T. J. Stiles

by Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War

  2. Nashville American, October 9 and 12, 1882. Dick Liddil was one of many to testify to Frank’s legitimate pursuits at this time, St. Louis Republican, September 9, 1883.

  3. St. Louis Republican, September 9, 1883; George Hite, Jr., described how Ryan and James told of the robbery, St. Louis Republican, April 11, 1882. For detailed accounts of these robberies, see Yeatman, 218–22, and R. J. Wybrow, “The James Gang in Kentucky: A Tale of Murder and Robbery in the Blue Grass State,” Brand Book 15, no. 2 (January 1973), published by the English Westerner’s Society, 22–34.

  4. St. Louis Republican, September 9, 1883; see also Liddil’s comments in Kansas City Times, April 5, 1882.

  5. Liddil’s account neatly matches Frank’s for this period; St. Louis Republican, September 9, 1883; Nashville American, October 9 and 12, 1882. The name of the particular horse mentioned is rendered differently in various accounts; see the testimony of Jonas Taylor, Nashville American, April 20, 1884. Numerous witnesses later testified to the James brothers’ changes of address; see, for example, George Miller, Jr., The Trial of Frank James for Murder (St. Louis: n.p., 1898), 19–20, 23–7, 36. In Miller, 20, John Trimble, Jr., said that he rented a house at 814 Fatherland Street in Edgefield to B. J. Woodson on February 5, 18 81, which may date Cummins’s disappearance. In a curious footnote, John Edwards’s Sedalia Democrat reported on January 7, 1881, that Jesse James had met one of the newspaper’s journalists—apparently Bacon Montgomery—in Denver, Colorado; this inexplicable story conflicts with the accounts of Frank James, Dick Liddil, and others who were with Jesse at the time; Settle, 107.

  6. St. Louis Republican, April 11, 1882, and September 12, 1883; Miller, 324; see also Dick Liddil’s comments in Kansas City Times, April 5, 1882.

  7. Nashville American, April 19, 1884; Major W. R. King, Memorandum Relative to the Muscle Shoals Robbery, December 17, 1881, and Affidavit of Thomas H. Peden, September 1, 1881, Letters Received Bulky Package File 1871–1881, 4521 GR 1881 #348, General Records Division, Special Collections: 1789–1923, Unregistered Letters, Reports, Histories, Regulations, and Other Records, 1817–1984, entry 292A, Record Group 77, Records of the Office of the Chief of Engineers, NA (to be cited as “Bulky Package File”). Frank James was eventually accused of taking part; as Yeatman notes, 237, later trial testimony by reliable witnesses showed that Frank was in Nashville at the time; see Nashville American, April 21 and 22, 1884. In Dick Liddil’s initial confession, he admitted he knew nothing about the robbery; St. Louis Republican, September 9, 1883.

  8. Affidavit of Alexander G. Smith, May 7, 1881, Bulky Package File. Smith had $21 in his pocket, the remainder from $50 that he had set aside from the rest to pay two casual laborers who lived in Florence; Nashville American, April 1, 1881.

  9. Affidavit of Alexander G. Smith, May 7, 1881; Affidavit of E. N. Hartsfield, September 20, 1881; Affidavit of Daniel Comer, June 16, 1881; all in Bulky Package File. For a more detailed account, based largely on the National Archives file, see Yeatman, 231–44.

  10. Miller, 19–20, 23; Nashville American, April 1, 1881; Affidavit of Alexander G. Smith, May 7, 1881, Bulky Package File.

  11. Nashville American, April 20, 1884; Miller, 19–20, 23.

  12. Miller, 24–6, 37, 49–51; St. Louis Republican, April 22, 1882, and September 9 and 12, 1883; St. Louis Republican, November 5, 1881; Settle, 148, makes a similar observation about the bandits’ horse theft.

  13. St. Louis Republican, September 9, 1883; Nashville American, October 9, 1882.

  14. St. Louis Republican, November 1, 1881, and April 22, 1882; Major W. R. King, Memorandum Relative to the Muscle Shoals Robbery, December 17, 1881, Bulky Package File; King to Chief of Engineers, telegram, April 14, 1881, and Wayne MacVeagh to President, April 16, 1881, letter 2715, microfilm publication M-689, roll 24, Letters Received 1881–1889, Adjutant General’s Office, RG 94, NA. For further details on this episode, see Yeatman, 240–3, 246–7; see also Robert M. Utley, High Noon in Lincoln: Violence on the Western Frontier (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987), 84. The U.S. marshals operated on a fee-for-service basis, often serving as officers of the federal courts, and hesitated to take a strong role in actual law enforcement in many areas; Frederick S. Calhoun, The Lawmen: United States Marshals and Their Deputies, 1789–1889 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990), 49–63.

