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LIFE AND ADVENTURES
OF
FRANK AND JESSE JAMES

THE

NOTED WESTERN OUTLAWS.

BY

HON. J. A. DACUS, Ph. D.

"Strange murmurs fill my tingling ears,
Bristles my hair, my sinews quake,
At this dread tale of reckless deeds."

ILLUSTRATED.

ST. LOUIS:
W. S. BRYAN, Publisher,
602 North Fourth Street.
San Francisco: A. L. BANCROFT & CO., 721 Market Street.
Indianapolis: FRED. L. HORTON & CO., 66 East Market Street.
Chicago: J. S. GOODMAN, 142 LaSalle Street.
1880.

Copyrighted, 1879, by W. S. BRYAN

JESSE JAMES.

FROM A LATE PHOTOGRAPH.

Copyrighted, 1880, by W. S. Bryan. The copyright laws will be rigidly enforced against any person making or disposing of copies of this picture.

Frank James. Jesse James.

Engraved from Photographs taken about the close of the war.

CONTENTS.

Illustrations

Quantrell's Last Fight. [Page [64].]

LIFE AND ADVENTURES
OF
FRANK AND JESSE JAMES.

CHAPTER I.
THE JAMES FAMILY.

"He was a godly man,

Gentle and loving. He sought to save

From mortal shame and eternal death,

Forms laid in the silence of the grave."

The Rev. Robert James, the father of Frank and Jesse, was a native of Kentucky. His parents were quiet, respectable people, belonging to the middle class of society. Their desire was to raise up their children "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." Being themselves persons of intelligence and culture, far above the average of their neighbors in those days, the parents of Rev. Robert James resolved to give him as good an education as the facilities accessible to them would permit. Accordingly, Robert was early placed in a neighboring school, and made such progress as to gladden the hearts of his parents, and call forth auguries of future distinction from the friends and neighbors of the family. Robert James was a moral, studious youth, much given to reflection on subjects of a religious character. Before he had attained his eighteenth year, he had made an open profession of faith in the Christian religion, and united himself with a Baptist church, of which his parents were members. After passing through the various grades of an academic course, young James entered as a student of Georgetown College, Kentucky. Resolving to follow the profession of a minister, he commenced the study of Theology, was licensed to preach, and began his ministry in his twentieth year. Even then he was regarded as a youth of decided culture and more than ordinary ability.

While yet a young man, Rev. Mr. James decided to remove to the then new State of Missouri. He settled on a farm in Clay county, and commenced in earnest the onerous duties of a pioneer preacher. His labors were not unrewarded. He soon had the satisfaction of garnering the harvest of his sowing. A congregation was gathered and a church organized in Clay county, called New Hope, which is still in existence. For some years the Rev. Mr. James ministered to the people who had been gathered by his exertions, with great acceptance. Nor were his labors confined to the spiritual welfare of the people of New Hope. He visited many distant churches, and preached with great acceptance in many places.

Old citizens of Clay county still entertain pleasant recollections of the earnest, God-fearing pastor, who went about only to do good, by cheering the despondent, consoling the sorrowful, assisting the needy, upholding the weak, confirming the hesitating, and pointing the way of salvation to the penitent. Everywhere, in that region of country, he was held in the very highest esteem. So the years of his early manhood passed away while he was engaged in the commendable effort to better the condition, by purifying the moral nature of his friends and neighbors.

In 1850, following in the footsteps of hundreds of others, Rev. Robert James bade adieu to his family, friends and neighbors, and set out for "the golden land" of California, on a prospecting tour. We do not know what motives actuated him in making this move, nor is it pertinent to this relation. He went away, and was destined to return no more. Not long after his arrival in California, whither he had been preceded by a brother, Rev. Mr. James was stricken by a mortal disease which terminated his life in a short time. Far away from home, where the tall sequoias rear their lofty branches above the plain, on a gentle slope which catches the last beams of the setting sun, they laid the minister to rest, in a soil unhallowed by the dust of kinsmen, in a grave unbedewed by the tears of loved ones left behind.

When yet a young man, Rev. Mr. James was united in marriage to Miss Zerelda Cole, a native of Scott county, Kentucky. Mrs. James is a lady of great determination of mind, and a masculine force of character. Those who knew the couple in the old days seem to think that the minister and his wife were an ill-assorted pair. He was gentle and amiable, while, on the contrary, his wife was strong in passion, and of a very bitter, unrelenting temper—traits of character prominently developed in her sons, Frank and Jesse. It is said that the home-life of the minister was not as smooth as it might have been, had he been united with a companion of a less passionate and exacting temper. With his domestic life, however, we have nothing to do, except in so far as the home influences thrown around his children gave direction to their character, and tinged their mental disposition. Whatever home-cares he might have had, the public has little cause to inquire now. He went down to death with a stainless name long years before his sons entered upon a career of crime, and made their names a terror to those who care to obey the dictates of justice, love and mercy.

Mrs. Zerelda James was left a widow, having the responsible charge of a family of four small children. She was not left unprovided for, as Mr. James was a prudent, careful man of business, and had already established a comfortable home. With that courage and determination which is so prominently manifested in her character, Mrs. James commenced the battle of life as the head of the family. With all the favoring circumstances, the task assumed by her was not a light one. But she was equal to the performance of any required service.

The years went by, and Frank and Jesse and their sisters were advancing toward manhood and womanhood. The mother was not neglectful of their mental training, and the children were very regular in their attendance at a neighboring district school.

So passed away six years of Mrs. Zerelda James' widowhood, and life became lonely; the children were growing up, and her cares and responsibilities seemed to increase as they advanced in age and stature. Though not of a romantic disposition, the widow James was yet young enough in years and comely enough in person to attract to her side more than one substantial citizen on matrimony intent.

Among the number of those who sought to produce a favorable impression on the widow's susceptible heart, was Dr. Reuben Samuels, who, like herself, was a native of Kentucky. To him she was not indifferent. She listened to his plea, and in 1857 they were united in marriage, near Kearney, Clay county, Missouri. Dr. Samuels at once undertook to perform the duty of a parent toward her children.

Thus the career of the noted outlaws, the James Boys, was commenced, under auspices fully as favorable as fell to the fortune of any of the boys of their own age, in their country home. And so the years rolled on, and the boys were approaching the estate of manhood; while fate was shaping them to perform a part in those troublous times, of which they dreamed not in the days of boyhood.

One of the sisters of Frank and Jesse died just as she was approaching the estate of womanhood. She is represented as having been a beautiful and amiable child, who was called away from the world while life was still beautiful and all the promises of the future bright. Miss Susan James was arrested with her mother in the early part of the war and confined in the jail at St. Joseph for several months. Afterward she went to Nebraska and remained there for more than a year. She married a gentleman named Parmer, several years ago, and with her husband, resided for a time in Sherman, Texas. From that place she removed to Henriette, and was living there in 1879.

Mrs. Samuels had an eight year old son killed in January, 1875, when the detectives attacked the Samuels' house. A daughter, a half sister of Frank and Jesse, remains unmarried, and resides with Dr. and Mrs. Samuels.

CHAPTER II.
FRANK AND JESSE.

"There will be storms

In causeless, strange abuse, and the strong breath

Of busy mouths will blow upon our course."

Of prophecy, many have a doubt. And yet there are prophecies from simple lips, and warnings from babes and sucklings, which if we could but interpret aright, might assist us to change the whole currents of life in a fellow being.

Deeper than fear or doubting men are thrown into the great vortex of the world's thought and actions. What fortune or fate shall come to them, no one can tell. Every billow in that maelstrom seeks its own wild independence; and the shores of that tumultuous deep—which we call human society—are strewn along with the dull wrecks of what were once glorious schemes—the bright day dreams—once borne buoyantly upon the topmost waves. These, and myriads of other schemes and hopes, are at last remanded to lie under the dark waters of the Sea of Fate, hidden so completely that no thought of man shall ever again recall them to memory.

It is perhaps best so. It would be equivalent to the expulsion of all the joys of life to have opened before us the book of the future, wherein is recorded the deeds which must be performed, and the sorrows which shall fall, dark and impenetrable—extinguishing every scintillation of joyous hope.

It was best for Robert James, the minister, that he was called home before the shadows fell, before the prophet's voice gave warning of the things which should come to pass. It was well he was spared the revelation, so that when the summons came, in peace he drew around him the drapery of his couch, and while the brilliant sun of an undimmed faith shone full upon him, he laid aside the load of life, and went into the presence of the Deity, satisfied with a career which had more of love toward mankind than displeasure at the conduct of the world.

When their father was laid away in a far-off grave, Frank was but a "wee boy," and Jesse still an infant. From him they had received few lessons to guide them through the thorny ways of life. Their widowed mother became their counsellor and teacher. From her they had inherited their most pronounced traits of character—strong-willed, courageous, self-assertive, and unrelenting toward those who had given cause of offense.

Those who knew them during the days of their childhood and youth, differ widely in opinion concerning the character of the promise they gave of their future course in life. Some say they were "nice, well behaved boys," others that "they were about like other boys," and yet another class say that they were "bad boys, very bad boys from the beginning." There is no doubt that they were sometimes "a little wild," as their best friends admit. We have accounts of some of their childish actions which indicate that even in early life they manifested a decided inclination to be malicious, not to say heartless and cruel.

The step-father of the boys seems to be a man of amiable disposition, and his government over the children was far from being after the order of the traditional step-father. The consequence was Frank and Jesse advanced to the years of maturity without any of those healthful, restraining influences which moralists assure us are essential to the proper development of the higher qualities of manhood. Be that as it may, we have been assured by persons of the highest respectability, who were acquainted with them long before the commencement of the war between the States, that "they were their own masters" at a very early age, save only when their strong-willed mother asserted her prerogative to dominate over them, which, by the way, she seldom did. Among the boys of the neighborhood they were not without friends. But among them, they were leaders. Aside from a willingness on the part of other boys to accept such leadership, the Jameses were exceedingly disagreeable, and generally attempted to enforce a due recognition of their superiority. Such were the great outlaws as boys.

It is related of them, that when Frank was thirteen, and Jesse eleven years of age respectively, they met a boy with whom at some previous time they had engaged in a childish wrangle. The lad who had incurred their ill-will was thirteen years old, well developed, and possessed of courage and determination. But he was not able to engage successfully in a contest with the brothers. It was in the spring time. The streams were full and deep. The boys met in a large forest. The Jameses attacked their neighbor, and succeeded in administering to him a severe beating. Not content with this, they procured thongs of tough bark, bound their victim securely and threw him into a deep pool in a neighboring stream. Several times was this ducking process repeated, to the great terror of the boy, and the infinite satisfaction of his tormentors. After satiating their vengeance in this way, until thoroughly wearied, the young tyrants drew him out and tied him securely to a tree in the midst of the gloomy forest. It was in the morning when they left him there, and he was not released until nearly dusk, when a neighbor, who was out in pursuit of squirrels, heard his cries and went to his assistance. The boy had suffered so much, that he was thrown into a fever, from which he did not recover in many weeks. These tyrant boys were the predecessors of the guerrillas and the outlaws.

It was an early ambition of Frank and Jesse to have and use fire-arms. Dr. Samuels presented each of them with a small double-barrel shot-gun, and the accompanying accoutrements of the sportsman. The day the gift was received was a proud and happy one to the boys. They soon learned to use them, and in a brief time they were expert shots, and many feathered songsters ceased to sing forever before their unerring aim. Rabbits, squirrels and other small game were their prey.

