9/21/1876 - Still trying to flee the confines of the North Star State two weeks after their failed raid on the First National Bank of Northfield (a seven minute raid at 2:00 in the afternoon in which 25-year-old outlaw Clell Miller and 23-year-old bandit Bill Chadwell are killed, 39-year-old assistant bank cashier Joseph Lee Heywood is shot in the head, 30-year-old Swedish immigrant Nicolaus Gustafson is mortally wounded, bank teller Alonzo Bunker is wounded in the right shoulder, desperado Cole Younger is wounded in his left hip, outlaw brother Bob Younger has his right elbow shattered, bank robber Jim Younger is shot in the jaw, the James Boys, Frank and Jesse, are wounded in the right leg and thigh respectively, and Charlie Pitts is hit in the right leg ... blood letting that allows six of the eight raiders to ride out of town with the reward of their lawless labors, a whopping $26.60!), Charlie Pitts and the three Younger Brothers (upset that the elbow wound of Bob Younger is slowing the group, the two James brothers break off from the main band of raiders and make their way south on their own) are discovered hiding in the wilds of Hanska Slough outside the town of Madelia by a posse led by local sheriff James Gilspin. The inevitable gun battle of course takes place when Gilspin asks for volunteers to enter the thicket and arrest the outlaws and six men from the posse agree to help the sheriff.
Inside The Bank
Heywood
Six outlaws on five horses (Bob is being carried by Cole), the hellish fourteen day, four-hundred mile ordeal of the outlaw survivors begins with the gang's galloping ride out of Northfield. Escape planned to take place over the town's bridge over the Cannon River, the gang changes its escape route when they are cut off from the structure by the gunfire of Northfield's citizens (which has killed the gang's guide, Minnesotan Bill Chadwell) and instead head south out of town, crossing the river three miles further downstream at the eight-hundred person town of Dundas. Word of the robbery soon sent around the state, hundreds of Minnesota citizens grab their guns (two rival posses almost come to blows with each other, one a group out of Minneapolis led by 39-year-old detective Mike Hoy, and the other a collection of St. Paul manhunters commanded by 38-year-old detective John B. Bresette) and begin one of the biggest manhunts in the history of both the state (often hunting down another party seeking the outlaws and becoming outlaws themselves as when a young man is pulled off the ground with a rope around his neck to get answers as to the location of the "bad guys"), and the nation (and there is a payday to be had ... Governor John S. Pillsbury will offer a $1,000 reward for each of the raiders, and the First National Bank puts up $3,000 in reward money for the robbers arrest).
The Eight Before Northfield - True West Magazine
A mount procured for Bob on the other side of Dundas by way of a pointed revolver and a gunbutt crack to the skull of the ride's former owner, the gang rides further west and is in the town of Millersburg by 4:30 in the afternoon. Ninety minutes later they stop at the town of Shieldsville, where they water their horses and disarm a five-man posse that has stopped at the locale to quench their thirst for beer. Outside of town, rearmed and fortified by another group of upset Minnesota citizens, the posse will cause Bob to lose his horse again and ride with Cole. Masquerading as a posse seeking the raiders themselves, the bandit gang takes local farmer Levi Sager hostage so he can guide the group out of the area, and for the use by Bob of Sager's horse (which can't handle being guided by cowboy spurs), then on the road to Waterville, spend the night hiding in the farmhouse of Lord Brown. Making for extremely miserable conditions for both the outlaws and the authorities, that Thursday night a chill rain starts pouring down on southern Minnesota.
