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CHAPTER 1
Outbreak of the War
Kearney — Dr. Reuben Samuel — Home of the James Brothers — Its Location — Their Childhood — Character — Their Father — His Ministry — Education — Culture — His Death in California — Their Mother — Her Marriage to Dr. Samuel — Civil War — The Home Guard — His Mode of Warfare — Who was His Enemy — His Style of Argument — Recreation — Industry — His Treatment of Women and Children — Hanging of Dr. Samuel — His Wife's Devotion — Torture of Jesse James — Frank Forced from Home — Parting Threats.
Some thirty miles out of Kansas City, on the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, lies the quiet little hamlet of Kearney. Inhabited by a half rural population, it is the last spot upon which prescience would cast as the termination to some great tragedy, and no one who should pass it upon the railroad would be apt to predict of it, as Rousseau is said to have done of the almost equally unpretentious Island of Corsica: "I cannot but think that this place is destined to make a mighty stir in the World."
Three miles from Kearney, lying in a northeasterly direction and reached by a somewhat rough country road winding over hill and dale, now bending abruptly to the right or left, now following the gentle meanderings of some rippling stream, lies a sheltered and secluded farmhouse. A well-kept yard, surrounded by a neat plank fence, encloses the house, and everywhere there is a sense of neatness and unpretentious comfort. In front of the house is a stile, over which the footman can walk, or at which the horseman can dismount, and its companion, a long horse-rack, to which a dozen horses can be tied, showing that hospitality is the rule, and not the exception here. Trees and flowers adorn the yard, and the scent of roses and the song of birds mingle in its atmosphere. This is the home of Dr. Reuben Samuel, the stepfather of the noted James boys, Jesse and Frank. Small in stature, kindly of face, no man has seen greater trouble, nor has a more affectionate, gentle disposition. But our story is of other members of this household. An old family Bible, whose somewhat worn and time-stained pages show that it is not only for ornament that it is kept, tells us that Robert James and Zerelda Cole were married December 28th, 1841, and that of this union there sprung Alexander F. James (Frank), who was born January 10th, 1843 (an erasure and substitution make it read 1844!); Jesse Woodson James, born September 5th, 1847; Susan Lavinia James, born November 25th, 1849; and Robert James, who lived but live days. Robert James, at the time of his marriage, was a Baptist preacher, licensed in May 1839. After settling in Clay county he visited California, and died there August 18th, 1850. Mrs. James, after remaining a widow for five years, married Dr. Reuben Samuel on the 25th September, 1855. From this marriage there resulted Sarah L. Samuel, born 26th December, 1858; John T. Samuel (now lying dangerously wounded at home!), born May 25th, 1861; Fannie Quantrell Samuel, born October 18th, 1863, and Archie Peyton Samuel, born July 26th, 1866, and murdered by Pinkerton's men with a bombshell on the night of January 26th, 1875. Besides the death of Robert and Archie, the Bible also records that of Jesse W. James, April 3rd, 1882. The lives of the various members of the family flowed on in an even, quiet manner until the breaking out of the great Civil War. Had this not occurred, who knows but that the subject of this sketch, following in the footsteps of his noble and talented father, might have made his mark in the pulpit? Genial, affectionate, and lively, there was nothing in his childhood or early youth to foreshadow his adventurous career that was destined to become more thrilling than any romance, or that would point to an ending certainly as tragical as could well have been devised. Dr. Fitzgerald, a well known citizen of Clay county, a deeply read scholar and a refined gentleman, denies that Jesse's father was an ignorant, itinerant preacher, as the authors of some of his so-called lives have declared, but gives him the character not only of a sincere Christian, but also of a cultivated scholar. Who can say but that Jesse, too, under happier auspices and more smiling stars, might not have achieved a name that would have resounded in the annals of his country? Butler says:
"Fate steers-We do but row;"
and that grand master mind of all expresses the same idea in different words:
"There's a divinity doth shape our ends, Rough-hew them how we may."
But it is useless to speculate on what might have been. The fierce caldron of civil war had begun to boil, throwing, as do all violent convulsions, the scum and dregs of society to the surface of affairs. Especially was this the case in the Border States, when that class usually denominated by the negro "poor white trash," saw in this ebullition a chance to avenge the many fancied insults of their wealthier neighbors. The formation of Home Guards and Enrolled Militia enabled them to do this in a certain manner, and one not very dangerous: as these bands, unlike the true soldiers in the Federal armies, made the bulk of their war upon their neighbors' hogpens and corncribs, with an occasional deviation against a helpless male noncombatant or women and children. Unlike the gallant soldiers who, beneath the stars and stripes, waged honorable warfare for principles they deemed essential to the preservation of a union loved of their forefathers and fought for by themselves, seeing in sectional disturbance only the chance for rapine and plunder, not the sad spectacle of a nation almost in its death agony, they were brutal and intolerant to the last degree. He who differed with them was "a d — d rebel": he who dared to assert his right to think for himself must be silenced. Murder was their usual mode of argument; arson their recreation and robbery their industry.
