Jesse James and the Civil War in Missouri

Trains and Pinkerton Men (1873–1876)

Trains and Pinkerton Men (1873-1876) Less than a year after the Kansas City fairgrounds robbery, the James boys robbed their first train. They were not the first outlaws to rob trains. The Reno gang in Indiana was sup~ posedly the first gang to rob a train. But Jesse and his gang became the most famous train robbers. On July 21, 1873, Jesse and several members of his gang pulled a rail loose on the tracks of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad near Council Bluffs, Iowa. When the train came along, the engine was thrown off the track, killing the engineer. The gang members thought there was a big gold shipment on the train, but they were mistaken. They got only about $2,000 from the train safe along with some money and valuables from the passengers. About six months after the Iowa train robbery, Jesse and his gang got several thousand dollars in a train robbery at Gads Hill, a small town in southeastern Missouri. During this robbery Jesse supposedly looked at the hands of the men on the train he was robbing to see which were working men. It is said that he did not rob those men, and he did not rob any of the women. He supposedly only robbed men who looked like they were rich. About a month before the Gads Hill train robbery, John Newman Edwards wrote another long newspaper article about Jesse James and his gang. In this article Edwards told the 56 Trains and Pinkerton Men (1873-1876) 57 The Gads Hill train robbery by the James gang. (State Historical Society of Missouri) whole story about why Jesse James had joined the guerrillas and how Jesse had almost been killed when he tried to surren, der at the end of the war. Many of the stories in this article became important parts of the Jesse James legend. This article also has an interesting description of both Frank and Jesse James. Here is part of that description: Jesse James, the youngest, has a face as smooth and innocent as the face of a school girl. The blue eyes, very clear and pene, trating, are never at rest. His form is tall, graceful and capable of great endurance and great effort. There is always a smile on his lips, and a graceful word or a compliment for all with whom he comes in contact. Looking at his small white hands, with their long tapering fingers, one would not imagine that with are' volver they were among the quickest and deadliest hands in all the west. Frank is older and taller. Jesse's face is a perfect oval-Frank's is long, wide about the forehead, square and massive about the jaws and chin, and set always in a look of fixed repose. Jesse is light,hearted, reckless, devil-may-care.... Neither will be taken alive. 58 Jesse James and the Civil War in Missouri The James gang was now being chased by the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Allen Pinkerton, the head of this agency, had been a Union spy during the Civil War. He put together his detective agency at the end of the war. When the James gang began robbing trains, the train companies hired the detectives to track down Jesse and his men. The first three Pinkerton men who tracked the gang back to their home territory after the Gads Hill train robbery were killed-one not far from Kearney, and the other two near Monegaw Springs in St. Clair County. It was thought that Jesse and Frank killed the first man. The other two men were killed by the Younger brothers, but not before one of the Younger brothers himself was killed. The robberies by the James gang and other outlaws, as well as the killing of the Pinkerton men, gave Missouri the'reputa, tion of being the "Outlaw State." The governor of Missouri at this time, Silas Woodson, tried to get a law passed that would give him money to hire detectives who could find and catch the outlaws, but he was not successful. Jesse James, Jesse James He robbed banks, and he robbed trains And the Pinkerton men tried to hunt him down; They followed him around from town to town But they never laid a hand on Jesse James. -Robert L. Dyer, Big Canoe Songbook: Ballads from the Heartland (Pekitanoui Publications, 1991) All this publicity...