Shot All to Hell

by Mark Lee Gardner

  The staffs of several historical societies, museums, and libraries were most helpful, including Elizabeth Beckett and Liz Murphy at the James Farm; Katherine Keil at the Missouri State Museum; Matthew Anderson at the Minnesota Historical Society; my sister, Terri Gardner, at Watkins Woolen Mill State Historic Site; Susan Garwood at the Rice County Historical Society; Tim Blevins and Dennis Daily in the Regional History Department of the Pikes Peak Library District; and also the staff of the Interlibrary Loan Department at PPLD.

  During breaks in my Missouri research trips, my uncle Curly Gardner of Pattonsburg, Missouri, always made sure I had a good time at the weekly trap shoots near his home. My cousin, David Wayne Gardner of Breckenridge, Missouri, made sure there was a place for my boy and me to hunt wild turkeys, as did my old schoolmate, Dave Greenwood, and Montie Maddux. And friend Charlie Miller of Hamilton, Missouri, kept me supplied with his fine handmade turkey calls. My pursuit of the James-Younger gang is over for now, but I’ll still be returning to Missouri every spring to chase gobblers.

  My mom and dad, Claude and Venita Gardner, of Breckenridge, Missouri, took me and my sisters to see Jesse James’s St. Joseph, Missouri, home when we were children. I still remember the guide pointing to the chips in the front room’s floor and explaining that a former owner would sprinkle chicken blood there and allow visitors to chip off a piece of “Jesse’s blood.” As I researched this book, Mom and Dad gave me a place to stay and sometimes a vehicle for my trips across the state.

  While in Northfield, Duane and Joan Olson provided a room and welcome companionship, as well as research leads—Joan was formerly the archivist at the Northfield Historical Society. I also want to acknowledge the Olsons’ daughter, Ruth Olson Khan, of Colorado Springs, for first putting me in touch with Chip DeMann, introducing me to her parents, and showing my family a great time during Defeat of Jesse James Days.

  For various kind favors, many thanks go to David Dary, Dale Blanshan, Nancy Hitt, Nancy Samuelson, Shirley Wells, Roy Young, the late Mark Dworkin, Jerry and Judy Crandall, Mike Pitel, Judith Sims, Mindy Smith Heine, Dr. James Bailey, Quinn Jacobson, Paul Seydor, Marc Simmons, Ron Kil, Rex Rideout, Andy Morris, and Jack and Mary Ann Davis.

  My literary agent and good friend, Jim Donovan of Dallas, Texas, continues to provide excellent advice, whether it be about my writing, books, or a good movie to watch. Thanks also to Jim’s assistant, Melissa Shultz.

  My editor at William Morrow, Henry Ferris, is, I’m convinced, the best editor in the business. He knows what makes a great book (a lot harder than it seems), and he’s a great guy, too. Also at William Morrow, I would like to thank editorial assistant Cole Hager, my publicist Camille Collins, designer Jamie Lynn Kerner, and production editor Tamara Arellano. My copy editor, Laurie McGee, did another exceptional job. I would also like to acknowledge mapmaker Chris Erichsen.

  Lastly, thanks to my family, Katie, Christiana, and Vance, for the love and support they give me—and for being so good about vacations that always seem to be tied to a current writing project.

  Mark Lee Gardner

  Cascade, Colorado

  November 26, 2012

  NOTES

  One: Rocky Cut

  The Rocky Cut holdup is one of the best-documented train robberies of the nineteenth century. My narrative is drawn, in part, from the reports in the following publications: Boonville Daily Advertiser, July 8 and 11, 1876; Boonville Weekly Advertiser, July 14, 1876; Sedalia Daily Democrat, July 8 and 9, 1876; Weekly Sedalia Times, July 13, 1876; St. Louis Republican, July 9 and 10, 1876; St. Louis Globe-Democrat, July 10 and 11, 1876; Kansas City Daily Journal of Commerce, July 9, 1876; and Kansas City Times, July 9, 1876. A detailed account, largely lifted from the July 10 Globe-Democrat, appears in the August 1876 issue of the Expressman’s Monthly. The eyewitness account of passenger Christine Peabody is in the Globe-Democrat for July 13, 1876. Baggage master Louis Peter “Pete” Conklin was interviewed by the St. Louis Republican shortly after the holdup, but he was also interviewed nearly fifty years later by Jesse James biographer Robertus Love. See Love’s The Rise and Fall of Jesse James (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1926), 178–185. Conklin believed that Jesse James and Cole Younger were among those robbers inside the cars and Frank James was outside, giving orders to the others.

  Just east of Otterville, Missouri, on State Highway A, a roadside park on the bluff overlooking Rocky Cut features a granite marker noting the famed robbery.

