Shot All to Hell

by Mark Lee Gardner

  One of “those” immediately suspected was Irishman Jack O’Neil, who operated the whorehouse in the woods across the Minnesota River from Mankato. Some of the gang had enjoyed O’Neil’s ladies prior to the raid, and a rumor was whispered around Mankato that O’Neil had transported the robbers across the river in his skiff. According to the rumor, the man with the hurt arm was then recuperating at the brothel.

  Early on Saturday morning, September 16, a large posse boarded the ferry for a surprise visit to the local “den of infamy.” Without warning, the manhunters burst through the door and made a thorough search of the premises as the female residents screamed and cursed. But instead of a wounded robber, the possemen found only “five pimps and blacklegs.”

  “The odds are now considered by all greatly in favor of the fugitive cutthroats,” wrote a correspondent from Mankato later that day. Various parties continued to comb the woods south and west of Mankato, and Hoy, Bresette, and others chased the James boys toward Dakota Territory. But with little success, many discouraged manhunters were giving up and heading home. After two more days of playing catch-up, Hoy and Bresette called it quits as well. On Monday morning, September 18, Hoy, Minneapolis chief of police Munger, and their squad of policemen stepped aboard the train at Mankato, bound for the Twin Cities. In one of the car seats, they piled their Winchester repeaters and the bridles, blankets, and coats the robbers had abandoned at Pigeon Hill. These were their only trophies from the hunt.

  Judson Jones, a forty-eight-year-old lawyer of Le Sueur County, sat in the seat facing the robber booty, and next to Jones was a Minneapolis policeman. The policeman picked up one of the bridles, this one having a particularly harsh Mexican bit, and handed it to Jones. The lawyer ran his fingers along the bit and said that if Hoy and Bresette had been half as smart as the robbers, they would have more than bridles and horses to show for their efforts. Hoy, whom Jones had never met, happened to be sitting three seats ahead, and he apparently heard his name in the conversation—and he began to listen carefully.

  The Minneapolis policeman next asked Jones what he thought of the attempts to capture the robbers. The lawyer, who had spent the past week in the field as a member of one of the posses, quickly answered, “I think Bresette and Mike Hoy have been completely out-generaled.” Hoy clearly heard this last remark and jumped up out of his seat to face Jones.

  “I am Mike Hoy. Now what have you got to say of him?”

  “Nothing but what I have said, that Bresette and Hoy have been out-generaled,” replied Jones calmly.

  The bully Hoy, whose face had already turned bright red, began to swear. He threatened to throw Jones out the train window.

  “You had better not try it,” said Jones.

  As the detective’s tantrum grew worse, Hoy angrily told Jones he would not dare face him with a gun from the opposite end of the car, or even face him in a fistfight.

  “I tell you what I dare do,” said Jones. “I dare sit here and face you, Mr. Hoy, and I think you had better sit down.”

  Hoy glared for a moment, after which he plopped down into an empty seat, fuming. At the same moment, a man walked down from the front of the car and addressed Jones.

  “You mustn’t have any quarrel with this man. I know this man. This is Mike Hoy—he is a dangerous man.”

  Jones answered that he had no quarrel and was only expressing an opinion. The lawyer turned to talk with the man sitting next to Hoy and suddenly Hoy threw a swift punch with his left fist, hitting Jones on the right cheek with the force of a sledgehammer.

  The lawyer, a slender man, spun around and tumbled forward, somehow grasping a seat so as not to fall completely to the floor. Several shocked passengers rushed forward to prevent the larger Hoy from killing Jones, saying, “That’s enough, Hoy—hold on—don’t strike him again.”

  Jones shortly came to his senses and returned to his seat, saying loudly to Hoy, “That blow won’t pay you in the long run.” When the train arrived at St. Peter, Jones carefully stepped off and walked straight to a doctor’s office. The detective’s blow had been so violent it had fractured Jones’s cheekbone, pushing it in and permanently disfiguring his face. Had Hoy hit him an inch or two higher, the doctor said, Jones would likely be dead.

