James-Younger Gang: Jesse James My Father, ch5

What follows is the text of a book published in 1899 by Jesse Edwards James, son of Jesse James and Zee Mimms James. The first half of the book is Jesse Jr.'s remembrances of his famous father, who he didn't know was the famous outlaw until after his death. He includes all he remembers plus stories told to him by his family. The second half of the book (not to be included on this website) is the story of his own problems being accused of train robbery. Copies of the complete book may be found at ABEBOOKS:

Whether or not my father was in the Lawrence raid I am unable to say. I have heard some of his comrades say that he was there and some of them say he was not there. Jesse James was at Centralia, September 27, 1864. A train from St. Louis reached there at 11 o'clock that morning having on board twenty-four Federal soldiers. Quantrell's guerrillas were there to meet it. As the train slowed up the soldiers looked out the windows and saw the waiting guerrillas on the platform. One of the Federals recognized Bill Anderson, one of Quantrell's bravest men, and said to his comrades:

Bill Anderson's sisters had been killed by Federal soldiers, and over their dead bodies he had sworn a solemn oath to never spare a Federal, and he never spared one. When he was killed the silken cord on which he tied a knot each time he killed a Federal soldier had fifty-four knots on it.

Later in the day Major Johnson and three hundred Federal soldiers went three miles southeast of Centralia and attacked the two hundred and sixty-two guerrillas who were encamped there in the timber. The guerrillas came out to meet them. The story of the fight is best told by Major Edwards, and it is a true account of it, as follows:

"Major Johnson halted his men and rode along his front speaking a few calm and collected words. They could not be heard in the guerrilla ranks, but they might have been divined. Most battle speeches are the same. They are generally epigrammatic, and full of sentences like these: 'Aim low,' 'keep cool,' 'fire when you get loaded,' 'let the wounded lie till the fight is over.' But could it be possible that Johnson meant to receive the charge of the guerrillas at a halt? What cavalry books had he read? Who had taught him such ruinous and suicidal tactics? And yet monstrous as the resolution was in a military sense, it had actually been taken, and Johnson called out loud enough to be heard from opposing force to opposing force: 'Come on, we are ready for the fight.'

"The challenge was accepted. The guerrillas gathered themselves up together as if by a sudden impulse, and took the bridle reins between their teeth. In the hands of each man there was a deadly revolver. There were carbines also, and yet they never had been unslung. The sun was not high, and there was great need to finish quickly whatever had need to be begun. Riding the best and fastest horses in Missouri, the guerrillas struck the Federal ranks as if the rush was a rush of tigers. Jesse James, riding a splendid race mare, led by half a length, then Arch Clements, then Peyton Long, then Oll Shepherd. There was neither trot or gallop; the guerrillas simply dashed from a walk into a full run. The attack was a hurricane. Johnson's command fired one volley and not a gun thereafter. It scarcely stood until the interval of three hundred yards was passed over. Johnson cried out to his men to fight to the death, but they did not wait even to hear him through. Some broke ranks as soon as they had fired and fled. Others were attempting to reload their muskets when the guerrillas, firing right and left, hurled themselves upon them. Johnson fell among the first. Mounted as described, Jesse James singled out the leader of the Federals. He did not know him then. No words were spoken between the two. When Jesse James reached to within five feet of Johnson's position, he put out a pistol suddenly and sent a bullet through his brain. Johnson threw out his hands as if trying to reach something above his head and pitched forward heavily, a corpse. There was no quarter. Many begged for mercy on their knees. The guerrillas heeded the prayer as a wolf might the bleating of a lamb. The wild rout broke away toward Sturgeon, the implacable pursuit, vengeful as hate, thundering in the rear. Death did its work in twos, in threes, in squads--singly. Beyond the first volley, in which three were killed and one mortally wounded, not a single guerrilla was hurt.