Six Heading South
Discarded Bandit Duster
Retreat From Northfield - True West Magazine
Seemingly constantly on the move, the outlaws escape a shotgun blasting by a farmer named George James, 16-year-old Wilhelm Rosnau is taken hostage to guide the outlaws through a wild section of Minnesota known as the "Big Woods." Food consists of green corn, wild plums, raw potatoes, and anything else the men can scavenge as they move southwest through Minnesota. Walking instead of riding now (their horses are totally played out by this point), the outlaws spend three nights out of the rain in an abandoned house they discover near the town of Mankato, on the northern edge of Eagle Lake. There, they take another man hostage for guiding purposes, Thomas Jefferson Dunning, eventually releasing him after debating taking his life to prevent the man from alerting the authorities ... which Dunning of course does, setting off a new flood of manhunters into the area.(by the end of the day over a thousand men will be scouring the area for the bandits), At Mankato, the gang decides to enter the town of 6,000 in the late evening and follow the railroad tracks of the St. Paul & Sioux City Railroad out of the region (at one point they are only four blocks away from where Brevet Brigadier General Edmund Mann Pope is trying to coordinate the manhunt from the town's Clifton House hotel). Spotted, there is a chance to catch the outlaws as they cross a wagon bridge over the Blue Earth River, but two of the structure's watchers run off in terror without firing a shot. On the other side of the river, the outlaws decimate a watermelon patch and then make a feast for themselves on the slopes of a location called Pigeon Hill with three pilfered hens and a small turkey, but their meal is interrupted when Hoy's posse shows up on the scene. Warned by all the noise the trackers make, the outlaws escape again by wading streams, stepping from rock to rock for long distances, walking in each other's footsteps, and on only their heels, walking on only their toes, and doubling back on their previous tracks, then doubling back on even that. But the toll of the failed robbery, the cold wet weather, the constant vigilance for bounty hunters, and the volume of near escapes finally wears away at the bandits and in a major argument about shooting hostages and being slowed up by the Younger injuries, the James Brothers decide to continue on with Charlie Pitts and the Youngers (but only after giving the James boys messages to pass on to family if they succeed in getting back to Missouri, along with a parcel of personal booty in the form of gold watches, rings, and cash, and a location where the outlaws can meet up again).
Jesse And Frank James
Pope
By the Thursday evening of September 14, 1876, the search for the outlaws centers on the region of Lake Crystal, a small railroad town fourteen miles to the southwest of Mankato where a picket line of hundreds of men stretches in a twelve-mile semicircle around the area. Luck still holding, the James boys manage to get new mounts and ride over a bridge that ten men were left to guard, but go to sleep instead, all but 32-year-old Richard Roberts, who signals the next sighting of the outlaws. But flooding the area with manhunters fails to locate the outlaws again, and by Monday morning, most of the hunters have once more returned to their homes in St. Paul and Minneapolis.even though their prey is close by, Traveling only by night, hiding in stands of timber during the day, Pitts and the Youngers head for the town of Madelia (a burg of eight hundred people twenty-five miles to the southwest of Mankato) to try and steal a new set of horses. Alerted by a trio of Madelia men guarding a bridge over the outlet of water between Armstrong and Storm Lakes that outlaws might be in the area, on Thursday morning, 17-year-old Oscar Sorbel abandons his chores (milking the cows on his father's farm) and quietly tracks two strangers into the nearby woods that stop to talk to his father, Then, after arguing with his father that the men are the Northfield raiders, young Sorbel grabs a horse and rides into Madelia to send up an alarm (on the way in, the tired horse stumbles and sends Oscar face first into a pool of mud). Convincing the citizens of Madelia after his hour long ride that he has seen the outlaws, a blast of excitement sweeps through the town and within five minutes of Sorbel's arrival, armed volunteers are streaming out of town, heading for the Sorbel Farm.
