Belle Starr Was A Sure Shot And A Murderess

 

Belle Starr carried messages for the Confederates during the Civil War

Belle Starr was “a sure shot and murderess, who never forgot an injury nor forgave a foe.” She said she never killed a man she didn’t have to, adding, “Wouldn’t you kill rather than to be killed?”

Belle Starr was born in Carthage, Missouri, on February 3, 1846. Her father was a Southern sympathizer, and her brother rode with Quantrill’s Raiders. As a young girl, Belle carried messages for her brother and met up with Jesse James and the Younger brothers.

Rumors persist about an affair with Cole Younger, but the chances that it happened are exceedingly slim. She married his cousin, Bruce Younger, in 1880, but that union lasted only a few weeks. In 1866, Belle married James Reed, another outlaw who rode with Quantrill during the Civil War. In 1868, she gave birth to her first child, Rosie Lee (better known as Pearl). In 1870, Reed was on the run for killing the man who murdered his brother.

On November 19, 1873, Jim Reed and Belle Starr robbed a Creek Indian, Watt Greyson, of $30,000 in gold and paper currency. Belle said, “Mrs. Greyson began to cry as soon as she saw us, screaming loudly for help. I approached her bed, placed my revolver on her forehead, and said: ‘One word more and I will blow your brains out.’”

Doolin-Dalton Gang

 

Bill Dalton

The Doolin-Dalton Gang was formed from the remnants of the Dalton Gang after their failed raid on the Coffeyville, Kansas Bank in October 1892.

The gang comprised Bill Dalton, Bill Doolin, George “Bitter Creek” Newcomb, William “Tulsa Jack” Blake, Charley Pierce, and a negro named Israel Carr. Bill Doolin was the acknowledged leader, but “the negro Carr was said to have killed more men than all the rest of the gang put together.” He was one mean son-of-a-bitch. Over time, the gang included Dan “Dynamite Dick” Clifton, “Arkansas Tom” Jones, and several others.

Bill Dalton wasn’t part of the original Dalton Gang. Before 1892, he led a respectable life in California, where he ranched and served two terms in the California legislature. However, after his brothers got wiped out in the Coffeyville Bank raid, Bill Dalton decided it was time to shake things up a bit. He robbed his first train outside of Los Angeles, California, in 1891. Then, in 1892, he joined Bill Doolin’s gang and began a short-lived reign of terror throughout Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Kansas.

Bill Doolin was something of an enigma in Oklahoma Territory. Several newspapers published stories that made him out to be a “Robin Hood” type character. Jack Dodsworth, a spy sent to infiltrate the gang, told a story about a man the gang robbed. Doolin took $35 from him but asked the man what he intended to do with the money.

Bynamite Dick Clifton The Most Killed Outlaw In The American West

 

Killing Dan “Dynamite Dick” Clifton was a popular pastime among western newspaper editors who were quicker to print a story than to run a fact check. As a result, Wikipedia calls him “the most killed outlaw in the American West.” There’s no denying it. Just about every western newspaper published between 1895 and 1897 carried the gory details of Dynamite Dick “biting the big one”—going out with guns blazing, Winchester balls tearing through his body, leaving nothing but a blood-drenched carcass laying in the desert.

But no sooner would you read about his death than he was robbing another bank, another train, or getting all shot up again. If he were alive today, “Dynamite Dick” would be “Kenny” on South Park or a popular victim in dozens of video games.

Legend has it Clifton got the name “Dynamite Dick” because he got a kick out of boring holes in his cartridges and filling them with dynamite. When they exploded, it made a hell of a ruckus and took a deadly toll on anyone or anything that crossed its path.

“Dynamite Dick” joined the Doolin-Dalton gang, or Wild Bunch, shortly after the original Dalton Gang had been wiped out in the Coffeyville Bank raid.

Pearl Hart, Arizona's Female Bandit

 

Cosmopolitan Magazine, more or less, created the legend that was Pearl Hart in an article they published in October 1899.

They said the lady bandit “directed the affair. The woman held a revolver in one hand, the muzzle of the weapon looking threateningly, now on one person and now on another. The woman was in a man’s garment, and in the moonlight, her slender (read between the lines: sexy) figure and the masses of hair escaping from beneath the broad sombrero were plainly discernible.” 

It was a story that was too good to ignore. 

Within a few days, papers from all over the country borrowed quotes from the article, telling readers about the brash, cigar-smoking, hard-drinking “lady bandit” who masterminded the daring daylight stage robbery.

