CHAPTER VIII. THE END OF A BAD ENTERPRISE

The chagrin and exasperation which followed the escape of the two Jameses were changed to exultation over the victory in the Watonwan bottom,—a victory well worthy to close the campaign so bravely begun in the streets of Northfield. Whatever blunders had been made, whatever hardships and disappointments had been endured, the final result was fairly satisfactory. Of the eight desperados who rode forth so confidently on their career of plunder, three were dead, three were prisoners, and the other two were in ignominious retreat—one of them wounded. They had wasted a month in fruitless effort, lost their splendid horses and equipment, spent much money and gained none, suffered unutterable hardship, and achieved nothing but two brutal and profitless murders.

Arrived in Madelia, the captured men were taken to the Flanders House, where Cole Younger and his now dead comrade Pitts, had played the role of gentlemen travelers a month before. Younger had recognized Col. Vought and saluted him as “landlord” when they met as captor and captive on the bloody field of the Watonwan. He also recognized Mr. G. S. Thompson, who was doing guard duty at the time of the capture, and reminded him of a visit which Pitts and himself had made to Thompson’s store in St. James during the same preliminary tour.

The Flanders House was made for the time being a hospital and a prison. Guards were posted within and without, and every precaution was taken to prevent either the escape of the prisoners or any unlawful attack upon them. The men were wet, weakened by fatigue and exposure, nearly famished and shockingly wounded. They received such attention as humanity dictated. Their wounds were dressed; their wet garments were exchanged for dry ones; their hunger was appeased and they were placed in comfortable beds.

They appreciated this treatment most gratefully. They had hardly expected less than being lynched or torn in pieces by the infuriated people; and they repeatedly expressed their admiration both of the bravery of their captors and of the magnanimity of those who had them so absolutely at their mercy. It was indeed rumored that a train-load of lynchers was on the way, bent on summary vengeance; but the officers of the law and the people of Madelia were prepared to resist such an attempt to the utmost, and it never was made.

Sight-seers and lion-hunters came by hundreds, from every direction. On the day following the capture the hotel was besieged by an eager throng, that filled its halls and corridors and the adjacent street, and kept a continuous stream of visitor filing through the room where the robbers were confined. Reporters, photographers and detectives were there, each intent on his own professional ends; and every type of sentiment was represented, from open vindictiveness to morbid sympathy and admiration for criminal audacity.

The prisoners talked freely on certain subjects, and with shrewd reserve upon others. They claimed to be the victims of circumstances, rather than of their own inclinations. They talked pathetically of their family and their antecedents, advised young men to shun bad ways, and requested the prayers of pious women. Being allowed an opportunity to confer together, they agreed to admit their own identity, but refused to divulge that of their companions, either the dead or the living. They denied that the two who escaped were the James brothers, but would give no further information concerning them. The work of identification was effected, however, without their aid. Chief of Police McDonough, of St. Louis, and other officers and citizens, were able of their own knowledge, with the aid of collateral testimony and of rogues-gallery pictures, to identify the two killed at Northfield as Clel Miller and Bill Stiles, and the one killed in the capture as Charley Pitts, alias George Wells. Little doubt was entertained, also, that the ones who escaped were Jesse and Frank James, who about that time reappeared in their old haunts in Missouri.

On Saturday, September 23d, the prisoners were delivered to Sheriff Barton of Rice County, by whom they were taken to Faribault and safely lodged in the county jail, a few miles from the scene of their crime.

Here, again, they were visited by multitudes of people of all sorts and conditions, and received many attentions, pleasant and unpleasant, as the reward of bad notoriety. Here also they were menaced with a threatened lynching, this time a dead-in-earnest affair, prevented only by the vigilance and determination of the officers of the law, aided by the citizens of Faribault. So strongly was the jail guarded, and so strict was the discipline maintained in its defence, that when a member of the city police one night approached the guard, making some motion that was deemed suspicious, and imprudently neglecting to respond to the challenge of the guard, he was fired upon and killed.

The 9th of November, just nine weeks after the attack upon the Northfield bank, was another fateful Thursday in the robber calendar. On that day they were arraigned for trial before the Rice County District Court, at Faribault, Judge Samuel Lord presiding, and G. N. Baxter, Esq., being the prosecuting officer. On the previous day the sister and the aunt of the three prisoners had arrived, to attend them during the ordeal. The refinement and respectability of these ladies served to emphasize yet more strongly the social standing from which the men had fallen and the needlessness of the disgrace which they had brought upon themselves and their friends.

[OSCAR SEEBORN.]

OSCAR SEEBORN.

The arraignment presented one of the most dramatic scenes in connection with the crime. The prisoners, in expectation of the summons, had prepared themselves to make the best possible appearance in public. The three were shackled together, Cole in the middle, with Bob on the right and Jim on the left. The sheriff, chief of police and his lieutenant walked by their side, an armed guard marched before them and another behind them. The robbers somewhat distrusted the temper of the crowd that filled the streets; and there were some mutterings of a threatening nature, but no overt acts of hostility. At the court-house the guard opened to the right and left, to admit the sheriff and his prisoners and prevent the entrance of improper persons.

Four indictments had been found against the prisoners by the Grand Jury. The first charged them with being accessory to the murder of Heywood; the second with attacking Bunker with intent to do great bodily harm; the third with robbing the First National Bank of Northfield. The fourth charged Cole Younger as principal, and his brothers as accessories, with the murder of Nicholas Gustavson, the Swede whom the robbers shot for remaining on the street when ordered to leave. These indictments having been read, the prisoners were, at the request of their counsel, allowed two days to decide how they would plead. It was a question of peculiar difficulty. On the one hand, to plead guilty was to renounce all hope of eluding justice through the loopholes of legal technicality. On the other hand, to plead not guilty was to ensure the severest penalty in case of conviction. For the laws of Minnesota were then such that if a murderer pleaded guilty, capital punishment could not be inflicted upon him. This law, designed to prevent long and needless trials in a certain class of case, afforded these criminals an advantage which the public bitterly begrudged them, but of which, in view of the practical certainty of conviction, they decided to avail themselves.

Accordingly, being again arraigned in court, on the following Saturday, they pleaded guilty to all the indictments. Whereupon Judge Lord pronounced upon them the severest penalty then allowed by the law,—imprisonment for life.

A few days later, Sheriff Barton, with the aid of a strong guard, conducted the robbers to Stillwater; and the State Prison, the goal of so many a criminal career, closed its doors upon them. Though commonly regarded as but the second-best place for them, it has thus far safely held them, except in the case of one of them, whose sentence had expired under the great Statute of Limitation. Robert died in prison, September 16th, 1889. Many attempts have been made to secure pardons for the others; but thus far no governor has been found willing to accede to such a request.

[Brass Tablet in Library Building, Carleton College]

Brass Tablet in Library Building, Carleton College