferryman noticed his calm demeanor; Hamilton News in the St. Louis Republican, March 23, 1874; St. Louis Globe, March 20, 1874; Columbia Missouri Statesman, April 10, 1874; the leg ropes were left at the scene of the shooting, Kansas City Times, March 14, 1874, reprinted in the Liberty Tribune, March 20, 1874. Both Allan and William Pinkerton believed that he had been beaten, interrogated, and bound in the Samuel farmhouse; see the Kansas City Evening Star, July 21, 1881, and Allan Pinkerton to P. H. Woodward, January 27, 1875, Pinkerton Papers. Years later, Dick Liddil claimed that Jesse James told him that he, Frank, Tom McDaniels, and Jim Cummins were at the house when Whicher arrived; St. Louis Republican, September 9, 1883. Though a distinct possibility, this is secondhand information, and highly questionable.

  26. Interview with William Pinkerton, Kansas City Evening Star, July 21, 1881.

  27. Kansas City Evening Star, July 21, 1881. “Allen” was identified as Lull, former Chicago police captain, in the St. Louis Republican, March 23, 1874. Allan Pinkerton thought highly of Lull. On January 10, 1874, Pinkerton wrote to Secret Service chief Hiram Whitley to recommend Lull for appointment as an agent; Register of Letters Received at New York, April 1, 1870–September 1874, entry 12, Records of the U.S. Secret Service, RG 87, National Archives, College Park, Md.

  28. St. Louis Times in the Columbia Missouri Statesman, April 10, 1874.

  29. Interview with Theodrick Snuffer, Osceola Democrat in the St. Louis Republican, March 24, 1874.

  30. E. G. Bower to George M. Bennett, April 15, 1898, “Northfield (Minnesota) Bank Robbery of 1876: Selected Manuscripts Collection and Government Records,” (microfilm publication), MnHS.

  31. The account of the gunfight to this point (including all dialogue) is drawn from Lull’s testimony to a coroner’s inquest under the name W. J. Allen, March 18, 1874, Osceola Democrat in the St. Louis Republican, March 24, 1874.

  32. St. Louis Republican, March 21, 1874; McDonald, mentioned in most news reports simply as “a negro,” testified at the coroner’s inquest, Osceola Democrat in the St. Louis Republican, March 24, 1874; the revolver was identified in the St. Louis Times in the Columbia Missouri Statesman, April 10, 1874. See also St. Louis Republican, March 20, 1874; Clinton Democrat Extra in the Boonville Missouri Advertiser, March 27, 1874; Clinton Democrat Extra, March 21, in the Liberty Tribune, March 27, 1874.

  33. Clinton Democrat Extra, March 21, in the Liberty Tribune, March 27, 1874; Osceola Democrat in the St. Louis Republican, March 24, 1874; St. Louis Republican, March 21 and 23, 1874.

  34. Allan Pinkerton to George H. Bangs, April 17, 1874, Pinkerton Papers. For Hoey, see Stimson, 111–2. This letter offers solid evidence that the Adams Express Company was the sole employer of the Pinkertons in the Gads Hill case, and had complete control of the progress of the investigation. It is highly unlikely that Pinkerton actually would have led a raid, given his stroke a few years earlier; see, for example, his letter of September 13, 1870, Allan Pinkerton Papers, Chicago Historical Society.

  35. St. Louis Globe, March 20, 1874.

  36. In the Liberty Tribune, March 27, 1874, Patton published an angry reply to the reports that implicated him in tipping off Jesse James, and he threatened a libel lawsuit against the St. Louis Globe and the Republican; see also Settle, 62. On Bettie Scruggs Patton’s marriage and pregnancy, see Bet-tie A. Patton to M. D. Scruggs, August 14, 1874, Watkins Mill. Richard Slotkin notes in Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America (New York: Atheneum, 1992), 130–3, that the New York World report of March 28, 1874, on the murders of the Pinkerton detectives was one of the first big stories on the outlaws in the national press; as a conservative Democratic sheet, owned by August Belmont, the paper placed the James-Younger bandits in the context of the reaction against Reconstruction (see also Slotkin’s The Fatal Environment: The Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialization, 1800–1890 [New York: Atheneum, 1985], 334–45, 358–70).

