T. J. Stiles

by Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War

  24. Yeatman, 128, calls the post office Pinkerton’s “federal employer” (see also page 140). This is incorrect. Pinkerton wrote, “It is rather hard on me spending money continually.… I may probably withdraw, but I have not yet decided”; Allan Pinkerton to P. H. Woodward, January 27, 1875, Pinkerton Papers. See Letters Sent by the Chief Special Agent, and Case Files, Office of Special Agents and Mail Depredations, 1875–1877, entry 228, and Letters Sent 1789–1952, vol. 84, Office of the Postmaster General; Records of the Post Office Department, RG 28, NA. Not only was there no official correspondence with the Pinkerton Agency, but there was no reference to the bandits in any correspondence with F. W. Schaunte, special agent for the post office department in St. Louis. The post office records indicate that Woodward was chief special agent at the time, contrary to Yeatman’s account.

  25. Allan Pinkerton to P. H. Woodward, December 15, 1874, Pinkerton Papers.

  26. Geo. E. Patton to M. D. Scruggs, February 21, 1875, Watkins Mill.

  27. Hardwicke’s letters and telegrams have not survived, but his note of the twenty-fifth is referred to specifically in Pinkerton’s letter (signed with his old Civil War pseudonym), E. J. Allen to Samuel Hardwicke, December 28, 1874, Pinkerton Papers. The letter of introduction from Sheridan, dated December 30, is preserved in the records of the Rock Island arsenal; Yeatman, 131–2. Regarding L. W. Towne, see the Liberty Tribune, April 16, 1875.

  28. Allan Pinkerton to P. H. Woodward, January 27, 1875, Pinkerton Papers; St. Louis Republican, February 4 and 5, 1875; see also Kansas City Times, January 27–30, 1875, and Kansas City Journal of Commerce, January 30, 1875. The Kansas City Times of January 27 mentions that seven horses had been tied up on the Haynesville road.

  29. Allan Pinkerton to P. H. Woodward, January 27, 1875, Pinkerton Papers; Kansas City Times, January 28, 1875; Kansas City Journal of Commerce, January 29, 1875. Pinkerton’s letter suggests that there was more than one iron ball, but evidence on the scene pointed to a single device. He was most likely returning from New York at the time. He had suffered a second stroke, and was not in shape to lead a raid himself. See Allan Pinkerton to John F. Tracy, January 24, 1875, and Geo. McQueen [a Pinkerton pseudonym] to Sam Hardwicke, February 16, 1875, Pinkerton Papers.

  30. Kansas City Times, January 29, 1875.

  31. St. Louis Republican, February 4, 1875.

  32. Ibid., February 2, 1875; Kansas City Times, January 30, 1875; Kansas City Times, January 28, 1875.

  33. Kansas City Times, January 28, 1875; Zerelda said she was taking Sarah to Texas, in an interview with the Lexington Caucasian, October 17, 1874.

  34. Kansas City Journal of Commerce, January 30, 1875; St. Louis Republican, February 2, 1875. The Republican’s source said the three horses were led out on Tuesday night; this appears to be an error in recollection or reporting. Allan Pinkerton wrote of “being positively assured that the James boys and others were at home in their mother’s house” that night, and that they “must have left the house after dark”; Allan Pinkerton to P. H. Woodward, January 27, 1875, Pinkerton Papers.

  35. An excellent description of the farm is in the St. Louis Republican, February 4, 1875; see also the Kansas City Times, January 27, 1875 (which has a diagram with the kitchen and parlor reversed).

  36. Quotes are from the coroner’s inquest, Kansas City Times, January 28, 1875; additional details appear in the same issue, and in the Kansas City Times, January 27, 1875.

  37. Yeatman, 141, cites the analysis of writer Fred Egloff to argue that the device was meant to explode. Those who examined its remains at the time, however, concluded otherwise; see, especially, the Kansas City Journal of Commerce, January 29, 1875; also the Kansas City Times, January 28, 1875.

