Shot All to Hell

by Mark Lee Gardner

  Groom next heard the stamping of hooves as Jesse and Frank mounted and spurred their horses. “Come on you cowardly sons of bitches,” one of the brothers taunted as they galloped away. The sheriff and his men jumped on their horses and chased after the bandits, but they had squandered a rare opportunity to capture the brothers and allowed them—the most elusive outlaws in history—a head start. For a brief moment the next day, the posse saw the bandits, but the James boys’ horses were much faster than any horseflesh the sheriff could come up with, and his posse failed to overtake them.

  It would be a long time before Jesse and Frank were seen again in Clay County. The boys may have been visiting their mother to say good-bye. They needed to disappear and tend to their families, take them to a place where the law was not hunting the James boys. That place was Tennessee. The Volunteer State was actually a familiar hideout; Jesse’s son, Jesse Edwards James, had been born in Nashville in August 1875. And as the Nashville region was then seeing an influx of settlers from Ohio, Indiana, and elsewhere, no one questioned two more nondescript families.

  As J. D. Howard and B. J. Woodson, Jesse and Frank settled into a new life that did not include talk of the next haul. They kept their revolvers close, of course, hidden in saddlebags or in shoulder holsters beneath jackets, but they were going straight, or at least making a solemn effort. Frank rented a farm and got a job driving a four-mule team for a lumber company. Jesse took up farming (although not as seriously as Frank) and raised cattle, but he also acquired several fine racehorses and soon devoted most of his time to racing and gambling. Both brothers were seen from time to time in Nashville’s faro banks and at the Nashville Blood-Horse Association racetrack. Frank acquired a racehorse or two as well.

  Jesse James.

  (Collection of the author)

  But the new life suited Frank more than it did Jesse. Jesse, not yet thirty-two years old, had spent most of his adult life riding like the devil, terrorizing bluecoats, bank tellers, and Pinkertons. The rush of that wind-in-your-face, gun-in-your-hand lifestyle was like a drug. And Jesse craved attention, the kind he got on a national scale—racehorse owners did not make headlines. At the same time, he continued to spend money fast and easy, just like in the old days, and he accumulated creditors even faster. For Jesse, the answer was obvious—or inevitable. Even though the nightmarish memories of Northfield were still vivid, Jesse began putting together a new gang sometime in the summer of 1879.

  The new gang was nothing like the old one though. Its size and makeup varied over time, but the young scamps Jesse scrounged up had not fought with Quantrill or Bloody Bill; there were no bonds forged in fire. And they sure as hell could not be counted on to give their lives in the street while waiting on a man in the bank. But they could point a revolver and hold a horse, and that was about all Jesse needed.

  On October 8, 1879, Jesse and five men, including Ed Miller, stopped a Chicago & Alton train at Glendale, just southeast of Independence, Missouri. The boys rode away with $6,000. A reporter commented that the robbery “brought up recollections of the desperate doings of the James boys, the kings of border train robberies.” Those were not pleasant memories for the United States Express Company, which promptly offered a reward of $25,000 for the arrest and conviction of the gang. The railroad offered $15,000.

  A holdup of two tourist stagecoaches near Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, in September 1880 netted $1,200 in cash, jewelry, and timepieces, and the robbery of a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers paymaster in north Alabama in March 1881 brought the bandits $5,240.18. Nobody was shot during these robberies, but with the holdup of a Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific train near Winston, Missouri, in July 1881, Jesse and the boys returned to murder. Significantly, this job also marked Frank James’s return to being an outlaw. (Frank would later claim he was hundreds of miles away in Indian Territory when the robbery took place—he was lying.)

  As Jesse and Frank rushed through the cars to take control of the train, they shot and killed two men, conductor William Westfall and a passenger who made the mistake of raising his head for a peek. Jesse would say the conductor was going for a pistol, and even though he warned him not to draw it, the foolish man did anyway—and Jesse had no choice but to kill him. But one of the passengers told a different story. According to the passenger’s account, Jesse ran up to Westfall and said, “You’re the man I want!”

