Legends of the Old West - JESSE JAMES D.C. Ep 4 | "Blood on the Tracks"

Episode Date: January 29, 2020

A train robbery brings the Pinkerton Detective Agency back into the lives of the James-Younger gang. Undercover detectives attempt to infiltrate the gang but produce disastrous results. In the aftermath, the agency begins a long campaign that is designed to wipe out the gang once and for all. Join Black Barrel+ for bingeable seasons with no commercials: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Look for new value programs when you shop at Loblaws, in-store and online. Conditions may Loblaws, in-store and online. Conditions may apply. See in-store for details. Make your nights unforgettable with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it.

Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance. Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. Newspaper editor John Newman Edwards outdid himself in the fall of 1873.

He had moved from one side of the state to the other, from the Kansas City Times to the St. Louis Dispatch. And after the first train robbery by the James boys, Edwards went all out for his new employer. He produced a supplemental section that was 20 pages long. The entire thing was about the bank robbing, train robbing outlaws of Missouri. And 11 pages were devoted to Frank and Jesse. Edwards performed a dazzling high wire act in his supplemental. He described the actions of the bandits in glowing terms. He slathered on loads of praise for their daring exploits.

He basically called them heroes. exploits. He basically called them heroes. And then he also said that Frank and Jesse were not the men who had committed all those crimes that were daring and heroic. It was an incredible balancing act. On one hand, he clearly admired and championed the actions of the bandits, and he heavily inferred that they were Frank and Jesse. On the other hand, he stated plainly that the bandits who did all those things were not Frank and Jesse. Somehow, Frank and Jesse were daring and courageous bandits and innocent of all crimes at the same time. It's hard to understand how he did it, but Edwards pulled it off. And all of this happened before the James Younger gang really got started. For the next two years, they would be almost unstoppable. But that didn't mean they were

untouchable. The Pinkerton Detective Agency was hell-bent on bringing them down. From Black Barrel Media, this is Season 7 of the Legends of the Old West podcast. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer. In this season, we're revisiting the life and legacy of Jesse James. This is Episode 4, Blood on the Tracks. As a podcast network, our first priority has always been audio and the stories we're able to share with you. But we also sell merch. And organizing that was made both possible and easy with Shopify.

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In 1874, the James boys were active in almost every month of the year, from January right through to December. And January was a historic month. It was the debut of the James Younger gang. They were a six-man squad with two sets of brothers Frank and Jesse James and four younger brothers

Cole, Jim, John, and Bob. They began their two-year run as legendary American outlaws just eight days into the new year. On January 8th, they robbed a stagecoach in Bienville Parish, Louisiana. Exactly one week later, they robbed a stage in Hot Springs, Arkansas. In that one, they were careful to show their southern hospitality. They would not take valuables from passengers who said they were from the south. Two weeks later, they robbed their second train. For this job, they had a slightly different configuration. It was Jesse, Frank, Cole, one of Cole's brothers, and a fifth man named Arthur McCoy.

They rode into the hamlet of Gad's Hill, Missouri, on the final day of January. Gad's Hill was named after the wilderness retreat of Charles Dickens, who probably borrowed the name from William Shakespeare, who used it in Henry IV, Part 1. The tiny hamlet consisted of a train platform, a general store, two or three houses, and an abandoned sawmill.

That was it. So it didn't take long for the gang to round up everyone who lived there and move them down to the train platform. While all the residents of Gads Hill huddled around an open fire on a cold January day, the express train appeared in the distance. The gang waved a red signal flag to get the train to make an unexpected stop. The red flag meant there was danger somewhere ahead. The engineer assumed there was a problem with the tracks, so he stopped the train. And then he quickly discovered it was a different kind

of danger. The conductor stepped down to investigate the red flag warning. A man wearing a white hood shoved a gun in his face, and the robbery began. One outlaw stood guard over the people of Gad's Hill. Two men walked along the sides of the train and pointed guns at the windows and shouted at the passengers. The last two men boarded the train. They found the express messenger, the man who guarded the money on express trains.

He stood next to the safe with a pistol in his hand. But suddenly he was confronted by two men with weapons, at least one of whom had a shotgun. The messenger wisely put his gun down and handed over the key to the safe. The bandits took about $1,000 and then robbed the passengers, but only the ones who looked wealthy. The outlaws said they didn't want to steal from working men. With the job done, the bandits hopped off the train and escaped into the woods. Sometime later, when the train crew collected themselves and got the rig moving again, they discovered a new wrinkle in the train robbing formula.