  38. The sphere consisted of two halves, one of wrought and the other of cast iron; the wrought-iron portion remained intact; Kansas City Times, January 28, 1875.

  39. Kansas City Times, January 27 and 28, 1875; St. Louis Republican, February 2, 1875; Settle, 76–7; Siss Scruggs to M. D. Scruggs, February 26, 1875, Watkins Mill.

  40. Kansas City Times, January 28, 1875.

  41. Bettie A. Patton to M. D. Scruggs, January 29, 1875, Watkins Mill; Kansas City Times, January 27 and 28, 1875.

  42. Kansas City Times, January 28 and 30, 1875; St. Louis Republican, January 30 and February 2, 1875; History of Clay, 334–6; George E. Patton to M. D. Scruggs, February 21, 1875, Watkins Mill.

  43. St. Louis Republican, January 30 and February 2, 1875; Kansas City Times, January 28–30, 1875; Kansas City Journal of Commerce, January 29, 1875; Liberty Tribune, January 29, 1875. Bettie Patton to My Dear Sister, February 9, 1875, and George E. Patton to M. D. Scruggs, February 21, 1875, Watkins Mill.

  44. Kansas City Times, January 27, 1875.

  45. Bettie A. Patton to M. D. Scruggs, January 29, 1875; Lizzie to M. D. Scruggs, January 26, 1875; Siss Scruggs to M. D. Scruggs, February 26, 1875; George E. Patton to M. D. Scruggs, February 21, 1875; all Watkins Mill.

  46. Kansas City Journal of Commerce, January 30, 1875; St. Louis Republican, February 2, 1875; Hannibal Clipper in Kansas City Times, January 29, 1875; see also Kansas City Times, January 28 and 30, 1875.

  47. Lexington Caucasian, January 30, 1875; St. Louis Republican, February 4, 1875; see also Kansas City Times, January 27 and 29, April 3, 1875; St. Louis Republican, January 27, 1875; Jefferson City People’s Tribune, February 3, 1875. On Pinkerton’s wartime work, see Edwin C. Fishel, The Secret War for the Union: The Untold Story of Military Intelligence in the Civil War (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1996). Allan Pinkerton denied that the pistol was agency property, in a private letter; E. J. A. to Dave, February 26, 1875, Pinkerton Papers.

  48. Bettie A. Patton to M. D. Scruggs, January 29, 1875, and Lizzie to M. D. Scruggs, January 26, 1875, Watkins Mill; for early press reporting, see, for example, Kansas City Times, January 27, 1875, and St. Louis Dispatch, February 1, 1875.

  49. Kansas City Journal of Commerce, January 29, 1875.

  50. Kansas City Times, January 29, 1875; St. Louis Republican, February 2, 1875. Settle’s astute analysis of the politics surrounding this affair, 77–84, misses some (but not all) of the Democrats’ intraparty feuding; he calls the St. Louis Republican, for example, an “opposition” newspaper, when in fact it represented the (once) dominant Unionist faction of the Democratic Party.

  51. Kansas City Times, January 31, 1875; St. Louis Republican, January 31 and February 3, 1875; Jefferson City People’s Tribune, February 3 and 10, 1875. For signs of the shift among even Unionist Democrats toward sympathy, see the Richmond Conservator, January 30, 1875; for an astute editorial on the Confederate politics of these resolutions, see the Kansas City Journal of Commerce, February 2, 1875.

  52. St. Louis Republican, February 5, 1875; Liberty Tribune, February 12, 1875; Shoemaker, 5: 443; Yeatman, 140; Settle, 78–9.

  53. Lawrence O. Christensen and Gary R. Kremer, A History of Missouri, vol. 4, 1875 to 1919 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1997), 1–9; Isidor Loeb, “Constitutions and Constitutional Conventions in Missouri,” MHR 16, no. 2 (January 1922): 189–238; Shoemaker, 5: 446–7. On the Grant administration’s collapsing commitment to protecting the freed people, see McFeely, 400–25.