  No sooner had these words left Jesse’s lips than the outlaw fired his pistol, striking Westfall in the arm. The conductor turned and ran for his life, and Jesse fired two more quick shots. Finally, as Westfall reached the end of the car, another robber, presumably Frank, fired a bullet that dropped the conductor, killing him instantly. Interestingly enough, William Westfall had served as the conductor on the special train that carried the Pinkertons to Clay County the night of the infamous raid on the James farm.

  When Jesse divided the spoils from the Winston robbery, it came to a pathetic $130 each. That would not go very far, and less than two months later, on September 7, the gang hit another Chicago & Alton train at a place deep in the Missouri woods known as Blue Cut, very close to the site of the Glendale robbery. When the express safe proved to be nearly devoid of cash, the six bandits turned to the passengers, relieving the frightened travelers of their money, watches, and jewelry—all that they were unable to hide, that is. A newspaper report placed the loss to the passengers at more than $15,000, although gang members later testified that each man’s share amounted to only about $140.

  By spring 1882, Jesse was ready for another bank. Trains were too much of a crapshoot; one never knew how much the express safes held. But a prosperous bank was bound to have money in the vault. Jesse had in mind the Platte City bank, about thirty miles from the house he now rented on a bluff top in St. Joseph, Missouri. A murder trial was coming up in Platte City, and Jesse planned to hit the bank during the trial. He figured that many of the town’s citizens would be glued to the proceedings at the courthouse. It would be “a fine scheme and would be published all over the United States as a daring robbery,” he boasted. And Jesse would shoot any man who interfered, even if he had to “clean the entire town out.”

  But while Jesse fantasized about his next headline-generating exploit, this gang was really in shambles. Frank had wisely gone back into hiding with his family. Jesse had murdered Ed Miller in October 1881, because Miller had complained about his share of the loot, or because Jesse was afraid of Miller, or because of a quarrel over a woman, or for any number of reasons—no one knows for sure. Some gang members had been caught, and some were lying low, fearing Jesse would do to them what he did to Miller. And unbeknownst to Jesse, the two young men he needed for the Platte City job, who were then living in his home with his family, were conspiring with Missouri’s governor to end the outlaw’s fabled run.

  Governor Thomas T. Crittenden had offered brothers Bob and Charley Ford, aged twenty and twenty-four, respectively, $40,000 for Jesse alive and $10,000 for Jesse dead, the reward money courtesy of the railroads. At least that’s what Charley said later. Either sum was a fortune, but the brothers had ruled out taking Jesse alive and waited for an opportunity to assassinate him. It came on Monday, April 3, 1882, the same day Jesse planned to leave to go to Platte City.

  It was a warm spring morning, and Jesse had removed his coat and holsters with their two revolvers, a Colt and a Smith & Wesson, and laid them on a bed in the front room—he did not want anyone seeing him armed if he stepped outside. Jesse’s wife, Zee, was at work in the kitchen, separated from the front room by the dining room. Their two children were playing in the front yard.

  Jesse sat down and pulled off his tall leather boots. He then looked up at the wall in front of him and remarked to Bob and Charley that Miss Mimms’s picture needed dusting. He was referring to a framed picture of Zee’s niece, Nannie Mimms. Jesse stood up and began to dust the picture but accidentally pushed it out of place.

  “With an exclamation of pettishness,” Jesse slid a chair under the pict
ure, stepped up on it, and began to reposition the frame.

  At that moment, Bob Ford moved between Jesse and his guns, and both brothers drew their revolvers. Bob got his revolver out first, and as he raised and cocked it, Jesse heard the unmistakable metallic hammer clicks and began to turn his head. At that moment, Bob’s .44-caliber bullet crashed into Jesse’s skull.

  Zee heard the loud shot and rushed to the front room. She saw Jesse outstretched on the floor, blood beginning to pool under his head. She next glimpsed Bob and Charley running across the yard, each with a revolver in his hand.

  “Robert, you have done this, come back,” she shouted.

  “I swear to God I didn’t,” Bob answered.

