Download Rob The Banks! The Missouri Guerrilla War 1860

Rob The Banks!
The Missouri Guerrilla War 1860-1882
by John Jewell
Introduction
The American Civil War did not merely divide the United States: it shattered the White population.
These wounds have never fully healed, and must not heal. The War of Rebellion went far beyond two
rival governments and two regular armies contesting in the field. It concerned much more than negro
slavery. The Civil War was a savage conflict of guerrillas, partisans, bushwhackers, raiders, and home
guards; vast secret undergrounds, spies, conspiracies, betrayals, assassinations, and massacres. It pitted
White against White, brother against brother.
This is Exactly How the Next American Civil War Will Look
The Confederacy included not only eleven Southern states, but also Missouri, southern Kentucky,
eastern Maryland, south-east Kansas, southern New Mexico and Arizona, and the allied Indian
Territory of present Oklahoma. Supporting the Confederacy were hundreds and thousands of
Northerners, not only Peace Democrats opposed to the War, but also the violent underground units of
the Golden Circle and their "Knights of the Invisible Empire," strong throughout Kentucky, Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and New York City. In Illinois, the Golden Circle electoraly captured the
lower house of the State Legislature and voted to recognize the Confederacy. In New York City, the
Golden Circle led Irish immigrants in a bloody anti-draft, anti-Negro insurrection. Confederate agents
operating from Canada struck as far north as Lake Erie and Vermont. Vast areas of the North were
placed under military dictatorship and thousands incarcerated without charge or trial.
The Union, meanwhile, was not merely the states of the North and West. It was supported by the small
White farmers of much of Kentucky, eastern Tennessee, north-western Virginia, western Maryland,
western North Carolina, the northern sectors of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and portions of
Louisiana and Arkansas. It was there that an old, intense hatred pitted the "Mountain Whites" against
an arrogant Southern planter aristocracy. The underground "Heroes of America" killed sheriffs, justices
of the peace, and Confederate recruiters and conscriptors.
The American Civil War was an ugly, vicious bloodbath that saw the introduction of revolvers,
repeating rifles, machine guns, submarines, torpedoes, aerial bombing from balloons, electric mines,
"Greek-fire" chemical-incendiaries, and ironclad warships; of mass railroad transport, electric
telegraph, trench warfare, and naval blockade. Confederate sea-raiders operated as far off as the Indian
Ocean, South Pacific, and the Bering Strait of the Arctic. On a plea from Washington, the Czar
dispatched the Russian Atlantic and Pacific fleets to patrol American waters (their officers and crews
were feted in the streets of New York and in the White House ballroom); this move forestalled a
Franco-British invasion of the United States (as they had just done in Mexico), and buttressed
American support for the Russian suppression of a Polish insurrection. The War produced nationalized
communications, transport and commerce; deficit funding in bogus paper currency, financial
conspiracies, and counter-expropriations of banks. It was an era of a national secret police, military
dictatorship, concentration camps, and the scorched earth strategy of Total War.
The Reasons Why
The real reason for the War revolved around the following questions:
1. Who controlled the economy? Northern bankers, foreign financiers, railroad barons, merchant czars,
industrial tycoons, and Federal agents? Or a rival Southern slave-planter aristocracy and their foreign
backers?
2. Would government represent the people of each locality and their specific interests? Or would it
consolidate a monstrous tyranny in the federal District of Columbia?
3. What of the White working people? Would the small White farmers work their own lands, or become
white-trash sharecroppers and mortgage serfs to the mega-rich? Would White workingmen, artisans,
and professionals enjoy the fruits and dignity of their labor, or become debased wage-slaves, alongside
negro scabs, mestizo peons, and oriental collies? Would small businesses survive, or become frontstore clerks for Big Business and the Banks?
4. What of the White Race? Would the United States remain White or mongrelized?
Are not these also the questions facing the White Race today?
Missouri Guerrilla War
The conflict in Missouri was a microcosm of the whole struggle. It is here that our study will focus.
The Missouri Compromise of 1820 made Missouri a slave state, although it was ill-fitted for it. Threequarters of the state juts into the North and the land was not suited for slave plantations. Only oneeighth of the White population owned slaves (primarily in the south-east by the Mississippi), and the
numbers involved were not large or economically important. Ideally suited for small, independent
farms, Missouri was settled by Mountain-White yeomanry of British Anglo-Celtic stock: Old
Americans. Most came from the Mountain-White areas of the South and bore a romantic kind of
affinity with the land of their roots. Their major enemy was not a slaver aristocracy, which scarcely
existed in Missouri, but instead an invasion of the state by Northern bankers, railroad conglomerates
and foreign speculators (largely German and German-Jewish).
Through the 1850s a bloody conflict raged in nearby Kansas over whether the territory would become a
slave or free state. Free-soil farmers from the North entered Kansas, demanding grants of government
land and the exclusion of slave plantations. Their economic fate depended upon the extension of vast
railroad lines throughout the territory. South-east Kansas was settled, however, by farmers from
Missouri. Few owned slaves, but they demanded a slave-state status on ideological grounds more than
anything else. Backed by gunmen from Missouri, the pro-Southern settlers threatened to dominate the
territory electorally. The free-soil farmers, infiltrated by radical abolitionist agitators from New
England, established an illegal "Free-State" regime in Northern Kansas and fielded and armed Home
Guard. Fighting broke out between free-soil "Jayhawker" raiders and pro-Southern "Missouri Border
Ruffians." There were barn burnings, lynchings, massacres, and slave-raids. In 1856, the proSoutherners raided and sacked the "Free State" town of Lawrence, an abolitionist stronghold founded
by the "New England Emigrant Aid Company." In retaliation, the crazed abolitionist John Brown
murdered all the males in two families of Southern settlers (neither even owned slaves); the men and
boys were hacked to death in front of their women.
The state of Missouri was experiencing another sort of division. In 1850, no railroads crossed the state.
By 1860, a rail-line had been laid through Northern Missouri from St. Louis to Kansas, and a railhead
pushed south-west towards the Ozarks. The cosmopolitan city of St. Louis, located on the Mississippi
River on the far north-eastern edge of the state, across from Illinois, was flooded with foreign
immigrants. These were both radical Germans fleeing the failed German Revolution of 1848-49 (some
of them early Marxists), and Jewish speculators of all stripes.
Following the conclusion of the Crimean War, Russian grain had re-entered the world market, causing a
sharp depression in the northern United States. Over-extended U.S. grain-growers faced bankruptcy,
while the railroads and banks suffered a 'panic.' Even by 1859, the northern economy had not fully
recovered. A conspiracy of Northern bankers and railroad barons planned a unique way to finance a
'New World Order.' First of all, bankrupt the heavily-indebted small farmers by calling up loans or
artificially jacking-up transit rates; then compel landless farmers to work and sell on right-of-way plots
owned by the railroads, or on marginal farms over-mortgaged to the banks. Corruption of the political
system allowed for another weapon; local and state taxes. At the same time, force open to Northern
mega-businesses any of the remaining autarchic Southern markets and take over their local railroads. A
major goal was to stymie a projected Southern railroad through Texas to Los Angeles on the Pacific.
Instead, the major lines would run from Chicago westward through the more northerly states and
western territories to San Francisco.
Election of 1860
In the Fall of 1860, four candidates ran for the U.S. Presidency. Lincoln was named a minority
President by the Electoral College, although he garnered only two million of the five million popular
votes cast. The majority three million votes were split three ways between: (1) Douglas, a moderate
Northern Democrat from Illinois, (2) Breckinridge, a pro-slaver Southern Democrat from Kentucky (he
was, at that time, the U.S. Vice President), and (3) Bell, a moderate Constitutional Unionist (Old Whig)
from Tennessee.
Not only was Republican Lincoln a minority President (1,866,000 votes), but the pro-slaver
Breckinridge (848,000), who took the deep-South electoral votes (72), was also a minority choice in the
South, with only 44% of the popular votes. Most Southerners split their votes between Douglas and
Bell. Missouri's electoral votes went to Douglas, who had only one-tenth of one percent more votes
than Bell. Breckinridge took only the southerly Ozarks, while Lincoln won only cosmopolitan St.