In the Woods with their new Shot-Guns.

But shot-guns lost their novelty after awhile, and they yearned for pistols. They had read or heard of the skill of the adventurers away out on the borders, and they dreamed of rivaling them some day. At last by dint of self-denial and persistent saving, Frank and Jesse were made glad by an opportunity which was offered to procure pistols, on the occasion of a visit to St. Joseph, which they were permitted to make in company with Dr. and Mrs. Samuels.

We may safely conclude that the pistols were not of the pattern which the outlaws of the present day most esteem. But they had pistols, and the neighbors in the vicinity of the Samuels' residence very speedily became painfully aware of the fact, by the perpetual reports of their weapons while they were out "at practice," which was nearly every hour of daylight. This constant practice gave them proficiency in the use of such weapons, and long before they had arrived at manhood's estate they were masters of the art of pistol shooting.

They became noted throughout the neighborhood for their skill. So accurate had become their aim that they would measure a distance of fifteen paces from a tree standing in an open space, and commence walking around it, firing glancing shots as they walked, and so continuing until they had completely girdled the tree. Later in life they acquired such skill that they would ride at a full gallop around a circle, with a tree in its center, at a distance of seventy-five paces, firing as they rode, and entirely girdle the tree with revolver bullets, never losing a single shot. Thus Frank and Jesse had become masters of an art which rendered them dangerous foes when the days of turmoil came.

Girdling a Tree.

So the years passed away, and the lads had already grown to be tall and shapely, when the tocsin of civil war rang throughout the land. They were not then old enough to enter at once upon the duties incumbent upon soldiers. But they were growing apace, and the days of strife and bloodshed were not destined to pass away ere they grew strong enough to ride with the strongest, and bold enough to face danger with the most daring.

We may well suppose that all their dreams at that momentous period were of war, bloodshed, and all the concomitant horrors of warfare. The shadow of Destiny had fallen athwart their pathway when the first gun was fired—the pandemonium of passion, still dormant in their breasts, was ready to be kindled in all its baleful fury.

CHAPTER III.
IN THE GUERRILLA CAMP.

"Woe, ah, bitter woe!

The suffering mother and the moaning babe

The aged feeling in their veins the blood

Chilling forever."

At last the war-cloud, which had been hovering for months over our fair land, burst with a fury that was appalling. Cheeks were blanched and hearts were made tremulous in agony. Missouri was destined to realize a season of despair, such as has fallen upon few people in modern times. It was neighbor against neighbor, kinsman against kinsman, brother against brother, and vengeful hate burning up all that was merciful and good in human nature. The night of woe had descended.

The appearance of the renowned Guerrilla chieftain, Quantrell, on the border; the stories which were circulated concerning his achievements; the feverish state of the public mind, and the circumstances in which the people of this State were involved, all contributed to exert a large influence over the minds of the youths and young men just coming upon the stage of life in the Western counties. Cole Younger, who had not then been regarded as "a wild lad," equally with Frank James, who had been so regarded, was attracted to the standard of the daring Guerrilla. In the vortex of passion which whirled through the land, all principles, love, justice, mercy and hope were swallowed up. Men were transformed by the baleful influence.

Previous to the departure of Frank James for Quantrell's camp, there is no evidence that Dr. or Mrs. Samuels had been mistreated or in any way insulted by the Federal militia. The Samuels family were intensely attached to the Southern cause, and the very appearance of soldiers in the blue uniform of the United States was not a little galling to the sectional pride and native passion of Mrs. Samuels, who did not hesitate at any time to abuse the cause which they represented. In this pleasant pastime she was always emphatic and unamiable in expression.

It was early in 1862 that Frank James bid adieu to all peaceful pursuits, and rode away in the dim twilight hour to seek the camp of the Guerrilla Chieftain. He had made a start toward becoming an outlaw. It was in the spring-time. Frank was away with Quantrell's reckless band, and Jesse, who had attained the age of sixteen years, was ploughing in a field on the Samuels estate, near Kearney, when on a bright day a band of Federal militia approached the homestead. They first encountered Dr. Samuels, and him they laid violent hands upon, bore him away to a convenient tree, adjusted a rope about his neck and hanged him to a projecting branch until life was almost extinct, and so they left him for others to relieve. Not content with this exhibition of prowess, the valiant warriors proceeded to the field where Jesse followed his plough, and laid hold upon him, and placed a rope around his neck and told him his hour had come, and while they tormented him in this manner, some of them pricked his body with their bayonet-points or their sabres. The reason assigned by the militiamen for this exhibition of violence, was that Jesse James was accustomed to ride fast and far when the shades of night fell upon the earth, to convey intelligence to the Guerrilla Chieftain of the movements of the militia. When they had chastised him, and warned him that if he rode any more to carry the news they would kill him, they let him go his way.

But Jesse James was not to be intimidated. He rode again and again to the hidden camp. His bad passions were aroused. The boy had become a savage. That same week the militia made a descent upon the farm-house of Dr. Samuels, and finding Mrs. Samuels and her daughter, Miss Susie James, at home, they were placed under arrest and conveyed to the jail at St. Joseph, at that time a place reeking in filth, where they were detained for a number of weeks, all the while subjected to the coarse jests and cruel jeers of the unfeeling guards. This last act on the part of the Federal militia determined the future course of Jesse James. While his mother and sister languished in jail, Jesse mounted a horse, fleet of foot, and rode away, nor did he stop until he drew rein in Quantrell's camp. At this time he was described as not yet sixteen years of age, with a smooth, handsome face, with deep blue eyes, and a complexion as soft, as delicate and fair as a school girl's. But even then the bright blue eyes were never at rest, and about the mouth were the lines of strong determination, and a certain expression of countenance that indicated cool courage. He, perhaps, had the susceptibility of being merciful, but his mercy was a mere whim—a passing fancy and not a quality.

Frank and Jesse had both entered upon their career—a course in life destined to blight all that was noble, or susceptible of becoming noble and grand in character. The old life, with all its promise, and all its dreams and hopes, was past. Henceforth a new life, fraught with danger and sufferings, and crimes which should make their very names a terror, was to animate them. The hard lines were drawn, and the men who might have served well the interests of a peaceful society, had more favorable circumstances surrounded them, cast loose all the restraints of civilized life, and in a day, as it were, returned to that condition of savage existence from which the race had been raised by ages of struggle. They were not long in proving to their comrades that they were worthy to be numbered among their desperate ranks. Their efficiency as daring and dangerous partisans was soon made manifest.

CHAPTER IV.
BLOODY WAR.

"The presence of soldiers is a wicked thing,

Bounded in time and circumscribed in space."

The presence of armed men wearing the blue uniform of the Federal army in the counties of Platte, Clinton and Clay, Missouri, was commingled gall and worm-wood to the souls of that portion of the population which was devoted to the Southern cause. These constituted probably more than two-thirds of the inhabitants. The passions of the people on both sides were at a white heat. Neighbor was contending with neighbor, and friends were ready to strike down the friends who opposed, and old associates divided by politics, had become the bitterest of foes. Anarchy prevailed. Society was rent into fragments and the law of hate was triumphant.

Frank and Jesse James were with Quantrell's band, and were selected to go on an expedition with a scout under Captain Scott, to the north side of the Missouri river. The town of Richfield was garrisoned by a company of some thirty men under command of a Captain Sessions, of the Federal State militia. Scott's command consisted of only twelve. Yet with this feeble force he determined to attack Richfield. Frank James was one of the men appointed to lead the attacking party. A desperate fight ensued. Captain Sessions and Lieut. Graffenstien, of the Federal garrison, were killed at the first fire. The Guerrillas gained a complete triumph. Ten of the militiamen were killed, while Scott did not lose a man. The survivors of the fray surrendered to the partisan, Captain Scott, and he paroled them.

After the morning fight, Scott moved about twenty miles that day to the house of one Pat McGinnis, in Clay county. It was made the duty of Frank James to scout through the country that night, and he rode away from the camp of the partisan in the black night—rode straightway to the home of his mother. That lady was at home. She had been collecting information for the use of the Guerrillas, and was pleased to see her son. To him she opened her budget of intelligence. The movement of Scott on Richfield had startled the Federal militia. The small bands were rapidly concentrating, and were strengthening their position every day. Plattsburg, the county seat of Clinton, had been stripped of its garrison, which had been sent out to hunt for the bold raiders, and was at that very time defenseless. Such was the character of the information gathered by Mrs. Samuels, and imparted to her son, who, in company with a comrade, Mr. Fletcher Taylor, rode hastily back to Scott's camp to report the character of the information which he had gained.

A Moonlight Conference.

On receiving the information, Scott resolved to make an attempt upon Plattsburg. During the succeeding day it was ascertained that Captain Rodgers had left Plattsburg to make an effort to discover and capture Scott, taking with him most of the garrison. In the first watch of the second night after the affair at Richfield, Scott's little band silently deserted their camp and rode rapidly toward Plattsburg. Two o'clock in the morning found them within four miles of that place, on Smith's fork of Grand river. Here they halted and slept until daylight. They were in a deep forest, and quite secure from observation. Until three o'clock in the evening they remained quiet, feeding their horses and resting. Then the scouts brought intelligence concerning the situation at the town, and the Guerrillas, mounting, set out to capture it. There were a few men left as a guard at the Court-house, under the command of a Lieutenant. The officer had been out in town when the Guerrillas charged into the public square. Before he could rejoin his men he was cut off by Frank James, to whom he was compelled to yield himself a prisoner. James at once conducted his captive into the presence of Captain Scott. The militia in the Court-house, though taken by surprise, were not disposed to yield without a struggle. At the time the Lieutenant was brought before Scott, they were pouring a severe fire among the Guerrillas, and the issue was in doubt. Pointing to his prisoner, Frank said, "Captain, shoot that man, unless he delivers up the Court-house." "That I will!" responded Scott, with a terrible oath as he drew his pistol. The officer besought his men to yield, which under the circumstances they consented to do.

Two hundred muskets were captured and destroyed, and $12,000 in "Union Defence Warrants," of the State of Missouri, were seized and appropriated. The spoils of victory were divided among the band. Frank's share was $1,000. It was his first taste of gain through violent appropriation—an initiative lesson, so to speak. He has become a proficient since that time. The raiders, whose camps were usually to be found in forests, far away from the generally traveled highways, concluded to sup like civilized men that night, hence they ordered supper at the hotel, and had for their guest the late Federal commander of the post.

Frank James is a silent man, having little to say, and that little is brought out in sharp, short sentences. He is not so tall as Jesse, nor so robust in form. He never laughs, and was never known to jest with his comrades. In the early days of the war he was beardless, and the outlines of his features were visible to all. His face is long, with a broad, square forehead, and a strong under jaw and heavy chin. His eyes are dark gray and are restless, and always have a wicked expression about them. In later years Frank James wears a full beard, and on that account is not so readily recognizable by those who knew him in the old days.

Jesse James, as a youth, had a round jovial face, and rather a pleasant expression of countenance. He was then the reverse of taciturn; had a merry laugh, and was "a fellow of infinite jest" among his comrades. In all his subsequent career he has been the Aaron to Frank. Jesse always does the talking yet, when they have occasion to communicate with strangers. In later years Jesse, too, has become reserved, not so taciturn as his brother, but still more silent than the average of men. Neither one of the brothers is given to boisterous merriment now-a-days, since life's shadows have fallen so darkly around them.

