Howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas!
In our series about the Cole Younger story and his gang we left off yesterday with Cole and his brothers Jim and Bob along with Charles Pitts, evading capture by the posses. But they are on foot, exhausted, wounded, weak and hungry.
They've been in the rain for 2 weeks now attempting to slog their way through the mire and swamp conditions toward the South back to Missouri. The pursuit has been relentless...day and night as groups of fresh men relieve the posse before them so the Boys have had to keep moving day and night also with no stopping. I don't know how they did this but they certainly confirmed their toughness during those 2 weeks.
Even through all this they never give up hope and Cole is convinced they can make it through to freedom. The determined look on this painting says it all:
At times they would hear their pursuers and be fired upon so they would hunker down and wait for men to come into view. But they didn't come into view so they would move on. Cole was hit again by yet another bullet but kept going, by now he has 4 bullet slugs in him!
A missed opportunity
One day a farmer and his son were out in the road milking cows because it was the driest spot on the farm after all the rains. Jim Younger and Charles Pitts came walking by. It wasn't clear what they were doing, maybe looking for food or horses but they were pleasant to the farmer and his son.
Why they didn't take food and a horse from this farmer is what I want to know because they were in a desperate plight. It seems they missed another opportunity to help themselves escape.
After they passed, the men headed into the woods and the boy told his father that he believed they were part of the bank robbery gang in Northfield. The father disagreed and said no, they were just nice men, too nice to be the gang members.
Their location discovered
The boy took the harness off a plow horse and rode 7 miles to the nearest town of Medelia to report what he saw. Two posses were dispatched and headed into the woods from different directions. Cole heard them coming, when they got into view the posse fired at them. Cole had cut a branch to use as a walking stick because he was so weak. That first volley of shots cut his stick in half and he collapsed on the ground.
The posse shouted at them to surrender or they'd all be killed. The Boys returned fire with the posse firing back. Charles Pitts groans and rolls over dead. Now it was just the Younger brothers.
The surrender
The posse leader shout for them to surrender or die! The boys talk it over and Bob staggers to his feet, his wounded arm in a mud encased sling and says "Don't fire. All our men are down except me."
The posse borrows a spring wagon from a farmer, tosses Charle's body in, puts the boys in back as well and head to Medelia. By this time word has spread and crowds have gathered to see what these mean outlaws look like.
Nothing was thrown and no one shouted at them, I think people were shocked at how tore up and pitiful the men looked. They were expecting to see larger than life, evil looking, savage killers..monsters even!
We don't have photos of them right after the capture unfortunately but here is a photo of Cole after he was cleaned up and given clean clothes, this is from a Minnesota state sight called Mnopedia:
The first question Cole asked was if the "other" two got away, Frank and Jesse. The answer of yes gave him great relief because he was profoundly loyal to Frank. Cole immediately begins to formulate their defense strategy to avoid the death penalty.
So ends the reign of the most successful outlaw gang to ever roam the West. But Cole's story isn't over yet and neither is Belle Starr's.
Thanks for reading folks, God bless you all!
-jonboy Texas
Morning janton, the capture was inevitable, so many things went wrong. Anyway one can't keep doing the wrong thing and get away with it, lol.
howdy angiemitchell! yes that's true, sooner or later the crooks always get caught.
I look forward to the next chapter tomorrow morning. I am glad that Cole is not finished, there is a nicety about him despite his criminal activities.
exactly. Cole was a gentleman who didn't smoke and never drank and never even swore which was real unusual for criminals. Plus he was polite and respectful to most people.
Ah, the swamp, I know it well, it was where I grew up
howdy there wales! really? dang then I guess you can kind of relate to their travel problems but I hope when you were growing up there weren't men tracking you! Thanks so much for commenting!
There was actually, and they would lay in wait for me to go past them and then jump out at me, happened a few times too many for my liking
whoa! where was that at, in Wales? But you were able to run and get away from them?
Cornwall, long time ago in the 60s...yes, I could really run in those days
A sawed off shotgun would have come in handy too! But I'm glad you were fast!
Great writing .. you are taking us right there.
Haven't heard hunder down in years
thanks for the fun read @janton
oh I'm so glad you called it a fun read because I thought it might be too depressing for some people! Yeah, hunker down..I didn't think about hunker as bein a country word but it sure is isn't it? lol. probably a redneck word for sure!
we know you are a redneck when you say hunker ..lol
lol. there ya go. and I'm guilty!
LOL
Redneck is good until you start putting old washing machincs in your front yard that is where I draw the line. lol
haha! so true, then it becomes hillbilly instead of redneck!
una mirada profunda
Wow, I imagine trench foot was a severe issue in their case. What nerves of steel you would need to keep going on like that.
howdy tamaralovelace! I agree. When Cole finally got his boots off the toenails on his big toes fell off! That's how bad that condition was.
Thank you so much for reading and commenting!
Oh wow...that's terrible. Must have been terrible and it's a wonder he didn't die of infection!
I know, they must have had great immune systems because all the brothers were seriously wounded but apparently none of them got infections. Maybe the rain kept washing their wounds out or something.
Alright, use "life" and "history" as first tags, use "busy" as last tag. You can add some tags inside the post as well, like for example at the end of the post you can write "and this is all for today's piece of #cowboy #history. Hope you all liked this #historicalfacts" ... See? You can expand the tag thingy and reach more people 😉
wow blacklux that sounds great, thank you! I didn't know about adding things at the end, people do that?
Yeah, is your post. You can do whatever you want with it!
They lasted long, but the circumstances were definitely not in their favor. Now I am expecting they are all going to be hanged. I would be surprised if they would not!
They should have been and I shouldn't spoil things but there is a reason I said that Cole's story was not over.
I also have more info about Belle when she found out about Cole but not much in details so I have a research book about Belle coming because I wanted to know what in the world she was doing because I saw a wanted poster for her...a reward for $10,000 for stealing horses!
lol. so for some reason she gets into more trouble herself, she also gets married a couple of times.
Well I am waiting,, so don't tell me too much , lol
ok, I'm not saying it's a happy ending though.
I am not expecting happy ending, lol.
ok but I didn't say it was NOT going to be a happy ending either.
Will see!!!
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They weren't going to survive out there anyway with those injuries. I'm interested to find out what happens next and if they end up hanging. Cole will come up with a clever defense I'm sure. Maybe Belle will show up as a character witness or something. I'll have to wait to find out!
Well if they could have gotten horses they would have made it back somehow I'm sure but things just didn't work this time.
Thanks for the story telling!
thank you sir simms50 for reading and commenting!
Hey there Janton, Decided to take a gander at your blog and seem to notice you had a series of stories. I read this one but I think I'm going to have to go back a little to really embrace this story, it is amazing. Really felt like I was escaping with them.
thanks aquaman22j! yeah those guys have had a long career and I started the story when Cole Younger was fighting before the Civil War so it's turned into a long series. And they had a terrible time running from the posses for 2 weeks that's for sure, thanks for the kinds words and for reading!
Wonderfully written, my friend! I'm so glad you chose to tell this particular story.
really? oh that makes me feel good because I figured people would be getting tired of it, my comments have dropped way down but Cole's story isn't over so I'm going to finish it.