Louis. Despite a second showing in popular votes (1,383,000) Douglas secured only Missouri and the
Northern counties of New Jersey in the Electoral College (12 votes). The border states of Virginia,
Kentucky and Tennessee went for Bell, whose Constitutional Union won 39 electoral votes for only
593,000 popular votes. Bell was also supported by Northern Old-Whigs and the American Party
"Know-Nothings." Lincoln and the Republicans captured the Northern states and California and
Oregon on the Pacific, for 180 electoral votes. The free-soiler, Abraham Lincoln, was actually a
moderate Liberal-Whig who advocated the deportation of negroes to Africa and Central America. But
his newly-founded Republican Party was hamstrung by fanatical Radicals, the integrationist "Black
Republicans," and by sinister Northern financiers and industrialists. Originally a Western free-soil
Populist Party, which had previously contested for the Presidency only in 1856, the Republicans were
already dominated by the Eastern Establishment.
Long before Lincoln assumed office on March 4, 1861, seven slave states (six Deep South and Texas)
seceded from the Union (December 1860 to February 1861) and established the Confederate States of
America. Lincoln had to be secreted into Washington aboard a closed night-train guarded by private
Pinkerton detectives. The Federal Capital was a slave district within the slave state of Maryland. When
South Carolina fired on Federal forces at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, Lincoln called for 75,000
volunteers to defend the Union. Four more states (despite popular misgivings) joined the rebels: North
Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas. In Baltimore, Maryland, ten thousand citizens attacked
Massachusetts' troops on their way to protect Lincoln in Washington, D.C. The troops killed one
hundred rioters, with four soldiers dead and thirty-six wounded. The enraged "Blood-Tubs" burned the
train depot and rail bridges. Maryland's government declared the state "neutral" and cut all rail and
telegraph lines with the North. Troops from New York and New England made a seaborne invasion, retaking Baltimore and relieving the isolated federal capital. A military dictatorship incarcerated
thousands of pro-Southerners and formed a puppet state government. This was supported by the
Mountain-Whites of western Maryland, but the slaver lowlands remained a nest of spies and smugglers.
Volunteers formed a Maryland Regiment of the Confederate Army, and Southern troops sang the
refrains of "Maryland, My Maryland!"
The Northern slave-state of Delaware remained in the Union. North-west Virginia seceded from the
rebel state and joined the Union as West Virginia, although it remained slave and its southern counties
stayed in Confederate hands to War's end. Kentucky was "neutral," its Governor and State Militia prosecessionist, but the majority of the Legislature was pro-Union and forming an armed Home Guard.
Confederate and Union troops invaded and the State Militia joined the Confederacy, a soldiers'
convention voting Kentucky the 13th Confederate state. While 35,000 Kentuckians joined the rebels,
over 75,000 (including 14,000 Freed Negroes) enlisted in the Union Army. South-eastern Kentucky
was kept in Confederate hands until 1864.
Texas conquered New Mexico Territory and created the White Territory of "Arizona," defeating the
Federal-backed Mexican-Americans of Albuquerque and Santa Fe. The Indian Territory (Oklahoma)
allied with the Confederacy as a slave territory and fielded an Indian auxiliary force.
The Confederates faced considerable resistance at home, some of it armed. As in West Virginia and
Kentucky, there was bitter hatred against the slaver aristocracy among the Allegheny "Mountain
Whites" of Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, and their kindred throughout
Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas. The Southern Unionists had opposed secession and a "Peace
Democrat" faction grew through the War, especially strong in North Carolina. The "Red Republicans"
of northern Alabama agitated for secession from the Confederacy. The underground "Heroes of
America" killed sheriffs, justices of the peace, and Confederate recruiters, and protected deserters from
the Confederate Army. In eastern Tennessee, thousands of poor Whites joined the invading Union
Army. Appointed Head of the occupied Military District of Tennessee was the local Congressman,
Andrew Johnson, a loyal "Union Democrat" and violent hater of the rich slaver-aristocracy. He became
Lincoln's Unified-Party Vice President in 1865 and then U.S. President on Lincoln's assassination.
Bloody Missouri
In March 1861, the new state Governor of Missouri, the majority of the legislature, and the State
Militia were all pro-secessionist. They demanded the turn-over of the Federal arsenal in St. Louis,
which was refused. Street fighting broke out in St. Louis between radical Republican "Wide Awakes"
(mostly German immigrants) and the Douglas-Democrat "Minutemen." In April, the state legislature
voted for "armed neutrality." The Minutemen joined the State Militia and camped outside St. Louis.
The Republican "Wide Awakes" were formed into an armed Home Guard by Congressman Blair,
brother of Lincoln's Postmaster General. Blair appointed a Connecticut Yankee, one Captain Lyon of
the Federal Army, to drill the Home Guards in the city parks. The left-over arsenal guns were spirited
across river to Illinois.
On May 10, 1861, the Home Guards launched a surprise attack and captured one hundred State
Militiamen in the St. Louis suburbs. The next day, pro-Southern citizens rioted as the German
guardsmen marched their prisoners through the city streets. Twenty-eight rioters were shot. With
Lincoln's blessings, Congressman Blair declared martial law and established a rival state government in
St. Louis. The Home Guard was expanded and renamed the "Army of Missouri," six thousand strong,
which included a separate contingent of one thousand Germans led by a Colonel Sigel and a German
radical, Carl Schurz, a publisher of the Missouri Republican (a friend and correspondent of Karl Marx
and Friedrich Engels, the Liberal Republican Schurz later became the U.S. Secretary of the Interior).
On June 12, 1861, Governor Jackson and the State Legislature declared Missouri a Confederate State
(the twelfth, with splintered Kentucky the thirteenth). General Price expanded the State Militia to 5,000
men, while Confederate forces began entering southern Missouri from Arkansas. The Militia included
such erstwhile volunteers as the youthful Sam Clemens (later famous as the writer Mark Twain) and the
British adventurer William Stanley (of later "Africa" fame.
The Unionists struck first. A flying column pushed up the Missouri Riverand captured the State Capital
of Jefferson City, then defeated the State Militia at Boonesville on June 17, 1861. Governor Jackson
and his legislators retreated southeast and established a new capital at Neosho.
Northern Missouri was declared in Union hands, but resistance broke out in the northwest after
revenge-raids by Kansas "Jayhawkers." State Militia officer William Quantrill, leading a unit which
included local farm boys Frank James and his cousin Cole Younger, struck at Plattsburg, Missouri in
June 1861, capturing arms and supplies and then rode south to join the State Militia in the Ozarks.
Colonel Sigel and his Germans took a train from St. Louis to the southerly railhead at Rolla, they
marched on to the Ozarks. They were defeated outside Carthage and retreated. Connecticut Yankee
Lyon, now a Brigadier-General, arrived and took command, capturing the major city of Springfield in
southern Missouri. But he was 120 miles from his supply base at Rolla and was soon bottled-up by
enveloping forces of the State Militia and Confederate Regulars from Arkansas.
In St. Louis, flamboyant General Fremont (Western explorer and first Republican Presidential
candidate in 1856) took command of the "Department of the West." Fremont whiled away his hours
regaling European visitors (including Colonel C. De Arnaud of Russian Intelligence) with his grandiose
plans for driving south down the Mississippi River to capture New Orleans. Meanwhile, Lyon begged
for reinforcements but Fremont ignored him. In desperation, Lyon and Sigel started out from
Springfield in August 1861 to attack the State Militia and Arkansas Confederate forces at Wilson's
Creek in the Ozarks. Sigel and his Germans were routed after an ill-conceived surprise attack on the
confederate rear. Lyon attempted a break-out charge full into rebel artillery. Lyon and 1,300 of his men
were killed. Colonel Sigel and his Germans fled back to the railhead at Rolla.
The State Militia under General Price and the Arkansas Regulars under General McCulloch marched
north, crossing the Missouri River into northern Missouri. Between September 11-17, 1861, they
overwhelmed a major stronghold of the "Army of Missouri" in the siege of Lexington. Rolling wet
cotton bales before them as a mobile breastwork, the Rebels captured 2,700 Unionist Guardsmen.
Meanwhile, in St. Louis, Fremont had jailed Congressman Blair for insubordination and on August 30,
1861, issued a unilateral declaration: (1) all Rebels found under arms would be summarily shot, and (2)
all Negro slaves in rebel hands were henceforth declared emancipated.
President Lincoln angrily countermanded the declaration by executive decree. When Fremont next
threatened to declare himself the "Dictator of the West," Lincoln dispatched loyal officers to St. Louis
and relieved Fremont of his command. It was then discovered that Fremont's aides had plundered 5
million dollars from Federal War Contracts.