  Hoy’s attack made all the newspapers and just fed to the belief that much of the blame for the fugitives’ escape lay at Hoy’s feet. The Saint Peter Tribune pointed out that if such mild criticism could trigger such a violent response, then Hoy “had better commence fighting the whole Minnesota Valley, for there is scarce a man who is familiar with the facts but has indulged in much harsher criticism than that for which Mr. Jones now lies in bed.”

  Hoy and Bresette did not have to look far for reminders of their failures. Even the Minnesota press could not stop themselves from writing about how the outlaws had vanquished the manhunters:

  Here were six men hunted by a thousand in a land comparatively strange to them. Every device was resorted to. Every rod of a vast extent of country was searched. The best detective talent was employed. The best woodsmen were engaged in the hunt. Citizens of every class deserted all else, and took up their arms. Yet almost in the face and eyes of eager pursuers, they have passed through the most carefully arranged traps. . . . Such determination, daring and perseverance was worthy of a better cause, and cannot but evoke the admiration even of those who most desire their extermination. Probably no men were ever more desperately set upon, nor more intrepid daring ever displayed by mortals. Houseless, footsore, hungry and poorly clad, they have passed on, and their miraculous escape excites more wonder than did their daring attempt at robbery.

  But the Younger brothers and Charlie Pitts had not escaped. After Jesse and Frank left them, they trudged north until they found a road leading from Mankato. The fugitives followed this road due west. Cole would later say they were out to get some good horses at a farm he remembered that was near Madelia, a village of eight hundred people twenty-five miles southwest of Mankato. But the ragtag band, their various wounds seeping blood and pus, made little progress, camping in one patch of timber for two nights and another near Lake Linden for three.

  Minnesota had become their living hell. The rain and cold continued to sap their strength, making their situation nearly unbearable. “The oldest inhabitant has no recollection of such persistent rain-storms as we have had during September thus far,” reported the Rice County Journal on September 21. The outlaws were living that outside and were drenched by nearly every storm. Plus, they were always famished, surviving primarily on corn from the fields and one night a few chickens they were able to steal.

  By now, they had left the Big Woods and were in the prairie country, which meant places to hide were farther apart. When they did travel, they did so under the cover of darkness. Cole walked with a cane he had carved from a stick. Bob’s shattered elbow had begun to heal but not in a good way. He could not straighten his arm, nor could he control his fingers on his right hand. When they tried to sleep, Cole lay flat on his back so Bob could rest his arm across Cole’s body. Cole had given up trying to remove his wet leather boots. He did not know it at the time, but his feet had been wet and swollen for so long his toenails were separating from his toes.

  As the Youngers and Pitts pushed slowly west, one Madelia resident actually expected them. When Cole and Charlie scouted Madelia prior to the raid, they had lodged at a small hotel called the Flanders House, operated by forty-three-year-old Civil War veteran Thomas L. Vought. Colonel Vought, as he was known to the locals, had been intrigued by his guests with their broad-brimmed hats and dusters, their fine horses and saddles and their southern phrases. Cole and Charlie had identified themselves as railroad surveyors and had peppered Vought with questions about the area. Cole, who had registered as J. C. King, seemed to have already gained a familiarity with the locale, mentioning that he and his companion had been to a particular bridge that crossed an outlet between Armstrong and Strom Lakes, a few miles northeast of Madelia.

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p; After Cole and Charlie left, Vought didn’t really give them much thought—that is, until news of the Northfield Raid reached Madelia. He instantly thought of his two lodgers, and when the papers said one of the robbers had checked into another hotel as J. C. King, he had no doubts that his visitors were members of the outlaw gang. Suspecting that they might try to escape by crossing at Armstrong Lake, Vought gathered two volunteers and spent two nights guarding the bridge.