"Probably sixty of Johnson's men gained their horses before the fierce wave of the charge broke over them, and these were pursued by five guerrillas, led by Jesse James, for six miles at the dead run. Of the sixty, fifty-two were killed on the road from Centralia to Sturgeon. Todd drew up his command and watched the chase go on. For three miles nothing obstructed the vision. Side by side over the level prairie the five stretched away like the wind, gaining step by step and bound by bound, upon the rearmost riders. Then little puffs of smoke arose. No sounds could he heard, but dashing ahead from the white spurts terrified steeds ran riderless. Night and Sturgeon ended the killing. Five men had shot fifty-two. Johnson's total loss was two hundred and eighty-two, or out of three hundred only eighteen escaped. History has chosen to call this ferocious killing at Centralia a butchery. In civil war encounters are not called butcheries when the combatants are man to man and where over either rank there waves a black flag. Johnson's overthrow, probably, was a decree of fate. He rushed upon it as if impelled by a power stronger than himself. He did not know how to command, and his men did not know how to fight. He had, by the sheer force of circumstances, been brought face to face with two hundred and sixty-two of the most terrible revolver fighters the American war or any other war over produced, and he deliberately tied his hands by the act of dismounting, and stood in the shambles until he was shot down. Abject and pitiful cowardice matched itself against reckless and profligate desperation, and the end could only be, just what the end was. The guerrillas did unto the militia just exactly what the militia would have done unto them if fate had reversed its decision and given to Johnson what it permitted to the guerrillas."

Father was with Todd a few days after Centralia when they made a raid from their camp on the Blackwater into Lafayette County to break up a German Federal military organization. The militia knew Todd and his guerrillas were coming and they formed an ambuscade of one hundred men in some hazel brush near the road and sent fourteen cavalrymen down the road to meet the guerrillas, and to fire upon them and to fall back past the ambush. Jesse James and ten men rode ahead of the main body of one hundred and sixty-three guerrillas. These ten men met the fourteen cavalrymen and charged them, driving them past the ambuscade. Todd and his one hundred and sixty-three guerrillas heard the firing in front and rushed up, and his command received the fire from the ambush full in the teeth. Todd and his men dismounted and rushed into the brush and killed all but twenty-two of the one hundred militiamen hiding there. While this was going on Jesse James and the ten guerrillas with him had killed ten of the fourteen cavalrymen further down the road and were pursuing them when they ran at full speed into the advance of a Federal column two hundred strong. There was nothing for the eleven guerrillas to do but turn and run for dear life pursued by the two hundred Federals shooting and yelling. My father's splendid race mare, that had borne him so well in the Centralia fight, was killed beneath him. Father was shot in the left arm and side. He fell behind his dead horse and fought from there, shooting down five of the Federals closest to him. The balance of the guerrilla company came up at this critical time and drove off the Federals. In this day's fight one, hundred and seventeen militia were killed and Jesse James killed ten of them.

There is not room in a book of this size to tell one-hundredth part of the adventures, the comings and goings, the hot battles, the victories and the hairbreadth escapes of Quantrell's guerrilla band, of which my father was a member. Only a few of these events, in which my father took a prominent part will be mentioned here.

The attack of Plattsburg, Mo., by the guerrillas was one of these most thrilling events. The court house in the center of the square in Plattsburg was held by forty-six Federal soldiers heavily armed. Twelve guerrillas marched to the town in the night. Three hundred yards from the square they formed fours and made a charge forward. The garrison in the court house was warned of their coming, and every window was full of guns, and the square was swept by minnie balls. The twelve guerrillas attacked the court house in the face of a pitiless fire and captured it. Forty-six Federal soldiers surrendering to twelve guerrillas, who broke to pieces the two hundred muskets they found in the court house and appropriated $10,000 in Missouri defence bonds they found there. The forty-six Federal soldiers were paroled under sacred promise that in the future they would treat non-combatants and Southern sympathizers with more mercy than they bad done in the past.

Leaving Plattsburg the guerrillas crossed the Missouri river to Independence. Four miles from Independence there was a disorderly house kept by several women, and it was a resort for the officers of the Federal garrison at Independence. The guerrillas set a trap to catch these officers.

Jesse James, dressed as a young girl, rode on horseback up to this house and called its mistress out. Imitating the voice and manner of a girl my father told her that he lived not far away, that he was a girl fond of adventure, and would like to come to the house that night, bringing two or three neighbor girls, "to have a good time." The mistress of the house consented, and the supposed girl on horseback said he and the other girls would be there that night.

The mistress sent word at once to the Federal officers in Independence that four new girls would be at her house that night.

It was after dark when Jesse James and the other guerrillas rode up to the house, and dismounting, crept up and peered in at the windows. Twelve Federal officers were in there with the women. No guards or sentinels were out. The Federals felt secure. All the company was in one room, five women and twelve men. A cheery fire blazed and crackled on the hearth of the old-fashioned fire place.

