Cole Starts Killin

Howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas!

I'm talking the story of Cole Younger who was an outlaw and a guerrilla fighter as well as a Confederate soldier during the Civil War. In the last post I believe his chances of staying neutral in the Civil War like his father had vanished when Union soldiers forced his parents out of their home and burned it to the ground because they couldn't find him.

After hiding out in the Brush for awhile he joined Quantrill's guerrilla band of bush whackers in the winter of 1861 and stayed with him through that winter. He killed his first man in the first attack they conducted and during that winter they carried out three major attacks. Cole was 17, by the time the third battle was over he had killed 3 men.

Quantrill's guerrillas attacking a town:

source

His father came from Virginia and had slaves but worked to be neutral and tried to get both sides to work things out without resorting to violence but to no avail. He was also very successful in business and had United States Government contracts for mail delivery routes in Jackson County. So this man was a real entrepreneur, I like his style!

When he was in Washington D.C. to negotiate about the mail route thieves stole horses and wagons from his farm so he traveled to Independence to let the state guard know about it. The guard was supposed to protect his operation.

By the way, in regards to his slaves, he gave them the choice to be free but they chose to stay with him and his wife, after many years they were like family. This was very common among slaves but probably isn't a well known fact. I'm sure it was mostly common among the house slaves who became part of the owner's family helping to raise the kids and so on. And if they were up there in years, where were they going to go if that was the only family they had known most of their lives?

Ok, back to Cole's father. After leaving Independence he was set upon by a band of men under the command of Captain Walley, the same captain whom Cole had knocked down at that dance and who was still searching for him and for revenge. The men rode up and shot Cole's father to death. They searched his body and found $500 cash and rode off. When a lady and her boy came upon the scene she sent him to go tell the state guard in Independence and they came right out.

They loaded the body onto the wagon and found out there was a money belt on it that contained $2,200 which was a really good sized sum for those days. That's $55,000 in today's money and was a small fortune back then. They sent the money with the body back to his widow.

Of course the murder of his father fueled Cole's rage and he joined the Confederate Army so he could kill Union soldiers on a more consistent basis. He was 18 by now and fearless. They made him a first lieutenant. It was also noted by companions and superiors that he was ruthless in battle, a fierce warrior, but after the battle was a changed man.. kind, gentle and caring. People didn't know what to think of that behavior and he regarded as being very strange.

I don't know about you guys but I get the feeling that if he hadn't been forced to go through all the stress and experienced all the hate toward himself and his family...that he would have turned out to be totally different. He probably would have been a great businessman like his father and a very productive member of society.

But as it is we can see the making of an outlaw by circumstances not of his making. Well, okay, he did strike that Captain and knocked him down but calling someone a liar to his face back then was fightin words and I don't think he acted out of line. Back in that time honor was much more important than it is now. Back then, sometimes all you HAD was your honor.

By the way, when he knocked the captain down the captain drew his pistol intending the shoot Cole right there while he was still on the floor but someone grabbed his gun away to prevent that or else Cole's story would have ended right then and there.

That's it for today folks, tomorrow I'll tell you about some of Cole's exploits on the battlefield, one of which was so extraordinary that even the Union Army cheered him! I'm serious.

-jonboy Texas
the gentleman redneck

ya know...you might just be a redneck if:

Jack Daniels makes your list of "most admired people"!