The Younger Story: Their "Swamp" Days Come To An End

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:

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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:

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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