The Top 5 Most Notorious Outlaws (4 page)

In the summer of 1875, Frank James was ready to give up his life of crime. He had just married Annie Ralston, a local schoolteacher, before the Pinkerton raid, and she urged him to give up being an outlaw. Frank’s personality was the opposite of Jesse’s. Whereas Jesse was hot-tempered and sought the limelight, Frank was more shy and unassuming. And even though the Pinkerton raid did not catch Frank and Jesse, it had persuaded them to get out of town and go into hiding for a while. They moved to the Nashville, Tennessee area and lived under assumed names. When Edwards began to talk about getting amnesty for Frank and Jesse for their war crimes, Frank was interested, but Jesse and Zerelda talked him out of it. Jesse was convinced that it was a ploy to get them to back into Missouri and that they would be executed if they went.

That summer, Jesse wrote a letter to the Nashville newspaper, again proclaiming his innocence. All the while, it is likely that he continued to rob banks in the South. Unlike his brother, he never entertained any intention of living a straight life, perhaps a result of the fact that he came to believe his press clippings and viewed himself as a Confederate war hero. With the South struggling through post-war Reconstruction, Jesse viewed the South in 1876 as the perfect environment to elevate his status, not pull back from it.

Ironically, the most famous robbery conducted by the James-Younger Gang was one in which Jesse’s role is still the subject of debate. Sometime in the summer of 1876, Bill Chadwell suggested to his fellow outlaws in the James-Younger Gang that they rob a bank in his home state of Minnesota. He said he knew the area well and could ensure that they navigated their way in and out of the state safely. Despite the misgivings of Cole Younger and Frank James, the plan was hatched in the final weeks of the summer. Funding for the trip came courtesy of a train robbery in Otterville, Missouri on July 7. One of the gang members, Hobbs Kerry, had been caught and arrested in the aftermath of that robbery, but by the time he told the authorities who else was in on the robbery the James-Younger Gang was long gone. They had gone to Minnesota and traveled in small groups, each group doing their best to play the part of curious yet respectable businessmen, all the while scouting out the best location to pull off the robbery.

Ultimately, the gang decided to rob the First National Bank in Northfield. Some of the Younger brothers would later claim they picked the First National Bank because it had ties to Republican Adelbert Ames (who had governed Mississippi during Reconstruction) and his father-in-law, former Union general Benjamin “Beast” Butler. Butler was one of the most hated men in the South due to his time as military commander of New Orleans during the war. His rule over the occupied city was so controversial that Confederate President Jefferson Davis, a former friendly acquaintance of Butler’s, ordered him to be summarily executed if ever captured. As it turned out, Ames held stock in the bank and Butler had no connection to it whatsoever.

Ames

When they arrived in Northfield on September 7, the eight outlaws broke into three groups. One group was to go inside the bank, one was to wait outside and be the lookout, and the other was to cover the getaway. It is believed that Jesse and Bob Younger, the two gang members who were most enthusiastic about the plan, went inside the bank with Frank. After they robbed the bank, all of the men planned to meet on the bridge that led to the Northfield town square. From there they would cut the telegraph wires and Bill would lead the way out of town. All agreed that no citizens were to be killed.

At 2:00 p.m., Jesse, Frank, and Bob walked into the bank but did not completely close the door behind them, while Cole Younger and Clell Miller were outside the bank standing guard. Inside the bank, the gang encountered three men, Joseph Lee Heywood, Alonzo E. Bunker, and Frank J. Wilcox, who all denied being the cashier when told that their bank was being robbed. Jesse told Heywood that he knew he was the cashier and demanded that he open the safe, but Heywood refused. As Frank went to the vault to inspect the safe, Heywood ran toward Frank and shoved him, trying to trap him inside. Frank got away, but not before getting his hand and arm caught in the door. Bob Younger then pushed Heywood to the floor.

The main street and First National Bank

Out on the street, two men grew suspicious of Cole and Clell. J.S. Allen, owner of a hardware and gun store in town, walked toward the bank, but Clell grabbed him to stop him from going inside. Allen could see through the window that the bank was being robbed, and even though Clell told him to keep quiet as he shoved him away from the bank, Allen yelled out that the bank was being robbed and told anyone within earshot to grab a gun. Henry Wheeler, a medical student home from college on a break, joined in and began shouting a warning that their bank was being robbed. Clell shot at Wheeler and just missed shooting him in the head.