  37. On reports that detectives were searching for him as early as August 1873, see Settle, 58. The timing of Jesse James’s visit to Kearney was listed differently in almost every news report; Angell was quoted as saying Friday, March 13, in the St. Louis Globe, March 20, 1874, and on Thursday, March 12, in the St. Louis Republican, March 20, 1874, whereas the Hamilton News in the St. Louis Republican, March 23, 1874, states that he was seen in Kearney on the day of the murder. An appearance on March 11, before the brothers went underground, makes more sense, and the Hamilton News interviewed the sheriff and other locals. The Liberty Tribune, March 27, 1874, states that Patton took a posse to the Samuel farm immediately after learning of the murder.

  38. History of Clay, 502–3.

  39. Kansas City Times, January 28, 1875; St. Louis Republican, February 5, 1875.

  40. Kansas City Journal, April 6, 1882; Lexington Caucasian, October 17, 1874; see Zee Mimms James’s account to a coroner’s inquiry, Kansas City Times, April 4, 1882, and Kansas City Journal, April 4, 1882, and a secondhand version in Stella F. James, In the Shadow of Jesse James (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Dragon Books, 1989), 19, 32–3 (editor Milton F. Perry lists Zee Mimms’s birthdate as July 21, 1845); Settle, 69–70; Yeatman, 119. Zee Mimms’s father had died in 1869; History of Clay, 502–3.

  41. St. Louis Dispatch, June 9, 1874. An assumption is made here that Edwards wrote this article; it is possible, but unlikely, that it came from an independent source.

  42. Walter B. Stevens, “The Political Turmoil of 1874 in Missouri,” MHR 31, no. 1 (October 1936): 3–9; History III, 280–1. Stevens aroused Edwards’s wrath at one point by printing a story naming the James and Younger brothers as perpetrators of the Gads Hill robbery; Settle, 50. See also Homer Clevenger, “Railroads in Missouri Politics, 1875–1887,” MHR 43, no. 2 (January 1949): 220–36.

  43. St. Louis Republican, March 13, 1874.

  44. Ibid., March 21, 1874. The role of the bandits in the Democratic Party’s internal split was first discussed in William A. Settle, Jr., “The James Boys and Missouri Politics,” MHR 36, no. 4 (July 1942): 412–29.

  45. Kansas City Journal of Commerce, April 16, 1874. Donan led the Caucasian until 1875, and often praised the bandits; Lewis O. Saum, “Donan and the Caucasian,” MHR 63, no. 4 (July 1969): 419–50; on Van Horn, see J. M. Greenwood, “Col. Robert T. Van Horn,” MHR 4, no. 2 (January 1910): 92–105, and 4, no. 3 (April 1910): 167–81, who observes that Van Horn wrote the paper’s editorials.

  46. History III, 287.

  47. St. Louis Republican, March 21, 1874; Settle, 64–7, discusses the gang as a political issue in 1874.

  48. Shoemaker, 5: 350–1, 326–8; John Glendower Westover notes that virtually every unit in the militia had been disbanded by 1874, in “The Evolution of the Missouri Militia, 1804–1919” (Ph.D. diss., University of Missouri, Columbia, 1948), 173–83; for a brief discussion of the bandit issue in politics, see History III, 287.

  49. St. Louis Republican, March 24, 1874; Settle, 62–3.

  50. St. Louis Republican, March 24, 1874.

  51. J. W. Ragsdale to Silas Woodson, December 4, 1874, Silas Woodson Papers, MSA.

  52. Columbia Missouri Statesman, June 5, 1874 (spelling errors have been corrected); North Todd Gentry, “William F. Switzler,” MHR 24, no. 2 (January 1930): 161–76; St. Louis Dispatch, June 6, 1874.

