The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1903-02-22

| Imprisonment there has existed a wide
| spread sympathy for him, due partly to
the oashing and daring nature of his
q. predations, but principally because
| there existed a feeling that he was by
| record was black enough. Here are only
a few of his notorious deeds. committed
| in company with his brothers.
| 1S65-Raided Liberty, Mo-, bank, took
$4,000; boy shot dead.
1s6s-Raid of Lexington, Mo-, bank; got
| f2,oee
| -S67-Raid of Savannah, Mo-, bank; no
money occurred; one killed.
1ss7-Raid of Richmond, Mo-, bank; took
| $1,000; three killed.
lSsT-Raided RusseIlyile, KY, bank and
| secured $1,000; Cole Younger shot Bas-
| trop, La, planter dead for foul in horse
race.
lsss-Robbed Gallatin, Mo-, bank and
killed cashier.
1s71-Plundered bank of Corydon, La,
secured $4,000. Soon after robbed CO.
| Iumbia, KY. bank of $500 and killed the
cashier. Also robbed Kansas City Fair
Association of $4,000 in presence Of 1900
people.
1S73-Looted st. Genevieve, Mo-, bank
of 81, coo Wrecked Rock Island train in
Iowa. killed engineer and secured So 900.
Robberies of trains in Wayne county, Mo-,
Muncie, Ind, and elsewhere followed; al
so bank robbery at Huntington. Va.
1S76-Sept. final raid on Mortified.
Mimi, bank; Cashier Haywood killed.
Sept II. desperadoes surrounded near
lid
three Younger brothers family taken;
James boys escaped. Youngers tried.
pleaded guilty and sentenced to prison for
life. Nov. Il. taken to Saltwater.
The civil war proved the undoing Of
the Younger family. The father of the
boys was thrifty storekeeper who had
also served in the state legislature. He
was a Union sympathizer, but the Kan
sas jayhawkers and red legs finally rob-
bed and assassinated him near Independ-
ence, Iowa
1t was this act which drove the Young
er brothers to enlist under the black
flag of Quantrell. Coleman Younger join
ed that band January /, 1862. His first
fight was one night when the band was
at the home of John Flannery near
Kansas City. A body Of Federal soldiers
surrounded the house and demanded sur
render. Quantreli promised an answer in
ten minutes. This gave him time to ar
range his men inside the house and to
pour a murderous volley of buckshot into
the soldiers. The fight lasted two hours.
Then the Federals set the house afire.
The guerillas rushed from the burning
building into the faces of the soldiers,
each firing his gun. All escaped. Cole |
Younger became separated from his COM
rades and was chased by twelve cavalry |
men, whom he fought off single-handed. |
For this escapade the bands from Kan
sas and Federal soldiers began a series |
of reprisals. and it is told by the Youngers /
that their own mother was compelled |
to set fire to ner own home In the dead of |
winter and that three of their sisters were |
murdered.
In September, 1863, after the sacking !
of Lawrence, in which Cole Younger had |
a band, he went south with fifty men |
and Joined the command of Kirby Smith. |
In 1865 he went with a commission from |
the Confederate government to raise a |
company in California. He had hardly |
reached there when the war ended.
In the fall of 1866, eighteen months af- |
ter the close of the war, all the Younger |
boys were back upon the old homestead |
near Harrisonville mending fences, put |
ting up barns and getting ready for |
farming At this point historical accounts
disagree. The Youngers say they wished
peace Others say they had such bap-
tism of blood and fierce adventure that it
was impossible for them to follow the
pursuits of peace and that they joined
with Jesse and Frank James and others
of the Quantrell crowd and formed that
band of desperate bandits which swept |
terror over that part of the West for
many years In just how many bank
robberies train robberies and highway
robberies Cole Younger took part will
never be known, but his name has been
with many of them. he was the
coolest and shrewdest of all that outlaw
band.
1t was the middle of August, 1876, that
Cole Younger and his two brothers rode
out from Lee Summit to join Frank and
Jesse James and the others, for the long
ride to Mortified. This was Cole Young
er's last expedition. Jim" and Bob"
Younger never saw the old home again.
Bob" died in prison. Jim killed HIM
self last summer. Both are buried in the
near Lee Summit Cole Young
er will be the only one of the trio to look
again upon the scenes of his youth