  15. Kansas City Evening Star, July 18, 1881.

  16. William H. Wallace, Speeches and Writings of Wm. H. Wallace, with Autobiography (Kansas City, Mo.: Western Baptist Publishing Co., 1914), 255–8, 273; Settle, 107; for an example of official Democratic indignation on his candidacy, see Kansas City Times, October 31, 1880.

  17. Lawrence O. Christensen and Gary R. Kremer, A History of Missouri, vol. 4, 1875 to 1919 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1997), 14; for an example of Crittenden’s wartime activities, see O.R. 1: XXII, part 1: 622.

  18. Settle, 106, 123.

  19. Homer Clevenger, “Railroads in Missouri Politics, 1875–1887,” MHR 43, no. 2 (January 1949): 220–36; Christensen and Kremer, 15–16; H. H. Crittenden, ed., The Crittenden Memoirs (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1936), 55–7; for a contemporary reference to Crittenden as a liberal, see Richmond Conservator, July 28, 1882; see also his inaugural address, Shoemaker, 6: 275. On the alliance between business interests and Democratic governments in the South, see two pivotal studies: C. Vann Woodward, Origins of the New South, 1877–1913 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1971), and Edward L. Ayers, The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).

  20. Shoemaker, 6: 175–6; Crittenden, 59.

  21. Compare Crittenden’s speech with the efforts of then state senator Charles H. Hardin to keep Governor Silas Woodson’s anti-bandit address out of the press; St. Louis Republican, March 24, 1874.

  22. Wallace, 274, 277; Settle, 113.

  23. Kansas City Journal, July 16–18, 1881; Kansas City Times, July 16, 1881; Kansas City Evening Star, July 16, 1881; St. Louis Republican, September 9 and 12, 1883.

  24. St. Louis Republican, September 9 and 12, 1883; Kansas City Journal, July 16–18, 1881; Kansas City Times, July 16, 1881; Kansas City Evening Star, July 16, 1881. See also Miller, 41–4, 78, 86, 88.

  25. Kansas City Times, July 17, 1881; Kansas City Evening Star, July 18, 1881.

  26. Kansas City Journal, July 19, 1881.

  27. Sedalia Democrat, July 22, 1881; Kansas City Times, July 17 and 20, 1881; Kansas City Evening Star, July 19, 1881.

  28. St. Louis Republican, July 26, 1881; Crittenden, 60; Scott Reynolds Nelson, Iron Confederacies: Southern Railways, Klan Violence, and Reconstruction (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 178.

  29. St. Louis Republican, July 27 and 28, 1881; Kansas City Journal, July 29, 1881; Shoemaker, 6: 494–6.

  30. St. Louis Republican, September 12, 1883.

  31. According to Dick Liddil, in the first, failed attempt, Jesse and Frank fixed a piece of iron to the rails of the Missouri Pacific, hoping to ditch the engine, only to see the locomotive speed safely past; St. Louis Republican, September 8, 1881, September 9 and 12, 1883; passenger and engineer quotes from Kansas City Journal, September 8, 1881, and Kansas City Times, September 8, 1881. The engineer, L. “Chappy” Foote, gave somewhat conflicting accounts to various newspapers; it appears that the leader met him after the robbery finished, though he also suggested that he did so at the beginning, in which case another bandit must have introduced himself as Jesse James.

  32. Kansas City Journal, September 9, 1881.

  33. Kansas City Journal, September 10, 1881; St. Louis Republican, September 11, 1881.

  34. Liberty Tribune, September 30, 1881; St. Louis Republican, September 28 and 29, 1881; Wallace, 275–9. Most militia companies formed since 1868, like the Craig Rifles, were social organizations with colorful names. See John Glendower Westover, “The Evolution of the Missouri Militia, 1804–1919” (Ph.D. diss., University
of Missouri, Columbia, 1948), 173–96.

  35. St. Louis Republican, September 29 and 30, October 10, 1881. The Kansas City Journal, September 10, 1881, also noted, somewhat sourly, that the newspapers that once supported the bandits now loudly condemned them.

  36. St. Louis Republican, April 6 and 11, 1882, September 9 and 12, 1883; Kansas City Times, April 7, 1882; Settle, 116. Jesse’s brother-in-law T. M. Mimms noticed his rising suspicions; Kansas City Journal, April 5, 1882.

  37. St. Louis Republican, April 11, 1882, and September 12, 1883; Crittenden, 153. According to Wallace, 279, Hite left the body in a hog pen and the animals devoured the corpse.

  38. Liddil’s wife, Mattie Collins, had earlier been acquitted of murdering her brother-in-law, on grounds of temporary insanity. William Wallace and his partners had served as her defense attorneys; Wallace, 280; Kansas City Journal, April 4, 1882.