  53. St. Louis Dispatch, June 8 and 9, 1874.

  54. Kansas City Times, September 29, 1874; Stevens, 4; Switzler noted with satisfaction that no “Gads Hill type” candidates had been nominated, Columbia Missouri Statesman, September 4, 1874.

  55. Settle, 70; Robertus Love, The Rise and Fall of Jesse James (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990, orig. pub. 1925), 163–5; Kansas City Times, August 19, 1874. For the story of Frank’s secret wedding, see Kansas City Times, August 16, 1876, and September 11, 1881; see also Yeatman, 121.

  56. Kansas City Times, September 1, 1874. For a map of Missouri railroads, see the Kansas C
ity Times, January 1, 1873, and Paul W. Gates, “The Railroads of Missouri, 1850–1870,” MHR 26, no. 2 (January 1932): 126–41.

  57. St. Louis Globe, October 4, 1874, reported that the James brothers were spotted with Jim Younger after the robbery

  58. Yeatman, 121–2, offers a solid argument for Hamlett’s mistaken identification.

  59. The main source for these events was a special edition of the Lexington Caucasian; the story ran again in the regular edition, Lexington Caucasian, September 5, 1874, and was reprinted in the St. Louis Republican, September 2, 1874, and the Kansas City Times, September 1, 1874, which added information from the Lexington Register (formerly the Missouri Valley Register).

  60. Lexington Register in Kansas City Times, September 1, 1874.

  61. St. Louis Globe, October 4, 1874; C. C. Rainwater to Chas. P. Johnson, September 3, 1874, Silas Woodson Papers, MSA.

  62. St. Louis Globe, October 4, 1874; L. Harrigan to Chas. P. Johnson, September 4, 1874, Harrigan to Chas. P. Johnson, September 11, 1874, T. H. Bayliss to C. P. Johnson, September 11, 1874, Silas Woodson Papers, MSA. I am following Settle, 73, who spells the detective’s name “Yancey,” rather than “Yancy,” as it appears elsewhere; Settle relied on correspondence from Yancey himself that I was not able to locate in the Missouri State Archives.

  63. St. Louis Globe, October 4, 1874; St. Louis Republican, September 8, 1874.

  64. Bettie Scruggs Patton to M. D. Scruggs, September 4, 1874, Watkins Mill.

  65. St. Louis Globe, October 4, 1874; the press report of the tip-off is supported by a telegram from the St. Louis police chief, reporting that Yancey had been given away, L. Harrigan to Chas. P. Johnson, September 13, 1874, Silas Woodson Papers, MSA. The Globe’s extremely detailed account of Yancey’s pursuit and gunfight seems quite accurate, judging from supporting evidence in the state archives.

  66. Lexington Caucasian, September 5, 1874.

  67. Kansas City Times, September 9, 1874; New York Times, September 15, 1874.

  68. Lexington Caucasian, October 17, 1874. Zerelda also mentioned that her daughter Susie James Parmer was teaching high school in Sherman, Texas, and that she was escorting her daughter Sarah to that place to enroll her.

  69. Jefferson City People’s Tribune, September 30, 1874.

  70. Columbia Missouri Statesman, September 11, 1874. See also Settle, 63–7, and “The James Boys and Missouri Politics,” 412–29.

  71. St. Louis Republican, September 25, 1874; for an example of this complaint in other contexts, see Jefferson City People’s Tribune, July 15, 1874. See also History III, 286–9; Settle, 66–7.

  72. James Fernando Ellis, The Influence of Environment on the Settlement of Missouri (St. Louis: Webster Publishing Company, 1929), 155–7. Ellis argues that larger factors also slowed immigration, particularly the depression; but he shows that Missourians honestly believed that turmoil in their state discouraged settlers.

