Charles W. Quantrell

by Harrison Trow; John P. Burch

Anxious, however, to give to those of the command who preferred a contrary course the dignity and the formality of official authority, Captain Clements entered Lexington, Mo., on the fifteenth, with Jesse James, Jess Hamlet, Jack Rupe, Willis King and John Vanmeter, bearing a flag of truce. The provost marshall of Lexington, Major J. B. Rogers, was a liberal officer of the old regime, who understood in its fullest and broadest sense that the war was over, and that however cruel or desperate certain organizations or certain bodies of men had been in the past, all proscription of them ceased with their surrender.

Shortly after the surrender, and as Jesse James was riding at the head of a column with the white flag, eight Federals were met who were drunk and who did not see the flag of truce or did not regard it. They fired point blank at the Guerrillas, and were charged in turn and routed with the loss of four killed and two wounded. These eight men were the advance of a larger party of sixty, thirty Johnson County militia, and thirty of the Second Wisconsin Cavalry. These in the counter attack drove back the Guerrillas and followed them fiercely, especially the Second Wisconsin. Vanmeter’s horse was killed but Jack Rupe stopped under fire for him and carried him to safety. James and Clements, although riding jaded horses—the same horses, in fact, which had made the long inhospitable trip up from Texas—galloped steadily away in retreat side by side, and fighting as best they could. Mounted on a superb black horse, a single Wisconsin trooper dashed ahead of the balance and closed in swiftly upon James, who halted to court the encounter. At a distance of ten feet both fired simultaneously and when the smoke cleared away the brave Wisconsin man was dead with a dragoon ball through his heart. Scarcely had this combat closed before another Wisconsin trooper rushed at James, firing rapidly, and closing in as he fired. James killed his horse, and the Federal in turn sent a bullet through James’ right lung. Then the rush passed over and past him. Another volley killed his horse, and as the Johnson County militia galloped by, five fired at him as he lay bleeding under the prostrate horse.

Clements, seeing horse and rider going down together, believed his beloved comrade was killed, and strove thereafter to make good his own escape.

Extricating himself with infinite toil and pain, Jesse James left the road for the woods, pursued by five Federals, who fired at him constantly as they followed. At a distance of two hundred yards he killed the foremost Federal and halted long enough under fire to disencumber himself of his heavy cavalry boots, one of which was a quarter full of blood. He fired again and shattered the pistol arm of the second pursuer, the other three closing up and pressing the maimed Guerrilla as ravenous hounds the torn flanks of a crippled stag. James was getting weaker and weaker. The foremost of the three pursuers could be heard distinctly yelling: “Oh! g——d——n your little soul, we have you at last! Stop, and be killed like a gentleman!”

James did not reply, but when he attempted to lift his trusty dragoon pistol to halt the nearest trooper, he found it too heavy for his hand. But reinforcing his right arm with his left, he fired finally at the Wisconsin man almost upon him and killed him in the saddle.

Perhaps then and there might have been an end made to the career of the desperate Guerrilla if the two remaining pursuers had been Wisconsin Cavalry instead of Johnson County militia; but terrified at the prowess of one who had been so terribly wounded, and who killed even as he reeled along, the militiamen abandoned the chase and James, staggering on four or five hundred yards further, fell upon the edge of a creek and fainted. From the 15th to the 17th he lay alongside the water, bathing his wound continually and drinking vast quantities of water to quench his burning thirst and fever. Towards sunset, on the evening of the 17th, he crawled to a field where a man was plowing, who proved to be a Southern man and a friend.

That night he rode fifteen miles to the house of a Mr. Bowman, held upon a horse by his new-found friend, where he remained, waited upon by Clements and Rupe, until the surrender of Poole, on the 21st, with one hundred and twenty-nine Guerrillas.

Major Rogers was so well satisfied that James would die that he thought it unnecessary to parole him, and so declared. To give him every chance, however, for his life, and to enable him to reach his mother, then a fugitive in Nebraska, Rodgers furnished him with transportation, money and a pass.

A good many of my men surrendered with Poole, while others planned to go to Old Mexico with me and not surrender at all. However, when I came up from the South, planning to go back to Old Mexico and join General Shelby with his old command, some of my best citizen friends insisted on my surrendering and going home, and through their influence arrangements were made with Major Rodgers to meet me at the Dillard farm, on Texas Prairie. There we held a consultation, he and I, for about half a day, regarding my surrender. He promised me protection and my side arms, and the horse that I had, and I surrendered, receiving the protection he had promised me.

I went home and went to work and took my part in trying to make peace with the Federal soldiers, some of whom proved to be very good friends to me, and we lived very peacefully after the war.