On November 7, 1861, Confederate forces defeated General U. S. Grant's invasion of southeast
Missouri at Belmont, across the river from Columbia, Kentucky. In the Fall of 1861, State Militia
officer William Quantrill and his volunteers arrived back in northwest Missouri, having fought at
Wilson's Creek, Lexington, and several engagements in the Indian Territory (Oklahoma), which had
been invaded by renegade Indians and "Freed Negro" cavalry troops from Kansas. Quantrill raided
Independence, Missouri, surprising a contingent of Home Guardsmen and capturing a large number of
horses. In December 1861, General Pope of the Union Army was sent to clear northern Missouri of
rebel resistors. The German radical Schurz became Commander of the "Missouri Volunteers" (German
immigrants from St. Louis).
The State Militia and Arkansas Confederate Regulars retreated back to Springfield in southern
Missouri. Quantrill and his men decided to remain underground in northern Missouri and formed a
partisan unit with Quantrill elected Captain in December 1861.
After a string of defeats in the Indian Territory, White-officered Choctaws and Chicksaws finally beat
Federal-led renegade Cherokees in November at Newtonia in southwest Missouri. Then, in December
1861, Confederate Regulars and Militiamen, led by General McIntyre of Texas and a force of
Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, Chicksaw and Choctaw annihilated seven hundred pro-Union Seminoles,
Osages, Creek, and Cherokees in northeast Oklahoma. The illustrious "Kansas 1st Cavalry" of Freed
Negroes fled back to safety in Kansas.
In February 1862, Union forces retook Springfield in southern Missouri. The State Militia and
Confederate Regulars retreated over the border into Arkansas. The Confederates amassed a large force
of 13,000 Regulars and Militiamen, supplemented by 3,500 Indians (2,300 half breeds and 1,200
Pinhead pure-bloods). The Confederate Command was split between two regular Generals, the
Missouri Militia Head, a Confederate Supreme Commander of Indian forces, and the half-breed leader
of the Cherokee Nation forces.
Between March 6-8, 1862, Union forces twelve thousand strong defeated the sixteen thousand
Confederates and Indians at the Battle of Pea Ridge in northwest Arkansas. The Rebels failed in a
tricky "double-envelopment" maneuver and became separated from their supply wagons. The wild,
scattered forays of the Pinheads further disorganized the field. Sigel and his Germans finally shattered
the Confederates in a mass charge. In the ensuing rout, the Rebels fell to 3,000 effectives. The
victorious Unionists suffered 1,380 killed, wounded and missing.
Missouri was now fully under Union occupation. Atrocities against pro-Southern farmers were
committed by Kansas Jayhawkers and by the hated "lop-eared Dutch" (German Guardsmen).
Resistance grew. In June 1862, heavy fighting erupted in Bates County, western Missouri, between
farmers and federal troops from Iowa. The Unionists began shooting two guerrillas for every Unionist
killed. In the southern Ozarks, guerrillas executed any renegade farmers found selling food to the "lopeared Dutch." In Tawney County, Ozarks, "bushwackers" led by Alf Bolin committed murderous
attacks from 1861 to 1864, until they were finally hunted down and killed to a man. But the most
serious resistance developed in north-west Missouri, far behind Union lines.
Black Flag Brigade
William Clarke Quantrill was a Northerner, born in Ohio in 1837. He was a slender young man with a
boyish face, standing five foot and nine inches, with black hair and brown eyes. Working as a school
teacher in Kansas, he first joined the Free Staters but then changed sides to the pro-Southerners.
Quantrill was accused variously of murder, horse-stealing and slave-raiding. In December 1860, he
infiltrated and betrayed a band of Jayhawkers raiding from Kansas into Jackson County, Missouri. His
fame spread among the farmers of northwest Missouri.
In 1861, Quantrill became an officer in the Missouri State Militia. His unit raided Plattsburg, fought at
Wilson's Creek, Springfield and in the Indian Territory, then returned to raid Independence, Missouri.
When Southern forces retreated, they remained in northwest Missouri as a guerrilla band. Except for
Quantrill, it was an indigenous outfit of local farmers, including his second-in-command William
"Bloody Bill" Anderson and troopers Frank James and Cole Younger. The fifteen-year-old Jesse James
became a scout and spy after being tied to a tree and horse-whipped by Jayhawkers, who also abused
his mother and mock-hanged his step-father.
Quantrill's guerrillas conducted audacious lightning raids and became known as the "Black Flag
Brigade" for their cash-robberies. The recruiting slogan was "Join Quantrill and Rob the Banks!"
On September 6, 1862, Quantrill raided into Kansas, looting and burning the town of Olathe. Gold,
cash, and jewelry were taken, and a dozen Unionists executed. The raid caused a national press
sensation. Leaving his men underground in Missouri, Quantrill infiltrated through Union lines to
Confederate territory and travelled to Richmond, Virginia, capital of the Confederacy. There he
obtained a Colonel's field commission as an irregular partisan; it was signed by Confederate President
Jefferson Davis. Quantrill was twenty-five years old.
That 1862 was a wild, uncertain year of chaotic flux. Besides the major military operations, which were
bloody but inconclusive, all forms of irregular warfare sprouted and flourished. A Union Commando
infiltrated into Alabama, stealing a train and burning bridges in a diversionary operation to aid a Union
thrust from Tennessee into northern Alabama. The men were captured and several executed.
Confederate calvary leader Jeb Stuart raided into Pennsylvania, burning supply depots, railroad shops,
and bridges. Mosby's "Partisan Rangers" of Northern Virginia became a scourge to Union forces,
conducting deep-penetration raids by small bodies of mounted men (in 1863 they captured a Union
General in his bed). In western Tennessee and northern Mississippi, irregular calvary leader Nathan
Bedford Forrest (later leader of the Ku Klux Klan) began to develop his specialized disruption of Union
communications, focusing on the destruction of rail and telegraph lines. An aeronautical division of the
Union Army, established in 1862, used balloons for field observation, linked to ground by telegraph.
Free-flight bombing raids were launched and an attack made on a grounded Confederate balloon.
Strangled by a Naval blockade of Union warships, the Confederacy sought to break the noose with
daring blockade-runners, ironclad vessels, sea-raiders striking at Yankee merchantmen in all the seas of
the world, and by the development of submarines (in 1834 the C.S.S. Hunley managed to sink the
warship U.S.S. Housatonic with a spar-torpedo).
Watershed Year
In July 1863, Union forces under U.S. Grant split the Confederacy in two, seizing the entire Mississippi
River Valley to the Gulf of Mexico. Bushwackers using mobile guns sank many Yankee vessels on the
River, and parties of mounted men, heavily armed, could ferry the water by night until War's end. But
for all effective political and economic purposes, the Confederacy was gutted down the center. Cut off
in the West for the remainder of the conflict were Texas, western Louisiana, southwest Arkansas, the
Indian Territory, and "Arizona" (along with Missouri further north). A "Trans-Mississippi Department"
of the Confederacy was placed under the military dictatorship of General Kirby Smith in Texas.
Economic trade with Europe was maintained via border-running through northern Mexico. General
J.O. Shelby was sent to the Texas-Arkansas border to organize irregular warfare against the invading
Yankees.
That same July, Lee's invasion of the North failed disastrously at Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. Also a
bloody failure was "Morgan's Raid" of irregular cavalry through Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio. But the
North too was experiencing severe difficulties.
Opposition in the North
Despite the Union victories at Vicksburg in Mississippi and Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, the North was
in a state of internal disaffection. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation freed only those slaves in rebel
hands; slavery lingered on in Northern-occupied areas. Lincoln spoke publicly of the incompatibility of
the White and Black races and notified Congress of his intent to deport freed Negroes following the
War. Agents were sent to Central America and Liberia to negotiate their transfer.
The disgruntled Radical Republicans were openly disloyal to Lincoln; he was buttressed only by an
alliance with "War Democrats" estranged from their own party. The Northern Democratic Party was
split between these "Unionist Democrats" and the dominant "Peace Democrats" seeking a negotiated
end to the conflict. The latter were infiltrated by pro-secessionists of the secret Golden Circle,
employing front-groups such as the "Copperhead" leagues and "Sons of Liberty." The Peace Democrats
were also flirting with General McClellan, the vain, pretentious "Little Napoleon" who openly insulted
Lincoln and several times offered himself as "Dictator" of the United States.