  73. Lopata, 67–70; Kansas City Times, November 2, 1872; Columbia Herald, September 24, 1897.

  74. Kansas City Times, September 25 and 29, 1874. For Democratic attacks on and wooing of the Grangers, see the Columbia Missouri Statesman, April 17, 1874; St. Louis Dispatch, June 8 and 10, 1874; Liberty Tribune, September 18 and 25, 1874.

  75. New York Times, February 3, 1874; Kansas City Times, September 2, 1874. On the greenback issue, see Robert P. Sharkey, Money, Class, and Party: An Economic Study of Civil War and Reconstruction (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1959); Milton Friedman and Anna Jacobson Schwartz, A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), 3–14; Foner, 335; T. J. Stiles, “As Good as Gold?,” Smithsonian 31, no. 6 (September 2000): 106–7. The most important book on the currency debate is Irwin Unger, The Greenback Era: A Social and Political History of American Finance, 1865–1879 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964).

  76. Kansas City Times, August 11, 12, 18, and 19, September 2, 3, and 29, October 2 and 17, 1874; Jefferson City People’s Tribune, July 15 and 22, 1874; Lexington Caucasian, October 10, 1874; Liberty Tribune, October 16 and 30, 1874; St. Louis Dispatch, June 10, 1874. On Sumner’s Civil Rights Bill, see Foner, 504–5, 532–4.

  77. History III, 286–9; Foner, 512–63; George E. Patton to M. D. Scruggs, October 23, 1874, Bettie Patton to Mattie Scruggs, November 15, 1874, Bettie Patton to Mattie Scruggs, November 26, 1874, Watkins Mill. Another factor in the Democratic victory was the revelation that Gentry had sold a slave late in the Civil War, when emancipation was impending; Stevens, 3–9. Lawrence O. Christensen and Gary R. Kremer argue in A History of Missouri, vol. 4, 1875 to 1919 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1997), 1–9, that electoral triumph stemmed from the Democrats’ ability to coopt their opponents’ issues; but the emphasis on party loyalty in this Democratic state, against the backdrop of Reconstruction, seems a more central element.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: The Persistence of Civil War

  1. St. Louis Republican, December 11 and 12, 1874; Settle, 75; Kansas City Journal of Commerce, December 9, 1874; see also St. Louis Republican, December 12, 1874.

  2. Kansas City Journal of Commerce, December 9, 1874.

  3. St. Louis Republican, December 12, 1874. The distance to Muncie from Kansas City was reported as both twelve and seven miles; see the St. Louis Republican, December 11, 1874.

  4. Kansas City Journal of Commerce, December 9, 1874; Kansas City Times, December 9, 1874, in the St. Louis Republican, December 11 and 12, 1874.

  5. The gold was being sent to a brokerage house in New York; St. Louis Republican, December 11, 1874. The Henry rifle was an early lever-action rifle, a design picked up by Winchester with its popular 1873 model; Harrison Buckland reported that the heavyset bandit who came into the store had a Winchester rifle, in addition to two ivory-handled revolvers; St. Louis Republican, December 12, 1874.

  6. Kansas City Journal of Commerce, December 9, 1874; St. Louis Republican, December 12, 1874; see also St. Louis Republican, December 9, 10, and 11, 1874. Yeatman, 127, mistakenly reports that $105 in currency was found at the campsite. It was customary to use a space instead of a decimal point, so the “$1 05” reported in the press should be read as “$1.05.”

  7. Kansas City Times, December 9, 1874, in the St. Louis Republican, December 11, 1874.

  8. St. Louis Republican, December 9, 1874; E. M. Cooper [Wells, Fargo superintendent in Kansas City] to C. H. Hardin, March 1, 1875, and E. M. Cooper to C. H. Hardin, April 5, 1875, Charles H. Hardin Papers, MSA; Our Expressman, January 1875.