CHAPTER V.
AT THE SACK OF LAWRENCE, KANSAS.

"Wherefore this tangle of perplexities,

The trouble or the joys? the weary maze

Of narrow fears and hopes, that may not cease,

A chill falls on us from the skiey ways,

Black with the night-tide where is none to hear

The ancient cry, the wherefore of our days."

The years come and go, and they give birth to bright and tender dreams, as well as to passions dark as Azrael's wing, and fierce as flames of Tophet. Yes, the years give joy and peace to some, and hope buds, as in the spring days the lilacs bloom. Yet time digs deep graves in which to bury our fondest hopes, and obliterates in indistinguishable night every earthly joy. It is better so. If we could draw aside the screen which hides from our ken the things of the future, who of us would enjoy the prospect?

There was a time, perhaps, when Frank and Jesse James would shudder at the thought that they should become not only soldier-slayers of men, but robbers and murderers as well. And yet they were drifting down a rapid tide toward the great black gulf of evil. A few months calls the leaves from their buds, and dresses the forest in green—a few months more and the leaves and flowers wither before the North wind's breath and the beautiful flowers and the gay leaves become loathesome in the dust of decay.

And so too, we imagine, are the changes of mind and the transformation of character. The James boys were in a school where the gentle law of mercy was never imparted; in a school where the instructors were incarnations of bitterness and hate, and every pupil devoted to the lessons they gave out. So the months rolled away and it was not long before they could listen unmoved to the last sigh of the dying victim, and send a foe before the aim of their unerring bullets, to challenge the sentinels on the farther shore of the river of death without a thought or tremor of remorse. They were fit now to take part in the most sanguinary warfare ever waged in this country—the Guerrilla warfare along the border of Missouri.

It was therefore without any twinges of conscience that they heard the proposition of the revengeful Quantrell, to capture and sack the city of Lawrence and massacre its male inhabitants. They were in the transforming stage, the full grown desperadoes were just coming along the steps of time from the closet of the future.

It was a night in August—the 16th—1863, when the commander of the fiercest band of Guerrillas that ever marauded in the State of Missouri, gave the order, "Saddle up, men!" in his camp on the Blackwater, and unfurling that ominous black banner with the single relief of the word "Quantrell" in white, the bush-warriors rode west toward the Kansas border, intent upon a mission which could neither succeed nor suffer repulse without bringing sorrow to many hearts. On the way three peaceable citizens beyond the Aubrey, were pressed into service as guides to the bloody band. They forced these to lead them until they had reached a part of the country where their knowledge extended no further, and when they came to a grove of timber on the margin of a stream, the three poor inoffensive men were remorsely shot, Frank James being one of the executioners. They had set out to kill all Kansas men.

After Lawrence.

On the morning of the 21st, it was as clear and bright a summer morning as ever gladdened the earth. Quantrell's band was in full view of the ill-fated city. There was a charge, women's faces blanched, and shrieks rent the air. Volley after volley broke the stillness of the morning. The people saw the sombre black flag, and knew that the Guerrillas were upon them. On they came, a resistless tide. Men sank down without a groan. The very streets ran red in human blood. Women and children, coming before the fatal revolver bullets which streamed along the street, met their fate as they fled for the shelter of homes that were destined for the flames to feed upon. In this pandemonium of war-fiends, Frank and Jesse James were conspicuous actors. Here, there, everywhere, when opportunity offered, men either armed or unarmed and defenseless were made victims of their skill as pistol shooters, and they felt no more regret than if they had been acting the part of honorable soldiers and chevaliers. The torch was applied, and the terrors of billowy flames were added to the horrors of the scene. How many houses they burned, and how many lives they destroyed that day, they themselves do not know; of the first there were several, of the second there were many.

They returned with Quantrell to Missouri. They had learned well. The lads who are claimed by their friends to have been gentle as cooing doves in the home nest had been singularly transformed into merciless eagles, or vindictive kites, rather. They had proved that human rights and human lives had little to call for their regard, and so the first stage of a notorious career had been attained by these brothers ere yet they had reached their majority.

CHAPTER VI.
A GORY RECORD.

"Oh, the dread of by-gone days!—

A fearful tale they tell,

When rung the woodland echoes round

To warlike shout and yell,

When fiercely met the hostile bands,

And deadly grew the strife,

And wildly, with the clash of arms,

Went up the shriek for life."

The cruel strife of the border can never be forgotten. Those were tragic days, the very remembrance of which comes like a dream of sorrow and desolation of soul. It is well that such terrible times have passed away, for to those who were exposed to the fury of that tidal-wave of passion, which swept over the fair borderland, physical existence must have been a wheel of pain. But the mighty procession of the ages, sweeping by, will soon obliterate the traces of the storm's ravages, and only the dim legends of horrible deeds will remain.

In that dreadful ebullition of human hatreds, Frank and Jesse James played no laggard's part. As boys, they accepted service under Quantrell, and became renowned for caution and daring even in the days of their youth. Members of a partisan organization, famed even in the early days of the strife for daring deeds and extraordinary activity; a band, every man of which was a desperado of great cunning and prowess, these two callow-youths, taken from a country farm, speedily rose to the eminence of leading spirits among the most daring of men. Both sides in the border counties of Missouri and Kansas prosecuted war with a vindictive fury unparalleled in modern history. The scene of the operations of the Guerrillas was at first confined to the limits of Clay, Platte, Jackson, Bates, Henry, Johnson, and Lafayette counties, in Missouri, and along the Kansas border.

These men rode far and fast in the night time, and fought their foes at early dawn. Living in out-of-the-way neighborhoods were their friends. When pressed hard they disbanded and scattered, and rendered all pursuit futile.

Frank and Jesse James early discovered those traits of character which have rendered them famous as the greatest outlaws and freebooters of modern times. They became scouts and spies for Quantrell at the beginning of their career, and showed themselves possessors of remarkable capacity for such service. They were cool and brave, fertile in resources, and marvelous in cunning.

After Lawrence came the disbandment, and with the disbandment came that strange training in individual development and personal reliance which have made the Boys objects of fear to the people of many regions, and enabled them to plunder at will, baffle pursuit, and defy the civil authorities of great States.

They had hiding places with friends in Clay, Platte, Jackson, Johnson, Cass and Lafayette counties, and when the Guerrilla band to which they belonged scattered in order to evade pursuers, the Boys retired to the dwellings of their friends and rested in peace till the time of re-organizing, when an enemy was to be punished.

Perhaps no two individuals ever lived on this continent who have taken so many lives, as the James Boys. Emerging from the seclusion which they could always find in the Hudspeth neighborhood, in the eastern part of Jackson county, in July, 1863, with Captain George Todd, a redoubtable Guerrilla chieftain, with whose command Frank and Jesse often fought, they struck the road leading from Pleasant Hill to Blue Springs. Major Ransom, a Federal officer with a cavalry force, was traveling that road at the time. A collision took place. The fighting was savage. The volleys of revolver bullets fired by the Guerrillas proved awfully destructive to their opponents. Jesse and Frank James have been credited with a tremendous destruction of life—Jesse killing seven, and, Frank eight men in the Federal ranks during that encounter.

One night Frank James and five or six of his comrades were detailed to capture and kill the militia men who were accustomed to frequent a bagnio, four miles east of Wellington, in Lafayette county. Frank James preceded the little band, and, creeping up under the window, he saw the company inside. There were eleven men in dalliance with the women. James returned to his comrades, reported the result of his observations, and the Guerrillas rode to the house. A peremptory summons brought the militiamen to the yard. The Guerrillas poured a volley of bullets among them. The ten men fell, pierced by the deadly missiles. But where was the eleventh man? There had been that number in the house when James saw the company, and the man could not have left the place. A search was instituted. The man could not be found. But there was one woman more in the party than had been seen before. A candle was procured and a search instituted among them. They all appeared to be women. Frank James discovered the man. He was a youth, fair skinned and blue eyed, with long brown hair. His features were handsome, and in the garments of a woman he appeared not unlike a fresh country girl. Of course he expected to die there. His ten companions presented the spectacle of a ghastly wreck of humanity in the yard as they lay there cold in death. But he plead for his life. He was so young to die. "Here, Frank, take him," said the leader. "You discovered him; he is yours to deal with." It was a sentence of death, they said. The boy thought so, and hope vanished. "Come," said Frank, "come along and be shot." The poor youth trembled in every nerve. He could scarcely walk. His supposed executioner had to assist him down the steps and out through the yard. They passed the ghastly heap of corpses, lying there in the dim starlight. They went away, into the darkness under the sombre trees, down the road. Poor boy, he thought of his mother. Under the wide-spreading branches of an ancient oak they halted. "Here! we are far enough," said Frank James. The poor youth almost fell to the earth from excess of emotion. To die, and so young, and in such a way, too! "Oh, spare me for the sake of my mother!" he wailed. "You are free to go! I give you your life. You are outside of the pickets, outside of danger. Go, and be quick about it!" And at that moment Frank James fired a pistol shot upward through the branches of the oak, and the fair haired boy soldier disappeared in the darkness—spared for the sake of his mother by the youthful desperado. Frank James returned to his comrades. They had heard the shot and naturally concluded that it meant one more life ended. Frank assumed a grave expression. "Quick work," remarked a comrade. "Yes," returned the Guerrilla, "babies and boys are not hard to kill." He never spoke of that better deed he performed out there, with only the stars and God as witnesses.

A Deed of Mercy.

And the border strife went on. Frank and Jesse rode with Quantrell, sometimes with Todd and Poole, then again they fought at unexpected times by the side of John Jarrette, and Bill Anderson, and Arch Clements. One week they would be charging Blunt's Body Guard in Southeastern Kansas; the next they would ambush a moving column of Federal militia in Lafayette, or Jackson county, Missouri. It was fighting—cruel, savage fighting, all the while. In the bottom lands along the Blue, or among the Sni hills, when hotly pursued, they would find hiding places, from whence they emerged only to deal out destruction and death. Down to Texas, marching with the close of autumn, like migratory birds, they returned to their old haunts with the bright spring days. Deceiving and cutting to pieces Lieut. Nash's small command in the road west of Warrensburg, on a Monday, we hear of their successfully ambushing a column of Union militia on the banks of the Little Blue on the succeeding Wednesday, and a few days afterwards we hear of Frank and Jesse playing "the trumps" of revolver bullets among a squad of rollicking soldier gamesters at Camden; then again they are heard of with Todd, riding down the road from Independence toward Harrisonville, where, seven miles from the former place, they encounter Captain Wagner, of the Second Colorado Cavalry, and engage in a terrible hand-to-hand conflict in which Jesse James takes the life of the Captain, and with his deadly aim sends seven of Wagner's men to the bourne of the dead. On the same occasion Frank, riding furiously among the Federal cavalrymen, deals death to eight of them. So the spring and summer of 1864 was passing with these men engaged in deeds of blood.

It was in the last days of July of 1864, that Arch Clements and Jesse James were riding along a country road one evening, when they discovered four militiamen in an orchard gathering apples. Two of the men were in one tree and two in another. Without ceremony the Guerrillas shot them as they would have shot squirrels from a forest tree, and jested of the deed as they might have jested over the fall of wild beasts.

