Outlaws

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List of all outlaws, big and small.

The following are important outlaws from the Old West period and a shortened description of their deeds as outlaws.

Jesse James
Life Span: September 5, 1847 – April 3, 1882
The James brothers, Frank and Jesse, were Confederate guerrillas during the Civil War, during which they were accused of participating in atrocities committed against Union soldiers. After the war, as members of one gang or another, they robbed banks and murdered bank employees or bystanders. They also waylaid stagecoaches and trains. Although James has often been portrayed, even prior to his death, as a kind of Robin Hood, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, this is incorrect. His robberies enriched only him and his gang.

Jesse and his cousin Zee married on April 24, 1874, and had two children who survived to adulthood: Jesse James, Jr. and Mary Susan James. On September 7, 1876, the James-Younger gang attempted a raid on the First National Bank of Northfield, Minnesota. After this robbery, of the gang, only Frank and Jesse James were left alive and uncaptured. The James-Younger Gang was destroyed except for Frank and Jesse James. Later in 1876, Jesse and Frank James surfaced in the Nashville, Tennessee area, where they went by the names of Thomas Howard and B. J. Woodson, respectively. Frank seemed to settle down, but Jesse remained restless. He recruited a new gang in 1879 and returned to crime, holding up a train at Glendale, Missouri, on October 8, 1879. But the new gang did not consist of old, battle-hardened guerrillas; they soon turned against each other or were captured, while James grew paranoid, killing one gang member and frightening away another. The authorities grew suspicious, and by 1881 the brothers were forced to return to Missouri. In December, Jesse rented a house in Saint Joseph, Missouri, not far from where he had been born and raised. Frank, however, decided to move to safer territory, heading east to Virginia.

With his gang nearly annihilated by arrests, deaths, and defections, James thought that he had only two men left whom he could trust: brothers Robert and Charley Ford. He did not know that Bob Ford had been conducting secret negotiations with Thomas T. Crittenden, the Missouri governor, to bring in the famous outlaw. On April 3, 1882, after eating breakfast, the Fords and James prepared for departure for another robbery, going in and out of the house to ready the horses. It was an unusually hot day. James removed his coat, then declared that he should remove his firearms as well, lest he look suspicious. James noticed a dusty picture on the wall and stood on a chair to clean it. Robert Ford took advantage of the opportunity and shot James in the back of the head.

James' two previous bullet wounds and partially missing middle finger served to positively identify the body. The murder of Jesse James was a national sensation. The Fords made no attempt to hide their role. Crowds pressed into the little house in St. Joseph to see the dead bandit, even while the Ford brothers surrendered to the authorities—but they were dismayed to find that they were charged with first degree murder. In the course of a single day, the Ford brothers were indicted, pled guilty, were sentenced to death by hanging, and two hours later were granted a full pardon by Governor Crittenden. The governor's quick pardon suggested that he may have been aware that the brothers intended to kill, rather than capture, James. The implication that the chief executive of Missouri conspired to kill a private citizen startled the public and helped to create a new legend around James. The Fords received a small portion of the reward and fled Missouri. Some of the bounty went to law enforcement officials who were active in the plan. The Ford brothers starred in a touring stage show in which they reenacted the shooting. They are still doing this in this year, 1883.


James-Younger Gang
At various times, it included the Younger Brothers (Cole, Jim, John, and Bob), the James Brothers (the infamous Jesse James and his brother Frank), Clell Miller, Arthur McCoy, Charlie Pitts, John Jarrette, Bill Chadwell (alias Bill Stiles), and Matthew "Ace" Nelson. Contrary to frequent report, the James brothers and Younger brothers were not related, at least not by blood.

At the Civil War's end, the James brothers continued to associate with their old guerrilla comrades, who remained together under the leadership of Archie Clement. It was likely Clement who, amid the tumult of Reconstruction in Missouri, turned the guerrillas into outlaws.