Before long, bullets were flying all over the street. Allen ran to his store and passed out guns to everyone in the vicinity of the shop. As Northfield’s citizens armed themselves, the trio of bandits waiting on the bridge rode into town to join in the chaos. Inside the bank, Jesse wounded Heywood by slashing at his throat with his pocketknife when Heywood told him that he could not open the safe. Heywood said that there was a time lock on the safe, conveniently failing to mention that it had not been set. While Bob grabbed whatever loose money he could find and stuffed it in a sack, Alonzo Bunker chose that moment to try and get away. Bob shot him through the shoulder, but Bunker managed to keep his feet and ran out to the street through the back door as Cole came in the front door to report that they had to go.

Back outside, a citizen shot Clell Miller with light birdshot, the ammunition that the shop owner had put in a rifle in all of the confusion. The birdshot ripped at Clell’s face and punctured one of his eyes, but he managed to stay on his horse and ride on through town. Anselm Manning, a citizen with a rifle, shot Cole in the shoulder, but Cole stayed on his horse and rode away without looking back. Manning also took out one of the gang’s horses, shot Bill Chadwell dead with one shot to the heart, and finished off Clell with a shot that severed an artery in his shoulder. Wheeler, the medical student, had found a rifle and took a position in an upper story window, shot Jim Younger in the shoulder. In the bank, as Jesse, Frank, and Bob prepared to make their getaway, Frank shot Heywood in the head, killing him.

As Frank entered the street and climbed on his horse, he was unwittingly walking right into a shooting gallery and was almost immediately shot in the right leg. Jim Younger was shot again in the right shoulder and Bob took cover under a staircase. As Bob tried to shoot from his vantage point, he was shot in the elbow, a wound that would cripple him for the rest of his life. Charlie Pitts was also shot in the leg. Jim took another shot in his leg as Cole circled back to get to Bob. Cole was shot three times, but still managed to grab Bob and the brothers took off after Jesse, Frank, and Jim. As the remnants of the James-Younger Gang bolted out of town, with $26.76 in the bag of loot, the citizens of Northfield threw stones and pitchforks.

Much has been made of the incident at Northfield, Minnesota that resulted in the demise of the James-Younger Gang. For 15 years, they had terrorized parts of the West and the South, so it was unbelievable to some that a group of Minnesotans would be able to do what the law and the Pinkertons had not. Some speculate that the bandits must have been drunk. Others say that they lost the element of surprise and were too visible, creating suspicion. Perhaps it was simply because they underestimated their opponents. These were Civil War veterans and some had fought the Sioux in 1862. Most were deer hunters and knew how to use a gun. Whatever the reason, they did not back down when the former Confederates came into their town to try and take their hard-earned money.

The robbery attempt at Northfield was a complete disaster for the James-Younger gang, but agreement over what actually happened ends there. In fact, many historians now believe that Jesse James was not actually present at all, pointing to a lack of proof or evidence that he was present. Circumstantial evidence has bolstered this belief, including the fact he was never indicted for the crime and the belief that some of the gang attempted the robbery after drinking, something Jesse personally abstained from and would not have allowed before a job.

Photograph of Clell Miller’s body

With Bill Chadwell dead in Northfield and without the sympathizing public willing to hide them from the law, the James-Younger Gang was in dire straits as it rode toward unknown territory in Minnesota. Everyone except Jesse (if he was there) was nursing wounds, but there was no time to stop. The telegraph wires had not been cut, as they had planned, and the citizens of Northfield alerted the neighboring towns of the bandits on the run. They were finally able to tend to their wounds near Dundas, Minnesota and stole a horse at gunpoint to even out the number of horses per man.

For two weeks, much of it in the driving rain, the gang searched for an escape route as posses pursued them through the Minnesota woods. More than once they came across a posse, but they pretended that they were also looking for the James-Younger gangs as well. What is known is that the James brothers eventually split off from the rest of the group and headed back toward Tennessee, perhaps because the wounded gang members were slowing them down. Whether or not the decision was unanimous is uncertain.

The end of the James-Younger Gang came in a swamp named Hanska Slough near Madelia, Minnesota. A group of men led by Civil War veteran James Glispin, now the local sheriff, tracked them there. Gunfire was exchanged and when it was over, outlaw Charlie Pitts was dead and the Younger brothers sustained more wounds, leaving them with little choice but to surrender. The Youngers were arrested and pled guilty to spare their lives, but Frank and Jesse were still on the loose.

After the fiasco in Northfield, Frank and Jesse stayed quiet for nearly three years. Northfield was the last straw for Frank, and he was ready to settle in on his farm near Nashville using the alias B.J. Woods. Jesse told everyone he was J.D. Howard, and the two were known by their neighbors only as law-abiding citizens. But as content as Frank was living a quiet life with his family, Jesse was restless. He tried to make money racing horses and playing cards, but he was not successful at either, and his money eventually started to run out. It also began to gnaw at him that he was no longer in the public eye; even his own children had no idea who Jesse James was. At a certain point, Jesse’s nature got the best of him, and he became determined to return to life as an outlaw.