Sorbel
Last Stand Mural
After leaving the Sorbel Farm, the bandits walk around the north end of Lake Lindens and at about 11:00 in the late morning, they approach a marshy outlet of Lake Hanska and are spotted by Sheriff Filspin's posse. Lead between the two groups is exchanged for the first time, the bandits disappear into a group of plum thickets on the bank of the Watonwan River. More bullets are exchanged as they make their way across the 30-yard wide wet and on to the farm of Andrew Anderson. Thwarted attempting to steal a fresh set of mounts, the outlaws hunker down in the Watonwan's thickets and decide to make a last stand as Cole Younger tells Charlie Pitts, "Sam, if you want to go out and surrender, go on. This is where Cole Younger dies." Bravado matched by bravado, Pitts replies, "All right, Captain. I can die just as game as you can. Let's get it done!" The outlaw's last words, he stands up and sets off a gun battle between the outlaws and seven men that have followed the raiders into the thickets ... immortalized by newspapermen in the days to come as "The Magnificent Seven," the lawmen are Sheriff Glispin, 39-year-old Civil War veteren, Captain William W. Murphy, local hotel owner and 43-year-old Civil War veteren, Colonel Thomas L. Vought, G. A. Bradford, B. M. Rice, C. A. Pomeroy, and S. J. Severson (afterwards, each man will receive $246 in reward money). Targeted by Pitts, Sheriff Glispin fires a split second quicker than the outlaw, and with a bullet in his chest, the bandit pitches forward onto his face, rolls over, and gives a dead eye stare to the sky. Rounds flying everywhere, Captain Murphy is struck in the chest, but survives when the large briarwood smoking pipe in his vest pocket absorbs the brunt of the hit. Not so lucky are the three surviving Younger brothers ... already wounded in the face during the Northfield robbery, Jim has a bullet tear into the left side of his jaw and lodge in the roof of his mouth near the back of his throat and is also struck by a slug in his right thigh, Cole has his head and back peppered by buckshot and is knocked unconscious by a bullet that comes to rest behind the outlaw's right eye (the outlaw will somehow survive ... during the Northfield Raid he is wounded eleven times, and at his death, he is found to have fourteen bullets still in his body), and Bob is hit in the right lung emptying his revolver at the posse. The only outlaw conscious, Bob surrenders to posse ... and is almost shot when he can't raise both arms over his head, and is shot (the bullet grazes his cheek ... and the manhunters are told in no uncertain terms by Sheriff Glispin that he will shoot the next man that fires a shot without his authorization) by an over-anxious manhunter firing at the outlaws from across the river (but maybe justified, when Cole wakes up and finds himself a captive, though he doesn't have the strength to stand up, he challenges Sheriff Gilspin and his men to a fist fight!).
The Seven From L To R - Gilspin, Murphy, Bradford, Rice, Vought, Pomeroy, And Severson,
The Seven Move Forward - True West Magazine
Pitts Begins The End - True West Magazine
Dead Charlie
Cole, Jim, And Bob At Their Capture
Placed in the Rice County Jail in the town of Fairbault, a grand jury issues four indictments against each of the brothers, one for the murder of Heywood, one for the killing of Gustafson, one for bank robbery, and one for assault with a deadly weapon for the wounding of Bunker. Saving the court the cost of a slam-dunk trial, and dealing to save their own necks, Cole, Jim, and Bob plea guilty to all the charges on November 20, 1876, and each man receives a life sentence to be spent behind bars at the state's penitentiary in the town of Stillwater. The boys behind bars (successfully making it back to Missouri, Frank and Jesse James go into hiding for the next three years, before getting back into business on October 8, 1879 with the robbery of the Chicago and Alton Railroad near Glendale, Missouri), the first Younger to leave prison is Bob ... at Stillwater he contracts tuberculosis and dies in the prison hospital at the age of 35 in 1889. Coaxed out of the ranching life he was enjoying in California to support his brothers' Minnesota raid, Jim is paroled in 1901, but life on the outside is too much for the former outlaw, and unable to marry his fiance, Alix Mueller, due to the conditions of his parole, the depressed man commits suicide in St. Paul, Minnesota on October 19, 1902 at the age of 54. Also out in 1901 is Cole Younger. Paroled like his brother, Jim, oldest brother Cole enjoys quite a successful life after being released from prison ... he writes his memoirs, travels across the country talking about his outlaw days with former pal and fellow outlaw, Frank James, sets up and becomes part owner of The Cole Younger and Frank James Wild West Company in 1903, and in 1912, he repents his many crimes and becomes a Christian. He passes in his hometown of Lee's Summit, Missouri on March 21, 1916, and is buried in the Lee's Summit Historical Cemetery.
Cole Younger
Business
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