  9. St. Louis Republican, December 10, 1874.

  10. Ibid., December 12, 1874; Shoemaker, 5: 289–92, 391–3.

  11. St. Louis Dispatch, December 15, 1874. “Justitia” also referred to a widely reprinted letter from Cole Younger which offered alibis for each robbery; Cole claimed that he and Jesse James “were not on good terms at the time [of the Kansas City fair robbery], nor haven’t been for several years”; St. Louis Republican, November 30, 1874.

  12. Kansas City Journal of Commerce, December 12, 1874.

  13. Lexington Caucasian, December 12, 1874. On Ames and Mississippi, see Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), 296, 349, 353, 442, 538–42, 558–63; Richard Nelson Current, Those Terrible Carpetbaggers: A Reinterpretation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 115–9, 172–9, 181–92, 306–24; T. J. Stiles, ed., Robber Barons and Radicals: Reconstruction and the Origins of Civil Rights (New York: Berkley Books, 1997), 80–105, 167–80, 195–214, 245–62, 276–300; William S. McFeely, Grant: A Biography (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1982), 345, 359–64. See also Eric Foner, Freedom’s Lawmakers: A Directory of Black Officeholders During Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 244–6.

  14. St. Louis Republican, December 11 and 12, 1874; Kansas City Journal of Commerce, December 12, 1874; Settle, 75. The James-Younger gang was accused of robbing the Timishingo Savings Bank in Corinth, Mississippi
, on December 7, one day before the Muncie raid; it is my opinion that the Missourians had nothing to do with the Mississippi crime; St. Louis Republican, December 9, 1874.

  15. T. H. Brougham to Gov. Hardin, February 10, 1875 [mistakenly dated “1874” in the original], Charles H. Hardin Papers, MSA.

  16. Foner, Reconstruction, 437; Current, 315–16; Stiles, Robber Barons, 325–47.

  17. A. P. McFarland to William B. Smith, February 22, 1875, Charles H. Hardin Papers, MSA.

  18. Kansas City Journal of Commerce, May 5, 1875.

  19. Allan Pinkerton to George H. Bangs, May 12, 1874, Pinkerton Papers; Yeatman, 120; Kansas City Evening Star, July 21, 1881. William Pinkerton’s claims are substantiated by the sudden disappearance, after the deaths of Whicher and Lull, of any mention of the Adams Express Company or its officials from Allan Pinkerton’s correspondence relating to the Missouri bandits; in addition, Pinkerton himself mentioned in his letters the expenditure of his own money in the case.

  20. History of Clay, 336–9; Portrait and Biographical Record of Clay, Ray, Carroll, Chariton, and Linn Counties, Missouri (Chicago: Chapman Bros., 1893), 285–6.

  21. Kansas City Times, April 14, 1875; Kansas City Journal of Commerce, April 15, 1875; Daniel H. Askew Probate Records, Clay County Archives, Liberty, Missouri; Allan Pinkerton to George H. Bangs, May 12, 1874, Pinkerton Papers.

  22. St. Louis Republican, February 4, 1875; Richmond Conservator, April 3, 1875; Geo. E. Patton to M. D. Scruggs, February 21, 1875, Watkins Mill. For an example of Pinkerton’s code, see Allan Pinkerton to P. H. Woodward, December 15, 1874, Pinkerton Papers.

  23. Allan Pinkerton to P. H. Woodward, December 15, 1874, Pinkerton Papers; Militia Report, 378–9, 383, 386–8, 397–400; History of Clay, 448; Republican Central Committee Meeting, Clay County, January 1, 1866, coll. 970, fold. 161, Clarence W. Alvord and Idress Head Collection, WHMC; Republican Central Committee of Clay County to Governor Thomas C. Fletcher, January 3, 1866, Thomas C. Fletcher Papers, MSA; Richard Franklin Bensel, Yankee Leviathan: The Origins of Central State Authority in America, 1859–1877 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 351.