It was about this time that Frank James had a thrilling adventure. He had been ordered out on a scout to ascertain the movements of the Federals in Jackson and Cass counties. It was a period of deep anxiety to the Guerrilla leaders, as it appeared that special efforts were being made by the Federal militia, and several companies of the Second Colorado Cavalry, to capture all the irregular Confederates found in the State of Missouri. Frank had reached the Independence and Harrisonville road at a point about midway between the two towns. As he passed through the country he ascertained that a force of infantry and cavalry were at a house some miles away from the road. How many there were in this detachment he could not learn. But he resolved to investigate. Taking a neighborhood path, not much traveled, he rode toward the Federal encampment. On the roadside was a lonely cabin, now uninhabited, as he believed. He examined the indications, and rode on. At the cabin the road made a short turn. When Frank turned around the corner of the old cabin, two militiamen presented their muskets and commanded him to halt. In an instant the ready pistol was snatched from its place by the Guerrilla, and even before the militiaman could fire, the bullet from Frank's pistol had penetrated his brain, and he fell in the agonies of death to the earth. At the very instant of firing, Frank put spurs to his horse and galloped away, turning and firing at the remaining guard as he did so, and wounding him unto death just as he was in the act of firing at the daring rider. The bullet from the militiaman's gun whistled within an inch of Frank James' ear as it sped on its harmless mission. The picket post where the firing took place was within a few hundred yards of a camp where a hundred militiamen, and half that number of cavalrymen, who rode good horses, were taking their dinners. Frank, surmising that the two soldiers with whom he had the combat were on guard duty close to camp, and that an alarm and pursuit would follow, rode with all speed toward the Guerrilla camp. He was pursued, as he expected, but he easily eluded the Coloradoans.

A Narrow Escape.

In August—it was the 12th day of that month, 1864, that Jesse and Frank participated with their comrades, Todd, Anderson and others, in a desperate conflict in Ray county, Missouri. Again the deadly revolvers, in the hands of the boys, accomplished fatal results. Between the two, seven fellow-beings were sent to the silent realms of death.

Two days afterward they were at the Flat Rock Ford, on Grand river, and a desperate struggle with some Federal militia and volunteers ensued. During that fight Jesse was struck by a musket ball which tore through his breast, cut into and through his left lung, and caused him to fall. His comrades carried him away. At length he was transported to the house of Captain John A. M. Rudd. The wound was a dangerous one, and all expected it would prove fatal. Jesse believed so himself, and took from his finger a ring which he charged his friends to carry to his sister, Miss Susie James, and give her also his dying message, which was, "I have no regret. I've done what I thought was right. I die contented." This event occurred August 16th, 1864. By the 7th of September he had so far recovered as to be able to ride and fight again.

On the 12th of September Jesse and Frank rode away with Lieutenant George Shepherd, from the Guerrilla rendezvous at Judge Gray's, near Bone Hill, Jackson county, for a raid into Clay county. At this time he visited his mother. On the 16th of September Jesse James killed three militiamen in an encounter near Keytesville, Chariton county, Missouri. He was now so far recovered as to perform the services of a scout.

On the 17th he rode twenty-nine miles in the night time, through a country swarming with militia, to advise Todd concerning the movements of the Federal forces.

On the 20th of September, 1864, occurred the battle of Fayette, Missouri. The whole of Quantrell's band was concentrated for the purpose of making this attack. All the chieftains were present, Quantrell and Anderson, Poole and Clements. During the assault on the stockade, Lee McMurtry was desperately wounded close up to the enemy's position. Jesse and McMurtry were comrades, and he would not allow his friend to fall into the hands of the Federals if he could help it. He rushed up to where the wounded man lay, and though exposed to a terrible fire, he carried away his wounded friend without receiving any injury. The Guerrillas were driven from Fayette.

At this time the various bands seemed to accept the leadership of Bill Anderson, who was then gathering forces for the Centralia expedition. Quantrell separated from him, and returned to a secure place of repose in Howard county.

Todd and Poole and the James boys, Pringle, the scalper, the two Hills and Clements, indeed, all of the most desperate of the Guerrilla gang followed the black banner of the most savage Guerrilla that ever trod the soil of Missouri.

The 27th of September, 1864, must ever be a memorable day in the annals of the civil war in Missouri. On that day, with a flag black as the raven's wing, and ominous of the coming night of death, Bill Anderson rode to Centralia, a village in the northeastern part of Boone county, Mo., on the line of the St. Louis, Kansas City and Northern Railroad. He was not long idle. A train of cars drew up to the depot. There were soldiers and citizens on that train. Very few of the former, however, were armed. Only a few guns, at any rate, were fired. The train and its passengers were completely at the mercy of the Guerrillas. The Federal soldiers and citizen passengers were formed in a line. Then a separation of citizens and soldiers took place. Twenty-eight soldiers and four citizens who wore blue blouses were selected, marched out and shot with an atrocious haste that would make even the cruel Kurds shudder. In this bloody tragedy, Frank and Jesse James were prominent actors.

Scarcely had this butchery been consummated, when Major Johnson, in command of about 100 Iowa cavalrymen, came upon the scene. The force of the Guerrillas under command of Todd numbered more than two hundred men, and as both were determined, a desperate fight ensued. But the impetuous charge of the Guerrillas, led by George Todd, broke the lines of the Iowans, and a panic ensued among them. Major Johnson made gallant effort to rally his men. It was in vain. The furious riders dashed among them and shot them down like so many panic-stricken sheep. Jesse James, mounted on a superb horse, rode directly at Major Johnson. The issue was not doubtful. The deadly aim of the Guerrilla soon laid him stark and still on the prairie. It was all over with him, and also for the men he commanded that morning. Appeals for mercy were of no avail. The vanquished Federals were massacred. Frank James was equally active with his brother. He is credited with having taken the lives of eight men that day. It was a day of horror, and the partisan rangers revelled in the carnage.

After Centralia came hard knocks. In one of the fights immediately succeeding the Centralia holocaust, Dick Kinney, a noted Guerrilla, received his death wound. He was Frank James' comrade, and he fell heir to the pistol which Kinney had worn. On the handle of this weapon were fifty notches, each notch signifying one. He had killed fifty men. Frank James probably has the pistol yet.

In a corner of Clay county lived an old man named Banes. He was a staunch Union man, and blessed the Guerrillas with the same kind of blessing that Balak desired Balaam to bestow upon Israel. Banes was particularly severe in his condemnation of Jesse and Frank James. One night the boys went to Bane's house under the guise of Colorado troopers. The old man received them gladly, and at once unbosomed himself freely in regard to the Guerrillas. In the course of his remarks he animadverted on Mrs. Samuels, the mother of the boys, in bitter terms. He denounced her as being "the mother of two devils, Jesse and Frank James." The boys secured his confidence, and then a promise of immediate assistance in hunting up the desperadoes. Banes got his gun and pistols and saddled his horse, mounted and rode out to his death, for when the trio had gone about half a mile away from the house, the pretended soldiers announced themselves as the James boys, and gave him no space for repentance. Two pistol shots rang out on the still night, a heavy body fell to the earth, and then the living men rode away, leaving a cold form of mortality out under the stars.

With difficulty the Guerrillas made their way to their haunts on the Blackwater. Fighting was going on constantly. The shadow of death was gathering over many a bold rider of the Guerrilla band. Moving out from their camp on the Blackwater, one day, the Guerrillas fell into an ambuscade, and several received wounds. Among those thus wounded was Jesse James, who had his horse killed and received a shot through the leg.

Todd was sent out to skirmish with the advance guard of the Federal army then following the retiring army of General Price. At every creek there was a battle, and at every encounter there was bloodshed. In one of these fights, when the leaves were all falling on the brown earth, George Todd was killed. In the night time his followers came to pay the last tribute of respect to his remains. There were not many who gathered there in the gloom of the midnight to gaze for the last time on the face of the courageous Guerrilla, but among them were Jesse and Frank James, and they pointed their pistols toward the cloud-veiled, teary sky, and swore to avenge his death.

But the old band was broken up. Late in October, 1864, Jesse and Frank parted, the former with Shepherd went to Texas, the latter with Quantrell to Kentucky.

It proved to be the final dissolution of Quantrell's once formidable force of partisans. George Todd, the Paladine of the command, the leader who was persistent and daring, slept quietly after the fierce turmoil of life's battlefield had ended. John Poole, another hard rider, desperate fighter and dauntless leader, mouldered in a gory grave. John Jarrette and Cole Younger had sometime before separated from the band, and were operating in the far South where the magnolias grow and the moss-bearded live-oaks stand sentinels in the fever-haunted swamps. Fernando Scott was dead. Bill Anderson had fallen in a terrible combat while endeavoring to effect a crossing of the Missouri river in Howard county. As he had lived for some years, grimly fighting, so in the last extremity when the odds were all against him and unseen messengers of death burdened the air with their low-hummed dirges, his life went out while he still fought in the very shades of despair. Kinney was dead, and many more had surrendered life in the hot simoon of battle.

And what a band it had been, which was now broken! Its deeds must ever remain a part of the history of Missouri, and the chapter wherein the record is made will always be read with a shudder, and in years to come men will remember the mournful story of devastation and death with feelings of painful regret that human beings could so revel in the miseries and misfortunes of whole communities.

To those who can calmly sit and look down the vista of the dead years and recall without prejudice the history of men who were authors of deeds so notable—actions which, performed under other circumstances, would have made heroes of deathless fame, there must come a feeling of regret that such men should have been the victims of a baleful destiny.

CHAPTER VII.
ADVENTURES IN SEPARATE FIELDS.

The days of Guerrilla warfare were drawing to a close. The retreat of Price and Shelby from Missouri left the Federals free to operate against the Guerrillas. The old bands were decimated. Death had been busy in their ranks; and for the remnants of a once formidable organization, no Confederate army could extend over them sheltering arms. The drama was about completed; the curtain was soon to drop.

Jesse James went with Lieutenant George Shepherd to Texas in the autumn of 1864. During the long march through the Indian Territory, they met with many stirring adventures. On the 22d day of November, Shepherd's band encountered the band of Union militia, commanded by Captain Emmett Goss, which had acquired an unenviable name on account of the excesses which they had committed. Goss was coming up from a marauding trip into Arkansas, and had reached Cabin Creek, in the Cherokee Nation. Goss was "a fighting man," and a fierce conflict ensued. Jesse James singled out the commander and rode full at him, firing his pistol and receiving the return fire of the other. The contest was short; the steady aim of the Guerrilla secured him a triumph. Goss fell from his horse with one bullet-hole through his head and another through his heart. On this occasion there was one other to realize the skill of Jesse James with the pistol, if indeed he realized anything after his ineffectual plea for life. The Rev. U. P. Gardiner, chaplain of the Thirteenth Kansas, rode with Captain Goss' band up from toward the South. Jesse James pursued him, and came up with him. The chaplain told his pursuer who he was, and plead for life. The answer he received to this petition was a bullet through the brain. He fell from his horse dead.

Jesse James' Escape from "Pin" Indians.

Two days afterward, Jesse and a companion were riding over the prairie, near the bank of a stream. For some cause the comrade of Jesse left him for a time alone. Not far away was a skirt of heavy timber. On a sudden, a wild shout burst from the wood, and a party of Pin Indians—that is, Cherokees, who were friendly to the Union, came skurrying across the prairie, directly toward the Guerrilla. His danger was imminent, for the Cherokees were well armed with long range guns, which they knew well how to use. Safety lay in retreat, and Jesse turned to flee. He was on the open prairie, and could not get to the timber. There was a high and steep bank before him, and the Indians were following close behind. He determined to leap his horse down the precipice. It happened to be where the water was deep, and a slight projection and growth of brush broke the fall. The leap was successfully made, and neither horse nor rider was badly injured. Jesse, following down the creek, made his escape, and soon regained Lieutenant Shepherd's camp.