Southern propaganda portrayed the Union as a devil's den of "Negro Worship," "Socialism,"
"Atheism," "Free Love," and "Puritanism." The White Race was sacrificed to barbaric Black savages,
their Negro King enthroned over America, as Lincoln promoted the bloody example of the crazed
abolitionist John Brown. The reality in the South itself, however, was a starving poor White population
sacrificed to the interests of the rich planter aristocracy and their hordes of Black slaves. The
Confederacy was financially controlled by the Rothschild-Jew banks in Paris and London, and by their
B'nai B'rith agents: the Erligs, Baruchs of South Carolina, the Sliddels of Louisiana, and Judah P.
Benjamin, Secretary of State of the Confederacy. Abraham Lincoln tried to break this same strangle
hold on the North by refusing to borrow from the Anglo-Jew banks of New York and London.
However, his alternative was just as harmful in the long term. Lincoln flooded the country with
inflationary Federal "green-back" paper dollars; deficit funded in massive war spending; and in the
worst move, allowed local capitalists to found private banks with virtually no deposits or collateral, but
a wildly usurious lending and interest base. Already glutted with massive war contracts and railroad
expansions, the Northern capitalists would soon aid the Radical Republicans in destroying everything
Lincoln sought to preserve in the Union.
In 1863 the North was placed under military dictatorship. Besides the military thrusts of the South that
year, the catalyst for the dictatorship was the activity of the Golden Circle and its "Invisible Empire."
This was a secret organization of closed cells, or "castles," and a striking arm, the "Invisible Knights"
(renamed the "American Knights" in 1863 and the "Sons of Liberty" in 1864). The Golden Circle was
founded in the 1850s by Southerners bent on carving out a slave empire in Mexico. When branches in
the North opened, they took on a new emphasis, after absorbing scattered elements of conservative Old
Whigs and the American Party "Know Nothings." The Northerners coalesced around demands for the
end to foreign immigration, the smashing of ethnic voting machines in Northern cities, and the
preservation of a White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant society. They favored local control, including the
issue of slavery (i.e., allow the Southerners to decide their own affairs). The Golden Circle generally
supported the presidential candidacy of Congressman Bell and his Constitutional Unionists. When Bell
spoke out for secession, following Fort Sumter in 1861, the Golden Circle followed suit, in effect
forming a subversive fifth-column in the North. Their "Castles" floated various front-groups,
infiltrating the "Peace Democrats" in the form of "Copperhead" liberty leagues. They were led publicly
by Ohio Congressman C.L. Vallandigham, and enjoyed some support from New York City Mayor F.
Wood.
The "Invisible Knights" were active in the underground and had close contact with Confederate secret
agents. In 1862 they attempted to seize the Indianapolis Arsenal under the cover of a riot, but the mob
of one thousand was dispersed by State Militia. Other splits included the detachment of the Old NorthWest (Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota) to form a North-West Confederacy. By 1863, the Golden
Circle was 200,000 strong in the North, the majority of members in Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
and New York City. Reorganized that year as the "American Knights," they launched a wave of
burnings and assassinations in Ohio and Indiana. C.L.
Vallandigham announced his candidacy for Ohio Governor on a stop-the-War platform. In that critical
July of 1863, with Lee's Army in Pennsylvania and Morgan's Raiders slashing through Kentucky,
Indiana, and Ohio, Golden Circle agents were active in a bloody insurrection of Irish immigrants in
New York City. Sparked by anti-conscription outrage and spear-headed by a volunteer fire brigade, the
Irish overwhelmed the police in their slums and seized 11,000 arms from a local armory. Under the
cries of "No Draft!," "Hang all the Niggers!," "Down with the Rich!," and "Hurrah for the Golden
Circle!," they attacked police and Negroes, looted stores and warehouses, and burned 100 buildings,
including 3 police stations, 3 provost marshall offices, an armory, several factories, a Colored
orphanage, and a Protestant mission. In fierce street battle with police and State Militia, two thousand
were killed and eight thousand wounded, at a loss of fifty soldiers and three policemen dead, and three
hundred troops and nearly one thousand police wounded or injured. Eighteen Negroes were lynched by
the rioters, five were drowned, and seventy Blacks were declared missing. Total financial loss reached
five million dollars.
The last straw was added in Illinois. The Golden Circle front groups captured the lower house of the
Illinois Legislature in state elections and voted to stop the War and recognize the Confederacy.
Lincoln imposed Martial Law. The right of Habeas Corpus was suspended. Thirteen thousand
suspected Golden Circle "Copperheads" were incarcerated, including Congressman Vallandigham. The
North was divided into military districts and Army commanders were empowered to arrest and confine
without charge or trial, over-ride local courts, and execute civilians after drumhead military trials. The
new National Detective Police were given extraordinary powers, working directly for the Secretary of
War. Communications, transport, and commerce were put under control of the War Department.
Founder of the Golden Circle, Dr. Bickley of Louisiana, and his military chief, Dr. Bowls, infiltrated
through Union lines to take operation of Golden Circle Cells in Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana. They
were quickly unmasked and captured by the Army. Bickley was imprisoned and Bowls executed. C. L.
Vallandigham was summarily shoved over Confederate lines, a deportation that effectively struck him
off the gubanatorial election lists.
To thwart threatened military intervention by Britain and France on behalf of the Confederacy, Lincoln
requested aid from the Russian Czar. At that time, Russia was a North American power, possessing
Alaska and not long before had maintained a fort in Northern California and explored the Hawaiian
Islands. Britain and France invaded Mexico in 1861. French troops (including the Foreign Legion)
remained in Mexico, propping up a cleric-conservative regime, and in 1863 established a "Catholic
Empire." Austrian Prince Maximillian became Emperor in 1864. Lincoln gave his support to the
Liberal Party rebels of ousted President Benito Juarez.
The Russian Atlantic and Pacific fleets patrolled American coastal waters from September 1863 until
the Spring of 1864. The Russian fleet entered New York Harbor on September 24, 1863 and the crew
were feted to a victory parade through the streets of the city on the 17th of October. In December of
1863, the Russian fleet sailed up the Potomac and its officers were hosted by the First Lady at a White
House Ball. Russian warships also entered San Francisco Bay.
Massacres
To quell the insurgency in northwest Missouri in the Summer of 1863, Union forces under General T.
C. Ewing rounded up dozens of the female relatives of suspected guerrillas. The women were packed
into the third story of an old building in Kansas City. The structure collapsed under the weight and
killed many, including the sister (Matilda Anderson) of Quantrill's second-in-command, William
Anderson, and the sister (Christie McCorkle Kerr) of guerrilla James McCorkle.
In retaliation, Quantrill organized a 450-man raid into Kansas. The unit included Frank James and his
cousin Cole Younger. Aided by pro-Southern farmers in southeast Kansas, the guerrillas made a
surprise attack on the abolitionist stronghold of Lawrence on August 21, 1863. Senator James Lane, a
notorious Jayhawker who the guerrillas vowed to "burn at the stake," escaped by hiding in a cornfield.
The raiders rounded up and shot 150 males in the town center, burned 182 buildings, and robbed two
banks.
The massacre caused a national outrage. Federal troops converged on eastern Kansas, while the
"Bloodiest Men in America" retreated southward. In October of 1863, Quantrill ambushed a Federal
wagon-train at Baxter Springs, Kansas, then escaped into the Indian Territory, finally reaching
Confederate regular forces in north-east Texas. When horrified Confederate officers challenged his
authority, Quantrill revealed his partisan commission from Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
Quantrill was also accused of ambushing a Confederate wagon-train in the Indian Territory.
Quantrill's Raiders entered south-west Arkansas and took service with irregular Commander Shelby
from the Fall of 1863 through to the Fall of 1864. Resistance continued back in north-west Missouri,
where 16-year-old Jesse James was now a hunted fugitive.
1864: Total War
In February of 1864, the Union launched a raid on the Confederate Capital of Richmond, Virginia.
While Union forces under General Kirkpatrick attempted a mass prison-rescue of Unionist soldiers
held outside the city, a naval hero, Colonel Dahlgren, led one hundred mounted men on a top secret
sabotage and assassination mission conceived by the War Department. Their ultimate aim, spelled out
in written orders, was the capture or execution of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his
Cabinet. Dahlgren destroyed mills, canal locks and boats, but was quickly hit by local Virginia
"bushwhackers." A hastily assembled troop of Confederate home guards and invalided soldiers trapped
the raiders, killing Dahlgren and capturing the War Department assassination orders, which Richmond
newspapers promptly published.