Jesse James, with five men went to one window. Bill Gregg, with five men, went to another. Each of the nine guerrillas in the darkness outside selected his man. At a signal that had been agreed upon there was the crack of nine revolvers that sounded like the discharge of a single gun. The glass, slivered in a thousand bits, crashed, and nine of the Federal soldiers fell dead at that first volley. The remaining three fell dead an instant later. The guerrillas mounted and rode away.

The next fight of these guerrillas was in June, 1863 [he has a lot of dates and sequence of events wrong in this chapter, don't take his dates as being historically accurate]. Todd led the command of seventy guerrillas, and the plan was to capture and burn Kansas City. But on the way to Kansas City these seventy guerrillas met in the old Santa Fe trail near Westport a column of two hundred Federals. These were soldiers from Kansas, on their way to Kansas City. Todd drew his men up in tine and said to them:

"These Kansas soldiers are the fellows we want. They had better be fought out here in the open than behind brick walls."

Todd formed his men behind a knoll near Brush Creek, and himself rode forward to reconnoitre the advancing column. The signal for the guerrillas to advance was when Todd lifted his hat. Todd, mounted on a superb horse, stood in the middle of the road and watched the advancing Federal column. At the proper moment he turned to the knoll behind him and lifted his hat, at the same time hitching his revolvers around to his front. The seventy guerrillas came over the hill and galloped down like a whirlwind into the faces of the two hundred soldiers who were a part of the Ninth Kansas cavalry under Capt. Thatcher. It was a hot day. The dust rose in clouds from under the hoofs of the horses and rolled above them. The battle was a hand to hand conflict. The guerrillas with their bridle reins in their teeth and a big revolver in each hand, rode right into the column, firing with the right and left hand at once and never missing a man. In this fight my father, although he was only a boy, won this remarkable compliment from old Bill Anderson:

"For a beardless boy he is the keenest and cleanest fighter in the command."

Eighty Federals were killed before their column wheeled in a mad, clattering rout back to the Kansas prairies they had just left. The seventy guerrillas chased them, firing and killing as they went. The fleeing Kansas cavalry ran straight into a solid regiment of Federal infantry and formed behind it. The guerrillas had to retreat, but they had lost only three men.

After this the guerrillas were unusually active. Eight of them came upon eight Federals and drove them into a barn and then set it on fire, and as the eight soldiers ran out to escape the flames each was killed in turn.

Twelve guerrillas came to a tavern west of Westport, in Kansas, and killed eight Federal soldiers who were stopping there.

Todd, with ten guerrillas, met eighteen Kansas Red Legs on the road to Independence, and killed fifteen of them.

Poole and thirty guerrillas hid in the woods on a hillside that overlooked a spring on the road three miles west of Napoleon. Eighty-four Federal cavalry came along and stopped there to water their horses. Thirty-three of the eighty-four Federal cavalry were killed and eleven badly wounded.

Jesse James was in all of these combats.

In July, 1863, Major Ransom and four hundred Federals, with two pieces of artillery, were met on the road between Blue Springs and Pleasant Hill by twenty guerrillas under Todd, who was one of Quantrell's lieutenants. The twenty guerrillas made a whirlwind charge into the ranks of the four hundred Federals and killed fifteen of them and wounded a dozen, and then fell back, and kept charging and then retreating down the road. Ransom pursued slowly, firing his cannon from every hill top. Quantrell's full command joined Todd and formed in line of battle beyond a ford of the Sni that Ransom would have to pass. Quantrell charged down upon the Federals as they were crossing this ford and forced Ransom to retreat to Independence, leaving seventy-three of his men dead behind him.

Anderson, one of Quantrell's officers and twenty guerrillas, circled Olathe, Kas., and killed thirty-eight Federal infantry they found in a foraging party.

After the Lawrence raid, in which the guerrillas killed a number of Kansans variously estimated to be between one hundred and forty-three and two hundred and sixteen, the Federals began scalping the guerrillas they killed in fair and foul fights. There had been no scalping before that. The first body scalped was that of Ab. Haller, a guerrilla of great courage and fighting energy. He was hiding, desperately wounded, in some timber near Texas Prairie, near the eastern limits of Jackson County. Seventy-two Federal soldiers found him there and demanded his surrender. But a guerrilla never surrendered at any time or place. Desperately wounded as he was, Haller, single handed and alone, fought from the brush the seventy-two soldiers and killed five of them before they succeeded in killing him. In the fight he was wounded eleven times. The fatal bullet went fair through his heart. His slayers were so infuriated at the gallant fight he made that they scalped him and cut off his ears. An hour or two later the body was found by Andy Blunt and a small party of guerrillas. When they saw the mutilated body of their brave comrade they took this oath:

"Hereafter it is scalp for scalp."