  39. “He exhibited an empty chamber in his revolver,” Liddil reported. “Bob claimed that his shot was the fatal one.” Ford and his brothers Elias and Wilbur wrapped Hite in a horse blanket and carried him upstairs; by nightfall he was dead. They stripped off his clothes and buried him in a shallow grave nearby. See the St. Louis Republican, September 9, 1883. See also Kansas City Times, April 7, 1882; Kansas City Journal, April 4, 1882; St. Louis Republican, April 5, 1882; Miller, 62–8.

  40. Kansas City Times, April 5, 1882; St. Louis Republican, September 9, 1883.

  41. Miller, 55, 62; St. Louis Republican, April 1, 1882, and September 9, 1883; Kansas City Journal, April 4, 1882; Kansas City Journal, April 5, 1882. Wallace, 280, claimed that Liddil sent his wife, Mattie Collins, to see him first; this assertion, made decades later, is not confirmed by contemporary accounts, nor is it particularly relevant, as even Wallace admits it led nowhere.

  42. St. Louis Republican, April 5 and 6, 1882.

  43. Kansas City Journal, April 4 and 5, 1882; St. Louis Republican, November 1 and 4, 1881, April 1, 5, and 11, 1882; Sedalia Democrat, February 2, 1882; Liberty Tribune, February 24, 1882; Miller, 62; Yeatman, 266–7.

  44. Kansas City Journal, April 4, 1882; Nashville American, October 9, 1882. Charley Ford said that the last time he saw Frank was in September 1881; St. Louis Republican, April 6, 1882.

  45. Kansas City Journal, April 5, 1882.

  46. Ibid., April 4 and 5, 1882; Nashville American, October 9, 1882; St. Louis Republican, September 12, 1883.

  47. Kansas City Journal, April 4, 1882; St. Louis Republican, April 6, 1882, September 9 and 12, 1883; Settle, 137.

  48. St. Louis Republican, April 7, 1882; Sedalia Democrat, April 15, 1882; Kansas City Journal, April 4, 1882; Yeatman, 267, details the real estate inquiry.

  49. St. Louis Republican, April 1, 5–7, 1882; Kansas City Journal, April 4 and 5, 1882; Settle, 116.

  50. St. Louis Republican, April 6, 1882.

  51. The quotes, given by the Ford brothers, appear in the Kansas City Journal, April 4, 1882. They differ very slightly from Charley Ford’s testimony to a coroner’s inquest in their reference to Jesse’s worries about being seen if he went outside; without this detail, his actions seem inexplicable.

  52. Kansas City Journal, April 4 and 5, 1882.

  CHAPTER TWENTY: Apotheosis

  1. Kansas City Journal, April 4 and 5, 1882; Kansas City Times, April 4 and 6, 1882. On later impostors, see Settle, 167–71. Yeatman, 371–6, provides a transcript of a press conference given by the forensic analysis team on February 23, 1996.

  2. Kansas City Journal, April 5, 1882; Settle, 129–30; Yeatman, 273–4; for other examples of interviews with relatives, see Kansas City Journal, April 6, 1882, and St. Louis Republican, April 11, 1882.

  3. Liberty Tribune, April 14, 1882; Kansas City Times, April 7, 1882.

  4. St. Louis Republican, April 7, 1882; Kansas City Times, April 6, 1882; Liberty Tribune, May 5, 1882.

  5. Entry for April 28, 1882, Diary of Elias Eppstein, 1880–1883, coll. 2733, WHMC; Richmond Conservator, April 21, 1882; St. Louis Republican, April 6, 1882; Kansas City Times, April 8, 1882; Yeatman, 275.

  6. Sedalia Democrat, April 13 and 22, 1882. For a discussion of the press and political response, see Settle, 120–6.

  7. Sedalia Democrat, April 16, 1882; Liberty Tribune, June 1, 1882; J. N. Edwards to My Dear Frank, July 17, 1882, and August 1, 1882, coll. 1531, John N. Edwards Papers, WHMC; Settle, 118, 130.

  8. St. Louis Globe-Democrat, October 6, 1882.

  9. Ibid., October 10, 1882; George Miller, Jr., The Trial of Frank James for Murder (St. Louis: n.p., 1898), 6; Settle, 134–6. Edwards also raised money for Frank’s defense from former Confederates, calling on their wartime loyalties to a comrade; see John N. Edwards to Gen. D. M. Frost, April 12, 1883, Fordyce Collection, MHS.

  10. St. Louis Globe-Democrat, October 8, 1882; Gerard S. Petrone, Judgment at Gallatin: The Trial of Frank James (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 1998), 51–168; Settle, 123, 136–43, 149–55, 158; see also Yeatman, 283–4, and Miller, who drafted the closest thing to a trial transcript in existence. Italics are in the original, quoted in Settle.

