Rube Burrow, king of outlaws, and his band of train robbers

by George W. Agee

Burrow got back at ten o’clock that night to where I was staying, at Jim Cash’s house. He waked me and told me that he had to shoot that man to get his mail. Before Burrow went to the post-office I advised him not to go for the mail, as he had heard that Graves intended to arrest the man. I said, “You might shoot him, and it would cause a great deal of trouble.” But he said he was going to have it, and that it was his and he had paid for it.

After he came to me that night and told me that he had shot him, we then went out and laid in the woods. We left without seeing Cash, and went over about a mile north of Cash’s in the hills, and remained there until that evening about three or four o’clock, when Mr. Cash and John Burrow came from Sulligent. We heard their wagon coming, and got near the road, where we saw them. Cash told us where to go, and he would bring us something to eat next morning. Cash only remained a few minutes; said he had heard Graves was killed. Burrow said nothing about it.

That night we went to a place which was over in another direction, about half a mile from Cash’s. He brought us something to eat, and we remained there one or two days. We then went nearer to Cash’s house, and remained in the bushes for a few days. Then we went to John Burrow’s and stayed in the bushes, probably two or three days, when the men came from Aberdeen. The night they came was a wet and rainy night, and we went in John Burrow’s house to sleep. Next morning, just before day, I went out of the house and discovered three men lying on the ground. I got within four or five feet of them. I did not go back in the house, but went back in the bushes where we had been staying. Burrow waited until daylight, and then came out where I was.

The men who had been scattered around the house were gone. I told Burrow I walked on somebody out there. He said he reckoned not, but I insisted that I did, and when Mrs. Burrow brought us our breakfast we told her about it. She went out and found signs. She walked on the other side of the house, in the lane where there was sand, and she said the sand was all packed with tracks.

We remained there until we heard the men coming back to Burrow’s, and they were right at his house before we got up to walk off. We then walked around there through the bushes, about three hundred yards from John Burrow’s house, and remained through the day. When night came we walked over in another direction about a mile from John Burrow’s and half a mile from Cash’s.

The detectives had Jim Cash, John Burrow and old man Allen Burrow in jail. Rube did not say much about it, only that they were holding them, thinking it would enable them to get us, and that they would turn them out in a few days.

We then depended on the women to bring us food. John Burrow, Jim Cash and old man Burrow were turned out of jail in two or three days, and we then continued around in the bushes until about the latter part of August, Jim Cash bringing us food.

About this time old Mrs. Burrow, Allen Burrow’s wife, went up a few miles north to Crews to see her sister. She got word that Rube Smith wanted to see Rube Burrow. She came back and told Rube Burrow about it, and he decided that he would about as soon see him as not; at the same time he thought there might be some trick in it, but in a day or two he got his sister to go and tell Rube Smith where to meet him. The place agreed on was at the lower corner of the graveyard at Fellowship Church. We went there early on the night we were to meet him. We did not go to the lower corner of the graveyard, but went down in the bushes a piece further. I went to sleep after being there awhile, and Burrow crawled up near the corner to see who would come. He got tired waiting, and came back to where I was and woke me, and I had been awake a few minutes when we heard some one walking. He crawled back as quickly as he could near the lower corner of the graveyard, where we heard the man walking, and got over inside. He saw there was only one man, and he spoke to him. They stayed there a few minutes; I did not hear the conversation; then he brought him up and introduced him to me as his friend, without giving any name, and did not call my name. Burrow told me he had not seen Smith since he was a little boy. I knew Smith was the man we were going to meet, because Rube Burrow had sent his sister after him. We stayed there a few minutes, and then we all three went back to where Burrow and I had been, in the woods half a mile from Cash’s.

We remained there next day, and next night we went nearer Smith’s house. We did not go in sight of the house. It was about ten or twelve miles from Cash’s. We remained there two days. Smith went after food for us, but I do not know where he got it. We then went back near Cash’s again. Remained there one or two days, when we started south, traveling down the Tombigbee River. We did not start for any certain point when we started. Burrow told Smith, just as he told me, how a train could be robbed. Smith agreed to go; said he had no money, and needed some.

We then traveled south to Ellisville, Miss., on the Northeastern Road. It was concluded before we got to Ellisville that we would rob a train on the Northeastern Road, but Rube decided that there was not a great deal of money on that road, and we would go back over to Buckatunna and rob a train there. I should have said that our route to Ellisville was via Buckatunna, Miss. After getting to Ellisville we decided not to rob the Northeastern train, and decided to go back to Buckatunna. We traveled on the road until we got within two or three miles of Buckatunna. Waited over one day in a little out-house. We went out half a mile from the house and got some bread cooked at a white man’s house. I went to get the bread cooked, and made the bargain for it, and Smith went after the bread when it was cooked.