The Year of the Century, 1876 by Dee Brown

Author:Dee Brown [Brown, Dee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, 19th Century, Social History, Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 9781453274231
Google: VwFXJcSyBU8C
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2012-10-23T16:04:54+00:00

8.

To round out this gallery of rogues, the American people needed a legendary hero who robbed the rich to help the poor, a native American Robin Hood. The likeliest candidates were four Missouri cousins, a pair of brothers—Bob and Cole Younger, Frank and Jesse James. Their specialties were stagecoach, train, and bank robberies. During 1876 this quartet, with their merry band of robbers, reached the zenith of their careers. For various reasons the Robin Hood mantle was to fall upon the shoulders of Jesse James. His name was alliterative, suited to dime novel titles, easy to remember. He was the planner of most of the robberies; he was the most elusive; he had a prankish sense of humor. Like Robin Hood who sent impudent messages to the Sheriff of Nottingham, Jesse wrote insulting letters to Pinkerton detectives and to newspapers, either denying the exploits he was accused of or daring his pursuers to capture and convict him. Jesse also looked the part. In one of his early photographs he wore an antique powder horn and a hat with the brim upturned so that it resembled the jaunty bonnet of a denizen of Sherwood Forest.

From 1866 through 1875, the James boys successfully robbed at least eleven banks, three railroad trains and three stagecoaches. How many more they robbed will never be known; they usually had alibis to prove they were somewhere else, and always moved swiftly away from the scenes of their crimes.

In 1876 as if purposely setting a pattern for posterity to remember them by, the James-Younger combination planned and executed three robberies, each one a different demonstration of their professional skills—a stagecoach holdup in Texas, a train robbery in Missouri, and the disastrous robbery of the Northfield, Minnesota, bank.

As we have seen, the Austin-San Antonio stagecoach holdup on May 12 was a model of perfection. (See page 157.) Two months later they were back in their home state of Missouri, and being in need of cash, decided to rob a train. Assembling half a dozen or more of their trusted yeomen, they selected Rocky Cut east of Otterville on the Missouri Pacific Railroad as a suitable site.

About ten o’clock on the night of July 7, the engineer of an eastbound train saw a red signal lantern flashing ahead in the railroad cut. Believing it to be a warning from a trackwalker, he reached for the air brake. A few moments later his locomotive crashed into a pile of ties and lumber. As the train came to a rocking stop, masked men swarmed alongside, yelling and firing off pistols. Two jumped aboard the locomotive, covering the engineer and fireman with huge revolvers and threatening to kill them if they offered resistance. At the same time three other robbers climbed into the side door of the express car, demanding the keys to the safe. The baggageman told them he had no keys, that the express messenger carried them, but had disappeared immediately after the train’s sudden halt.

Two of the robbers then

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