In the summer of 1879, Jesse headed back to Missouri to try and form a new gang, but it was nothing like his previous gang, and his recruits had neither the experience nor the loyalty that he had grown accustomed to over the past decade. Nevertheless, James and the new gang went on a crime spree throughout Missouri and the South, robbing a train in what is now Independence, Missouri and the paymaster at a canal project in Killen, Alabama. During another train robbery in Missouri, they killed a passenger and the train’s conductor.

At the Independence crime scene, after they beat the express car manager with a gun, the gang left a press release trying to drum up more attention. This time, however, the public was far less interested in glorifying Jesse James, and John Newman Edwards no longer had any use for him. He had used him to support his cause of getting ex-Confederates back in political power. By 1880, with the Reconstruction Era over, Edwards had achieved his goal. When Jesse wrote to Edwards, who was by this time a severe alcoholic, Jesse received no reply.

In 1881, Jesse moved his family back to Missouri, settling in a small house in St. Joseph. He and Frank felt like the law was getting too close for comfort and it was time to leave Tennessee, but Frank did not join Jesse. He went on to Virginia. Now Jesse was without his brother, as well as the sympathy from citizens in his home state that had helped him elude the law the first time around. Many considered him to be a nuisance at best, dangerous at worst, and the new Missouri governor, Democrat Thomas T. Crittenden, persuaded railroad executives to pitch in on a $10,000 reward for Jesse and Frank. That money would prove to be tempting for someone who knew the famous outlaw.

By early 1882, Jesse was trying to put together yet another new gang, but he was running out of options. Now just a loose band of common thieves, Jesse was not even sure that he could trust the men in his gang. He grew increasingly paranoid and even murdered one of the members of his gang, Ed Miller. Convinced that Jim Cummins was out to get him, too, Jesse was in the process of hunting him down. The only two men that he thought he could really trust were Bob and Charley Ford. What Jesse did not know when he offered the Fords the chance to take part in robbing the Platte City Bank is that they had already agreed to a deal with Governor Crittenden.

Crittenden

Bob Ford was able to get a meeting with the governor through his sister Martha Bolton, who had been the object of a gun battle with Bob and a man named Dick Liddil, which resulted in the death of Wood Hite. With Bolton’s assistance, Bob Ford negotiated a deal with Crittenden, who told him that if James was killed, the reward money that had been put up by the railroads would belong to him. Crittenden also mentioned that if Ford happened to be the one to ensure that Jesse was killed, he had the authority to pardon him. Bob convinced Charley that they should kill Jesse and get the reward money. Incredibly, the governor of Missouri had conspired to murder Jesse James.

On the morning of April 3, 1882, Charley and Bob Ford were at Jesse’s home in St. Joseph. Zee prepared breakfast for the men as Jesse got ready for a robbery that he had planned. Charley reportedly broke out into a sweat, causing Zee to comment and ask him if he was sick. Meanwhile, Jesse had taken off his gun belt to avoid drawing too much attention as he went in and out of his house. For Jesse to be without his guns was a rare occasion, but he gave the Fords the opening they had been waiting for. As Jesse climbed on to a chair to dust a picture, Bob and Charley drew their guns and approached him from behind. Bob shot Jesse point blank in the back of the head. Hearing the shot, Zee ran into the room and screamed, “You’ve killed him.” Bob Ford’s immediate response was, “I swear to God I didn’t.” His curious remark aside, Jesse James was dead.

Jesse’s body in a coffin

The Ford brothers surrendered to authorities and were convicted of murder, but Crittenden kept his word, and they were promptly pardoned and received some but not all of the $10,000 reward. However, the glory and notoriety they anticipated would come their way didn’t materialize in the way they hoped. The Ford brothers initially billed themselves as the men who killed Jesse James and attempted to profit off of it by reenacting the murder and posing for photographs, but as was often the case in Jesse’s lifetime, the public sided with him and was horrified at the cowardly way Bob Ford took Jesse’s life. Bob was forced to leave Missouri in shame. Four years later, Charley Ford, done in by the stigma attached to what was called one of the most cowardly deeds in Missouri history, shot himself in the weeds near his home in Richmond, Missouri.

Bob Ford

At the behest of Jesse’s mother, the inscription on Jesse’s tombstone read, “Jesse W. James. Died April 3, 1882. Aged 34 years, 6 months, 28 days. Murdered by a traitor and a coward whose name is not worthy to appear here.”