Thereafter a few of the more desperate guerrillas scalped their victims, and a few of the Federals did the same. But in truth it must be said that most of the guerrillas and most of the Federals never mutilated a body. My father never did this, it is needless for me to say, and he disapproved of it most emphatically, but a few of the guerrillas had been desperately and shamefully wronged by the Kansas militia, and when they saw the bodies of their dead comrades mutilated they took an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

There is not space here to tell of the many savage combats that occurred between guerrillas and Federals all over Jackson and Clay and Lafayette Counties in Missouri, and Johnson County in Kansas, in these years of the war. The guerrillas were not always cruel. Sometimes they were merciful. An instance of this was, when a company of guerrillas surrounded eleven Federals in a house of ill repute four miles west of Wellington in Lafayette County. The Federals were ordered to come out and they came. Ten of them were shot down. The eleventh could not he found. A search of the house was made and he was found dressed as a woman in one of the beds. He had hoped by this ruse to escape. This soldier fell upon his knees when he was discovered and begged piteously for his life. He promised, if he was spared, to desert the army and throw his gun away and go home to his mother. He prayed and wept. When he talked shout his mother, and begged to be spared for her sake, Arch Clements, the most desperate of them all, took pity on him and said to him:

"Come, get up off your knees and go outside with me."

Arch Clements led him out into the woods under the shade of a huge oak near the roadside.

"For the sake of my dear mother do not kill me," he begged. He was almost a boy, with a fair, honest face. Clements halted him under the oak tree, out of sight of his guerrilla comrades and said to him, pointing clown the road:

"You are free; go, and go quick." [See Manly Missouri Cross-Dressers for another account of this event. In this one Frank James is credited with sparing the Federal soldier.]

The Kansas boy ran out into the darkness, and Clements discharged his pistol in the air and returned to his comrades, who believed that the pistol report they heard had sent a bullet through the young man's heart.

My father was badly wounded and almost killed August 13, 1864, at Flat Rock Ford, over Grand river sixty-five guerrillas were camped there. A mile away lives a Northern sympathizer who notified a body of Federals. Three hundred militia and one hundred and fifty Kansas Red Legs under Col. Catherwood were guided up to the foot of a ravine, where they dismounted and crept up to within range of the guerrillas before the Federals were discovered. Jesse James and Peyton Long saw the Federals first and gave the alarm. Bill Anderson, who was in command, shouted clear and loud:

"Hurry up, men; half of you bridle up and saddle up the horses, while the other half stand off the devils."

The guerrillas answered with a cheer. While half of then were saddling the horses the others formed in the brush and with an incessant and unnerving revolver fire kept the four hundred and fifty Federals at bay. As soon as the horses were ready the guerrillas leaped into their saddles and charged the Federals. Sixty-five men against four hundred and fifty, but those sixty-five were whirlwind fighters and not one of them ever knew what it was to be afraid of anything. That charge was a death grapple. Peyton Long and Arch Clements fell each with a horse killed. Anderson and Tuck Hill each went down with slight wounds. Jim Cummings took Anderson up behind him, Oll Shepherd picked up Arch Clements and Broomfield took up Peyton Long, but Long's revolver was shot from his hand. Broomfield's horse was shot beneath him. Jesse James, Cave Wyatt, William Reynolds and McMacane charged clear through the four hundred and fifty Federals and then charged back again. Dock Rupe, a boy of seventeen, fell dead alongside of Jesse James.

My father fell next, just as he was leading a third charge upon the Federals. He was hit twice. The first wound made him reel in his saddle and his pistol dropped from his right hand. He recovered himself and drew another pistol with his left hand and fired several shots. But a Spencer rifle ball struck him in the right breast, tore a great hole through the lung and came out his back near the spine. No man could bear up under such a wound as that. My father fell. Arch Clements sprang to his side and was standing over him fighting, when Clements was shot again in the face and again in the left leg and fell beside my father.