Their mode of warfare was unique. Ascertaining that all the combatants of some defenceless home were away, they would charge down upon the house, surround it, and begin a search for arms and the munitions of war. Woe unto the decrepid male, or, in his absence, the women and children, if some old, worn-out gun or pistol could be found. True it might be dangerous only to the one who would be venturesome enough to fire it off, and might have been preserved only as an heirloom, or merely from oversight. It makes no difference to them; here is the justification for pillage, arson, or even worse.
To these gentry he who had wealth or culture was a rebel or disloyal; he who had accumulated property had committed the unpardonable sin; hence an early persecution of Dr. Samuel and his family began, which forced Frank, the elder of the boys, first into the "brush" for safety, next into the guerrilla band for revenge. In 1861 Jesse, slight in figure, young in years, and almost girlish in face, remained at home attending to his duties on the farm, peaceable and desiring peace. He hoped that those who had forced Frank into the war might overlook one who was a mere child, but subsequent events showed that he had greatly overrated their magnanimity. One day, soon after the Plattsburg raid, the house of Dr. Samuel was surrounded by seventy-five "home guards, under command of Lieutenants Culver and Younger. They burst into the house, seized Dr. Samuel, and after trying to extort money and information from him, took him to the woods, hung him twice, letting him down after each time; but this heroic treatment failing to accomplish the desired purpose, they hung him once more, this time allowing him to remain suspended. At the time the doctor was being thus treated, one of these brave soldiers (?) was employed in brutally insulting his wife. Catching her by her sleeve, he tore it from her dress; then taking her by the shoulder he threw her across the room tearing her dress almost off, and causing her to strike viollently against the wall, and all of this when she was soon to become a mother. Still others of these home guards had gone to the field after Jesse. Taking him from the plow, they drove him before them, he on foot, they on horses, lashing him with his plow lines and beating him with their bayonets. His mother begged on bended knees to snare her boy; but not until they had exhausted their strength, as well as their malice, did they cease. Then they left, threatening still worse treatment on their next visit. Mrs. Samuel hastened to the wood, cut down her husband, and by tender and unremitting nursing fanned the feeble, lingering spirit of vitality back to life again.
On the next visit they had threatened what they would do. To Jesse their next visit was harmless: they had waked into full life and furious passion the sleeping lion in his nature, and he had gone forth to join with Frank in the search for vengeance. Emerson says that:
"Nothing is given; everything is sold. The arrows given by Achilles to Paris caused the former's death, and that by the belt that Hector had given to Achilles was his body dragged around the walls of Troy."
These may not be the exact words, but they convey the idea, and so each stroke of the plow lines upon the delicate body of the boy, still scarce more than a child, might have represented the number of the hecatomb of victims that fell beneath his shots. These strokes found him a boy; they left him a man — no, not a man, but a tiger with a fiercer thirst for human gore than the mad man-slayer of the Indian jungles. Foremost in every battle, in which the swift riding bands of the guerrillas participated, was Jesse James. Riding like a centaur, a dead shot with either hand, he excited the admiration and critical comment even of Bill Anderson, who might truly be called a connoisseur in human slaughter. Always singling out the most prominent enemy, he rode against him like an avenging Nemesis, and as the tide of battle swept along, he was ever seen upon its foremost crest. The avalanche bore not more surely death and destruction in its thundering crash, than did the mad, resistless charge of the guerrilla. It paused for no consideration, it was wise in its madness, for no enemy ever stood before the desperation of its onward whirl. It struck alike the iron veteran and the trembling, skulking militiaman, and their lines melted like snow beneath a summer sun. It was reckless, desperate bravery gone mad; and it excelled the ordinary bravery of the trained soldier, as much as bravery itself excels cold cowardice. The man whose nerves were not of triple steel left the guerrilla band for the quiet and comparative safety of the regular armies. He who could not
"Look on death with smiling lips"
tarried not long with these Anglo-Norman Comanches. To Jesse James there was something congenial in this wild life of blood and battle. He courted danger as most youths do their mistresses, and toyed with the Delilah of ambush and attack. In a few days after joining Quantrell, he and Frank fought in that desperate fray against the Ninth Kansas Cavalry at Kansas City, seventy against hundreds. The guerrillas almost annihilated their foe. After this there were skirmishes innumerable, in all of which, though greally outnumbered, Quantrell was ever victorious. It was a "war to the knife, the knife to the hilt." The federal commanders of departments, despairing of ever whipping or capturing these jungle tigers, who carried death in both hands, early in 1862 began to issue their proclamations of "No quarter to guerrillas." But this was a game that two could play at, as witness Bill Anderson's practical reply (in deeds not words) to Sunday school Gen'l Fiske's "blood-thirsty edict when he met Johnson at Centralia".
