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Younger Remains in Missouri With
a Small Detachment—Winter of 1862 and 1863
The remaining part of
this chapter is the escapades of Cole Younger, who stayed in Missouri the
winter of 1862 and 1863, with quite a number of the old band who were not
in condition to ride when Quantrell and Captain Trow went south. But I
know them to be true.
Younger was exceedingly
enterprising, and fought almost daily. He did not seem to be affected by
the severity of the winter, and at night, under a single blanket, he slept
often in the snow while it was too bitter cold for Federal scouting
parties to leave their comfortable cantonments or Federal garrisons to
poke their noses beyond the snug surroundings of their well furnished
barracks.
The Guerrilla rode everywhere and waylaid roads,
bridges, lines of courriers and routes of travel. Six mail carriers
disappeared in one week between Independence and Kansas
City.
In a month after Quantrell arrived in Texas, George
Todd returned to Jackson County, bringing with him Fletch Taylor, Boon
Schull, James Little, Andy Walker and James Reed. Todd and Younger again
came together by the bloodhound instinct which all men have who hunt or
are hunted. Todd had scarcely made himself known to the Guerrills in
Jackson County before he had commenced to kill militiamen. A foraging
party from Independence were gathering corn from a field belonging to
Daniel White, a most worthy citizen of the vicinity, when Todd and Younger
broke in upon it, shot five down in the field and put the rest to flight.
Next day, November 30, 1862, Younger, having with him Josiah and Job
McCockle and Tom Talley, met four of Jennison's regiment face to face in
the neighborhood of the county poor house. Younger, who had an
extraordinary voice, called out loud enough to be heard a mile, "You are
four, and we are four. Stand until we come up." Instead of standing,
however, the Jayhawkers turned about and rode off as rapidly as possible,
followed by Younger and his men. All being excellently mounted, the ride
lasted fully three miles before either party won or lost. At last the
Guerrillas began to gain and kept gaining. Three of the four Jayhawkers
were finally shot from their saddles and the fourth escaped by superior
riding and superior running.
Todd, retaining with him
those brought up from Arkansas, kept adding to them all who either from
choice or necessity were forced to take refuge in the brush. Never happy
except when on the war path, he suggested to Younger and Cunningham a ride
into Kansas City west of Little Santa Fe, always doubtful if not dangerous
ground. Thirty Guerrillas met sixty-two Jayhawkers. It was a prairie
fight, brief, bloody, and finished at a gallop. Todd's tactics, the old
yell and the old rush, swept everything—a revolver in each hand, the
bridle reins in his teeth, the horse at a full run, the individual rider
firing right and left. This is the way the Guerrillas
charged. The sixty-two Jayhawkers fought better than
most of the militia had been in the habit of fighting, but they could not
stand up to the work at revolver range. When Todd charged them furiously,
which he did as soon as he came in sight of them, they stood a volley at
one hundred yards and returned it, but not a closer grapple. It was while
holding the rear with six men that Cole Younger was attacked by fifty-two
men and literally run over. In the midst of the melee bullets fell like
hail stones in summer weather. John McDowell's horse went down, the rider
under him and badly hit. He cried out to Younger for help. Younger, hurt
himself and almost overwhelmed, dismounted under fire and rescued McDowell
and brought him safely back from the furious crash, killing as he went a
Federal soldier whose horse had carried him beyond Younger and McDowell
who were struggling in the road together. Afterwards Younger was betrayed
by the man to save whose life he had risked his own.
Divided again, and operating in different localities, Todd, Younger and
Cunningham carried the terror of the Guerrilla name throughout the border
counties of Kansas and Missouri. Every day, and sometimes twice a day,
from December 3rd to December 18th, these three fought some scouting party
or attacked some picket post. At the crossing of the Big Blue on the road
to Kansas City—the place where the former bridge had been burned by
Quantrell—Todd surprised six militiamen and killed them all and then hung
them up on a long pole, resting it, either end upon forks, just as hogs
are hung in the country after being slaughtered. The Federals, seeing
this, began to get ready to drive them away from their lines of
communication. Three heavy columns were sent out to scour the country.
Surprising Cunningham in camp on Big Creek, they killed one of his
splendid soldiers. Will Freeman, and drove the rest of the Guerrillas back
into Jackson County.
Todd, joining himself quickly to
Younger, ambuscaded the column hunting him, and in a series of combats
between Little Blue and Kansas City, killed forty-seven of the pursuers,
captured five wagons and thirty-three head of horses.