  Zee knelt down next to Jesse and cradled his head in her arms, and she began to cry. He was not dead yet, but his brilliant blue eyes had gone dark. She frantically tried to wipe the blood away, but it kept coming.

  The Ford brothers returned to the front room, and Charley tried to explain to Zee that “a pistol had accidentally gone off.”

  “Yes,” Zee said angrily, “I guess it went off on purpose. You have killed my husband!”

  Jesse in death, St. Joseph, Missouri.

  (Library of Congress)

  Bob and Charley quickly grabbed their hats and also Jesse’s revolvers and gun belt and hurried off for the town’s only telegraph office. Once there, Charley paced nervously up and down as Bob tried several times to write out a telegram.

  “Shall I write it for you?” the operator asked.

  “I can write it myself, all right,” Bob snapped.

  Finally, Bob handed the operator the piece of paper with his message. He wanted to first send it to Governor Crittenden and then to several law officers. It said: “Meet me in Kansas City tonight or tomorrow. I have my man.”

  In spring 1882, Frank James, his wife, Annie, and their four-year-old boy, Robert Franklin, were living in a rented house in Lynchburg, Virginia. The modest factory town in the Blue Ridge Mountain foothills was more than a thousand miles from St. Joseph, and only rarely did Frank hear news from his old stomping grounds. But during the first week of April, Frank’s wife read a stunning headline in the New York Herald that had arrived that morning at the Jameses’ door. Frank had been out walking, and as her husband approached their house, Annie came running toward him with the newspaper in her hands. “Jesse James is killed,” she blurted out.

  “My God,” Frank exclaimed, “where, and how, and who killed him?”

  Frank quickly scanned the article, looked up at Annie, and said, “This is the end.”

  Robert Ford, Jesse’s assassin.

  (Collection of the author)

  If Jesse, who had become obsessively suspicious of nearly everyone he knew and met, could be deceived and shot down like a dog, so, too, could Frank. How could he be certain that a friend, or even a relative, would not find the Missouri governor’s reward too enticing? As Annie later put it, Frank “could not even cut a stick of wood without looking around to see whether or not someone was slipping up behind him to kill him.” It was time to strike a deal with Governor Crittenden, for several reasons.

  There had been a good deal of celebration across Missouri over Jesse’s death, but the governor had been criticized for the way it was accomplished, especially from the state’s “old Confederate element.” Jesse’s widow, Zee, and his two young children, Jesse Edwards and Mary Susan, as well as his mother, Zerelda, became objects of sympathy. So, too, to a certain extent, did Frank. He or his supporters masterfully played on this mood by sending Zerelda and Annie James to make a direct appeal to the governor for clemency. The visit even included a brief meeting with the governor’s wife, who, according to a reporter, “expressed herself pleased with the modest and lady-like bearing of Mrs. Frank James. Mrs. Samuel, she said, appeared to make an effort at composure, and to keep her countenance from wearing a defiant look. She had evidently been weeping.”

  The governor refused to make any comment to the press, other than to tersely say a pardon could not be granted before trial and conviction. But negotiations were going on behind the scenes, and in the thick of them was Frank’s old friend, the powerful newspaperman John Newman Edwards. The criminal charges against Frank in Missouri were one thing, but an even greater worry was that Minnesota would attempt to extradite him once he surrendered. And Minnesotans, disappointed that they’d been robbed of Jesse, desperately wanted Frank.

  Edwards’s negotiations with Crittenden went on for several weeks, but they finally reached an agreement by the end of September. Exactly what that agreement was is unknown. Crittenden always denied that he made any promises. But, at the least, the governor must have indicated that he would not honor a Minnesota requisition. He may even have let it be known that he would look favorably on pardoning Frank if he were convicted in the Missouri courts. But first, Frank had to turn himself in. The capstone of the governor’s campaign to destroy the James gang depended on Frank’s surrender. It would vindicate Crittenden’s methods, as well as give him the glory, when Frank James surrendered to the governor in Jefferson City.

  John Newman Edwards.