  54. St. Louis Dispatch, March 1, 1875.

  55. Richmond Conservator, April 3, 1875. The praise for Edwards was accompanied by scathing attacks on important Democrats who were Unionist former Whigs, showing the persistence of political divisions dating back to the 1850s.

  56. Kansas City Times, March 18, 1875; Kansas City Journal of Commerce, March 19, 1875; Settle, 81–3.

  57. Settle’s analysis of the vote, 82–4, is excellent; see also Journal of the House of Representatives at the Regular Session of the Twenty-Eighth General Assembly of the State of Missouri (Jefferson City: Regan & Carter, 1875), 1176; Jefferson City People’s Tribune, March 24, 1875; St. Louis Republican, March 26, 1875; Kansas City Times, March 21, 1875.

  58. Jefferson City People’s Tribune, M
arch 24, 1875; Kansas City Journal of Commerce, April 25, 1875.

  59. St. Louis Republican, February 4, 1875; George E. Patton to M. D. Scruggs, February 21, 1875, Watkins Mill; Kansas City Times, April 3, 1875.

  60. Allan Pinkerton to P. H. Woodward, January 27, 1875, and Geo. McQueen to Sam Hardwicke, February 16, 1875, Pinkerton Papers. Pinkerton often wrote under pseudonyms; all letters cited, however, were copied into his personal letterbook, and clearly were authored by the detective chief himself. See also E. J. A. to Dave, February 26, 1875, Pinkerton Papers, which reinforces the case that Pinkerton had no paying client for his chase after the James brothers.

  61. Richmond Conservator, March 27, 1875; Kansas City Times, April 3, 1875; Liberty Tribune, April 9, 1875; Yeatman, 143.

  62. George E. Patton to M. D. Scruggs, February 21, 1875, Watkins Mill.

  63. Daniel Geary to Gov. C. H. Hardin, April 17, 1875, Charles H. Hardin Papers, MSA.

  64. Kansas City Times, April 3, 1875.

  65. See the inventory of personal property, Daniel Askew Probate Records, Clay County Archives, Liberty, Missouri. Such inventories, carried out by a third party, were usually quite careful, lest heirs hold back possessions from probate auctions.

  66. Kansas City Times, April 14 and 18, 1875; Liberty Tribune, April 16, 1875; Richmond Conservator, April 24, 1875; Allan Pinkerton to My Dear Friend [Adeline Askew], May 11, 1875, Pinkerton Papers.

  67. Kansas City Times, April 18, 1874; Richmond Conservator, April 24, 1875. Years later, Dick Liddil claimed that Jesse told him he had waited a week for a chance to kill Askew, and that Clell Miller accompanied him; St. Louis Republican, September 9, 1883. Though possible, this is secondhand information, and highly questionable.

  68. Kansas City Journal of Commerce, April 15, 1875; Liberty Tribune, May 28, 1875.

  69. Allan Pinkerton to His Excellency John L. Beveridge, April 16, 1875, and Allan Pinkerton to Dr. J. C. Bernard, April 16, 1875, Pinkerton Papers.

  70. John S. Groom to Charles Hardin, April 16, 1875, Charles H. Hardin Papers, MSA. This letter includes spelling errors which have been corrected in the version given here, notably “wore” instead of “war.”

  71. Kansas City Times, April 18, 1875; John S. Groom to Genl. George Bingham, April 19, 1875, Charles H. Hardin Papers, MSA; Liberty Tribune, April 16, 1875.

  72. Allan Pinkerton to My Dear Friend [Adeline Askew], May 11, 1875, Pinkerton Papers; Daniel H. Askew Probate Records, Clay County Archives, Liberty, Missouri; Liberty Tribune, September 22, 1876. Addie Askew was able to administer her husband’s estate, unlike Zerelda James a quarter of a century earlier, thanks to modest advances in women’s property rights during Reconstruction; see Suzanne D. Lebsock, “Radical Reconstruction and the Property Rights of Southern Women,” in Half Sisters of History: Southern Women and the American Past, ed. Catherine Clinton (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1994), 110–35.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Ambition

  1. W. M. Rush, Jr., to C. H. Hardin, February 14, 1876; C. H. Hardin to Thomas Allen, February 27, 1875; Tho. Allen to C. H. Hardin, May 19, 1875; all Charles H. Hardin Papers, MSA.