On February 13, 1866, a group of gunmen carried out the first daylight, peacetime, armed bank robbery in U.S. history, when they held up the Clay County Savings Association, stealing some $60,000 in cash and bonds. The state authorities suspected Archie Clement of leading the raid, and promptly issued a reward for his capture. In later years, the list of suspects would grow to include many more outlaws. The outlaws also killed George Wymore, a bystander on the street outside the bank. That crime began a string of robberies, many of which were linked to Clement's group of bushwhackers. The hold-up most clearly linked to the group was of Alexander Mitchell and Company in Lexington, Missouri, on October 30, 1866, which netted $2,011.50. Clement was also linked to violence and intimidation against officials of the Republican government that now ruled the state. On election day, Clement led his men into Lexington, where they drove Republican voters away from the polls, and secured a Republican defeat. A detachment of state militiamen was dispatched to the town. They convinced the bushwhackers to disperse, then attempted to capture Clement, who still had a price on his head. Clement refused to surrender, and was shot down in a wild gunfight on the streets of Lexington.
Despite the death of Clement, his old followers remained together, and robbed a bank across the Missouri River from Lexington in Richmond, Missouri, on May 22, 1867 in which the Town Mayor and two lawmen were killed. This was followed on March 20, 1868, by a raid on the Nimrod Long bank in Russellville, Kentucky. In the aftermath of the two raids, however, the more senior bushwhackers were killed or captured. This set the stage for the emergence of the James and Younger brothers, and the transformation of the old Clement crew into the James-Younger Gang. On December 7, 1869, Frank and Jesse James are believed to have robbed the Davies County Savings Association in Gallatin, Missouri.

On June 3, 1871, Frank and Jesse James, Cole Younger, and Clell Miller robbed the bank in Corydon, Iowa. On April 29, 1872, the gang robbed a bank in Columbia, Kentucky. One of the outlaws shot down the cashier, R.A.C. Martin, who refused to open the safe. On September 23, 1872, Jesse James and Cole and John Younger robbed a ticket booth of the Second Annual Kansas City Industrial Exposition, amid thousands of people. They took some $900, and accidentally shot a little girl in the ensuing struggle with the ticket seller. On May 27, 1873, the James-Younger gang robbed the Ste. Genevieve Savings Association in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri. As they rode off they fired in the air and shouted, "Hurrah for Hildebrand!" Samuel S. Hildebrand was a famous Confederate bushwhacker from the area, who had recently been shot dead in Illinois.

On July 21, 1873, the gang carried out its first train robbery, derailing a locomotive of the Rock Island Railroad near Adair, Iowa. Engineer John Rafferty died in the crash. The outlaws took $2,337 from the express safe in the baggage car, having narrowly missed a transcontinental express shipment of a large amount of cash.

In January 1874, the outlaws were suspected of holding up a stagecoach in Bienville Parish, Louisiana, and later another between Malvern and Hot Springs, Arkansas. On January 31, 1874, the gang robbed a southbound train on the Iron Mountain Railroad at Gads Hill, Missouri. For the first of only two times in all their train robberies, the outlaws robbed the passengers; in both instances, their usual target, the safe in the baggage car belonging to an express company, held an unusually small amount of money. On this occasion, the outlaws reportedly examined the hands of the passengers, to ensure that they did not rob any working men.

On March 11, 1874, John W. Whicher, the Pinkerton agent sent to investigate the James brothers, was found shot to death alongside a rural road in Jackson County, Missouri. Two other agents, John Boyle and Louis J. Lull, accompanied by Deputy Sheriff Edwin B. Daniels, posed as cattle buyers as they tracked the Youngers. On March 17, 1874, the trio was stopped by John and Jim Younger on a rural stretch of road near Monegaw Springs, Missouri. Boyle escaped, Lull and Daniels were shot, and John Younger was killed by Lull. Daniels died on the spot, but Lull lived long enough to testify before a coroner's inquest before succumbing to his wounds a few days later. On August 30, 1874, three of the gang held up a stagecoach across the Missouri River from Lexington, Missouri, in view of hundreds of onlookers on the bluffs of the town. Two of the robbers were identified by a passenger as Frank and Jesse James. The gang next robbed a train on the Kansas Pacific Railroad near Muncie, Kansas, on December 8, 1874. It was one of the outlaws' most successful robberies, gaining them $30,000. A new addition to the gang, William "Bud" McDaniel, was captured by a Kansas City police officer after the robbery, and later was shot during an escape attempt.