There was a lull again in marching and counter marching as the winter got
colder and colder and some deep snow fell. Christmas time came, and the
Guerrillas would have a Christmas frolic. Nothing bolder or braver is
recorded upon the records of either side in the Civil War than this
so-called Christmas frolic.
Colonel Henry Younger, father
of Coleman Younger, was one of the most respected citizens of Western
Missouri. He was a stalwart pioneer of Jackson County, having fourteen
children born to him and his noble wife, a true Christian woman. A
politician of the old school, Colonel Younger was for a number of years a
judge of the county court of Jackson County, and for several terms was a
member of the state legislature. In 1858, he left Jackson County for Cass
County where he dealt largely in stock. He was also an extensive farmer,
an enterprising merchant and the keeper of one of the best and most
popular livery stables in the West, located at Harrisonville, the County
seat of Cass County. His blooded horses were very superior, and he usually
had on hand for speculative purposes amounts of money ranging from $6,000
to $10,000. On one of Jennison's periodical raids in the fall of 1862, he
sacked and burned Harrisonville. Colonel Younger, although a staunch Union
man, and known to be such, was made to lose heavily. Jennison and his
officers took from him $4,000 worth of buggies, carriages and hacks and
fifty head of blooded horses worth $500 each. Then the balance of his
property that was perishable and not movable, was burned. The intention
was to kill Colonel Younger, on the principle that dead men tell no tales,
but he escaped with great difficulty and made his way to Independence.
Jennison was told that Colonel Younger was rich and that he invariably
carried with him large amounts of money. A plan was immediately laid to
kill him.
Twenty cut-throats
were organized as a band, under a Jayhawker named Bailey, and set to watch
his every movement. They dogged him from Independence to Kansas City and
from Kansas City down to Cass County. Coining upon him at last in an
isolated place within a few miles of Harrisonville, they riddled his body
with bullets, rifled his pockets and left his body stark and partially
stripped by the roadside.
Eight hundred Federals held
Kansas City, and on every road was a strong picket post. The streets were
patrolled continually, and ready always for an emergency. Horses saddled
and bridled stood in their stalls.
Early on the morning of
December 25th, 1862, Todd asked Younger if he would like to have a little
fun. "What kind of fun?" the latter inquired. "A portion of the command
that murdered your father are in Kansas City," said Todd, "and if you say
so we will go into the place and kill a few of them." Younger caught
eagerly at the proposition and commenced at once to get ready for the
enterprise. Six were to compose the adventuresome party—Todd, Younger, Abe
Cunningham, Fletch Taylor, Zach Traber and George Clayton. Clad in the
uniform of the Federal cavalry, carrying instead of one pistol, four, they
arrived about dusk at the picket post on the Westport and Kansas City
road. They were not even halted. The uniform was a passport; to get in did
not require a countersign. They left the horses in charge of Traber,
bidding him do the best he could do if the worst came to the
worst.
The city was filled with revelry. All the saloons
were crowded. The five Guerrillas, with their heavy cavalry overcoats
buttoned loosely about them, boldly walked down Main Street and into the
Christmas revelry. Visiting this saloon and that saloon, they sat knee to
knee with some of the Jennison men, some of Jennison's most blood-thirsty
troopers, and drank confusion over and over again to the cut-throat
Quantrell and his bushwhacking crew.
Todd knew several of
the gang who had waylaid and slain Colonel Younger, but hunt how he could,
he could not find a single man of them. Entering near onto midnight an
ordinary drinking place near the public square, six soldiers were
discovered sitting at two tables playing cards, two at one and four at
another. A man and a boy were behind the bar. Todd, as he entered, spoke
low to Younger.
"Run to cover at last. Five of the six men before you
were in Bailey's crowd that murdered your father. How does your pulse
feel?"
"Like an iron man's. I feel like I could kill the
whole six myself."
They went up to the bar, called for
whiskey and invited the card players to join. They did so.
If it was agreeable, the boy might bring their whiskey to them and
the game could go on.
"Certainly," said Todd, with purring
of a tiger cat ready for a spring, "that's what the boy is here for." Over
their whiskey the Guerrillas whispered. The killing now was as good as
accomplished. Cunningham and Clayton were to saunter carelessly up to the
table where the two players sat, and Todd, Younger and Taylor up to the
table where the four sat. The signal to get ready was to be, "Come, boys,
another drink," and the signal to fire was, "Who said drink?" Cole Younger
was to give the first signal in his deep resonant voice and Todd the last
one. After the first each Guerrilla was to draw a pistol and hold it under
the cape of his cavalry coat and after the last he was to fire. Younger,
as a special privilege, was accorded the right to shoot the sixth man.