The bandits left behind a press release with instructions to send it by telegraph to the St. Louis Dispatch, where John Newman Edwards worked. The outlaws described their own robbery in great detail and called it the most daring on record. They were also nice enough to leave a blank space for the railroad crew to fill in the amount of money that had been stolen. It was $2,000. It was another easy score for the gang, but it also put them right back in the crosshairs of

the Pinkerton Detective Agency. And this time, the agency would not stop until someone paid for the crime. A common misconception about the old train robbers is that they stole money from the railroad when they conducted these raids. That was part of the propaganda campaign waged by Edwards and Jesse in the newspapers, that they were taking the fight to the railroads, those evil corporations that hurt the little guy. But most times it wasn't true. The money in the railroad cars rarely belonged to the railroad itself. It belonged to mining operations or banks or other companies, and it was being

transported by express messenger companies, and those companies used railroads to move the money. It was the fastest way to get hard currency, or raw ore, from one place to the other. So when Jesse and his gang stopped the Iron Mountain Express train in Gad's Hill, they didn't steal money from the Iron Mountain Railroad. They stole it from the Adams Express Messenger Company. And the president of the Adams Express Messenger Company knew just who to turn to to get it back, Alan Pinkerton. Pinkerton was probably the most famous lawman in the country after the Civil War. He ran the spy network for the Union, and then he formed America's first national

law enforcement organization, the Pinkerton Detective Agency. The company prided itself on two things, reconnaissance and infiltration. After the bank robbery in Cordon, Iowa, Pinkerton had sent his son Robert in a direct attempt to arrest the James boys, and it had failed. But instead of turning around and going home, Robert stayed in Missouri and learned about the land and the people and the politics. He conducted ground-level reconnaissance. Now, when the Adams Express Messenger Service contacted the agency, Alan Pinkerton pursued the same strategy.

He sent an agent to learn about the gang, not to arrest them. Pinkerton put together something like a three-phase plan. Phase one was to send an agent to Missouri to do general reconnaissance of the gang. Phase two was to send agents to infiltrate the gang. Phase three was to arrest the gang. Phase one quickly produced results. An agent traveled to Missouri and discovered the locations of the Younger brothers and the James boys. The Youngers were hiding in St. Clair County,

and the James boys had gone back to the family farm in Clay County. With that information in hand, Pinkerton began Phase 2. He sent three detectives to get close to the outlaws. But despite the reconnaissance by Robert Pinkerton after the first train robbery, and the recent success of Phase 1 of the new plan, the agency did not know nearly as much as it thought it did. Two of the three detectives would not return to Missouri alive. Detective J.W. Witcher went after the James boys. He was from Des Moines, Iowa, and he was said to have had nerves of steel,

and he would need them for this assignment. He traveled to Liberty, Missouri, dressed like a poor farm worker. His goal was to get hired onto the James farm, but his first step was to notify local law enforcement of his mission. Witcher introduced himself to the current sheriff of Clay County and told him he was a Pinkerton agent and he was there to get close to the James boys. The sheriff basically said, yeah, good luck. The James boys were always on guard. But Witcher was persistent. He asked if the James boys were at the farm right now, and the sheriff said he didn't think so. Usually one of the neighbors would tell him when the brothers were home. He hadn't heard anything recently, so he thought they were gone.

That probably gave Witcher a little hope. If the boys weren't there, it might be easier to get a job on the farm. Next, he went to a bank in town. He had $50 on him, and that was way too much money for a wandering farm worker to carry. He introduced himself to the bank's president and explained his mission as a Pinkerton agent. The president couldn't believe what he'd just heard. This young detective was insane if he thought he could just stroll up to the James farm and get a job without arousing suspicion. He ushered Witcher into a back room of the bank.

He told Witcher to wait here while he ran to get the former sheriff of Clay County. When the president returned with the old sheriff, he made Witcher repeat his story. The sheriff was stunned. Witcher repeat his story. The sheriff was stunned. He couldn't believe this detective was crazy enough or stupid enough to try to infiltrate the James farm. But Witcher was confident in his abilities, and he said he had just heard from the current sheriff that it sounded like the James brothers were not presently at the farm. The former sheriff stopped him right there. He said it didn't matter. He told Witcher, the old woman would kill you if the boys don't, referring to Zerelda James, the feisty matriarch of the clan. But Agent Witcher would not be dissuaded. He left the meeting and took a short

train ride to Kearney, the nearest town to the James Farm. He stopped by the telegraph office and sent a message to the agency telling them of his progress. It was early evening on March 10th, 1874, and it was the last time anyone heard from Detective J.W. Witcher. At 3 a.m. the next morning, a man who operated a ferry across the Missouri River awakened to shouting outside his home. It was a frigid night, and he didn't want to leave his bed, but eventually he got up and went outside to investigate. He found four men on horseback waiting at his door. Three had scarves over their faces and their hats pulled down low over their eyes. The fourth man was tied and gagged. One of the three told the ferry operator they were deputies, and this man tied to his horse was a horse thief. They were on the trail of his thieving friends,

and they needed to cross the river now. The ferryman did as he was told. He transported the four men across the river on his boat, and then he went back to his bed. He almost certainly did not hear the gunshots that killed the man who was bound and gagged. The dead body of Pinkerton agent J.W. Witcher was found later that morning. He'd been shot three times at close range. A note was pinned to his clothing. It read, A note was pinned to his clothing.