  The reader may wonder at the repeated cursing by the robbers. The Expressman’s Monthly commented that the “whole affair was redolent of profanity.” The James-Younger gang was composed of hard men used to course language, but their swearing also served as another way to intimidate their victims.

  For the Pinkerton attack on the James farm, I have relied upon the Liberty Tribune, Jan. 29, 1875; Robert J. Wybrow, “My Arm was Hanging Loose”: The Pinkerton Attack on the James’ Family Home (London: The English Westerners’ Society, 2005); and T. J. Stiles, Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), 277–284.

  For the Roscoe gunfight, see The History of Henry and St. Clair Counties, Missouri (St. Joseph, MO: National Historical Company, 1883), 930–934; the Leavenworth Weekly Times, Mar. 26, 1874; the Liberty Tribune, Mar. 27, 1874; and the Daily Inter-Ocean, Chicago, Mar. 23 and Apr. 1, 1874.

  For the Edmund Graves arrest, see the St. Louis Missouri Republican, July 10, 1876; the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, July 11, 1876; and the Kansas City Daily Journal of Commerce, July 11, 1876.

  For the accidental killing of Margaret Harris, see the Kansas City Times, July 27, 1876; the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, July 26, 1876; the Weekly Sedalia Times, July 27, 1876; the Boonville Daily Advertiser, July 25, 1876; and the Sedalia Daily Democrat, Aug. 18, 1876. Albert Harris subsequently filed a lawsuit against the Adams Express Company, the United States Express Company, and the Missouri Pacific Railroad for $5,000 in damages for the death of his wife. Margaret Harris is buried in the La Monte Cemetery.

  A physical description of Hobbs Kerry is found in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Aug. 4, 1876; and in Register of Inmates, Missouri State Penitentiary, Vol. F, Missouri State Archives, Jefferson City. Kerry is enumerated as “Burr Carey” in the 1860 U.S. census for Granby township, Newton County, Missouri. My narrative of Kerry’s arrest and subsequent confession is drawn from the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Aug. 5, 10, 13, and 28, 1876; the Daily Inter-Ocean, Chicago, Aug. 9, 1876; the Kansas City Times, Aug. 13 and 15, 1876; and the St. Louis Missouri Republican, Aug. 13, 1876. Kerry was released from prison in the spring of 1880 and, two years later, was living somewhere in the East. After that, he disappears from the record. See the Kansas City Journal, Oct. 9, 1882.

  James McDonough’s career as St. Louis’s chief of police is briefly covered in Allen E. Wagner, Good Order and Safety: A History of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, 1861–1906 (St. Louis: Missouri History Museum, 2008). Criticism of McDonough’s handling of the Kerry arrest and confession is as quoted in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Aug. 17, 1876. McDonough was also taken to task in the Sedalia Daily Democrat, Aug. 27, 1876.

  The Suppression of Outlawry Act is in Laws of Missouri: General and Local Laws Passed at the Adjourned Session of the 27th General Assembly, Begun and Held at the City of Jefferson, Wednesday, January 7, 1874 (Jefferson City: Regan & Carter, 1874), 5–6.

  Two: Band of Brothers

  The best source for Henry Washington Younger and his family is Marley Brant, The Outlaw Youngers: A Confederate Brotherhood (Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 1992).

  Cole Younger’s recollections of his father as a Unionist are in his The Story of Cole Younger by Himself (Chicago: The Henneberry Co., 1903), 16.

  For the jayhawker raids against Henry Younger’s property, see Brant, 20; The History of Jackson County, Missouri (Kansas City, MO: Union Historical Company, 1881), 272; and Albert Castel, “Kansas Jayhawking Raids into Western Missouri in 1861,” Missouri Historical Review 54 (Oct. 1959
): 2.

  Cole’s run-in with the militia officer, Captain Irvin Walley, is recounted in The Story of Cole Younger by Himself, 15–16; and “Cole Younger’s Career as Reviewed by Himself,” the Minneapolis Journal, Mar. 4, 1903.

  Cole’s story of his father’s death is in The Story of Cole Younger by Himself, 8–9. Irvin Walley and his men are thought to have been the murderers of Henry Younger. See Brant, 30.

  For the burning of the Younger home, see Brant, 42; The Story of Cole Younger by Himself, 11; and “Cole Younger’s Career as Reviewed by Himself.”

  For the collapse of the women’s prison, see Charles F. Harris, “Catalyst for Terror: The Collapse of the Women’s Prison in Kansas City,” Missouri Historical Review 89 (Apr. 1995): 290–306; John McCorkle, Three Years with Quantrill (1914; reprint, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 120–123; and The Story of Cole Younger by Himself, 9. Cole claimed that his two cousins had been arrested and confined in the prison because they had witnessed the murder of his father the year previous.