Cole Younger's deep voice broke suddenly in, filling all the room and
sounding ao jolly and clear. "Come, boys, another drink." Neither so loud
nor so caressing as Younger's, yet sharp, distinct, and penetrating,
prolonging, as it were, the previous proposition, and giving it emphasis,
Todd exclaimed, "Who said drink?" A thunderclap, a single pistol shot, and
then total darkness. The barkeeper dum in the presence of death, shivered
and stood still. Todd, cool as a winter's night without, extinguished
every light and stepped upon the street. "Steady," he said to his men, "do
not make haste." So sudden had been the massacre, and so quick had been
the movements of the Guerrillas, that the pursuers were groping for a clue
and stumbling in their eagerness to find it. At every street corner an
alarm was beating.
Past the press in the streets, past the glare and
the glitter of the thicker lights, past patrol after patrol, Todd had won
well his way to his horses when a black bar thrust itself suddenly across
his path and changed itself instantly into a line of soldiers. Some paces
foreward a spokesman advanced and called a halt.
"What do
you want?" asked Todd.
"The countersign."
"We have no countersign. Out for a lark, it's only a square or two further
that we desire to go."
"No matter if its only an inch or
two. Orders are orders."
"Fire; and charge men!" and the
black line across the streets as a barricade shrivelled up and shrank
away. Four did not move, however, nor would they ever move again, until,
feet foremost, their comrades bore them to their burial place. But the
hunt was hot. Mounted men were abroad, and hurrying feet could be heard in
all directions. Rallying beyond range and reinforcements, the remnant of
the patrol were advancing and opening fire. Born scout and educated
Guerrilla, Traber—judging from the shots and shouts—knew what was best for
all and dashed up to his hard-pressed comrades and horses. There after the
fight was a frolic. The picket on the Independence road was ridden over
and through, and the brush beyond gained without an effort; and the
hospitable house of Reuben Harris, where a roaring fire was blazing and a
hearty welcome extended to all was reached.
In a week or
less it began snowing. The hillsides were white with it. The nights were
long, and the days bitter, and the snow did not melt. On the 10th of
February, 1863, John McDowell reported his wife sick and asked Younger
permission to visit her. The permission was granted, the proviso attached
to it being the order to report again at 3 o'clock. The illness of the
man's wife was a sham. Instead of going home, or even in the direction of
home, he hastened immediately to Independence and made the commander
there, Colonel Penick, thoroughly acquainted with Younger's camp and all
its surroundings. Penick was a St. Joseph, Missouri, man, commanding a
regiment of militia. The echoes of the desperate adventure of Younger and
Todd in Kansas City had long ago reached the ears of Colonel Penick, and
he seconded the traitor's story with an eagerness worthy the game to be
hunted. Eighty cavalry, under a resolute officer, were ordered instantly
out, and McDowell, suspected and closely guarded, was put at their head as
a pilot.
Younger had two houses dug in the ground, with a
ridge pole to each, and rafters. Upon the rafters were boards, and upon
the boards straw and earth. At one end was a fireplace, at the other a
door. Architecture was nothing, comfort everything.
The
Federal officer dismounted his men two hundred yards from Younger's huts
and divided them, sending forty to the south and forty to the north. The
Federals on the north had approached to within twenty yards of Younger's
cabins when a horse snorted fiercely and Younger came to the door of one
of them. He saw the approaching column on foot and mistaking it for a
friendly column, called out: "Is that you, Todd?" Perceiving his mistake,
in a moment, however, he fired and killed the lieutenant in command of the
attacking party and then aroused the men in the houses. Out of each the
occupants poured, armed, desperate and determined to fight but never to
surrender. Younger halted behind a tree and fought fifteen Federals for
several moments, killed another who rushed upon him, rescued Hinton and
strode away after his comrades, untouched and undaunted. Fifty yards
further Tom Talley was in trouble. He had one boot off and one foot in the
leg of the other, but try as he would he could get it neither off nor on.
