Shot All to Hell: Jesse James, the Northfield Raid, and the Wild West's Greatest Escape

by Mark Lee Gardner

Overview

It was the most famous bank robbery of all time, involving the legendary James-Younger gang's final, shocking holdup—the infamous Northfield Raid—and the thrilling two-week chase that followed. Mark Lee Gardner, author of the critically acclaimed To Hell on a Fast Horse, takes us inside Northfield's First National Bank and outside to the streets as Jesse James and his band of outlaws square off against the heroic citizens who risked their lives to defeat America's most daring criminals. With vivid detail and novelistic verve, Gardner follows the James brothers as they elude both the authorities and the furious citizen posses hell-bent on capturing them—one of the largest manhunts in the history of the United States. He reveals the serendipitous endings of the Younger brothers, Cole, Jim, and Bob, and explores the James brothers' fates after the dust settled, solving mysteries about the raid that have been hotly debated for more than 130 years.

A galloping true tale of frontier justice featuring audacious outlaws and intrepid heroes, Shot All to Hell is a riveting slice of Wild West history that continues to fascinate today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062201515
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	07/30/2013
Edition description:	Large Print
Pages:	464
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Mark Lee Gardner is the author of Rough Riders, To Hell on a Fast Horse, and Shot All to Hell, which received multiple awards, including a Spur Award from Western Writers of America. An authority on the American West, Gardner has appeared on PBS’s American Experience, as well as on the History Channel, the Travel Channel, and on NPR. He has written for the Los Angeles Times, True West, Wild West, American Cowboy, and New Mexico Magazine. He lives with his family in Cascade, Colorado.

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

1 Rocky Cut 4

2 Band of Brothers 25

3 Tigers on the Loose 46

4 The Hottest Day Northfield Ever Saw 68

5 And Then There Were Six 104

6 The Great Manhunt 121

7 Last Stand on the Watonwan 147

8 The Pursuit of the James Boys 179

9 One Last Escape 204

Epilogue 227

Appendix 243

Acknowledgments 247

Notes 253

Resources 293

Index 301

Editorial Reviews

Rollicking. ... Equal parts violent melodrama and meticulous procedural... with enough bloody action to engage readers enthralled by tales of good versus evil.” — New York Times Book Review

“Superb. ... Mr. Gardner earns an A+ for his research and an A++ for his writing. — New York Journal of Books

“An elegant narrative that’s as entertaining as it is historically accurate… A must-read.” — Publishers Weekly

“Action packed…A gripping read and probably tells all there is to tell about a legendary group of psychopaths.” — Kirkus

“[This] bullet-by-bullet account... sheds considerable light on a neglected aspect of the gang’s life of crime... well done.” — Booklist

“Rewarding. ... Gardner’s re-creation of the Northfield Raid... orchestrates the often-unwieldy particulars of the event with considerable virtuosity. ... It would be hard to imagine a more thorough account.” — Washington Post

From the Publisher

Superb. ... Mr. Gardner earns an A+ for his research and an A++ for his writing.

New York Journal of Books

Rollicking. ... Equal parts violent melodrama and meticulous procedural... with enough bloody action to engage readers enthralled by tales of good versus evil.

New York Times

[This] bullet-by-bullet account... sheds considerable light on a neglected aspect of the gang’s life of crime... well done.

Booklist

Gardner's book introduces the brothers at the start of their prolonged crime spree, but the heart of his story is the 1876 Northfield, Minn., raid and its aftermath, which he depicts in rollicking style.

The New York Times Book Review - Greg Tobin

Rewarding. ... Gardner’s re-creation of the Northfield Raid... orchestrates the often-unwieldy particulars of the event with considerable virtuosity. ... It would be hard to imagine a more thorough account.

Washington Post

Rollicking. ... Equal parts violent melodrama and meticulous procedural... with enough bloody action to engage readers enthralled by tales of good versus evil.

New York Times Book Review

[This] bullet-by-bullet account... sheds considerable light on a neglected aspect of the gang’s life of crime... well done.

Booklist

Rewarding. ... Gardner’s re-creation of the Northfield Raid... orchestrates the often-unwieldy particulars of the event with considerable virtuosity. ... It would be hard to imagine a more thorough account.

Washington Post

Narrator Johnny Heller’s tough, weather-beaten voice lends itself wonderfully to this crackling audio tale of derring-do featuring the most famous outlaw in U.S. history. The September 1876 bank robbery in Northfield, Minnesota, led to the end of the James-Younger gang, a story that involves townspeople who took justice into their own hands. Heller narrates with authority, and although he doesn’t use a wide range of voices, his delivery is animated enough to make the story come alive. He varies his pitch to create characters that are more suggested than confirmed. He does his best work while using his natural voice to paint images of a bygone era in the American past. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

APRIL 2014 - AudioFile

Narrator Johnny Heller’s tough, weather-beaten voice lends itself wonderfully to this crackling audio tale of derring-do featuring the most famous outlaw in U.S. history. The September 1876 bank robbery in Northfield, Minnesota, led to the end of the James-Younger gang, a story that involves townspeople who took justice into their own hands. Heller narrates with authority, and although he doesn’t use a wide range of voices, his delivery is animated enough to make the story come alive. He varies his pitch to create characters that are more suggested than confirmed. He does his best work while using his natural voice to paint images of a bygone era in the American past. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

APRIL 2014 - AudioFile

An action-packed, admiring portrait of the James-Younger gang that robbed people, banks and trains for a decade before retiring, dying or stewing in prison. Western historian Gardner (To Hell on a Fast Horse: Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, and the Epic Chase to Justice in the Old West, 2010) has done impressive research in the Old West's abundant but relentlessly unreliable sources (lurid newspaper articles, jailhouse interviews, self-serving memoirs by elderly gang members) to deliver a colorful portrait of men who do not deserve his admiration. Jesse James (1847–1882), Frank James (1843–1915) and the Younger brothers grew up in the Midwest. Confederate sympathizers, most participated as "bushwackers" in the nasty partisan insurgency that wracked Missouri during the Civil War. Inured to violence, they later coalesced into a criminal band that traveled widely and became national news. Gardner summarizes their lives and early depredations before settling in to describe their last, spectacularly bungled 1876 robbery of a Northfield, Minn., bank. The clerk refused to open the safe. By the time the gang lost patience and killed him, the citizenry had gathered whatever weapons they could find, killed two gang members and wounded the rest before the robbers fled. There followed a massive, disorganized manhunt from which only Jesse and Frank escaped. Jesse later recruited another gang and committed several robberies before one member killed him for the reward. Written in the breathless prose that seems obligatory for this genre and with more sympathy to the subjects than seems necessary, the book is still a gripping read and probably tells all there is to tell about a legendary group of psychopaths.

Kirkus Reviews