On the night of January 25, 1875, the Pinkertons surrounded the James farm. Frank and Jesse James had likely been there earlier, but had already left. The Pinkertons threw an iron incendiary device into the house, which exploded when it rolled into a blazing fireplace. The blast nearly severed the right arm of Zerelda Samuel, the James boys' mother (the arm had to be amputated at the elbow that night), and killed their 9-year-old half brother, Archie Samuel. On April 12, 1875, an unknown gunman shot dead Daniel Askew, a neighbor (and former Union militiaman) who had provided the Pinkertons with a base for their raid. Allan Pinkerton now abandoned the chase after the James-Younger Gang.

On May 13, 1875, the outlaws robbed a rural store north of Clinton, Missouri for $300. On September 1, 1875, the gang ventured to Huntington, West Virginia, to rob the bank there. Tom McDaniels (brother of Bud) Tom Webb and also another notable accomplice to the gang Mad Dog McBain joined the crew for the raid, but McDaniels and Mcbain were killed by a posse and Webb was caught. Also in 1875, the two James brothers moved to the outskirts of Nashville, Tennessee, probably to save their mother from further raids by detectives.

On July 7, 1876, Frank and Jesse James, Cole, Jim, and Bob Younger, Charlie Pitts, Bill Chadwell, and Hobbs Kerry robbed the Missouri Pacific Railroad at the "Rocky Cut" near Otterville, Missouri. Kerry, a raw recruit, was arrested soon after and he readily identified his accomplices.

The Rocky Cut raid set the stage for the final act in the history of the James-Younger Gang: the famous Northfield, Minnesota raid. The target was the First National Bank of Northfield, located far outside of the gang's usual territory, which previously had included only the South and the Border States. The bank itself was not unusually rich. According to public reports, required of all national banks, it was a perfectly ordinary rural bank.

Frank and Jesse James, Cole, Jim and Bob Younger, Charlie Pitts, Clell Miller, and Bill Chadwell took the train to St. Paul and Minneapolis at the beginning of September 1876. They divided into two groups, one going to Mankato, Minnesota and the other to Red Wing, on either side of Northfield. They purchased horses and scouted the terrain around the town. On September 7, 1876, at 2 p.m., they attempted to rob the bank. Three outlaws entered the bank, and the other five stood guard outside. The citizens realized a robbery was in progress and took up arms. Shooting from behind cover, they poured a deadly fire on the outlaws, killing Miller and Chadwell, and wounding the Youngers (particularly Bob, who suffered a shattered elbow). They also shot Bob Younger's horse. One of the outlaws shot a bystander dead. Inside the bank, cashier Joseph Lee Heywood refused to open the safe, and was murdered for his resistance. (The infamous failure of the raid is celebrated every year in Northfield as Defeat of Jesse James Day.) The surviving outlaws rode out of town and took to the woods. After several days of dodging the pursuing Minnesotans, who had joined posses and picket lines by the hundreds, the gang had only reached the western outskirts of Mankato. They decided to split up. The Youngers and Pitts remained on foot, moving west, until finally they were cornered near Madelia, Minnesota. In the gunfight that followed, Pitts was killed and the Youngers wounded further. The Youngers surrendered, and pleaded guilty to murder in order to avoid execution.

The James brothers, on the other hand, secured horses and fled west across southern Minnesota, turning south just inside the border of the Dakota Territory. In the teeth of hundreds of pursuers and a nationwide alarm, they successfully returned to Missouri. The James-Younger Gang, however, was no more.