Shot All to Hell
In Mark Lee Gardner's wonderful, meticulous book Shot All to Hell: Jesse James, the Northfield Raid, and the Wild West's Greatest Escape, we learn about everything there is to know about this robbery and the subsequent manhunt for the bandits. I've read books about Jesse James before, but this is so detailed and so well written that I was dazzled.
This is not a biography of James or his brother Frank, or of the Younger Brothers (Cole, Jim, and Bob). We get sketches of their earlier lives, particularly how they rode with guerrillas during the Civil War, and how they pulled off the first daylight bank robbery in United States history. But the action really starts earlier in 1876, with a train robbery at Rocky Cut, Missouri. Gardner describes the events, and although no one knows for sure who was behind it, it is clear that the evidence points to the James Gang.
Then why Minnesota for their next job? That state doesn't exactly suggest the Wild West, even in 1876. I was surprised to learn that the gang took the train there. They did look at other banks in Minnesota, but Gardner pinpoints the reason the First National in Northfield was chosen: "One of the bank's large investors was Adelbert Ames, a Union Civil War general and Radical Republican who until only recently had been Mississippi's governor. Ames had been derided by Mississippi Democrats as a "carpetbagger" and despised by Southern whites for his pro-black Reconstruction policies." But why Minnesota in the first place? Gardner speculates that the James boys may have been looking for revenge against Samuel Hardwicke, a Pinkerton agent who led a raid on the James homestead that killed their younger brother and maimed their mother. Jesse may have planned on assassinating Hardwicke.
Once the robbery begins, Gardner's talents are evident, as he breaks it down almost second by second. It only lasted seven to ten minutes. What foiled the plot was the citizens' suspicions of the strangers in town to begin with, and then a clerk named Joseph Heywood, who refused to open the safe. He was shot dead in cold blood by Frank James (this is Gardner's supposition based on voluminous evidence--no one in the gang ever gave up Frank). Heywood was hailed as a hero, but of course today no business would expect a man to lay down his life for something like money.
The Northfield citizens didn't lay down, pulling out their arms and shooting it out with the crooks. After the dust had settled, one other Northfield citizen was dead and two of the gang, Clell Miller and Bill Chadwell, were also dead. "According to one account, so many people wanted to see the dead robbers that their bodies were displayed for a short time in Mill Square, which became packed with gawkers, sheriffs and police officers from nearby towns, newspaper reporters, posse volunteers, and Northfield's own citizens, both children and adults."
The rest of the book, a good chunk of it, concerns the escape and manhunt. Northfield telegraphed nearby towns, who formed posses. Gardner highlights the vanity and incompetence of two rivals police chiefs of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and the hesitation of some of the posses, once they realized they were chasing the most notorious outlaws in the country: "Fear of the robbers rattled quite a few of the men and boys who made up the posses. 'Many, of course, were there who started in the chase as they would go upon a chicken hunt,' commented one reporter, 'made brave by the excitement of the moment, but worse than useless in case of actual service.'"
The remaining six outlaws made there way through unfamiliar Minnesota forests, yet somehow eluded capture, telling farmers that they were a posse themselves. But Bob Younger, badly wounded during the robbery, was slowing everyone down. The Youngers and Jameses separated, and eventually the Youngers were captured. Jim took a bullet in the mouth, and Charlie Pitts, who stuck with them, was killed.
The James boys made their way into Iowa, and eventually into the safe haven of Missouri, where many regarded them as heroes. The Youngers would plead guilty to avoid the death penalty, and were sentenced to life in prison. Frank and Jesse James took different names and tried to live quiet lives, but went back to robbery, teaming up with the Ford brothers. Bob Ford would kill Jesse for the reward money. Frank, amazingly, never came to justice for the Northfield raid. To his dying day he maintained he had never been in the state of Minnesota.
This book is a must for Wild West buffs, such as myself, and for general history readers, as it perfectly captures a time and place. I'll close with Gardner's summation: "Thanks to what...the dozens of dime novels that came later, his brother Jesse had become the most famous--and most popular--outlaw on the planet. And, somewhat ironically, a big part of that legendary status had come the defeat in Northfield. If nothing else, Jesse and Frank's wild ride through a thousand manhunters cemented their reputation as among the most remarkable and notorious outlaws to ever live."
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