In April of 1864, Forrest's Rangers (irregular cavalry in northern Mississippi and eastern Tennessee
under the command of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, later leader of the Ku Klux Klan) cut through
Union lines to seize Paducah, Kentucky, on the Mississippi River, then returned down-river to
Tennessee, overwhelming the blockhouses and inner fortifications of Fort Pillow, forty miles below
Memphis. Of the 600 Union defenders, 300 were Negroes. With the cry, "Kill the Niggers and the
White bastards who fought beside them!," the Confederates left only 100 survivors, less than 50 of
them Blacks. Between 1862 and 1865, over 182,000 Negroes served in the Union Army; 100,000
former Black slaves among them).
In May of 1864, Confederate irregular cavalry Commander Morgan led a last raid into his occupied
home state of Kentucky. Captured after his abortive 1863 raid into the North, Morgan had escaped
prison and taken command of the Confederate-controlled southern counties of West Virginia, protecting
the vital rail-lines and lead mines in the region. Raiding now into Kentucky, he briefly captured
Lexington, but forced to retreat, was killed at Greenville, Tennessee.
From May through September, Union General Sherman conducted his Atlanta Campaign, pushing from
Tennessee into northern Georgia and the heart of the Confederacy. Atlanta fell and was later burned. In
July of 1864, Confederate Commander Jubal Early raided North into Maryland and Pennsylvania,
extorting $400,000 from two towns, threatening Washington, D.C. within five miles, and burning
Chambersburg, Pa., when the town failed to provide $150,000 ransom. In September of 1864, Union
Cavalry devastated the Valley of Virginia, destroying the granaries that supplied Richmond and fed
Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.
Invasion Of Missouri
In the last Confederate offensive west of the Mississippi River, General Price (former Missouri State
Militia Commander) led 15,000 rebel troops from Arkansas into Missouri in the Fall of 1864. With him
were the irregular forces of General Shelby, including most of the men from north-west Missouri. The
"Quantrill Raiders" had suffered a serious split: the majority rode north in the Missouri invasion under
Captain "Bloody Bill" Anderson (Frank James, Cole Younger). Quantrill was forcibly left behind with
50 loyal men as the diversionary actions launched into Union-occupied eastern Arkansas.
Panicked, the Union rear-guarded forces retreated into Jefferson City and St. Louis, fortifying the
suburbs. After unsuccessfully attacking the outer defenses of the two cities, Generals Price and Shelby
headed west along the Missouri River, recruiting and conscripting troops as they marched. In late
September of 1864, "Bloody Bill" Anderson and thirty raiders crossed the Missouri River and struck
Centralia in central-north Missouri. The town stores and train depot were burned and twenty-four
Union troops captured off a train were executed. With Anderson were the James Brothers, the
seventeen-year-old Jesse James having ridden in from Clay County. A few hours later they annihilated
a patrol of pursuing Union Cavalry.
Jesse James was credited with shooting six troopers, three mortally, the reigns of his horse held in his
teeth and a six-gun firing from each hand. This was quite typical of the guerrillas. "Bloody Bill"
Anderson was himself a walking-arsenal. In battle he carried eight revolvers stuck around his belt, as
well as a hatchet and a sabre. On his horse were strapped four rifles and a satchel-bag of dynamite,
bullets, and more pistols.
Generals Price and Shelby defeated Union forces at the Battles of Lexington and Little Blue River. Just
as Price was destroying Federal troops from Kansas at the Big Blue River, the rebels were struck in the
rear by strong Union forces from St. Louis under General Rosecrans. Still retreating, Price was
defeated on October 23, 1864 at the Battle of Westport, by the combined troops of Curtis from Kansas
and Rosecrans from the East. Price and Shelby withdrew south along the Missouri-Kansas state-line,
defeating and capturing units of Kansas home-guards enroute. They reached the Indian territory and
finally returned to east Texas and southwest Arkansas. The "Kansas Department" forces under Curtis
conquered all of the Indian Territory except for the southern border area with Texas.
In that October of 1864, "Bloody Bill" Anderson and a small unit were run down by Union Cavalry in
Ray County, northwest Missouri. Anderson was shot dead in the saddle. The James Brothers, Cole
Younger and two brothers, and other guerrillas went underground in occupied Clay County as the
Unionists swept over them. Many of their families had been deported to Nebraska by Federal
authorities. That last half-year of War was a deadly, hunted existence.
March To The Sea
From October to December 1864, Sherman conducted his infamous "March to the Sea," cutting a 60mile wide swath of total destruction from Atlanta to Savannah on the Atlantic. An attempted
diversionary operation by the Confederacy failed when faltering rebel troops invaded Tennessee in
November of 1864 and were virtually annihilated.
One million Union troops were armed with muzzle-loading rifles, a large number of new breechloaders, and even some magazine-repeating rifles and early-model Gatling machine-guns. The pitiful
remnant of Confederates still carried muzzle-loading, smooth-bore muskets. Many lacked powder and
ball. Artillery was scanty. Transport had broken down. There were no boots, no overcoats, no blankets,
no tents, no medical supplies. There was no food.
Desperate Confederate agents in Canada launched several spectacular outrages, masterminded by Jacob
Thompson, Chief of the Confederate Secret Service. A former U.S. Secretary of the Interior (18571861), Thompson was headquartered in Montreal and recruited Southern Prisoners-Of-War who had
escaped into Canada. In September of 1864, a commando unit scuttled two ships in Lake Erie after an
abortive prison-break in upstate New York. On October 19, 1864, a large force infiltrated and seized the
town of St. Albans, Vermont, just over the U.S.-Canada border. Four banks were robbed of $200,000
and the town burned with "Greek-Fire" incendiaries. On November 25, 1864, Confederate agents and
Golden Circle "Sons of Liberty" terrorized Broadway in New York City, using "Greek-Fire" to burn
nineteen hotels and theaters.
That Fall of 1864, the Peace Democrats played their last card, running General George McClellan for
President. Lincoln formed a "Unionist Party" joint-ticket, incorporating the "War Democrats" into the
Republican Party. The "Union Democrat" (or "Southern Unionist") Andrew Johnson of Tennessee was
his Vice-Presidential running-mate. Bouyed by Sherman's stunning victories in Georgia, Lincoln and
Johnson swept to power along with an overwhelmingly Republican Congress.
Fall Of The Confederacy
The bitter trench warfare continued in Northern Virginia around Petersburg through the Winter of 186465. The first thaw occurred in February 1865 when William Tecumseh ("War is Hell!") Sherman began
his scorched-earth move from Georgia into South Carolina. That month the Confederate government
finally nationalized the remaining Southern railroads, attempting to stop the chaotic private competition
which had starved its armies. In March, the Confederacy offered to emancipate all slaves in exchange
for diplomatic recognition from Britain and France. But the European powers were no longer
interested. As a last-ditch measure in March 1865, the Confederacy began recruiting Negroes for the
Army.
In early April of 1865, General Lee's positions were outflanked in the trench warfare around Petersburg
in Northern Virginia. The Confederate capital of Richmond was abandoned, then burned by victorious
Union troops. Lincoln toured the devastated city. On April 9, 1865, General Lee surrendered his
starving men to General U.S. Grant at Appomattox. Confederate President Davis escaped with his
Cabinet to Danville in the unoccupied western corner of South Carolina. Abraham Lincoln was
assassinated in Washington, D.C. on April 14, 1865; his Secretary of State was wounded in another
attack. The pro-Southern Marylanders who carried it out were aided by a conspiracy of Lincoln's own
Secretary of War, the Chief of the National Detective Police, and several radical Republican
Congressmen.
Confederate forces in North Carolina surrendered on April 26, 1865. Davis dissolved the Confederate
central government the same day, leaving it to each state to decide its further course of action. President
Davis was captured in May in Georgia while trying to effect juncture with Forrest's Rangers
somewhere in Alabama-Mississippi. Davis was imprisoned without trial, facing execution, until 1867.
Confederate forces in Alabama surrendered on May 4, and Forrest's Rangers not long afterwards.
Finally, on May 26, 1865, General Kirby Smith surrendered Texas and the Trans-Mississippi West.