A Horrible Deed.

During the winter of 1864-5 Jesse James remained in Texas, leading quite an inactive life. With the spring, however, that part of the Missouri Guerrillas which went with Shepherd, began to think of Missouri again. In April they began the return march. The road was beset with dangers. The Pin Indians in the Cherokee country were extremely hostile, and left no opportunity to strike at them unimproved. By the time the May flowers bloomed, Jesse James had reached Benton county, Missouri. In that county lived a Union militiaman named Harkness, who had made himself exceedingly obnoxious to people of Confederate sympathies. This man was captured by the returning Guerrillas, and Jesse James and two comrades held him in a vice-like embrace, while another Guerrilla, Arch. Clements, cut his throat from ear to ear.

At Kingsville, Johnson county, Mo., lived an old man named Duncan, who had belonged to the militia, and was very cordially disliked on account of his bad disposition toward the Southern people. Jesse James sought him, found him, and slew him. Duncan was a man of 55 years of age.

The Guerrilla career of Jesse James drew to a close. In May, 1865, all the Confederate bands in the State were coming into the Federal posts and surrendering. A considerable number of those who had come up from Texas with Arch. Clements desired to surrender, but several refused to do so. Among these were Jesse James. But the formality of a surrender of the others led them all to Lexington, Mo., under a flag of truce. There were eight unsurrendered Guerrillas to bid a last adieu to their old comrades. This little band had proceeded into Johnson county, when suddenly they were met by a band of Federal troops returning from a scouting expedition. These fired upon the Guerrillas, and a sanguinary struggle ensued. Jesse James' horse was killed; he was wounded in the leg and retired into the woods pursued by the Federals. He fought with desperation, but received, at last, a shot through the lungs. The wound was a terrible one, but he escaped, and dragged himself to a hiding place near the banks of a small stream. Here, for two days and nights, alone, consumed by a raging fever, the wounded Guerrilla lay. Finally he crawled to a field where a man was ploughing. This man proved to be a friend, and took James in, cared for him, and finally sent him to his friends. The soldier who shot Jesse James that day was John E. Jones, Company E., Second Wisconsin regiment of cavalry. The Guerrilla and his antagonist afterward became acquainted, and were warm personal friends. Jesse James joined his mother in Nebraska, and returned with her to Clay county, Missouri.

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.

Horse stealing was carried on at a lively rate all along the border. Kansas, Missouri and Kentucky were particularly afflicted for many months after the surrender by the presence of these enemies of the farming and stock-raising communities.

Just about the time Frank James was passing through from Nelson county to Brandenburg, in Meade county, on the Ohio river, on his way to Missouri, a number of horses were stolen in Larue county. A posse went in pursuit of the thieves. They traced them to Brandenburg. There they found Frank James. There were four of them when they came up with James, and he was alone, sitting in the office of a hotel. By some means they induced him to come out, and then they told him he might consider himself their prisoner on a charge of horse stealing in Larue county.

"By G—d! I consider no such proposition," exclaimed Frank James, as he drew a pistol and commenced firing. In less time than it requires to state the fact, two of the posse lay extended in the embrace of death, and a third was down and writhing in agony. But the fourth man fired a shot into Frank's left hip, and then ran away.

The wounded desperado was immediately surrounded by an excited throng. The ball had taken effect at the point of his hip, and the wound produced was not only painful but dangerous. Yet the superb nerve of the man sustained him in the midst of an appalling crisis. A perfect storm of excitement was raging in the town. Threats loud and terrible were made, and Frank James coolly presented his pistols as he stood leaning against a post and ordered the excited crowd to stand back, and they obeyed him.

Somehow it has always happened that the Jameses never wanted for friends wherever they have wandered. It was so on this occasion. Though the great majority of the people of Brandenburg thirsted for the blood of the slayer of two men in their midst, yet that grim young man, though wounded and suffering, had friends at that town, and in the midst of the excitement, these came to his assistance, and he was borne away to a secure place, where the populace could not tell, and nursed by tender hands prompted by affectionate hearts. Attended by a scientific surgeon, the ghastly wound which had brought him to the very brink of the abyss of death, began to heal, and in a few weeks the surgeon who had attended the hidden patient was able to report that he would surely live and might ultimately recover entirely from the dreadful wound.

When Frank had gained some strength, and it was deemed safe to remove him, in a quiet and secret manner he was conveyed in a close vehicle to the house of a staunch friend and relative in Nelson county, where he remained during many months, suffering excruciating pain on account of the horrible wound. He did not entirely recover from the effects of the wound for several years.

CHAPTER IX.
THE LIBERTY BANK AFFAIR.

Certainly no one could say that Jesse James possessed any of the qualities which would make him

"Like one who on a lonely road

Doth walk in fear and dread,

And having once turned round, walks on,

And turns no more his head,

Because he knows a frightful fiend

Doth close behind him tread."

He was constituted of a different element. If he ever felt the sense of dread, no one ever knew it, for certainly none ever saw it exhibited in his conduct. Yet he knew that he was hunted, knew that shrewd, bold men sought to bind him in fetters, to deprive him of liberty, or, failing in that, rob him of life. And yet this knowledge did not alarm him, and the very presence of his foes did not make him afraid, though they numbered "ten strong, brave men." Perhaps Jesse James never knew what fear meant, having never experienced the sensation.

It was in 1866, on St. Valentine's day, February 14th, that an event occurred at Liberty, Missouri, which created intense excitement in that community, and a profound sensation throughout the West. The event alluded to was the plundering of the Commercial Bank of that city of an amount of money said to have been nearly $70,000. The robbery was not effected in the same bold way as characterized the raids into Russellville, Gallatin, Columbia, Corydon and other notable incidents in the career of the James bandits. But inasmuch as the bank was depleted of its funds, and that the robbery was unusually bold and audacious, there were many who secretly believed that Jesse James planned the robbery, if he did not lead the robbers, and that the treasures of the bank had been largely diverted to the individual possession of that noted young man. It will be remembered that the Liberty bank robbery occurred at a time when the James Boys were regarded only in the light of "desperate fighters—perhaps sometimes cruel in their vengeance," but otherwise they were believed to be honest and honorable men. Hence men were cautious in coupling the name of any member of the James family with an act of highway robbery.

But the conviction was strong in the minds of many people, nevertheless, that the funds of the Liberty bank had gone to minister to the wants and satisfy the desires of Jesse James and his friends and confederates. No immediate action was taken against him, but as time passed on, and other acts were committed by Jesse James and his friends, which were not regarded as either right or proper, the belief that they had participated in the robbery, if, indeed, they were not the robbers themselves, became wide-spread in the community. But in justice to Jesse James, it is but right to say that no evidence directly implicating him in that affair has ever been secured.

Cole Younger, when asked by a visitor to the Stillwater penitentiary concerning the Liberty bank robbery, remarked, "I have always had my opinion about that affair. If the truth is ever told, many of the crimes charged to me and my brothers will be located where they belong." Former friends of Jesse James are firm in the belief that he was the instigator of the deed, if not the leader of the brigands who sacked the bank. This belief, at any rate, influenced the public mind to no small extent, and led eventually to an effort to arrest Jesse James a year afterward, which attempt ended in a bloody tragedy, as narrated in the next chapter.

CHAPTER X.
JESSE'S SORTIE AGAINST THE MILITIAMEN.

When the war closed, Jesse James was sorely wounded. It was only by the most persistent and sureful nursing that he could expect to recover. When he was able to travel he was furnished transportation from Lexington to go to Nebraska to join his mother, who was then a fugitive from her home. It does not appear that he lingered very long in Nebraska, since we are assured that before the brown leaves had fallen, Mrs. Samuels had returned to her old home near Kearney, Clay county, Missouri. This point appears to be conceded by all who have written concerning them. Jesse's wounds healed slowly—so slowly that after the lapse of a year he was but just able to ride on horseback a little. During the summer of 1866 Jesse rode around the country, but there was still considerable feeling against him, and he went well armed. Indeed, he always had his pistols "handy to use." Nothing appears to have disturbed the quiet of his life until the night of February 18, 1867.

It was a cold night. The ground was covered with a thick mantle of snow, and the wind blew bitterly cold from the north; the full moon shone brightly on the glittering garments of mother earth. Jesse James was at his mother's home near Kearney, Clay county, tossing under the infliction of a burning fever. His pistols were loaded and rested beneath his pillow. On that night, five well-armed and well-mounted militiamen rode to the home of the James Boys. Dr. Samuels heard the heavy tread of the armed men on the piazza, and demanded their business. He was told to open the door. He went up to confer with the sick ex-Guerrilla. He asked Jesse what should be done. The sick man begged his step-father to assist him to the window so that he might look out upon the crisp snow out in the moonlight. He looked with a deeper interest at the five horses hitched in front of the house. They all had cavalry saddles on their backs. He knew that they were soldiers, and he well understood the object of their coming. It was a moment when decisions must be reached quickly. He had never surrendered, and he never intended to do so. Hastily dressing himself, he descended to the floor below with his pistols in his hands. The militiamen, impatient at the delay of Dr. Samuels in opening the door, had commenced hammering at the shutter with the butts of their muskets, all the while calling to Jesse to come down and surrender himself. They swore they knew he was in the house, and vowed to take him out dead or alive. Jesse crept softly and close to the door, and listened attentively until, from the voices, he thought he could get an accurate aim. He raised a heavy dragoon pistol, placed the muzzle to within three inches of the upper panel of the door, and fired. There was a stifled cry, and a heavy body dropped with a dull thud to the floor of the piazza. His aim had been deadly. Before the militiamen could recover from their surprise, Jesse James had thrown the door wide open, and, standing on the threshold with a pistol in each hand, he commenced a rapid and deadly fire. Another man fell dead, and two more men had received wounds which were painful and dangerous, and surrendered to the outlaw they came to capture. The fifth man, terror-stricken, fled, reached his horse, mounted him, and rode rapidly away in the moonlight.

Thus was commenced that long strife which has gone on year after year, and the warfare has made Frank and Jesse James the most renowned outlaws who have ever appeared on the American continent. All the skill and ingenuity of the shrewdest detectives have been at various times brought into requisition, but failure has attended all their efforts to capture the boys.

The scene presented at the Samuels house, after the flight of the only man of the attacking party who remained unhurt, was indeed a sad one. Here, in the cold night wind, extended on the open piazza, with faces ghastly and white in the moonbeams, lay the forms of two human beings, who but an hour before, in the prime of life and the full flush of manhood, had ridden to the retreat of the wounded and sick Guerrilla. They were still in death now. And the next day friends came weary miles to bear them away.

"Helpless upon their sable biers,

They bore them forth with bitter sighs and tears,

With no gay pageantry they moved along,

Most silent they, amid a silent throng.

And there they left them in that drear abode

Alone with its still tenants and their God."

And there were two more men who had come with brave hearts and steady hands to capture the weary, feverish ex-Guerrilla, lying there writhing in agony after the attempt had been made. They had come with the hope of delivering Jesse James over to the law, and thus bind him forever. Now they lay completely helpless, and in the power of the daring outlaw, who had the name of being devoid of the quality of mercy. And yet they were spared by him.

When a large company of armed men arrived at the house of Dr. Samuels, the next day, to take Jesse James dead or alive, that redoubtable adventurer was many miles away. The place that had proved so disastrous to the five militiamen the evening before, was quiet enough now, and the militia ranged through the old farm-house without molestation. Jesse was not at home!