  (Robert G. McCubbin Collection)

  On Thursday, October 5, Governor Crittenden invited the state’s officers, several prominent citizens of Jefferson City, and a number of his close friends to his private office. He did not tell his guests why they’d been summoned, although they expected something involving food and drink. At 5:00 P.M., John Newman Edwards stepped through the office door followed by “a young looking man of slight physique, with pale and extremely intelligent face,” recalled the governor. “He walked with a quick, nervous tread and at one glance took in the whole assemblage.”

  Edwards raised his hat in a grand sweep and announced to the gathering, “Gentlemen, this is Mr. Frank James.”

  The governor’s guests did not really know what was happening, and considering that Edwards had a well-deserved reputation for being fond of the bottle, some no doubt thought he was drunk. Most of the men continued with their conversations. Frank immediately stepped forward, hat in hand, and said: “Governor Crittenden, I am Frank James and will now deliver myself into your hands.”

  Frank unbuttoned his coat, and with a movement so quick it seemed more a blur, he slid his hands to his waist, a loud click was heard, and he drew forth a heavy cartridge belt and holstered revolver. Everyone in the room froze as their eyes were instantly fixed on the outlaw. Frank swiftly pulled the pistol, a Model 1875 Remington, from its holster, took hold of the barrel, and presented the gun, butt first, to the governor.

  “I make you a present of this revolver,” Frank said, “and you are the first, except myself, who has laid hold of it since 1864.”

  Obviously, the Model 1875 did not exist in 1864, but Frank’s words, undoubtedly crafted by Edwards, made for a very dramatic presentation, reminiscent of a defeated general presenting his sword to the victor.

  Jackson County still held an indictment against Frank for the 1874 murder of a Pinkerton detective, so his first stop was the county jail in Independence. But it would be some weeks before Frank was arraigned, and even longer before any trial would take place. In the meantime, large crowds flocked to the jail, where they greeted him like a visiting dignitary, or, as one Minnesota newspaper put it, the “darling of Missouri society.”

  He politely shook hands with his visitors and told them he was glad to meet them. Frank’s wife and son were often with him at the jail, and the crowds—and reporters—observed Frank lovingly holding his boy, laughing and playing with the youngster.

  John Newman Edwards, thrilled with how the press and the public fawned over Frank, wrote his friend on October 26:

  Your stay in the jail has been worth millions to you as far as public opinion is concerned. In fact, it was the very best thing that could have happened. You can have no idea of the number of friends you have, nor how rapidly public sentiment is gravitating in your favor. You have borne yourself admirably, and every man w
ho has seen you has become your friend. Do not refuse to see any body, and talk pleasantly to all. . . .

  Be patient. Make no sharp issue. . . . Lose your identity as much as possible, and so sure as you live you will come forth from it all a free man. I do not believe that the Minnesota authorities will send a requisition for you. There is not one scintilla of evidence to base an indictment upon.

  Edwards was overly optimistic regarding the evidence for an indictment. Among the hundreds and hundreds of visitors to the Independence jail were several of Frank’s old friends and acquaintances. But there was one whom Frank failed to recognize. Of course, Frank had only seen him for a few moments six years previous—in the First National Bank of Northfield.

  At the behest of the Rice County attorney, Frank Wilcox had traveled to Independence in November to see if he recognized Frank James as the man who murdered his friend Heywood. Wilcox not only got a good, close look at Frank, but he also had a short conversation with the outlaw, at the same time being careful not to reveal his own identity. Two months later, Wilcox appeared before a Northfield justice of the peace and swore out a complaint and affidavit naming Frank James as the killer of the bank’s acting cashier. The county attorney then forwarded these documents to Governor Lucius F. Hubbard, who signed a requisition for Frank James on January 18, 1883, and forwarded it to Governor Crittenden.

  Crittenden received the Minnesota requisition by mail on February 7. His secretary returned it the same day with a short note explaining that the governor would not surrender Frank James to the authorities of any other state as long as there were charges pending in Missouri. Governor Hubbard filed the requisition away in his papers.