General Shelby and 300 irregulars, facing execution for guerrilla-war-crimes, crossed into Mexico and
took service with the French and supported Emperor Maximillian (he fell in 1867). The Confederate
sea-raider C.S.S. Shenandoah, still sinking Yankee whalers and merchantmen in the Bering Strait
between Alaska and Siberia in the June of 1865, made a run for the British Isles and surrendered in
Liverpool on November 6, 1865. One small Confederate Army unit held out in the Dismal Swamp until
July of 1866. The Confederate Secretary of War, John C. Breckinridge (former U.S. Vice President and
1860 Presidential Candidate) escaped to Paris via Cuba, as did Robert Toombs (Georgia Congressman,
founder of the Confederacy, and Georgia State Militia Chief). The Confederate Secretary of State,
Judah P. Benjamin (a British-Jew agent of the Rothschilds) escaped to London via the British Bahamas;
he was welcomed in Parliament by the Jew Disraeli. John Wilkes Booth, a well-known Maryland actor
from a family of theatricals famous in Britain and America, assassinated Lincoln and escaped to Egypt
and British India. Of Portuguese-Jew ancestry, Booth was aided by a phony-death cover-up launched
by the U.S. Secretary of War (William Stanton), the Chief of the National Detective Police (Captain
Baker), and several Radical Republican Congressmen (Senator Conness of California, Senator Wade of
Ohio, Senator Chandler of Maryland). Booth's Confederates were hanged by the military.
No Surrender Allowed
Quantrill led twenty men out of Arkansas and crossed the Mississippi River into Kentucky on a
projected assassination raid to Washington, D.C. Ridden-down by Union Cavalry, Quantrill was
wounded and captured on May 10, 1865. He was shot to death in his prison cell at Louisville, Kentucky
on June 6th. Quantrill was 28-years-old.
Responding to amnesty proclamations, the Clay County, Missouri Guerrillas attempted to surrender
under White Flag at Lexington. They were fired on by Union troops, and Jesse James (age 18) was shot
in the chest. He crawled into swampy reeds and hid from his pursuers until his brother located him the
next day. Frank James took the badly wounded Jesse to Nebraska, where their family had been forcibly
deported. Failing to recover, Jesse begged to be returned to Missouri rather than die in a Northern state.
He was moved to an uncle's farm in Harlem, Missouri and there nursed back to health by his first
cousin, Zerelda Mimms, who he later married. In late 1865, the James family returned to Kearney, Clay
County and resumed farming. Amnesty continued to be denied to ex-guerrillas.
By December of 1865, all the Southern states had formed new governments, taken a loyalty oath, and
accepted the emancipation of the Negro slaves. A few Confederate officials and rich Southern planters
were excluded from the franchise on the demand of President Andrew Johnson of Tennessee. Strict
controls were placed on roving Negroes, who were ordered to contract for work by a certain day each
year.
Radical Republicans were outraged, and fearing the reappearance of Southern Democrats back in
Congress, made plans to destroy the New South. The Radicals won heavily in the Congressional
elections of the Fall of 1866, waving the "bloody red flag" of war-hatred and revenge. Seated in early
1867, they pushed President Johnson to within one vote of impeachment and reimposed a military
occupation of the South. It was divided into five military districts, each under a Major-General. Only
Tennessee was exempted. State and local governments were turned-out at bayonet-point, and all former
Confederates denied the vote. Under the guns of Federal troops, many of them Negroes, corrupt state
and local governments were formed by Northern "carpetbaggers" (the "Unity Leagues"), illiterate
Negroes (backed by the War Department's "Freedman's Bureaus"), and White Southern collaborators
(the "scalawags"). Even the North was shocked by the open corruption, indecency, prostitution, and
illiteracy flaunted in the State Legislatures.
Southern Whites united, both Confederates and their "Mountain White" opponents. In 1867, General
Forrest took command of the Ku Klux Klan in the Upper South (it was established in 1866 in
Tennessee, where political activity was possible). A similar, though more conservative organization
flourished in the Deep South, the "Knights of the White Camelia." Another underground organization
was called the "Palefaces." This terrorist activity lasted to about 1871. From 1870 to 1876, Southern
Whites organized citizen's militias, such as the "Red Shirts" and defeated the "Black Republicans" in
open battle. Federal military occupation ended in 1877. White governments were formed in the South,
headed by surviving and new aristocracy who were linked in mutual combat with corrupt Northern
capitalists and politicians. Poor Whites remained in a debased condition, and Negroes were subjugated
to the "Jim Crow" Laws, which retained the mass of "field Niggers" as new bond-slave sharecroppers.
Missouri, Mother of Bandits
The sinister New York financier Jay Gould, enriched from Stock Market Funds, began to build a
railroad empire. He bought up the Erie Railroad to Chicago, Western Union Telegraph, and then gained
control of the Union Pacific, the Kansas Pacific, the Missouri Pacific, and Texas Pacific Railroads. The
Gould Empire, backed by gangs of Pinkerton Private Detectives and by corrupt officials, bankrupted
small farmers with excessive haulage rates, while giving rebates to favored large corporations using the
railroads. The banks then foreclosed on farm mortgages, ruining thousands and thousands of families.
Northern Missouri was especially hard-hit.
The James Brothers, their cousins the Younger Brothers, and other ex-guerrillas formed an outlaw band
in Clay County, Missouri. Their first raid was in February 1866. "We were driven to it," they said in
later years. As Jesse James wrote: "Some of us were never surrendered; the sacred cause" was too dear.
From 1866 to 1882, Jesse James led twenty-three raids through eight states, robbing twelve banks, six
trains, four stagecoaches, and the Kansas City Fairground. Sheriff posses and railroad gunmen of the
Pinkerton Detective Agency conducted manhunts in 100 counties in 12 states. For the first few years,
the James and Youngers lived openly as farmers, denying their part in the escalating robberies and
protected by local farmers. No local grand jury could ever be found to indict them. Attacks by the
Pinkertons drove them underground and a vast Railroad bribe to the Missouri State Legislature ensured
that no amnesty would be granted former Confederate guerrillas, in spite of popular demands for a
pardon from the citizens of Missouri.
Jesse James conducted a letter campaign on his own behalf in a local newspaper, justifying himself but
also denying all complicity. A prominent Missouri newspaper editor joined in, taking a broader view.
As a former Confederate officer, he cast the outlaw activity within the terms of the recent war itself, the
inequitable social conditions resulting from it, and ended by glorifying the outlaws as brave and just
men who stood in a proud pantheon of rebel heroes. The outlaws were compared to Spartacus and the
Gladiator slaves who rose against the tyranny of ancient Rome, and to Arthur and his chivalrous
Knights of the Round Table. They were, said the editor of the Lexington Caucasian, "brilliant, bold, and
indefatigable roughriders."
The outlaws became famous not only for their aid to local hard-pressed farmers, but also in the
mannerisms of their attacks. The bandits refused to rob former Confederate soldiers. Train and
stagecoach passengers had their hands examined for evidence of occupation and social-standing. Those
with soft hands ("plug-hat gentlemen") were robbed, while calloused "workingmen" went unharmed.
Train and bank robberies were still new and startling events. Sympathy for dispossessed farmers was
very strong within a still largely agrarian nation. By the 1870's, war hatred began to wane and Northern
opinion shifted against the Radical Republicans and the victimization of the South. The "Dime Novel"
pulp magazines read by children and adults alike began to glorify the exploits of the James Gang.
Jesse Woodson James was born in 1847 in Kearney, Clay County, Missouri. His father, Robert James,
was a Baptist preacher from Kentucky who became pastor of the New Hope Baptist Church in frontier
Kearney and was a founding school trustee of the William Jewell College. He died while seeking his
fortune in the California Gold Rush. Left with two young boys and a farm to tend, Zerelda James, also
from Kentucky, married twice more. Her third husband, Dr. Samuels, was a General Practitioner. By
him she bore the two older boys, Frank and James, a half-brother.
Frank "Buck" James grew to be a tall, thin, tight-lipped man, whipcord tough and self-reliant. He
fought through the entire Civil War, from 1861 to 1865. The younger Jesse James developed to five
foot and eleven inches, of a lean muscular build, with piercing light-blue eyes and light brown hair. His
serious face retained a youthful though abstracted cast until his stern end at age thirty-four. Jesse often
cited the Biblical Apocalypse and cataclysmic Prophets and related personal visionary experiences to
his men. Even his brother and closest comrades found him a strange, forbidding personality. He had no
qualms in shooting down men in cold blood in his defense of the "Sacred Cause." Despite his youth, he
quickly became leader of the outlaws, even of his older brother Frank James and cousin Coleman
Younger, both veterans of the State Militia and Quantrill's "Black Flag Brigade" from the earliest days.