  Seventeen-year-old Oscar Sorbel happened by while Vought and the Madelia men stood watch and asked what they were doing. They told him they were looking for the Northfield fugitives, and the young man instantly became their boon companion. The raid had been the most exciting thing to happen in Sorbel’s short life, and now he was face-to-face with the actual manhunters. Vought knew the lad lived with his parents and six siblings on a small farm about five miles to the west, near the north shore of Lake Linden. And as they were about to return to Madelia, he gave Sorbel a thrill by asking him to keep a lookout for anyone matching the robbers’ descriptions. If he saw any of them, he was to bring the news to Vought at the Flanders House as fast as he could.

  “Gee!” Sorbel said wistfully, “I’d like to take a shot at those fellows with dad’s old gun.”

  At 7:00 A.M. on Thursday, September 21, Oscar’s father, Ole Sorbel, sat on a stool milking one of his cows out on the road in front of the family home. He looked up and saw two strangers walking by. One had reddish whiskers and the other a black mustache—Jim Younger and Charlie Pitts. The men passed on each side of Sorbel, running their hands gently along the back of the milk cow.

  “Good morning,” they said cheerfully.

  Ole nodded a greeting as the strangers continued down the road.

  Oscar was carrying empty milk pails up from the barn when the two men passed by. But he was able to catch a good glimpse of them and hurried up to the gate, where he waited until the strangers were out of hearing.

  “There goes the robbers,” Oscar whispered to his father. Ole looked up, thought carefully, and shook his head. They looked like “nice men,” he said.

  Oscar stepped through the gate and out into the road and studied the strangers’ tracks. After a moment, he called to his father. “Look here,” Oscar said, “I will show you how ‘nice’ they are.” The tracks clearly showed impressions of the men’s toes in the mud from holes in the soles of their boots.

  “Well, never mind,” Ole said. They had a lot of work to do that day, and he wanted to get the hay in as well. “Tend to your business,” he told his son, pointing to one of the pails.

  Oscar grabbed a pail and began milking, but he could not get the strangers out of his mind. They had to be the fugitives; he was sure of it. After milking one cow, he set the pail inside the fence and started walking briskly down the road in the direction the men had gone. He did not ask his father’s permission. Ole yelled after the boy, warning him that if they were indeed the robbers, he might get shot, so he best take care.

  Young Sorbel trailed the strangers until he saw where their tracks entered some woods. He did not follow them into the woods but proceeded cautiously to alert the nearest neighbors. At a house about one mile to the west, he got up on the roof to see if the robbers had left the woods. They had not. He then hurried to the top of a big hill nearby where he could see the different roads to New Ulm and Madelia and looked all about. But he saw no one.

  He returned home to another surprise. While Oscar had been absent, two more strangers had come calling and asked for breakfast. His mother, Guri Sorbel, politely informed them it was not yet ready but would be soon. The men could not wait and instead asked for some bread and butter. They said they had been out hunting and fishing and asked where the best fishing was. Guri told her son that one of the men appeared to have an arm in a sling underneath his coat. This last bit of information excited the teenager even more. He wanted to return to one of the neighbors to warn them that there were four robbers on the loose, but Ole Sorbel, fearing his boy would be picked off by the outlaws, would not allow it. So Oscar found his twelve-year-old sister, Maria, and sent her to get the message out for him. Whether or not Oscar’s parents knew about the errand he had given to his little sister is not known.

  Oscar begged his father for a horse he could ride to Madelia, eight miles away, to alert the manhunters, but Ole said no—this robber business was a dangerous thing. Oscar was small for his age, but he could be as strong-minded as his father, and Oscar was not about to take no for an answer. Finally, his father gave in, but only on the condition that Oscar take the east road so as to keep out of sight of the fugitives. The horses were hitched to the farm wagon, but Oscar quickly removed one from the harness and jumped on its back. The nag was so fat that Oscar could hardly feel the animal’s ribs. Nevertheless, he dug his heels into the horse’s sides, urging it into a halfhearted gallop.

  Oscar Sorbel.

  (Northfield Historical Society)

  The muddy road made for tough going and quickly tired the poor animal. A mile and a half from Madelia, the horse tripped and tumbled to the ground, throwing Oscar from its back. Undaunted, Oscar jumped up, mud dripping from his face and arms, and got the horse back on its feet. He arrived in Madelia an hour after leaving his home, his exhausted mount covered with sweaty foam. Oscar rode straight for the Flanders House, all the while grandly shouting, “Robbers are around—if you want to make money, got to hurry up.”