  11. Edward P. Clark to My Dear Brother, March 6, 1883, coll. 83, Charles W. Clark Papers, WHMC.

  12. The Nation, April 13, 1882.

  13. Eric J. Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movements in the 19th and 20th Centuries (New York: W. W. Norton, 1965), orig. pub. in 1959 as Social Bandits and Primitive Rebels, and Eric J. Hobsbawm, Bandits, rev. ed. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1981), 17, 40–56.

  14. See, for example, Anton Blok, “The Peasant and the Brigand: Social Banditry Reconsidered,” and Eric J. Hobsbawm, “Social Bandits: A Reply,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 14, no. 4 (September 1972): 494–505; Paul Sant Cassia, “Banditry, Myth, and Terror in Cyprus and Other Mediterranean Societies,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 15, no. 4 (October 1993): 773–95; Giannes Koliopoulos, Brigands with a Cause: Brigandage and Irredentism in Modern Greece, 1821–1921 (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1987); and also Hobsbawm’s reply to his critics in the revised edition of Bandits, 138–64.

  15. Richard White, “Outlaw Gangs of the Middle Border: American Social Bandits,” Western Historical Quarterly 12, no. 4 (October 1981): 387–408.

  16. Hobsbawm, Bandits, 153; White, 395–7, 402, 406–7.

  17. Karl Marx, “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,” in The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd ed., ed. Robert C. Tucker (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1978), 608. For an example of a thoughtful discussion of political violence based to some extent on the Marxian framework, see Charles Tilly, “Collective Violence in European Perspective,” in Violence in America: Historical and Comparative Perspectives, ed. Hugh Davis Graham and Ted Robert Gurr (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1979), 83–152.

  18. Hobsbawm, Bandits, 24, 55, 130, 158;

  19. Hobsbawm, Bandits, 153; White, 395–7, 402, 406–7; Fellman, 254.

  20. Fellman, 263. It should be noted that Fellman addressed Jesse James directly in a biographical entry in Ronald Gottesman, ed., Violence in America: An Encyclopedia (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1999), 2: 188–90. This brief essay relies primarily on Thelen’s arguments. The stress on the primacy of the bandit mythology over reality also appears in Richard Slotkin’s work, Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America (New York: Atheneum, 1992), 125–55, and (more generally) The Fatal Environment: The Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialization, 1800–1890 (New York: Atheneum, 1985).

  21. Keith Ian Polakoff, The Politics of Inertia: The Election of 1876 and the End of Reconstruction (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1973), 155–7; for more on the interconvertible bond, see Irwin Unger, The Greenback Era: A Social and Political History of American Finance, 1865–1879 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), 96–101. A Marxist, of course, might argue that any accommodation with the capitalist economy would not be a proper expression of the farmers’ class interests.

  22. Liberty Tribune, Ma
rch 1, 1872. Don R. Bowen has deftly shown the wealth and commercial orientation of the western Missouri guerrillas, who both rode with and provided critical support to the James and Younger brothers after the war; see, for example, Don R. Bowen, “Counterrevolutionary Guerrilla War: Missouri, 1861–1865,” Conflict 8, no. 1 (1988): 69–78. A keynote speaker at the Greenback convention in 1884 also denounced the bandits; Homer Clevenger, “Railroads in Missouri Politics, 1875–1887,” MHR 43, no. 2 (January 1949): 220–36. Most of the bandits’ grassroots opponents were farmers. Jackson County marshal James L. Liggett, for example, was a Granger; Kansas City Times, August 18, 1874. If economic grievances and fear of outsiders had been the driving force behind local support for the outlaws, then much of the public debate would have revolved around eastern insurance and mortgage companies, which began to lend heavily in the region after the Civil War; but they passed unmentioned by the outlaws, their supporters, or their opponents. See H. Peers Brewer, “Eastern Money and Western Mortgages in the 1870s,” Business History Review 50, no. 3 (autumn 1976): 356–80; Allan G. Bogue, “Financing the Prairie Farmer,” in The Reinterpretation of American Economic History, ed. Stanley L. Engerman and Robert W. Fogel (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), 301–10; Lance E. Davis, “Capital Mobility and American Growth,” in Engerman and Fogel, 285–300. For more on the deflationary gold standard, see Michael D. Bordo and Anna J. Schwartz, eds., A Retrospective on the Classical Gold Standard (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 11, 613; Milton Friedman and Anna Jacobson Schwartz, A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), 89–95.

  23. Lexington Caucasian, September 5, 1874; Scott Reynolds Nelson, Iron Confederacies: Southern Railways, Klan Violence, and Reconstruction (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999); Nelson found that anti-railroad activity ceased once the corporations actively enlisted the support of white-supremacist Democratic leaders. See also C. J. M. Drake, “The Role of Ideology in Terrorists’ Target Selection,” Terrorism and Political Violence 10, no. 2 (summer 1998): 53–85.