  2. E. M. Cooper to C. H. Hardin, March 1, 1875, and E. M. Cooper to C. H. Hardin, April 5, 1875, all Charles H. Hardin Papers, MSA; Carrollton Journal, April 2, 1875 (quoted in its entirety on April 3 by the Kansas City Times and St. Louis Republican).

  3. Our Expressman, August 1875. The Adams Express expanded in Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas as a result of opportunities created by Gould’s move; see Our Expressman, September 1875. Cooper’s last letter to Governor Hardin was written on July 3, 1875, Charles H. Hardin Papers, MSA.

  4. Liberty Tribune, May 7, 1875; L. W. Burris to C. H. Hardin, July 21, 1875, Charles H. Hardin Papers, MSA.

  5. Mrs. D. A. Lambert and Miss B. H. Sharp to Governor Hardin, May 15, 1875, and G. C. Bingham to C. H. Hardin, May 25, 1875, Charles H. Hardin Papers, MSA; Kansas City Times, May 15, 1875; St. Louis Republican, May 16, 17, and 19, 1875.

  6. Sedalia Daily Democrat, May 20, 1882; see also Robert J. Wybrow’s useful article, “From the Pen of a Noble Robber: The Letters of Jesse Woodson James: 1847–1882,” Brand Book 24, no. 2 (summer 1987), published by the English Westerners’ Society, 1–22. This letter also contained various boasts; he claimed, for example, to have “a few good friends on the [Pinkerton] detective force who keep me fully posted,” and to be carrying on a secret correspondence with Governor Hardin (for which no evidence exists in the Missouri State Archives).

  7. St. Louis Republican, November 30, 1874.

  8. William H. Wallace to Board of Pardons of Minnesota, July 6, 1897, Younger Brothers Pardon Application Files, nos. 555 and 556, 1889–1901, fold. 2, “Northfield (Minnesota) Bank Robbery of 1876: Selected Government Records” (microfilm publication), MnHS.

  9. Kansas City Journal of Commerce, July 1, 1875; St. Louis Republican, May 19, 1875; Liberty Tribune, May 28, 1875; St. Louis Republican, April 21, 1882; Nashville American, October 9, 1882; Yeatman, 150–1.

  10. Richmond Conservator, April 24, 1875; Liberty Tribune, May 28, 1875; W. L. Watkins to M. D. Scruggs, June 7, 1875, Watkins Mill; W. M. Paxton, Annals of Platte County, Missouri (Kansas City: Hudson-Kimberly Publishing, 1897), 585, 604–5; Shoemaker, 5: 483–4.

  11. St. Louis Republican, April 11, 1882. Jesse claimed to have decided not to kill “the younger one”; this would have been William Pinkerton, who worked in Chicago; the other son, Robert, was superintendent of the New York office. Starting in June 1875, William began an eight-month stint with the U.S. Secret Service in Washington, D.C., mainly to investigate a theft in its office there. See the reports of William Pinkerton, Daily Reports of U.S. Secret Service Agents, 1875–1936, microfilm publication T-915, roll 238, Records of the U.S. Secret Service, RG 87, National Archives, College Park, Md.