But it was always an uneasy relationship. Jesse was a driven man, possessed by an inner vision.
All the Younger Brothers (Cole, Bob, James, and John) joined their cousins, the James Boys, as
outlaws, along with other former guerrillas and local farmboys who had lived through the Union
occupation. "We were rough men and used to rough ways," said Bob Younger. As Frank James related,
they had not a moments safety or peace in over twenty years. Yet the James Brothers both married,
raised children, and farmed their lands in between raids.
In a song of the period:
"I am a good old Rebel
Now that's just what I am
For the 'Fair Land of Freedom'
I do not give a damn!
I'm glad I fought against it,
I only wish that we had won;
And I do not need a pardon
For anything I done."
Chronology of the James' Raids
February 1866: Bank raid on Liberty, Clay County, Missouri. A ten-man unit dressed in Union-blue
overcoats seized $15,000 in gold, silver, and cash, and $45,000 in non-negotiable government
securities, from the Clay County Savings Bank. A bystander outside the Williams Jewell College was
shot. This was only the second non-military bank robbery in U.S. History.
October 1866: Raid on the Alexander Mitchel & Co. Bank in Lexington, Lafayette County, Missouri
for $2,000 in cash.
March 1867: Abortive raid on McClain's Bank in Savanah, Andrew County, Missouri. The bank
president and local judge, W. McClain, were shot.
May 1867: Twelve-man raid on the Hugh & Mason Bank in Richmond, Ray County, Missouri, seizing
$4,000 in gold. Killed the town mayor, the jailer, and the gaoler's deputy son. One raider was later shot
and two others lynched. The James Brothers survived by distributing "alibi cards" to local farmers in
Clay County. These vouched for the innocence of the James boys and were shown to pursuing sheriff
posses.
March 1868: Raid on the Long & Norton Bank in Ruselville, Kentucky, across the Mississippi River
from Missouri. Conducted by the James and Younger brothers and Confederates. Seized $14,000. The
raiders took refuge with family kin in Allan County, Kentucky.
Intensive manhunts drove the James Brothers west to California, where they stayed with their uncle,
Drury Woodson James, in Hot Sulphur Springs, near Paso Robles. Legends exist that the James
Brothers robbed a stagecoach near San Diego to finance their return to Missouri.
December 1869: Three-man raid on the Davies County Savings Bank in Gallatin, Davies County,
Missouri, by Jesse, Frank, and Cole Younger. Bank cashier killed, but only $500 taken. Jesse James
was nearly killed, dragged by his horse stirrup in the get-away. The horse, cut loose, was later found by
lawmen and traced to Jesse; he swore that it had been stolen from his farm.
Meanwhile, the Farrington Brothers, Levi and Hillary, both of them ex-guerrillas of Quantrill's
command (having fought at Lawrence and Centralia), had also formed an outlaw band in their original
home area of northern Mississippi, striking banks and stagecoaches. In 1870, they robbed the "Mobile
& Ohio Flyer" of the Southern Express Rail Road at Union City, Tennessee. This was only the second
non-military train robbery in U.S. History (the first was in 1868 in Indiana, committed by the Reno
Brothers, who were finally tracked down in northern Missouri). A Pinkerton Detective manhunt
captured Hillary Farrington in Verona, Missouri: extradited to Tennessee, he attempted escape from a
steamer on the Mississippi River and was killed in the paddlewheel. Levi Farrington fled to Illinois,
where he was captured in a town shootout by a railway agent connected with the Pinkertons. He was
lynched in Union City a week later.
June 1871: Eight-man raid on the Ockobock Bank in Croydon, Iowa. Escaped to Missouri with
$45,000.
April 1872: Again crossing Missouri and the Mississippi River, the James Gang raided a deposit bank
in Columbia, Kentucky. A cashier was killed and only $600 taken. The outlaws crossed back into southeast Missouri to strike south of St. Louis.
May 1872: Bank raid on the "Ste. Genevieve Savings Association Banking House" at Ste. Genevieve,
Missouri, seizing $35,000 to $40,000. The robbers shouted "Hurrah for Hildebrand!" as they rode
away. Hildebrand was a famous Confederate "bushwacker" in south-east Missouri and northern
Arkansas during the War. He came from nearby St. Francis County. The raiders returned to Clay
County in northwest Missouri.
September 1872: Audacious but abortive two-man raid by Jesse and Frank James on the Kansas City
Fairground gate receipts. They missed taking $10,000 by only a few minutes.
July 1873: James Gang conducts its first train robbery on the "Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific
Express" at Adair in western Iowa. Exploding the track, they derailed the engine, killing the engineer.
$2,000 was taken from the express car and passengers. Heavily pursued, they rode through Missouri
and entered Arkansas.
January 1874: Rob the Concord Stagecoach near Malvern, Arkansas. Take $4,000 in cash and jewelry
from Northerners and detectives, but return possessions to a former Confederate officer. The outlaws
cross back into southeast Missouri.
January 1874: Eleven-man raid on the "Little Rock Express" of the Iron Mountain Railroad at Gadshill,
Wayne County, Missouri, located 100 miles south of St. Louis. It is the first non-military train robbery
in the state of Missouri. $22,000 in cash and valuables are taken. Passengers have hands examined for
social standing: "plug-hat gentlemen" with soft hands are robbed, while "workingmen" are unharmed.
Jesse James issues his own press release, handed to the train engineer: "The Most Daring Train
Robbery On Record! The Robbers Were All Large Men, All Being Slightly Under Six Feet, They Were
Mounted On Handsome Horses. P.S. There's A Hell Of An Excitement In This Part Of The Country!"
March 1874: Firefight between Jim Younger and his kid brother John, and two Pinkertons and a deputy
sheriff, at Monegan Springs, near Osceola, St. Clair County, Missouri. John Younger is killed, as well
as one Pinkerton and the deputy sheriff. That same month, Jesse James and two Confederates kill a
Pinkerton detective outside Kearney, Clay County, Missouri.
April 1874: Jesse James married his cousin, Zerelda Mimms, at Kansas City, Missouri. They
honeymooned in Texas and Mexico. Jesse was interviewed at Galveston, Texas on their way to Vera
Cruz: "We had been engaged for nine years, and through good and evil report, and not withstanding the
lies that had been told upon me and the crimes laid at my door, her devotion to me has never wavered
for a moment. You can say that both of us married for love and that there cannot be any sort of doubt
about our marriage being a happy one." The St. Louis Dispatch ran the story under the headline: "All
The World Loves A Lover."
August 1874: Stagecoach robbery at Lexington, Lafayette County, Missouri. The editor of the
Lexington Caucasian praised the raiders as "brilliant, bold, and indefatigable roughriders."
December 1874: Seven-man train robbery near Muncie, Wyandotte County, Kansas. The raiders forced
a section gang to pile ties on the tracks and wave down the "Kansas & Pacific Express." They took
some $25,000 in cash, gold, and jewelry.
January 1875: A unit of Pinkertons and other railroad operatives bombed the home of the mother of the
James Brothers. She lost her right arm and her eight-year-old son by Dr. Samuels was killed. A Clay
County Grand Jury indicted Allan Pinkerton (founder-director) in Chicago and two local collaborators.
They could not be extradited. Years later it was revealed that a deputy sheriff and posse had been
commissioned by Missouri officials to assist the Pinkertons in the attack.
The enraged Jesse James went to Chicago, attempting to stalk and kill Allan Pinkerton. Frank James
broke away for a time, eloping with a seventeen-year-old farmer's daughter who bore him a son.
Zerelda James bore Jesse two children.
May 1875: Dodging intense manhunts, the James and Younger Brothers went into hiding in eastern
Texas. Cole Younger lived for a time with the young female bandit Belle Starr at her father's farm in
Collin's County. To finance their return to Missouri, the gang robbed the "San Antonio Stage" outside
Austin, Texas, for $3,000 in cash and jewelry.
July 1875: Nine-man raid on the "Missouri-Pacific Express" at the Rocky Cut Gorge near Otterville,
Missouri, taking some $15,000 to $75,000.
The James and Younger Brothers then planned an audacious raid on the First National Bank in
Northfield, Minnesota, which lay beyond northern Missouri, all of Iowa, and well into south-east
Minnesota. Chief stockholders in the bank were General William Butler, the "Beast of New Orleans"
during the federal occupation of that city in the War, and W.A. Ames, an infamous Northern
carpetbagger operating in the South during the post-war occupation.