  For the Lawrence Raid/Massacre, see Richard Cordley, Pioneer Days in Kansas (Boston: The Pilgrim Press, 1903), 178–220; Edward E. Leslie, The Devil Knows How to Ride: The True Story of William Clarke Quantrill and His Confederate Raiders (New York: Random House, 1996), 193–244; and John N. Edwards, Noted Guerillas, or the Warfare on the Border (St. Louis, MO: Bryan, Brand & Co., 1877), 191–199. Quantrill’s “kill” order is as quoted in William Elsey Connelley, Quantrill and the Border Wars (Cedar Rapids, IA: The Torch Press, 1910), 343.

  John Newman Edwards, a James-Younger gang apologist, makes the claim that Cole saved a dozen lives in Lawrence, adding that the bushwhacker “killed none save in open and manly battle.” Noted Guerillas, 196.

  For Cole’s “secret mission” and dubious adventures as an Indian fighter, see The Story of Cole Younger by Himself, 50–51; and “Cole Younger’s Career as Reviewed by Himself.” J. W. Buel wrote that Cole’s secret mission was to recruit a Confederate regiment in California. Buel’s source was almost certainly Cole, and the story is just as bogus as the others Cole spun. See Buel’s The Border Outlaws . . . (St. Louis, MO: Historical Publishing Co., 1882), 110.

  Little is known of Jim Younger’s service with Quantrill, but see Noted Guerillas, 282 and 401; Three Years with Quantrill, 195–196; Quantrill and the Border Wars, 457; and Paul R. Petersen, Quantrill of Missouri: The Making of a Guerrilla Warrior, The Man, the Myth, the Soldier (Nashville: Cumberland House, 2003), 401–402.

  An interesting account of Quantrill’s foray into Kentucky by Allen Parmer, brother-in-law of the James boys, is found in “Quantrill’s Raiders Hold Reunion and Recall Wild Exploits,” New York Tribune, Sept. 5, 1920. For the surrender of the last of Quantrill’s men at Samuels Depot, see Quantrill and the Border Wars, 478–479. Frank’s parole document from Samuel’s Depot, dated July 26, 1865, is reproduced in Gary Hendershott catalog 84 (Oct. 1994), 2.

  Frank James gave his version of the events at and near Centralia in an interview published in the St. Louis Republic, Aug. 5, 1900. It is this same article that contains Frank’s explanation as to why the bushwhackers never took prisoners. For more on the Centralia Massacre and the Battle of Centralia, see Noted Guerillas, 293–302; and Albert Castel and Thomas Goodrich, Bloody Bill Anderson: The Short, Savage Life of a Civil War Guerrilla (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1998), 79–95. Frank James always said it was brother Jesse who killed the Federal commander, Major Andrew V. E. Johnston. John Newman Edwards also identified Jesse as Johnston’s killer in his Noted Guerillas, although Edwards was not present at the engagement.

  For Robert James, see “A Dead Desperado,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Apr. 4, 1882; “The James Family,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Apr. 6, 1882; the Kansas City Journal, Apr. 6, 1882; Jesse James Jr., Jesse James, My Father (Cleveland: The Arthur Westbrook Co., 1906), 21–23; and Ted P. Yeatman, Frank and Jesse James: The Story Behind the Legend (Nashville, TN: Cumberland House, 2000), 25–26.

  Zerelda James, her memorable personality, and her marriages have been chronicled often. Only in recent years has information been published on her prenuptial agreement with Dr. Reuben Samuel. See Yeatman, 27–28.

  Frank James’s description of the conditions in Clay County at the outbreak of the Civil War is as quoted in Edward H. Smith, “Frank James, Bandit, as He Saw Himself,” The Sunday Press Illustrated Magazine Section, the Pittsburgh Press, Mar. 21, 1915.

  A brief but valuable synopsis of the Civil War careers of both Frank and Jesse James is found in History of Clay and Platte Counties, Missouri (St. Louis: National Historical Company, 1885), 266–268.

  Frank James’s statement that the Federals drove Jesse to join the bushwhackers is as quoted in the Pittsburgh Press, Mar. 21, 1915.

  My account of the violent episode at the James farm in May 1863 draws upon the research of Yeatman, 38–40. For the James family version of the incident, which differs considerably from the militia officer account quoted by Yeatman, see the Pittsburgh Press, Mar. 21, 1915; Jesse James, My Father, 28–30; and the St. Paul Dispatch, Oct. 27, 1876.

  The Frank James quote on Jesse “out for blood” is from the Pittsburgh Press, Mar. 21, 1915.

  The story of Jesse shooting off the tip of his middle finger and how it led to his nickname is from History of Clay and Platte Counties, Missouri, 268.

  Jesse’s wounding by the German Unionist is from Yeatman, 53; and History of Clay and Platte Counties, Missouri, 267.