CHAPTER XI.
IN THE HANDS OF FRIENDS.

Jesse James, soon after the night attack before related, proceeded to Kentucky, where Frank was stopping with friends. He had not recovered from the effects of the terrible wounds which he had received in the breast just after the close of the war. Frank was still unable to ride abroad on account of the bullet wound in his hip received on the day of the Brandenburg tragedy. In the early part of the summer of 1867, Jesse arrived at the house of a friend in Nelson county, Kentucky, near the town of Chaplin. Frank was already there. In this neighborhood dwelt a large number of people who were either related to them or devoted admirers of the noted Guerrillas. They had been the friends and entertainers of Quantrell, Marion, Sue Mundy, and others of the Guerrillas in the closing days of the war.

Soon after his arrival in Chaplin, Jesse, whose condition seemed to grow worse instead of better, concluded to place himself under the surgical care of Dr. Paul F. Eve, of Nashville, Tenn. He proceeded to Nashville, where he remained for several months, and received much benefit to his health.

In the beginning of the year 1868 Jesse and Frank were once more re-united at the house of a relative at Chaplin. From all that can be learned, the life led by the wounded desperadoes while with their Kentucky friends was as pleasant as could be expected under the circumstances. There was a large community of people in that section who were intensely Southern in feeling, and mourned the defeat of the cause for which so many noble lives had been sacrificed, with an intense grief. Every one who had fought for that cause was dear to them, and when the Missouri youths came to the homes of the Samuels, and McClaskeys, and Russels, and Thomases, and Sayers, they were sure to receive a warm welcome.

In that part of Kentucky there were scattered about many of the adventurous partisans who had followed Sue Mundy, Magruder, Marion and other Guerrilla chiefs in the days of the war. With some of these Frank James had served in the closing days of Quantrell's career.

The Jameses were feted and feasted by the hospitable Kentuckians, and so tenderly nursed that their wounds had very much improved. Logan county was also the home of many of their friends, and numerous relatives of the boys, and between these and those residing in Nelson county, they passed to and fro at will, and wherever they might happen to rest, they were honored guests of families who possessed the pecuniary means to enable them to be hospitable. Fair ladies smiled on them, and gentle hands were ready to serve them in the hour of pain. It seems that they should have been happy, or at least contented.

But the James boys' career had been stormy; they had an active, restless disposition; they had lost the delicate sensibilities of well organized members of society, and the rough experiences through which they had passed had evidently destroyed, in a measure, whatever of human sympathy had belonged to their nature.

And yet at this time their friends—and they had many—believed them to be honorable and honest, if desperate in conflict. They knew that they had killed many men, but this was excused, because the men killed were enemies, and the killing was done in combats. So it came about that these most noted of outlaws for many years had friends who believed in their integrity, and were ready at all times to engage in the defense of their character.

The times were favorable. There were many desperate young men turned adrift by the events of the war; men ready to engage in any undertaking which promised excitement and gain. Over such, Jesse and Frank James could exercise a large influence, and from among such they drew allies in the commission of crime.

The individual members of organizations which had hovered along the borders, and hung on the verge of the great field of warfare, in character one half soldier and the other half bandit, were just the kind of men from whose ranks recruits for lawless enterprises could be enlisted. In Kentucky and Tennessee, Arkansas and Missouri, there were many such persons—men who, during the great strife, when mighty hosts clashed against each other, and tremendous events were taking place, had occupied an anomalous position which brought upon them the hate of the Federals, and incurred for them the displeasure of the Confederates, were in a position where a step further could not materially alter their relations to society. The men who had fought with regiments, banded in great armies, whether on the side of the Federals or Confederates, did not look with any great consideration on those who had lingered along the borders of war, as independent companies of scouts and Guerrillas.

There were many men in Kentucky at the time of which we speak who had been in organizations of the character above described—that is, Guerrilla bands, both Federal and Confederate. The regular soldiers of both armies, whose families had suffered in consequence of the partisan warfare, looked with ill-concealed dislike upon the free riders of the border, and this fact, no doubt, had a large influence in driving many of the Guerrillas into downright outlawry when the war had closed. It was in a community of ex-Guerrillas that Frank and Jesse found themselves in Kentucky, and among such "friends," no doubt, their first great project of bank robbing had its inception and complete maturity.

CHAPTER XII.
THE RUSSELLVILLE BANK ROBBERY.

Russellville is a beautiful village—almost grown to a city—in a lovely region of country in Logan county, Kentucky. The people of Russellville are educated and refined. It is the seat of much wealth and boasts its colleges and academies. In general, Russellville is a quiet place, and from year in to year out its quietude is not often broken by any startling incident. But things will occur everywhere, sometime, to create a profound sensation. It happened that this quiet, prim old place should have a great and notable sensation.

It was a bright morning in March. The blue birds had returned and were singing their matin songs from the budding branches of the trees. Russellville was as staid and sober as usual. There was not a single thing to indicate that the old town was about to be shaken up as it had never been before. The bank doors stood wide open, and the cashier stood at his desk. An old lady hobbled down the street, and a fresh school-miss paused to gaze at the early spring flowers which adorned a neighbor's garden; a kitchen maid was singing a ditty to her absent swain in the back yard; and a sturdy citizen crossed the street to inquire if a certain bill which he held in his hands was good.

Nothing strange in all this? Of course not. People were simply minding their affairs according to their own inclinations. There was a sudden clatter of hoofs that morning, the 20th of March, 1868. Terrible shouts and fearful oaths, and the sharp reports of pistols accompanied the sound of the horses' hoofs. The old lady suddenly dropped her staff and stood as if petrified; the young miss ran hastily away; the cashier turned pale, and the sturdy citizen hastily retreated back across the street. A dozen horsemen, armed with two pairs of revolvers each, rode furiously about the streets, and with fearful oaths commanded the people to keep in their houses. Two of the men rode to the bank, dismounted and rushed in. One of them presented a pistol at the head of the cashier, and commanded him, under penalty of instant death, to be still and make no noise. The other took out the contents of the safe, amounting to many thousands of dollars; they then remounted and rode away. In a few minutes the streets of Russellville were comparatively deserted. The brigands had come in, secured their plunder, and had as suddenly disappeared; the citizens scarcely knew what had happened. Surprise prevented immediate pursuit. The bandits had taken the road toward the Mississippi. They were traced to that stream and across to the rugged hills of Southeast Missouri, and then the trail divided up, and all marks of their passage were lost. They found friends, did these bandits, in West Missouri.

Who were the bold raiders? Where did they come from and where did they go when they secured the rich booty from the plundered bank? The good friends of the James boys declared that it was impossible that they could have participated in that affair. In substantiation of this position they pointed to the fact that Jesse James was at the town of Chaplin, in Nelson county, which is fifty miles or more from Russellville, and that incomparable raider himself wrote a letter for publication in the Nashville (Tennessee) American, in which he triumphantly points to the fact that at the very time of the raid on Russellville, he was at the Marshall House, Chaplin, and refers to Mr. Marshall, the proprietor of the hotel, for the truth of the statement, that on a certain day in March, 1868, he was at his house. But unfortunately the date of the robbery, and the day which Jesse asserts he spent at Chaplin, were not the same days. It was no uncommon thing for Jesse James to make more than fifty miles on horseback in six hours, in those days when the roads were good. He rode no inferior animals—the best blooded horses of old Kentucky were bestridden by the daring raider.

Another thing: Jesse James was only seen in Chaplin the day after the robbery, and in the evening at that; even if he had been seen late the same evening after the robbery, it would not have constituted even a presumptive evidence of his innocence, since after the robbery occurred in the morning he could have ridden to Chaplin before nightfall. Just previous to the robbery, Jesse had spent much of his time in Logan county, almost a dozen miles from Russellville, with relatives, of whom he had a number residing in that region. As we have before stated, Frank had been severely wounded while resisting arrest at Brandenburg; but he was then so far recovered that he had no difficulty in riding on horseback. He had made a number of journeys between his usual stopping place at Mr. Sayers' house in Nelson county, and the houses of his kin in Logan county. The statement made by Jesse that Frank was at the house of Mr. Thompson, in San Luis Obispo county, California, at the time of the Russellville bank robbery, is incorrect. Frank had not then visited California.

The friends of the boys, however, were unable to make a clear defense for them, and they have been generally credited with being not only participators, but leaders of the raiders.

At the time of the robbery, Geo. W. Shepherd, Oliver Shepherd, and several others of "the old Guerrilla guard," as they were called, had their homes or stopping places in Nelson county. Geo. Shepherd had married the widow of the noted Missouri Guerrilla, Dick Maddox, who was a member of the band which Quantrell led out of that State. This redoubtable warrior, who had assisted at Lawrence and Centralia, and had participated in many desperate and bloody affrays, met his fate in a terrible conflict with a Cherokee Indian. Maddox and Shepherd had been friends and comrades in the dark days when they rode with Quantrell, and as Mrs. Maddox was left alone in a strange land, and was yet young in years and comely in features, George Shepherd readily agreed to console the widow in her affliction and perform the duty of a faithful comrade to the memory of his friend by espousing his widow. They were married and settled in Chaplin before the raid on the bank.

The people of Russellville quickly recovered from their surprise by the audacity of the robbers. The officers of the law rallied, and there was mounting in hot haste and an earnest pursuit of the robbers. Oll. Shepherd had suddenly disappeared from Chaplin; several of the old Guerrillas had also gone away, and Frank and Jesse James, too, had quietly departed from that region of country.

The Kentucky blood of the pursuers was up, and they followed the trail of the robbers with tireless energy. They were traced west over hills and through valleys. The Cumberland river was crossed, and through the rugged region between that stream and the Tennessee, they were tracked as foxes might have been trailed. But the pursuers were always just too late to come up with the gang. Still they followed on, and finally reached the banks of the Mississippi only to learn that the persons they sought had crossed before their arrival, and plunged into the wilderness regions of Southeast Missouri. Some effort was made to keep on the track of the fugitives through the swamps of Missouri, but the traces became fainter and fainter as the pursuers advanced, until among the rugged hills of the Southeast they faded out altogether, and the Kentuckians were forced to give up the chase and reluctantly returned home after a bootless pursuit.

George Shepherd had married a wife—moreover, he had bought a house at Chaplin—and therefore he did not travel with his comrades to the West. The officers of the law soon found him, and as he was one of the suspected parties, and the bank robbers had taken Shepherd's horses on which to escape, he was arrested and a thorough search was made for evidence to convict him. He was taken to Russellville and placed in jail. The grand jury of Logan county at its next sitting found an indictment against him, and he was in due time arraigned before the Logan county circuit court on a charge of aiding and abetting the robbers. The evidence was deemed conclusive by the jury before which he was tried, and a verdict of guilty was returned and the punishment was fixed at three years in the penitentiary at hard labor.

The other members of the band escaped to Western Missouri. Oll Shepherd, a cousin of George Shepherd, was found in Jackson county by the persistent Kentuckians. They desired to arrest him. A requisition was procured from the Governor of Kentucky, and the executive order of the Chief Magistrate of Missouri, for the arrest of the fugitive. But Oll Shepherd was an old Guerrilla, and he flatly refused to be taken back to Kentucky as a prisoner. The civil officers were deterred from executing the warrant of arrest. In those days there were vigilance committees in Missouri. To one of these the situation of affairs was reported. It was at once determined by the vigilantes that Oll Shepherd must either submit to arrest or be killed. The company of vigilantes found him at his home near Lea's Summit. Would he surrender? they demanded of him. "Never! death first," he shouted back to them. Then the bloody work began. But what could one man do against twenty-five? There could be but one result. The one man must die at last, however bold and skillful. So it resulted in this case. Oll Shepherd had been an old Guerrilla under Quantrell, and had learned how to shoot and how to despise fear. He resisted, and not until he had received seven bullet wounds did he succumb. In fact, he died fighting.