  12. Nashville Republican Banner, July 11, 1875; see also Wybrow, 2–4, and Yeatman, 151–2.

  13. Liberty Tribune, July 23, 1875; Yeatman, 92–3; Kansas City Journal, April 5, 1882.

  14. Nashville Republican Banner, August 8, 1875, in Kansas City Times, August 12, 1875.

  15. Richmond Conservator, August 27, 1875.

  16. Yeatman, 161; Nashville American, October 9, 1882; St. Louis Republican, April 21, 1882.

  17. Yeatman, 154–61; Louisville Courier-Journal, September 15–18, 20, 21, and 23, 1875; St. Louis Republican, September 16 and 18, 1875; Liberty Tribune, September 24, 1875; J. H. Russel to C. H. Hardin, October 6, 1875, and Robert T. Oney to C. H. Hardin, no date (appears to be from October 1875), Charles H. Hardin Papers, MSA. Years later, Dick Liddil claimed that Jesse James had told him that he, Frank, Tom McDaniels, Clell Miller, and Jack Kean carried out the robbery; St. Louis Republican, September 9, 1883. As secondhand information, this statement is highly questionable, and appears to conflict with other evidence. See Yeatman, note 10, 422–3, for the speculations of bandit buffs.

  18. Nashville Daily American, reprinted in the Louisville Courier-Journal, September 25, 1875; Nashville Daily World, April 22, 1882; Yeatman, 161–2.

  19. Lawrence O. Christensen and Gary R. Kremer, A History of Missouri, vol. 4, 1875 to 1919 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1997), 1–9; Isidor Loeb and Floyd C. Shoemaker, eds., Debates of the Missouri Constitutional Convention of 1875 (Columbia: State Historical Society of Missouri, 1930–1944), II: 5; Isidor Loeb, “Constitutions and Constitutional Conventions in Missouri,” MHR 16, no. 2 (January 1922): 189–238; Christopher Phillips, Missouri’s Confederate: Claiborne Fox Jackson and the Creation of a Southern Identity in the Border West (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2000), 285–92. In the Missouri state constitution of 1875, see in particular article VIII, section 11; article X, sections 10–12; article XII, section 5; and article XIV, section 2.

  20. Compiled reward offers, Shoemaker, vols. 4 and 5. The total number of rewards from 1865 through 1875 approached three hundred (Shoemaker’s compilation was incomplete). Settle, 218, footnote 22, states that this was a constitu
tional limit; a thorough review of the constitution of 1875 shows this to be a mistake, though a legal limit was put in place; see H. H. Crittenden, ed., The Crittenden Memoirs (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1936), 59–60.

  21. T. J. Stiles, ed., Robber Barons and Radicals: Reconstruction and the Origin of Civil Rights (New York: Berkley, 1997), 347, 365–84; Current, 314–27; James B. Murphy, L. Q. C. Lamar: Pragmatic Patriot (Baton Rouge: University of Louisiana Press, 1973), 148–61; George C. Rable, But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of Reconstruction (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984), 148–62. For a capsule biography of Lynch, see Eric Foner, Freedom’s Lawmakers: A Directory of Black Officeholders During Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 138–9; for details on the Mississippi insurrection, see Mississippi in 1875: Report of the Select Committee to Inquire into the Mississippi Election of 1875, with the Testimony and Documentary Evidence (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1876).

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Anabasis

  1. Richard Nelson Current, Those Terrible Carpetbaggers: A Reinterpretation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 112–13; Blanche Butler Ames, ed., Chronicles from the Nineteenth Century: Family Letters of Blanche Butler and Adelbert Ames (Clinton, Mass.: n.p., 1957), 2: 368.

  2. New York Times, May 2, 1875. For Ames’s full testimony, see Mississippi in 1875: Report of the Select Committee to Inquire into the Mississippi Election of 1875, with the Testimony and Documentary Evidence (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1876), 1: 1–16.

  3. For a brief review of Ames’s wartime record, see chap. 8, pages 141–2.

  4. Current, 112–15; Blanche Ames Ames, Adelbert Ames, 1835–1933: General, Senator, Governor (London: MacDonald, 1964), 236–7. Many, perhaps most, Regular Army officers had mixed feelings about the military occupation of the South; see Edward M. Coffman, The Old Army: A Portrait of the American Army in Peacetime, 1784–1898 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 234–46.