The desperate and bloody grapple went on. Never did a handful of men fight against such terrible odds. The whole Federal force, cut to pieces by the guerrilla charges, retreated to heavy timber and reformed there, leaving behind seventy-six killed and one hundred wounded. The guerrillas took advantage of this to get away, taking every one of their wounded with them. This they did in all their fights. A wounded guerrilla was never left behind, because the Federals showed no quarter to even wounded guerrillas. My father was sent to the home of Captain John A. Rudd, in Carroll County, and Gooly Robertson, Nat Tigue, Oll Shepherd and Peyton Long were detailed to guard him with their lives. It was not thought that my father would live through the night. Bill Anderson kissed him fondly as he parted with him, and my father, who did not think he had long to live took from his finger a plain gold ring and gave it to Peyton Long to be delivered to his sister Susie.

My father was nursed to life and strength by Mrs. Rudd and Mr. and Mrs. S. Neale.

The guerrillas who were in this desperate fight escaped with a loss of five or six and scattered out to reunite at an appointed rendezvous.

The success of the guerrillas in such encounters as this at Flat Rock Ford was due to their own peculiar training, tactics and methods of fighting. The guerrillas were trained, as Major Edwards has said, "solely in the art of horseback fighting. To halt, to wheel, to gallop, to run, to swing from the saddle, to go at full speed horseback, to turn as upon a pivot--to do all these things and shoot either with the right hand or the left while doing them--this was guerrilla drill and guerrilla discipline. Taking the first Federal fire at a splendid rush, they were to stop for nothing. No matter how many saddles were emptied, the survivors--relying solely upon the revolver--were to ride over whatever stood against the whirlwind or sought to check it in its terrible career."

In September, 1864, my father had recovered from the terrible wounds be had received in the fight, at Flat Rock Ford. He left the Rudd home against the earnest protests of his nurses and physician, who said he was not strong enough to travel; crossed the Missouri river on a raft, and joined Todd in Jackson County. He was thin and pale as a ghost. Jesse James was in Todd's camp near Bone Hill when General Sterling Price sent Capt. John Chestnut to Todd with a communication asking Todd, who was operating with Quantrell, to gather up all the guerrillas he could and stir up the militia in North Missouri. Price was then preparing for his Missouri campaign. Todd immediately sent my father to Dave Pool in Lafayette County with orders to rather up his men at once. This order was executed and my father returned to Todd, who sent him with eleven men under Lieut. George Shepherd to cross the river into Clay County to harass the militia there. These men could not find a boat, and they crossed the river in an old horse trough, using fence rails for oars. Todd crossed the river a few days later. He surprised forty-five militia in camp and killed them all. The guerrillas went to Keytesville, which was held by a garrison of eighty militia. Todd and his men surrounded the fort and the eighty militiamen surrendered without firing a shot. The prisoners were paroled.

A few days later Todd's command came upon one hundred and fifty Federal soldiers escorting seventeen wagons. Ninety-two of the one hundred and fifty were killed. In this fight my father as he galloped on horseback, killed a Federal lieutenant two hundred yards away. The lieutenant had just lifted his carbine to his face when a bullet from my father's heavy dragoon pistol crushed into his head. This remarkable shot was the talk of the command for a long time thereafter.

This battlefield was described afterward in the following language:

"The scene after the conflict was sickening. Charred human remains stuck out from the mouldering wagon heaps. Death, in all forms and shapes of agony made itself visible. Limbs were kneaded into the deep mud of the roadway, and faces, under the iron feet of the horses, crushed into shapelessness."

The march against Fayette began the morning of September 30, 1864. The town was reached at eleven o'clock that forenoon and the attack began at once. Four hundred Federal soldiers were garrisoned there. Todd had two hundred and seventy-seven men altogether. The Federals were behind such strong fortifications that they repulsed the guerrilla attack. When the guerrillas retreated Lee McMurtry was left wounded under the shadow of the stockade. Todd called for volunteers to bring him out. My father and Richard Kinney returned and ran in under a heavy fire from the stockade and carried McMurtry out to safety, McMurtry is now sheriff of Wichita County, Texas.,

The guerrillas under Poole joined General Price in his famous Missouri raid and remained with him, scouting and picketing and fighting with the advance until Price started southward from Mine Creek. After Mine Hill they returned to Bone Hill, Jackson County, same going afterward into Kentucky with Quantrell, and some to Texas with George Shepherd. From that time on the days of the guerrillas in Missouri as an organized band were over.

[much of the text in this section Jesse Edwards James got from "Noted Guerrillas" by the man he was named for, John Newman Edwards]

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