The other members of the gang implicated in the Russellville robbery escaped. The Jameses soon after went to the Pacific Coast, and remained there for quite a while. They were on a tour in search of health. The hard life which they had led and the desperate wounds which they had received had sadly impaired their superb physical systems, and they needed rest and time to recuperate wasted energies and allow their wounds to heal.

Death of Oll Shepherd.

Meanwhile, George Shepherd, shut out from the world, toiled on at his unrequited tasks in the penitentiary at Frankfort. He who had been the free rover and wild Guerrilla, the dauntless rider and relentless foe, in the garb of a convict did service to the State, and answered not again when ordered to his daily rounds of labor. And he alone of the survivors of that band of freebooters who rode so fearlessly and madly into Russellville that morning, bent on mischief and crime, was made to feel the heavy rod of retributive justice. Oll Shepherd had perished. Nemesis had overtaken some of the old Guerrillas.

CHAPTER XIII.
ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE.

Immediately after the Russellville robbery, Jesse James appeared once more in his old haunts in Missouri. But his physical system had been greatly taxed by the tremendous strain to which it had been subjected. Twice already had he received bullet wounds through the lungs which would have killed any man less extraordinarily endowed with vitality. Scars of twenty wounds were on his person, and yet the man who had gone out from home as a boy; entered into close affiliation with a band of the most daring and desperate men ever organized in America; sustained his part with them, and even surpassed them all in the daring feats they accomplished ere yet the "manly beard had shaded his face," after having passed through more exciting scenes than any living man, and participated in more terrible encounters than most men, yet survived, and though his terrible wounds had weakened his frame, yet his wonderful courage and tremendous reserve of vital forces were such as to insure his final restoration to complete health.

He had traveled on horseback from the little town of Chaplin, on the eastern verge of Nelson county, in Central Kentucky, to the western border of Missouri, in the space of a few days subsequent to the 20th of March, 1869. Jesse James was seen in Clay county, Missouri, in the first days of April of that year, and was seen at Chaplin on the 18th of March. That he was at Russellville the evidence seems to be clear; and that he led a most exciting retreat from that place, through the hill country of Kentucky, until he reached the banks of the Mississippi, is one of the facts of his history. It was his genius which enabled his confederates to escape from a determined pursuit of resolute men. Once on the west bank of the Mississippi, to use a Westernism, "he was on his own stamping ground." He knew every "trail" across the swamps of Southeastern Missouri, and every pathway in the tangled brakes over the rugged hills of the southern counties of that State, were as familiar to him as the woodlands about the old farm in Clay county. He knew more—that there were scattered through the country from Chaplin to Kearney, a route of more than five hundred miles in length, men with the reputation of respectable members of society, who always had a warm welcome for him and his daring men. Who, then, could pursue and capture him? There is no room for wonder that Jesse James escaped the irate Kentuckians, who followed his trail from Russellville to the banks of the Mississippi, and finally lost it among the rugged hills and vast forests west of the river.

Jesse's extraordinary journeys under such circumstances did not tend to the restoration of his physical system, which had been greatly shattered by the terrible wounds which he had received at the close of the war, in an encounter with a company of Federal soldiers in Lafayette county.

In those days the friends of the Jameses were numerous in the State of Missouri; for at that time scarcely any one believed that they had developed into brigands. Among those who advised with Jesse James at that time was his physician and friend, Dr. Joseph Wood, of Kansas City. It was the opinion of this physician that the condition of his patient imperatively demanded a change of scene, and a more genial climate to insure his restoration.

In accordance with this advice, the patient set about his preparations for a voyage by sea, and a sojourn on the Pacific slope.

Toward the close of May, 1869, Jesse James left the home of his mother near Kearney, Missouri, for New York. Here he spent only a few days. On the 8th of June he embarked on the steamship Santiago de Cuba, bound for Aspinwall, crossed the Isthmus to Panama, and there again took a steamer for San Francisco. The spoils of Russellville allowed him means to gratify every desire in the "City of the Golden Gate," and he remained there for some time.

Meanwhile Frank James, who was not deemed able to make the long ride, in the flight before the officers at Russellville, was secluded for a time in the house of a respectable citizen of Nelson county, Kentucky. But it was not deemed best that Frank should linger long in that part of the country. A friend provided a close carriage, and a few weeks after the Russellville robbery Frank James was very quietly driven northward one evening, passing by Bloomfield, through Fairfield, by Smithville, and on through Mount Washington to Louisville. Here he remained a few days, and then took the cars for St, Louis. Arrived in that city, Frank put up at the Southern Hotel, registering as "F. C. Markland, Kentucky." The name was one he had used before when he did not desire that his real name and character should be known. Here he met two or three of his old comrades, and he spent several days very pleasantly with them. Meanwhile he communicated with his mother and apprised her of his intention to go West across the Rocky Mountains. Mrs. Samuels met her son at the house of a relative in Kansas City, where he remained for two days, and then bidding farewell to those who had always been true to him, he took passage for California, where he arrived some weeks before the arrival of Jesse. Frank did not remain long in San Francisco, but proceeded very soon to San Luis Obispo county, and paid a visit to his uncle, Mr. D. W. James, who was at that time proprietor of the Paso Robel Hot Sulphur Springs, a much frequented resort of invalids in that county. The friends of the Boys, and Jesse James himself, in a published letter, claim that Frank went by sea to California, and that he sailed from New York on one of the vessels belonging to the Pacific Mail Steamship Line. But this story was doubtless set afloat to mislead the public concerning the movements of the Boys. The above account we have from a gentleman who was at that time a friend of the Jameses, and who traveled with Frank from Kansas City to San Francisco. He knew the desperado well, and had daily conversations with him on the journey.

After spending some time at the Springs, Frank James proceeded to the ranche of Mr. J. D. Thompson, with whom he had a previous acquaintance, gained while that gentleman was visiting in the States. The noted ex-Guerrilla remained at the Laponsu ranche for many months, and until after the arrival of Jesse.

The two brothers met at Paso Robel. Here they remained for several months. In the autumn they went out to the mining districts of Nevada.

It appears, from information in the possession of the writer, that the Boys behaved themselves with much circumspection while they were the guests of their uncle. Their evil propensities were suppressed, and no one who came in contact with the quiet, sedate Frank, and the genial, companionable Jesse, during those days, would have suspected that these brothers were the most daring and dangerous men who had ever yet defied the powers of the State, and disregarded the demands of society. Some quiet weeks had been passed. The weak lungs of Jesse had healed, and the lame hip of Frank was well again. The climate had wrought a wonderful change in their physical systems. Jesse had grown robust, and possessed all the powers of physical endurance which have been since tested and proved incomparable.

The quiet life at Paso Robel began to be irksome to the men whose lives had been passed amid the rudest shocks and the wildest storms of excitement and passion. They would go out among the miners and have a little fun while prospecting there. In Nevada, society was in its rudest stages of development. The country was filled with adventurers from every country under the sun. In the camps of the miners and prospectors were desperadoes from all regions, and a visitor to these places who wanted to fight only had to say so, and there was no delay in getting accommodated. It was then flush times in the Bonanza State.

Frank and Jesse went up to the mountains to take a look at the country. They formed some acquaintances among the adventurers, and they found several old acquaintances from Missouri and Kentucky. The rude life of the mining camps was more congenial to the disposition of the men who had rode with Quantrell than the refined society found about a fashionable resort for invalids; and the restless raiders liked well to linger in the tents of the miners among the lofty summits of the Sierras. For a while they passed their time very pleasantly in such associations. They prospected some, and played sportsmen in the intervals of time so spent.

But their pleasant days in the Sierras were doomed to draw to an abrupt close. There was a new camp formed at a place called Battle Mountain. It will be remembered that we are writing of a period when the rich mineral discoveries of Nevada had drawn a miscellaneous population from the four quarters of the globe. Camps and towns sprang up like Jonah's gourd—in a night, and disappeared with the noonday sun of the morrow. Battle Mountain was "a rattling place;" the people who had pitched their tents there had come in search of gold. Many of them were old pioneers, accustomed to hard knocks and sudden surprises. Others were "hard visaged men," who knew how to flee before the avengers of blood—a knowledge gained during years of practical experience. They were quick with the knife, and "lightning shots." They were inured to scenes of danger, and were not liable to suffer from sudden surprises. Frank and Jesse James, accompanied by two old Missouri acquaintances, concluded to pay a visit to Battle Mountain, "to shake up the encampment," as they said. They found spirits there who were congenial and some who were uncongenial. At last they brought up at a shanty where women, whisky and cards united their attractions to allure the old pioneers and chance visitors. The Jameses do not drink, but they claim to be "handy with the pasteboard." Here they engaged in a game of cards with two notorious roughs and blacklegs; and their companions also found a pair of gamesters, ready and anxious to join them in a "bout of poker."

For a time the game proceeded without anything occurring to disturb the amicable relations of the players. At last one of the old Missouri friends of the Jameses detected his opponent cheating in the game. He charged him with it, and the other denied the charge and demanded a retraction. Of course nothing of that sort could happen. The gambler retorted by drawing a knife, and the other snatched a pistol from his belt. Jesse James, who was sitting at a table a little distance away, saw the danger of his friend, and in an instant, just as the gambler was in the act of striking the Missourian, he threw his pistol out and shot the blackleg through the heart. As he turned, the man who had been sitting opposite to him, engaged in play, had a pistol leveled at his breast. Jesse brought his pistol around with a swing, and another gambler fell without a groan to the earth—dead!—shot through the brain. By this time the utmost confusion prevailed. Lights were overturned, and the place was shrouded in utter darkness in an instant of time. There was a crowd of twenty or thirty men in the shanty when the firing commenced. Every man was armed, and all had their weapons in hand. Jesse cried out:

"Stand aside! Be ready!" The other three men of the party understood what he meant. It was for them to get out, and they rushed for the door. A pistol would flash and a heavy body would fall with a thud to the ground. When the door had been gained by his companions, Jesse, who had covered their exit, sprang forward to escape from that pandemonium of darkness, suffering and death. Pistols were popping and knives were clashing in a horrid din. The maimed, writhing in agony, mingled their groans and curses in the awful uproar. By the flashing of pistols, Jesse saw that Frank and his two friends had made their exit, and were firing into the crowd as opportunity offered, taking care to not shoot toward him. He determined to leave the shanty, but two burly roughs, with huge knives, stood in the way. A pistol ball quieted one of them, and almost before the flash of his pistol had faded away, and before the other could think of using his knife, Jesse sprang upon him and dealt him a fearful blow on the head with the butt of his pistol. The gambler sank with a groan to the earth, and with a spring Jesse joined his friends on the outside. By this time a light had been placed on a barrel behind the slab which served for a counter. Three men were seen weltering in their own blood—dead. Four others were lying writhing in pain, and all were gory from the blood which flowed from ghastly wounds.

Fight in a Gambler's Den.