  For Jesse’s second wounding and his surrender, see Yeatman, 75–77; and Jim Cummins, Jim Cummins the Guerilla (Excelsior Springs, MO: The Daily Journal, 1908), 49. The James family always claimed Jesse was on his way to Lexington to surrender when he was attacked and wounded. See History of Clay and Platte Counties, Missouri, 268; and Noted Guerillas, 333–335. The doctor who treated Jesse’s wound, Dr. Joseph M. Wood, provides interesting details about his patient in an interview in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Apr. 6, 1882. An account by a Third Wisconsin veteran who claimed to have fired the shot that wounded Jesse is in the Columbus Journal, Columbus, NE, Mar. 2, 1904.

  The Frank James “we were outlaws” quote is from the Pittsburgh Press, Mar. 21, 1915.

  Cole Younger’s comments about the “vigilant committees” is from “Cole Younger’s Career as Reviewed by Himself.”

  The Iron Clad Oath is quoted from Article 2, Section 3 of the Missouri Constitution of 1865.

  For the robbery of the Clay County Savings Association, Liberty, see the Liberty Tribune, Feb. 16, 1866; Robert J. Wybrow, “Horrid Murder & Heavy Robbery”: The Liberty Bank Robbery, 13 February 1866 (London: The English Westerners’ Society, 2003); and Yeatman, 85–86.

  For the robbery of the Daviess County Savings Association, Gallatin, see The History of Daviess County, Missouri (Kansas City: Birdsall & Dean, 1882), 498–502; Freeport Journal, Illinois, Dec. 15, 1869; Chillicothe Weekly Constitution, Missouri, Feb. 14, 1901; Jim Muehlberger, “Showdown with Jesse James,” Wild West 22 (Feb. 2010): 50–53; and Yeatman, 95–97. It is not a given that Frank James was the second robber at Gallatin. John Newman Edwards told journalist Hugh W. Sawyer that it was Jim Anderson, brother of Bloody Bill, who participated in the holdup with Jesse. Edwards also related that the pair had gone to Gallatin specifically to murder Samuel P. Cox. Considering the degree to which revenge was a part of the makeup of the bushwhackers—and especially Jesse—this makes sense. See Hugh W. Sawyer, “Gallatin Trial,” typescript, folder 2, Homer Croy Papers, Western Historical Manuscript Collection, Columbia, MO.

  “They are outlaws, but they are not criminals,” is from Noted Guerillas, 451.

  For the 1875 amnesty bill for the Jameses and the Youngers, see the Daily Inter-Ocean, Chicago, Mar. 25, 1875.

  The best source for Clelland D. “Clell” Miller and his family is Ruth Coder Fitzgerald, Clell and Ed Miller: Members of the James Gang (Fredericksburg, VA: privately printed, 1987).

  For Clell at the “Battle of Albany,” Oct. 27, 1864, se
e the Atchison Daily Champion, May 25, 1886; and Noted Guerillas, 326. The story of Colonel Cox saving Miller’s life is from Henry Clay McDougal, Recollections, 1844–1909 (Kansas City, MO: Franklin Hudson Publishing Co., 1910), 30–31.

  Clell’s capture after the Corydon bank robbery was reported in the Liberty Tribune, Mar. 8, 1872. The subsequent trial is well covered by Fitzgerald, Clell and Ed Miller. Wayne County, IA, District Court Record Book D, p. 38, records the $150 award to Miller for his witnesses. A transcript is in the Clell Miller File, Milton F. Perry Library, James Farm, Kearney, MO.

  Newspaper accounts of the 1874 Muncie train robbery are in the Leavenworth Weekly Times, Dec. 10 and 17, 1874.

  The botched attempt to capture Clell near Carrollton, MO, is chronicled in a colorful article, “Fooling with a Desperado!,” from the Carrollton Journal, Apr. 2, 1875; clipping in box 7, folder 17, Records of Charles Henry Hardin, 1875–1877 (RG 3.22), Missouri State Archives, Jefferson City.

  For Charlie Pitts (Samuel Wells), see Shirley Wells, “The Real ‘Charlie Pitts,’” James-Younger Gang Journal 17 (Summer 2010): 6–7.

  Cole Younger is the source for Margaret Wells and her son Sam (Charlie Pitts) discovering the body of Henry Washington Younger. See The Story of Cole Younger by Himself, 8–9.

  The death of Charlie’s father, George Washington “Wash” Wells, is described in Petersen, Quantrill of Missouri, 187–188; and the Liberty Tribune, Oct. 20, 1876.

  Charlie’s wife, Jennie, describes their life while working with the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad in a WPA interview from 1937. See Jennie Lamar interview, #7631, Vol. 52, Indian-Pioneer Papers, Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma Library, Norman.

  The physical description of Pitts is from the St. Paul Dispatch, Sept. 25, 1876, and surviving photographs, one of which is from the famous postmortems, illustrated in this book.