CHAPTER 2
The Sack of Lawrence
Quantrell — Todd — The Youngers — Gathering of Guerrillas — The Midnight Council — The Vote — Quantrell's Decision — General Deliberation — Onward March — They Enter Kansas — Their Guides — Lawrence in Sight — The Guerrilla Charge — War to the Knife — Flight of Jim Lane — Sack of the City — Given to the Flames — Gathering of the Militia — The Retreat — Its Horrors — Surrounded — Battle at the Barn — Stand at Lone Jack — Cut Off The Charge — Its Success — The Last Stand — Final Charge — Disbandment — Safety.
It had been determined amongst Quantrell, the Youngers, Todd, and other leaders that Lawrence, Kansas, the home of Jim Lane; Lawrence, the rendezvous of "red leg" and "Jayhawker" who brought here the plunder wrung from the women and children of Missouri, should suffer next in turn. This expedition was not lightly undertaken nor its dangers underestimated. Quantrell well knew that his every move was watched by the Federal soldiery and spies, and he realized that even though he might make his spring like a mad lion upon the doomed town, yet his retreat would be through the gathering hosts of red-legs, jay-hawkers, militia, and U.S. soldiers. None of these dangers were hidden from his followers, but at the council held 'neath the summer skies all were called on to give their votes and opinions pro and con in regard to the attack. When the Jameses, Youngers, and other leaders had voted unanimously for the attack, the rank and file were called up and their opinions solicited. They were given in one word, "Forward!"
On the 19th day of August, 1863, they commenced their march, not a man having refused to accompany the band on its desperate mission. Crossing into Kansas at or near an insignificant town called Aubrey, in Johnson county, he secured guides and marched between Olathe and Spring Hill, thence through Franklin county. Camping on Cole creek about eight miles from Lawrence overnight, they came in sight of that doomed city early on the morning of August 21, 1863. It was just after sunrise when the inhabitants heard what was new to ears in Kansas, the guerrilla yell. Charging upon the town like the resistless waves of the sea, his two hundred followers struck Lawrence with fire, steel, and shot. Woe to the jayhawkers who lay dreaming of easy victories over helpless women and children! Woe to those who, though foes, were honorable foes, lighting only men in a manly way! Woe to town and men! The tiger is upon you and none may curb his fury. The close of that day saw Lawrence a smoking ruin, killed with dead men and homeless women and children. Jim Lane, the chief object of this attack, which was to retaliate for his pillage and burning of Osceola, Mo., escaped. Crawling on hands and knees through the mud and slop of ditches; he hid in a cornfield, and was thus saved, to die by his own hand at last. In this attack Jesse James is said to have killed thirty men, thus running his score up to this time about one hundred; Frank killed thirty-five.
Now began the retreat. Harassed on every side, Quantrell fled as flies the lion, turning often to rend and slay. At Black Jack, some fifteen miles from Lawrence, the guerrillas took shelter in a large barn and made a stand. This was done more to recruit their wornout horses than to cover themselves from the foe that swarmed on every side. The Kansans made a number of bold assaults, but it was child's play for the guerrilla to repel them; still they were losing heavily in horses, and Quantrell realized that it was necessary to make some bold move to brush his enemies from his front, so that he might escape. What should it be? The old heroic remedy; one of their resistless charges, that shall incline the militia to fight, if fight they would, at a respectful distance. It was made, and in a single dash thirty-two of the militia are left lying dead, their comrades scattered in a panic. It is no time, however, to follow up a flying foe, for thousands of others are gathering on flank, in rear and front. Every avenue of escape seems closed. Five thousand men encompass them, but still they turn and rend the pursuer. At Spring Hill they see their path completely blocked; three hundred fresh Kansans barricade their way. Caught at last! No, not quite! One wild, fierce yell and the enemy wait for no further parley, but break like a flock of sheep in disgraceful panic, scattered like chaff by a breath of air. This is but a reprieve, however, for bolder foes assail them on every side. At last they reach Shawnee in Johnson county, and here their last fierce stand is made. If they can but break through the line, they can disband, and safety lies before them in Missouri. Quantrell was a man of but few words; no mock heroic or sentimental speeches for him: "Boys," said he, "if we break that line, we will separate and thus baffle pursuit; if we don't, this is as good a place to die as another." A wild, fierce yell, a rush as of a gathering storm, and the line is broken. The men now disband, and all except twenty-one, left upon the tangled grass of Kansas prairies as food for the wolf and vulture, find safety in their old haunts.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Jesse James"
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