Ho could not run, situated as he was, and he had no knife to cut the
leather. He too called out to Younger to wait for him and to stand by him
until he could do something to extricate himself. Without hurry, and in
the teeth of a rattling fusilade, Younger stooped to Talley's assistance,
tearing; literally from his foot by the exercise of immense strength the
well-nigh fatal boot, and telling him to make the best haste he could and
hold to his pistols. Braver man than Tom Talley never lived, nor cooler.
As he jumped up in his stocking feet, the Federals were within twenty
yards, firing as they advanced, and loading their breech loading guns as
they ran. He took their fire at a range like that and snapped every barrel
of his revolver in their faces. Not a cylinder exploded, being wet by the
snow. He thus held in his hand a useless pistol. About
thirty of the enemy had by this time outrun the rest and were forcing the
fighting. Younger called to his men to take to the trees and drive them
back, or stand and die together. The Guerrillas, hat-less and some of them
barefoot and coatless, rallied instantly and held their own. Younger
killed two more of the pursuers here—five since the fighting began—and Bud
Wigginton, like a lion at bay, fought without cover and with deadly
effect. Here Job McCorkle was badly wounded, together with James Morris,
John Coger and five others. George Talley, fighting splendidly, was shot
dead, and Younger himself, encouraging his men by his voice and example,
got a bullet through the left shoulder. The Federal advance fell back to
the main body and the main body fell back to their
horses.
A man by
the name of Emmet Goss was now beginning to have it whispered of him that
he was a tiger. He would fight, the Guerrillas said, and when in those
savage days one went out upon the warpath so endorsed, be sure that it
meant all that it was intended to mean. Goss lived in Jackson County. He
owned a farm near Hickman's mill, and up to the fall of 1861, had worked
it soberly and industriously. When he concluded to quit farming and go
fighting, he joined the Jayhawkers. Jennison commanded the Fifteenth
Kansas Cavalry, and Goss a company In this regiment. From a peaceful
thrifty citizen he became suddenly a terror to the border. He seemed to
have a mania for killing. Twenty odd unoffending citizens probably died at
his hand. When Ewing's famous General Order No. 11 was issued—that order
which required the wholesale depopulation of Cass, Bates, Vernon and
Jackson Counties—Goss went about as a destroying angel, with a torch in
one hand and a revolver in the other. He boasted of having kindled the
fires in fifty-two houses, of having made fifty-two families homeless and
shelterless, and of having killed, he declared, until he was tired of
killing. Death was to come to him at last by the hand of Jesse James, but
not yet.
Goss had sworn to capture or kill Cole Younger,
and went to the house of Younger's mother on Big Creek for the purpose.
She was living in a double log cabin built for a tenant, by her husband
before his death, and Cole was at home. It was about eight o'clock and
quite dark. Cole sat talking with his mother, two little sisters and a boy
brother. Goss, with forty men, dismounted back from the yard, fastened
their horses securely, moved up quietly and surrounded the
house.
Between the two rooms of the cabin there was an
open passageway, and the Jayhawkers had occupied this before the alarm was
given. Desiring to go from one room to another, a Miss Younger found the
porch full of armed men. Instantly springing back and closing the door,
she shouted Cole's name, involuntarily. An old negro woman—a former
slave—with extraordinary presence of mind, blew out the light, snatched a
coverlet from the bed, threw it over her head and
shoulders.
"Got behind me, Masso Cole, quick," she said in
a whisper.
And Cole, in a second, with a pistol in each
hand, stood close up to the old woman, the bed spread covering them both.
Then throwing wide the door, and receiving in her face the gaping muzzles
of a dozen guns, she querously cried out:
"Don't shoot a poor old
nigger, Massa Sogers. Its nobody but me going to see what's de matter. Ole
missus is nearly scared to death."Slowly, then, so slowly that it seemed
an age to Cole, she strode through the crowd of Jayhawkers blocking up the
portico, and out into the darkness and night. Swarming
about the two rooms and rumaging everywhere, a portion of the Jayhawkers
kept looking for Younger, and swearing brutally at their ill-success,
while another portion, watching the movements of the old negress, saw her
throw away the bedspread, clap her hands exultantly and shout: "Run, Marse
Cole; run for your life. The debbils can't catch you dis
time!"
Giving and taking a volley that harmed no one, Cole
made his escape without a struggle. As for the old negress, Goss debated
aometime with himself whether he should shoot her or hang her.
Unquestionably a rebel negro, she was persecuted often and often for her
opinion's sake, and hung up twice by militia to make her tell the
whereabouts of Guerrillas. True to her people and her cause, she died at
last in the ardor of devotion.
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