August 1875: Disastrous gunfight between the James gang and a party of returned hunters in the city
streets outside the bank. The Younger Brothers were repeatedly shot and later captured in serious
condition. Two raiders were killed in the town, and a third died of mortal wounds on the run. Frank and
Jesse James escaped back to Missouri, then hid for three years on relatives' farms near Nashville,
Tennessee, where they were joined by their families. Jesse now used the alias, "Mr. Howard." In
Minnesota, Cole Younger (recovered from eleven gunshot wounds), Jim Younger (five wounds), and
Bob Younger (five wounds) all received life sentences in the state penitentiary. "We were victims of
circumstance," they told the press. "We were driven to it."
In 1879, the James Brothers and their families returned to Missouri. In Kansas City, Missouri, Marshall
James Ligget paid a reward for the shooting of Jesse James to a George Shepard, a former Quantrill
guerrilla and sometime James Gang member. The shooting allegedly took place at Galena in Kansas
after an abortive raid on Short Creek, Missouri, near Joplin.
October 1879: James Brothers lead six-man raid on the "Chicago & Altona Express" outside Glendale
Station, Jackson County, Missouri. Wrecking the telegraph key at the station, they held up the arriving
train for $6,000 to $35,000. Then they fled into hiding in Tennessee.
March 1881: Five-man stagecoach robbery for $1,400 near Mussel Shoals in northern Alabama. The
raid financed their return to Missouri.
July 1881: Seven-man raid on the "Davis & Sexton Bank" at Riverton, Iowa, for $5,000.
July 1881: Five-man train raid on the "Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railroad Express" outside
Winston, Davies County, Missouri. Only $600 was gained. A passenger was killed and the conductor,
William Westfield, was executed on the charge of having carried the Pinkertons to bomb the James'
home in 1875.
September 1881: Six-man raid on the "Chicago-Alton Express" at Glendale Station, Jackson County,
Missouri, for $1,500. The raiders included the James Brothers, the Hite Brothers, and a Charles Ford.
The Missouri Governor offered $10,000 for Jesse or Frank James. The gang began to disintegrate.
Frank James left to return to farming with his wife and child. Jesse shot one new gang member, while
one Hite brother was shot by Bob Ford, younger brother to Charles Ford. The other Hite brother was
captured and imprisoned. Gang member Dick Liddel turned State's evidence and implicated Jesse and
Frank James. The Ford Brothers entered into secret negotiations for the reward money on Jesse's head.
Jesse James was meanwhile making plans to rob the Platte County Bank with the Ford Brothers. (Of a
younger generation, the Fords had no War experience or political convictions; their purpose lay entirely
in gaining easy money).
April 3, 1882: Jesse James and the Ford Brothers visited the suburban home of Jesse's wife and two
small children, in St. Joseph, Buchanan County, Missouri. On a Sunday morning, while Jesse dusted a
picture in the parlor, Bob Ford shot Jesse several times in the back. The Fords ran from Jesse's wife,
Bob Ford screaming, "I killed Jesse James! I killed him! I killed him!"
At a court inquiry, Jesse's body was identified by his wife and his mother; the latter screamed at the
Fords, "Traitors!" The body was taken to Kearney, Clay County, and buried on the family farm. "Goodbye Jesse!" The Kansas City Journal editorialized, "Jesse by Jehovah!" printed The St. Joseph Gazette.
The Ford Brothers collected the $10,000 reward and left Missouri. A marble stone was placed on
Jesse's grave, reading: "Jesse W. James. Died April 3, 1882. Age 34 years, 6 months, 28 days.
Murdered by a traitor and a coward whose name is not worthy to appear here."
October 5, 1882: Frank James stalked into the office of the Missouri State Governor and surrendered
his Colt .44 pistol to an astonished Governor Crittendem. He still wore a U.S. Army cartridge belt
captured at Centralia in 1864. Frank James was tried but acquitted. He returned to farm life and raced
horses at county fairs.
At the time of his surrender, he told The Sedalia Dispatch: "I have been hunted for twenty-one years. I
have literally lived in the saddle. I have never known a day of perfect peace. It was one long, anxious,
inexorable, eternal vigil. When I slept it was literally in the midst of an arsenal. If I heard dogs bark
more fiercely than usual, or the feet of horses in a greater volume of sound than usual, I stood to my
arms. Have you any idea of what a man must endure who leads such a life? No, you cannot, no one can
unless he lives it for himself."
Postscript
Of the assassins, Charles Ford committed suicide (drunk, he blew off the top of his skull with a sixgun). Robert Ford, the killer, wandered for years, appearing in Vaudeville shows as the killer of Jesse
James. He then bought a saloon in Crede, Colorado in the West. He was killed on June 24, 1892. Ed O.
Kelly, a youthful cousin of the Younger Brothers and cousin, in turn, to the James', emptied a shotgun
into Ford's body.
In October 1898, Jesse James Jr. (son of the outlaw), while running a tobacco concession at the Jackson
County Courthouse, was arrested for complicity in a robbery on the Missouri-Pacific Railroad. With aid
from the Governor's office, he was acquitted. He became a lawyer, practicing in Kansas City and
California, where he died in 1957.
Bob Younger died in prison of tuberculosis in 1899. Cole and Jim Younger were pardoned in 1901.
James Younger suicided shortly afterwards over an unsuccessful love affair with a female reporter. Cole
Younger returned to farm life in Missouri, often appearing at local fairs and running horses with his
cousin and old Confederate comrade, Frank James. They both died peacefully in 1916.
From 1890 to 1893, a series of robberies were launched in New Mexico, California, Oklahoma and
Kansas by the Dalton Brothers. The Daltons were youthful cousins to the Younger Brothers. Their
family had settled in Oklahoma following the Union destruction of the Indian Nation at War's end. The
boys were raised on the exploits of their older cousins, the Youngers, and in turn, their James Brothers
cousins.
In 1890, Bob and Emmet Dalton robbed a Farro Game in New Mexico and then joined Bill Dalton in
Paso Robles, California. Grat Dalton arrived, and in February 1891, Bob, Bill and Grat Dalton
attempted to hold up the "Earlimart Express" of the Southern Pacific Railroad at Alila, forty miles north
of Bakersfield, California. Bob escaped, but Bill and Grat were captured. Bill Dalton gained his release,
but Grat was given twenty-five years for murder. He escaped from prison that same year and joined all
his brothers in Oklahoma. Bill Dalton kept away from criminal activity for a time, but Grat, Bob, and
Emmet formed the Dalton Gang and launched a series of spectacular attacks. In late 1891, the Santa Fe
"Texas Express" was hit for $14,000, the "Missouri, Kansas & Texas Express" for an uncertain sum
($2,500 to $19,000), and the "Santa Fe Express" in the wild Cherokee Strip for $11,000. In 1892, an
express train at Adair, Oklahoma was robbed of $17,000. Later in 1892, the Daltons launched an
abortive two-bank raid on Coffeyville, Kansas. Gang member Bill Doolin had dropped out with a lame
horse. The three brothers went ahead with the attack. Bob and Grat were shot to pieces with dozens of
slugs. Emmet Dalton survived twenty gunshot wounds to receive a life sentence.
Having escaped the Coffeyville disaster, Bill Doolin formed his own outfit of robbers. In 1893, Bill
Dalton joined the Doolin Gang in several operations. He was shot that same year by a lawman, while
playing with his daughter on a front porch step. The Doolin Gang was wiped-out soon after.
Paroled in 1907, Emmet Dalton went out to California and in 1917 established a film company in Los
Angeles. "The Southern Feature Corporation" filmed "Beyond the Law: The Story of the Dalton
Gang," which Emmet wrote and played roles in. It failed to break the tight distribution market. Emmet
Dalton became a real estate agent, but continued writing screen scenarios for silent movies. In 1931, he
published his memoirs, "When the Daltons Rode." In 1937, he died in Los Angeles.
In that same period of the Great Depression, with massive evictions of Oklahoma farmers by the
corporate banks, the outlaw Pretty Boy Floyd launched his spectacular bank robberies in eastern
Oklahoma. Like the James Brothers, he distributed money to hard-pressed local farmers and became a
legend within a few short years. He was killed in an F.B.I. manhunt after linking with the John
Dillinger Gang in the Midwest.
Which brings us to the present era.
End