It read, This to all detectives. The three men who posed as deputies were reportedly Jesse James, Arthur McCoy, who had been part of the Gadds Hill train robbery, and Jim Anderson, the brother of Bloody Bill. Detective J.W. Witcher had been confident he could penetrate the network of the James brothers, and he hadn't survived one day in Clay County. The men on the trail of the Youngers wouldn't fare any better.

Six days after Detective Witcher was killed, two Pinkerton agents tried to get close to the Younger brothers. Detectives Louis Lull and John Boyle were former big city cops, and now they were out here in sparsely populated St. Clair County, Missouri. They didn't know the area, so they enlisted the help of a former deputy sheriff. The detectives used aliases, but the deputy knew their real identities, and despite their precautions, they didn't fool anyone. Their very presence in St. Clair County raised suspicions. And when they stopped at the home of a farmer to ask directions, they made their situation worse.

They asked how to find another home in the area, but after the man told them, they rode away in the wrong direction. the man told them, they rode away in the wrong direction. And in a crazy coincidence, two of the men they were looking for were seated at the farmer's dinner table at that very moment, Jim and John Younger. The outlaws saw three heavily armed strangers and immediately wondered if they were detectives. Jim and John slipped out of the house. They jumped on their horses and galloped after the Pinkertons and the deputy sheriff. The three lawmen trotted easily down the road, but then they heard hoofbeats charging up behind them. They turned to find Jim and John bearing down on them. John had a double-barrel shotgun, and he told them to halt. double-barrel shotgun, and he told them to halt. Detective Boyle was ahead of Detective Lull and the deputy, and he kicked his horse and raced away. The youngers fired at him, but they only

knocked his hat off his head. Detective Lull and the deputy were caught. They dropped their gun belts. John got down and picked up the weapons. They were of fine quality, too nice for this area. John interrogated the two men. The agent and the deputy claimed they were not detectives, but while they argued, Louis Lull slipped a hand behind his back and gripped his backup gun. He yanked it out of his waistband and fired. The bullet tore through John Younger's throat. As he slipped from the saddle, he pulled both triggers of his shotgun. The buckshot shattered Lull's right arm.

Jim Younger blasted Lull in the side and then snapped off a shot at the deputy. The bullet sliced through the deputy's neck. Detective Lull's horse panicked at the sound of gunfire and took off down the road with the badly wounded man still in the saddle. Lull smacked into a tree branch and tumbled to the ground. Jim Younger hurried to his brother, but John was clearly dying. A black farm worker had watched the shootout from a nearby pasture, and now Jim motioned him to come closer. He tossed the man one of the nice pistols and told him to go back to the house where they'd been eating dinner

and tell the man there about the shootout. Then Jim Younger rode away, leaving his brother and the deputy sheriff dead in the road. Pinkerton detective Louis Lull survived another three days before he died of his wounds. Two of the three agents who'd been sent to infiltrate the James Younger gang were dead within a week of their arrivals. The news devastated Alan Pinkerton. And it also devastated the president of the Adams Express messenger service, who had requested the help of the agency after the Gads Hill robbery. The recent bloodshed was too high a price for the president. He withdrew from the manhunt for the outlaws. But Alan Pinkerton did not. For him, it was now personal.

He wanted revenge, and he was prepared to spend $10,000 to get it. About a month after members of the James Younger gang killed two Pinkerton detectives, Jesse celebrated another milestone in his life. He married Zee Mims. Shortly thereafter, Frank married Anna Ralston. They eloped to keep their marriage a secret from Anna's father. The man said later he would never have approved of his daughter marrying an outlaw if he'd known about the union beforehand. The happy couples honeymooned down in Texas in the summer of 1874, but by the end of August, they were back in Missouri and ready for

new scores. On the last day of the month, Jesse, Frank, and one of the youngers robbed a stagecoach near Lexington, Missouri. It was a brazen daylight robbery, and it was witnessed by a crowd of hundreds of people. The bandits stopped the stage in a clearing below town and conducted the robbery in full view of anyone who walked into the street. The gang's blatant disregard for authority provoked a quick response from the governor. His office wired the St. Louis Police Department and told it to send someone to catch the James boys. It seemed like a strangely insufficient response.

