Quantrell gathered up a small band of his old comrades in the Guerrilla warfare, at Wigginton's place, five miles west of the town of Waverly, Lafayette county. Among those who obeyed the summons to this rendezvous was Frank James. The Confederate armies had retreated from Missouri. There was no longer a field in that State for the exercise of his peculiar talents. He resolved to go East, to Maryland, and there open up a Guerrilla warfare. It was on the fourth day of December when Quantrell and Frank James and about thirty others of their old followers and comrades left Wigginton's for Kentucky. On the first day of January, 1865, the dreaded Quantrell's band effected the passage of the Mississippi river at Charlie Morris' "Pacific Place," sixteen miles above Memphis. Morris rendered Quantrell valuable service, although at that time he was a frequent visitor to Memphis, and on excellent terms with the Federal authorities at that place. After leaving the river they marched through Big Creek, Portersville, Covington, Tabernacle, Brownsville, Bell's, Gadsden, Humboldt, Milan, McKenzie, and on to Paris. Here they had their first difficulty, and were compelled to mount in hot haste and ride away. From Paris the Guerrillas proceeded to Birmingham, and crossed the Tennessee river. Their route then lay through Canton, Cadiz, and to Hopkinsville. Near this place they came to a house where there were twelve cavalrymen. Nine of them fled, leaving their horses. The three men who remained fought the whole of Quantrell's band for many hours, until preparations were made to burn the house, and, indeed, until the fire was kindled. They then came out and surrendered. Quantrell, of course, appropriated the twelve fresh horses which were in the stable.
There was one Captain Frank Barnette, who commanded a company of Kentucky militia stationed at Hartford, Ohio county. Quantrell at that time was playing the role of a Federal captain. As such, he induced Barnette to go with him on a hunt for Confederate Guerrillas. Barnette carried with this expedition about thirty of his men. Quantrell resolved to assassinate them all, and a way was found to do so during the day. Frank James was made the executioner of Captain Barnette, and as he rode by him when they entered a stream of water at a ford, as the sun went down behind the western hills, Frank James fired the fatal shot, and Barnette fell dead from his horse, dying the clear waters of the brook red with his blood.
The career of the Guerrillas was drawing to a close in Kentucky as well as in Missouri. Quantrell, and Mundy, and Marion were constantly hunted by dashing cavalry officers.
The disguise thrown off, the Federal officers knew that work must be done in order to stop the Guerrillas, and they were not slow in engaging in the undertaking. Major Bridgewater and Captain Terrell were untiring in their pursuit of Mundy, Marion and Quantrell. Frank James visited an uncle, and was not with Quantrell when that chieftain fought his last fight at Wakefield's house, near the little post village of Smiley, Kentucky. That day Quantrell's band was nearly annihilated. Subsequently, Henry Porter gathered up the survivors of the once formidable Guerrilla band, and surrendered with them at Samuel's depot, Nelson county, Kentucky, on the 25th of July, 1865. Among those who surrendered was Frank James. After the surrender, Frank remained in Kentucky because of a deed which he had performed in Missouri about a year before. There lived in the northeast corner of Clay county a man named Alvas Dailey. He had made himself very obnoxious to the James Boys, and Frank resolved to rid the world of his presence. One night he went to Alvas Dailey's place, and the next morning he was found dead with two bullet holes through his head. Frank James had assassinated him.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BRANDENBURG, KY., TRAGEDY.
Frank James went down to Wakefield's house, where the noted Guerrilla chieftain, Quantrell, lay wounded unto death. Had the terrible scenes of the hard, cruel Guerrilla warfare through which he had passed, obliterated from the breast of Frank James every tender emotion? It appeared not, when he bent over the white face of the wounded chief with its traces of suffering and anguish. He shed tears like rain. He loved his leader, and did not hesitate to manifest that regard. Knowing that the hand of death was upon him, Quantrell advised his disheartened followers to accept Henry Porter's leadership and surrender themselves to the Federal authorities. It might have been because their dying commander desired it, that such men as Frank James and his companions so readily consented to lay down the weapons of war. At any rate, the formal submission of the Guerrillas was made.
In Missouri, the terrible warfare which had been waged had left scars wide and deep and bloody, and they were yet recent when the banners of the contending armies were furled. At any rate, it so appeared to Frank James, and he did not return at once to the State of his nativity. The part he had played had been a conspicuous one, and, on account of Centralia, he was on the list of the proscribed, and when the war ended, so far as actual hostilities were concerned, it had not ended, so far as Frank James was interested, because he was not restored to the peaceful pursuits which he had abandoned when first the war cry arose in the land. He still lingered in Kentucky.
The conduct of Frank James for some time after the surrender indicated a desire on his part to become once more a quiet, peaceable citizen. He was extremely circumspect in behavior, and demeaned himself in a most unobtrusive way. Such was the promise of the new life after the years of bitter strife in the late Guerrilla. But he was not proof against the assaults of passion. One day the old flame burst out anew with consuming fury. Frank had started away from the State and stopped at the town of Brandenburg. It was several months after the remnants of the desperate band which Quantrell led into Kentucky had surrendered to the Federal authorities. But the country was still in an unsettled condition. Bad men who had found occupation in hovering about the verge of battle and plundering the ghastly victims of war ere the last feeble breath had departed from their pale lips, were now idle and had become wandering thugs in the highways of the land. Horse thieves and bestial monsters were to be found prowling about in nearly every community, and more especially in the border States. A large number of people, and those, too, who had served in the Confederate, as well as those who had been soldiers in the Union armies, looked upon the men who had been with Quantrell, and Mundy, Magruder and Marion, Anderson, Farris, Hickman and other noted Guerrillas, with suspicion. Many persons looked upon them as men of evil antecedents—as thieves.