The crowd saw all this at a glance. The dead and the wounded in the shanty did not include any of the strangers. The crowd yelled for vengeance on the authors of the bloody tragedy. There was a shout that awakened the mountain echoes for miles around, as the infuriated pioneers and gamblers surged out of the shanty.

Meanwhile the Jameses and their friends had retired a short distance from the place to ascertain the extent of the injuries they had received in the melee. It was a cloudless night and the stars shone brightly. The leaders of the mob soon discovered the four Missourians, and ran, yelling, toward them.

"Back, you d—d miscreants! Stand back, I say!" cried Jesse James.

But they rushed forward at the top of their speed.

"Boys, we are in for it," said Jesse, quietly. "All right, be ready." Then he shouted:

"Come on, d—n you! Just come ahead and be killed!" He had no more than ceased speaking when they had approached near enough to open fire.

"Wait, boys! Steady! Every shot must tell! Now!" And as the sound of the last word died away, there was the report of four pistols, almost simultaneously discharged, and four men fell badly wounded; once more the four deadly pistols were discharged, and two more of the howling mob sank down in their tracks. The others paused. But they gave the Missourians a parting salute as the latter moved rapidly away. That salute seriously wounded one of the friends of the Jameses, and carried away a portion of Jesse's hat brim. But they escaped, aided by the night, and hastily returned to Winnemucca. Here they learned that intelligence of the terrible dark seance at Battle Mountain had preceded them, and that it was not a safe place. Aided by friends, they remained in seclusion a few days, waiting an opportunity to get away. During these days of retirement they made up their minds to return to the States east of the mountains, and when they met a favorable opportunity they embraced it, and in another week after their departure they were secure among friends near their old haunts in Missouri, ready to plan still more startling campaigns than any which they had yet undertaken.

CHAPTER XIV.
WERE THEY DRIVEN TO OUTLAWRY?

"Those misnamed men

Whom damned custom had brazed so

That they were proof and bulwark against sense."

Were the James boys driven to outlawry?

A strange question, no doubt, many readers will think, in the light of the history of their lives. And yet it is a pertinent question, when we consider the tendency of the human mind and conscience to deteriorate under the pressure of circumstances. Environments have much to do in molding character. Perhaps there is not as wide a space between the natural characteristics of mind and heart in boys of eight as is generally supposed. But philosophizing aside. Are there not mitigating circumstances in the case of the James boys? We do not undertake to defend them—their course is indefensible; we cannot apologize for them; for outlawry cannot be palliated. But let justice be done even to these renowned outlaws. Though sinners, have they not been sinned against? Though slayers of men, have they had no provocation? Let facts speak.

When the banner, beloved by the Southern people, whether wisely or unwisely, it matters not, was folded away forever at Appomattox, that event brought peace and repose to hundreds, nay, thousands of grim, worn soldiers who had bravely striven to uphold the ensign they loved so well. The war ended for them, never to be commenced again.

But all along the bloody borderland there existed a distinctly different condition of affairs. The warfare was that of community against community, of neighbor against neighbor, and of relative against relative. Cole Younger, the Guerrilla, engaged in mortal combat with Charles Younger, the Union militia officer; it was kindred blood that strove. In such a warfare the common ties of humanity are severed, and fury and hate come in where love and friendship have expired. Such was the situation in Missouri. The dissolution of the Confederate Government did not restore peace in such communities. The quarrel was no longer political, and for principle, but personal, and for vengeance. For others there might be peace, but for contestants in such a strife there was no peace.

If Jesse James took vengeance on Bond, it must be remembered that in the dreadful days of the bitter border war, Bond had gone with his band of militia to the Samuels' place, taken Dr. Samuels, Jesse's step-father, out, and hanged him by the neck until they supposed he was dead, and left him there while they went to find Jesse, who was plowing in the field. He was but a lad then. But they took him, tied him like a felon, and castigated him like a slave with a plow line, until faint from loss of blood and crazed from the agony of the infliction, he fell in a swoon—a mere quivering mass of flesh and blood. Jesse James was like other youthful human beings. Could he then forget such treatment? Was it not natural that he should seek vengeance? And the hour came; the tormentor fell into his hands; the strong passion overcame the young man, and he slew his enemy. And so, too, with Banes and others who fell victims to his relentless purpose. They met a fate at the hands of the boys which, perhaps, better men than the Jameses would have connived at under similar circumstances. Thus, during the long, dark struggle, old scores were paid, but at the same time new causes of offense were given.

The regularly organized armies of the late contending sections had been disbanded, and peace ostensibly reigned in the land. But old wounds had not healed along the border. There were malignant stars in the zenith of the Guerrillas. Hope animated them for a space. They sought their childhood's homes. Doubtless they loved the scenes familiar to them in the old days, before they had learned to be slayers of men, as well as others of the race do that anchor-spot of memory. But the bright gleam of hope faded; the clouds of anguish overspread their sky. The lurid lightning of the old bitterness flashed athwart their heavens, and the ex-Guerrillas were pursued and hunted, like felons, beyond the pale of hope or pardon.

The resources of the James family had been impaired, absorbed, wasted, in the crucial time of strife. But they were not permitted to make a peaceful effort to build up and restore wasted fortunes. Harassed on every hand, these boys, who were naturally of a strong temperament, and perhaps of revengeful natures, were yet mere boys who had learned to be self-reliant; impatient of restraint, bold in action, and acquainted with the art of slaughter, turned upon their hunters and revealed the desperate character of the game they pursued. They were not left in peace after the light of peace blessed the land and made glad other hearts; and they would have been more than human not to have undertaken their own protection under such circumstances. If others attempted to murder them, they did not hesitate to slay. So their lives have become lurid with slaughter.

It must be remembered that we are not attempting to justify such a line of conduct; but there are many things in connection with human affairs that cannot be defended. We look at things as they are, and not as they ought to be. Doubtless, it will be admitted on all hands that the James boys ought not to have led such a wild career of outlawry; that they ought not to have entered upon such a course of action; and finally it will be urged that it would have been far better for them, and everything and everybody connected with them, to have quietly yielded to the inevitable, and voluntarily exiled themselves forever from the scenes of childhood and all the dear associations of their tenderer and more hopeful youth. Certainly, it would have been best for them. But such a course would have been contrary to the world's experience of human nature.

So when vigilance committees were hanging their comrades who had been with them by the camp fires in the deep forests, and in many a bloody foray; and when armed men, fours and sixes, hunted for them; when repose was banished from their home, and the phantom shadow of death peered out at them from every forest thicket, and from the sombre shades of the silent night, these boys rose up in rebellion against that society which refused to own them, and that order which organized the cohorts of vengeance. Jesse W. and Frank James, the terrible Guerrillas of the war-time, were henceforth to "become enemies of every man," or at least outlaws from society, and free companions of the highways. It might have been different with them. But the long, lingering fires of hate burned after the lurid days of slaughter, and they were not the persons to refuse the gauntlet when thrown at their feet. Never too good by nature, circumstances have made them desperate, and hence, after concluding their bloody Guerrilla record, we proceed with their history as outlaws and highwaymen of the most remarkable character of any known in the annals of history.

CHAPTER XV.
THE GALLATIN BANK TRAGEDY.

The sudden appearance among the people of a peaceful community of a band of armed men, who whoop like savages, fire off pistols, swear fearful oaths, and issue sharp commands, is calculated to produce a feeling of terror, and, for a time at least, to paralyze the energies of men. By pursuing this kind of tactics, the band of robbers which commenced at Russellville, Kentucky, in 1868, and concluded their last exploit at Glendale, in the fall of 1879, have uniformly, with one single exception, been able to accomplish their work and make good their escape.

The 16th day of December, 1869, will not be soon forgotten by the citizens of the flourishing little city of Gallatin, Daviess county, Missouri, because of an incident which created a thrill of excitement that extended all over the land. Daylight bank robberies were not events of frequent occurrence until these later times. The affair at Russellville had taken place many months before, and it was thought altogether unlikely that such another audacious robbery would be soon attempted.

After the Russellville affair, it was known Jesse and Frank James had made a journey to California, and it was not until late in the fall that they returned. It was supposed that only the Youngers and Jameses were capable of doing such deeds, and it was not known that the Boys were at home by any considerable number of people.

Such conclusions as these proved to be fallacious. On the day named—a gray, cold December day—the people of Gallatin were suddenly startled by the presence, in the streets of the place, of a band of armed men, who rode furiously, shouted loudly, and swore fiercely at the people, commanding them, in sharp, decisive tones, to get inside their houses and stay within their own domicils. While a part of the band remained out in the streets, two of the robbers rushed into the bank. The cashier, Captain John W. Sheets, was behind the counter. He was instantly covered by a pistol, and imperiously commanded to be still. The other robber proceeded to secure the contents of the safe, placed the bank's assets in a sack, and walking to the cashier, he placed the muzzle of a pistol almost against his temple, and fired, the bullet crashing through the brain, and the unfortunate gentleman fell dead at the foot of his slayer. The robbers regained their horses, mounted, and the whole gang rode rapidly away.

The citizens of Gallatin had seen them come and go. They did not remain long. The whole affair was the work of a few moments. They soon realized what had been done, and then there was mounting in hot haste, and almost as quickly as the robbers had come and gone, a well-armed posse was riding after them in hot pursuit.

Captain John W. Sheets, the murdered cashier of the Gallatin bank, served as a captain in the Missouri militia, and had often met parties of Guerrillas in combat during the war. He was much esteemed, and his wanton assassination created a profound sensation, and a strong desire to capture his slayers was manifested throughout the community. The whole country was aroused. Daviess county had sent many men to the ranks of the militia, and somehow the impression rapidly went abroad that the robbery had been committed by the James Boys and their old associates among the Guerrillas. It stimulated them to greater exertions in the pursuit. The robbers obtained the start, and the men who had ridden with Quantrell never made a reconnoissance on indifferent steeds. Besides, no dashing cavaliers knew better how to ride than they. It was an exciting chase. The people of Gallatin had been taken by surprise. The startling suddenness of the appearance of the robbers; their matter-of-fact attention to the business in hand, and the terrible tragedy which concluded the drama, were well calculated to create surprise, not to say astonishment.

The robbers were trailed directly toward Clay county. The Gallatin posse, after a hot chase, came up with the fleeing bandits. The latter turned upon their pursuers in so determined a way that they were compelled to call a halt, and retreat to meet reinforcements. This gave the robbers time. They continued to retire toward the Clay county line. It was not difficult to trace them into that county. But after they had once penetrated well into the territory of Clay, all traces faded out. No one had seen such a band of men or any other gang like them, and all efforts to discover their retreat proved abortive. They disappeared—like the picture thrown out by the magic lantern when the slide is withdrawn suddenly and broken—at once and forever.

Hearing that they were accused of the robbery, the James Boys, who were then at home, mounted their horses and rode to Kearney to file their protest against the accusation. Their manner convinced the citizens—that it might be dangerous to insist upon the allegation that they were the Gallatin robbers.

It was given out, in extenuation of the shooting of Captain Sheets, that the person who did it believed him to be Lieut. Cox, who, it is said, claimed to have killed Bill Anderson, when that noted Guerrilla was attempting to force the passage of the Missouri river in the face of a superior force of Federal troops. The murder of the cashier has yet to be avenged. Not a dollar of the money has been recovered up to this time.

CHAPTER XVI.
ATTEMPT TO ARREST THE BOYS.

"The past, we may never forget,

The present, swift its moments fly,

The future, we must trust it yet,

And trusting will not sigh."