Send a guy to catch the most wanted men in Missouri? The Pinkertons had tried twice and failed. Numerous posses had tried. The group from Gallatin had ridden right up to the James family farm while the James boys were there and still couldn't catch them. But the St. Louis Police Department did as it was told. It sent Officer Yancey to catch the James boys. Yancey spent a week tracking the gang through its old stomping grounds. And, like every lawman who tried to catch the bandits, his presence was reported to Jesse by the locals. In early September, Jesse and Jim Younger were riding down a trail

when they noticed Officer Yancey about 300 yards behind them. They spurred their horses forward to find a place to set up an ambush. They rode down the backside of a hill and disappeared from view. When Officer Yancey rode up to the top of the hill, the outlaws had the drop on him. Both men had their guns out. Jesse shouted, halt, and he and Jim fired. Yancey returned fire. He hit Jesse and knocked him off his horse. Jesse crashed to the ground, but the wound wasn't bad. He pulled his other pistol and kept firing. Yancey and Jim Younger kept firing at each other, but neither man was hit. Then Yancey's horse went wild. The horse galloped away and took Officer Yancey with it,

and then took him all the way out of the stronghold of the James boys. It was another failed attempt at capture. As the year 1874 drew to a close, the James boys robbed one last train before they took a break from hitting the railroads. They robbed the Kansas Pacific Railroad in Muncie, Kansas, about 10 miles west of Kansas City. At the time, Muncie was just a tiny speck in the wilds outside the big city. Now, it's a neighborhood of Kansas City. The robbery was a big score for the gang. They took $18,000 in cash and $5,000 in gold and assorted other valuables.

After the heist, big rewards were offered for their capture. And of course, no one collected. But the man who came closest to destroying the James boys didn't care about reward money. Alan Pinkerton wanted revenge for his dead agents. He was spinning a web in Clay County, and he was very close to ordering a strike. The Pinkerton agent who brought home Detective J.W. Witcher's body gave angry interviews to reporters about the loss of his friend. He said the word around Clay County was that the local sheriff betrayed Detective Witcher. The sheriff had grown up with Frank and Jesse, and he'd served in the Confederate Army.

And the angry agent was sure that he was the one who told the James boys about Witcher's mission. The agent also cut to the core of the situation in Clay County. He said Frank and Jesse were protected by a mix of friendship and fear, and he was right on the money. After the murder of his agents, Alan Pinkerton understood, as he hadn't before, that it would take a long, diligent campaign to bring down the James brothers. The key would be to embrace the second aspect of his agent's assessment of Clay County.

The fear. There were lots of people who loved and admired and respected Frank and Jesse. But there were also many who hated and feared them. Pinkerton needed to tap into that second group. He went back to his roots as the man who ran the spy network for the Union during the Civil War. He began to cultivate sources and allies in Clay County. He discovered that the man who lived adjacent to the James family was a willing participant. He found a lawyer in Clay County who was also willing to help.

Then he went way up the food chain to the United States Postmaster General and the Chief Special Agent in charge of investigating mail crimes. They were needed for this reason. In those days, the local postmaster was an important person. He knew everyone in town, and he knew everybody's business. And Pinkerton needed a person like that on his side. The Postmaster General and the Special Agent knew the perfect man for the job, the Postmaster in Kearney, Missouri, the closest town to the James Farm.

The man had experienced numerous hardships during the Civil War at the hands of the Confederates, including having his house burned to the ground. The man eagerly joined Pinkerton's fight against the James brothers. He enlisted a helper and the two of them kept track of the outlaws' movements. They reported their information to the lawyer, who became Pinkerton's point person in Clay County. The lawyer sent telegrams to Pinkerton using a secret code. Pinkerton sent an advance man to the farm of Jesse's neighbor.

The agent would pose as a common farm worker while he learned the lay of the land. He would be responsible for guiding the assault team to the James farm. Pinkerton was planning a direct action mission against Frank and Jesse James, and in his mind, there was only one acceptable outcome. After his agents had been killed, Pinkerton said, My blood was spilt, and they must repay. There is no use talking. They must die. Next time on Legends of the Old West,

a team of Pinkerton agents assaults the James family farm, and the consequences are terrible. Jesse vows revenge and begins to hunt the Pinkerton allies in Clay County. And then he and Frank go back to robbing banks and trains and make their fateful decision to head north to Minnesota. That's next week on Jesse James, Director's Cut. Original music by Rob Valliere. Music editing and sound design by Dave Harrison. I'm your writer and host chris wimmer if you enjoyed the show please leave us a rating and a review on apple podcasts or wherever you're

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