  The first people Oscar encountered did not believe a word he said. Plastered head to toe with mud, the boy looked and acted half crazed, and everyone understood the robbers to be out of Minnesota, anyway. Fortunately, Oscar found Colonel Vought on the porch of the Flanders House—and nearby was James Glispin, a slight, undersized, twenty-eight-year-old sheriff of Watonwan County. Oscar jumped down from his horse and breathlessly told his story to Vought. Glispin stepped up and asked Oscar to describe the men. When Oscar mentioned that one of the strangers had a wounded arm, that settled it. Within five minutes, Glispin, Vought, and two other citizens were armed and mounted. As they rode out of town, Glispin left orders for as many volunteers as possible to get their guns and come on.

  The incredible news that the robbers had been spotted just a few miles away raced through the village. Shops were suddenly closed as the men of the town scurried around for saddle horses and buggies. Those who could not find a mount started on foot. Oscar Sorbel, the proudest teenager in Minnesota, loaned his tired horse to a citizen and jumped into the back of a wagon for the ride home—and hopefully to the scene of the coming action.

  We were very imprudent . . . in going to the house for food,” Bob Younger would say later, “but we were so hungry.”

  And tired. After leaving the Sorbel place, they walked around the north end of Lake Linden and headed southwest, but Bob lagged behind. At one point that morning, he insisted on stopping in a field to rest. His companions urged him to keep moving; even if the Sorbel family believed their story about being sportsmen, a family member might tell someone else who would figure out that they were the robbers. Bob said the others could leave him if they wanted to, but they refused to abandon him. Finally, Bob got up and started walking again.

  At approximately 11:00 A.M., as the outlaws approached the marshy outlet to Lake Hanska, they saw four men on horseback, one after the other, coming up fast on their trail. The rider in the lead, Sheriff Glispin, ordered the fugitives to halt. The outlaws broke into a run, splashed across the wide slough, and continued running due south toward the brushy thickets of the Watonwan River’s north fork, a little under three miles away.

  Glispin’s party galloped up to the edge of the slough, which was too deep to cross with horses, and fired several shots at the fleeing outlaws, the balls whistling past their heads. But the fugitives were soon out of range.

  It took precious time for Glispin to find a crossing for his horses, and that gave the robbers a good two miles between them and their pursuers. But the delay also brought Glispin more recruits, all now c
onverging on the Watonwan. After navigating the slough and again reaching solid ground, the sheriff and his men spurred their horses and quickly closed the distance with the outlaws. As Glispin and a posse member galloped within shouting distance, the fugitives spun around and raised their revolvers.

  “What do you want?” they called out.

  Glispin pulled sharply on the reins of his horse and came to a halt. “Throw up your hands and surrender,” he shouted.

  “Come up closer,” the robbers yelled, pointing to their pistols and explaining that they only had revolvers to fight with. If the posse would come closer, they would “give them a clatter.”

  The fugitives began walking briskly again toward the river. Glispin and his companion opened fire, white smoke streaming from their pistols. The Youngers and Pitts fired behind them as they continued their retreat, forcing Glispin and the others to jump off their horses as bullets flew dangerously close, one shot drawing blood on the sheriff’s mount. The gunfire popped back and forth until the outlaws ducked out of sight in the river’s plum thickets.

  The Youngers and Pitts reloaded their pistols and pushed through the brush to the river’s bank. The Watonwan was less than thirty yards wide, but it had swollen from the rains and was running rapidly. The outlaws had no choice but to plunge in, holding their pistols above their heads. The cold, rushing water pulled against their coats and blankets, nearly sweeping the men off their feet, but they soon drew themselves up on the steep south bank. When they stepped out of the willows growing along the bank, they were in sight of the farm of Andrew Anderson, and they looked about quickly to see if there were any horses. Anderson’s wife had heard the gunfire and saw the four men come out of the river. She ran screaming from the yard.