Pearl told readers she came from a good home and had attended a private boarding school, but she hooked up with a fast-talking conman and gambler at the tender young age of sixteen. “Marriage to me was but a name,” she said. “We ran away one night and were married.”

Black Bart, Gentleman Bandit And PO8

 

Black bart looked like a prosperous businessman

Black Bart was a dapper-looking gentleman. No one would ever have suspected him of being a stagecoach robber. If you met Bart on the street, you most likely would have taken him for a prosperous businessman. He wore only the finest hand-tailored clothes, stayed in the best hotels, sported a gold pocket watch, and wore a large diamond ring on his finger.

Bart stood ramrod straight, 5 feet 8 inches tall, with gray hair and a bushy mustache. And when he robbed a stage, he was always on his best manners, asking the driver to “Please throw down the box.”

Bart’s first robbery took place on Funk Hill, a mountain pass in Calaveras County, California, on July 26, 1875. John Shine drove the stage that day. Bart appeared out of nowhere. He wore a long, soiled duster; on his head, he wore a flour sack with holes cut in it for his eyes. He waved his shotgun as he talked. Bart asked the driver to “Please throw down the box.”

Shine looked around, not sure what to do. He could always make a run for it or grab his rifle. But from the corner of his eye, he glimpsed six rifle barrels pointed at him from a group of nearby boulders.

Bob Ford, The Man Who Killed Jesse James

 

Bob Ford

Bob Ford is one of the most interesting and least understood characters of the Old West. Ford was an outlaw wannabe who teamed up with Jesse James in 1881. There’s no evidence to show he took part in any of the robberies committed by the James Gang. His brother, Charley Ford, rode with Jesse James and took part in the Blue Cut train robbery near Glendale, Missouri.

The original James Gang had dwindled to just Jesse by the end of 1881. Most of the Younger brothers were shot up or imprisoned after the failed Northfield bank raid in 1876. Several members left the gang in 1880, fearing arrest. Frank James moved to Lynchburg, Virginia, figuring it was a good time to go straight.

Jesse moved his family to St. Joseph, Missouri, in November 1881. Like Frank, he planned to give up the outlaw life and settle down on a farm somewhere in Nebraska. But first, he needed one last score so that he could retire comfortably. That’s where the Fords came in. Jesse recruited them to help pull off his last job, robbing the Platte City Bank. The week before the robbery, the Fords moved in with Jesse and his family, masquerading as his cousins, Bob and Charley Johnson.

Unknown to Jesse, Bob had a run-in with the law several months before this. He’d been arrested for killing Wood Hite. Rather than go to jail, he cut a deal with Sheriff James Timberlake and Missouri Governor Thomas T. Crittenden, to deliver Jesse James—dead or alive.

Jesse James And The James-Younger Gang

 

Jesse James getting ready to stop a train

Jesse and Frank James are perhaps the best-known bandits of the Old West. They fought with Confederate raiders William Quantrill and “Bloody Bill” Anderson during the Civil War. In October 1864, Frank traveled to Kentucky with Quantrill, while Jesse made his way to Texas with Archie Clement.

After the war, they returned to what remained of their home in Clay County, Missouri, and shortly after that turned outlaw.

The James-Younger Gang committed their first bank robbery at Liberty, Missouri, on February 13, 1866. “A dozen desperadoes, armed to the teeth and superbly mounted swooped down on the city.” They overpowered the cashiers at the Clay County Savings Bank and forced them to stash over $72,000 into their saddlebags. While it’s unlikely Jesse was involved in this robbery (he was still recovering from a severe chest wound he received at the end of the war), Frank James, Cole Younger, and Archie Clement are said to have taken part.

Just after noon on December 7, 1869, Frank and Jesse James robbed the Daviess County Savings Association in Gallatin, Missouri. Two horsemen rode up to the door of the Daviess County Savings Bank. One of them jumped off his horse and went into the bank. He ordered the cashier, John W. Sheets, to put all the money in a bag. The robber put a bullet in Sheet’s brain and another in his heart. One rider slipped off his horse during their escape, got his foot caught in his stirrup, and was dragged for nearly fifty feet. The other rider came back to help him amidst a flurry of gunfire. The two men made good their escape with about $700.

Speculation had it Jesse mistook Sheets for Samuel Cox, the leader of the troops who killed “Bloody Bill” Anderson towards the end of the Civil War. But it’s more likely he got caught up in the heat of the moment and shot Sheets dead just because he could.