Going South, Fall of 1864

  TODD’S death fell upon the spirits of his men as a sudden bereavement upon the hearts of a happy and devoted family. Those who mourned for him mourned all the more tenderly because they could not weep. Nature, having denied to them the consolation of tears, left them the infinite intercourse and remembrances of comradeship and soldierly affection. The old bands, however, were breaking up. Lieutenant George Shepherd, taking with him Matt Wyman, John Maupin, Theo. Castle, Jack Rupe, Silas King, James and Alfred Corum, Bud Story, Perry Smith, Jack Williams, Jesse James and Arthur Devers, Press Webb, John Norfolk and others to the number of twenty-six, started south to Texas, on the 13th of November, 1864. With Shepherd also were William Gregg and wife, Richard Maddox and wife, and James Hendrix and wife. These ladies were just as brave and just as devoted and just as intrepid in peril or extremity as were the men who marched with them to guard them. Jesse and Frank James separated at White River, Arkansas, Frank to go to Kentucky with Quantrell, and Jesse to follow the remnant of Todd’s still organized veterans into Texas. Besides killing isolated squads of Federals and making way for every individual militiaman who supposed224 that the roads were absolutely safe for travelers because General Price and his army had long been gone, Shepherd’s fighting for several days was only fun. On the 22nd, however, Captain Emmett Goss, an old acquaintance of the Fifteenth Kansas Cavalry, Jennison’s, was encountered, commanding thirty-two Jayhawkers. Of late Goss had been varying his orgies somewhat. He would drink to excess and lavish his plunder and money on ill-famed mistresses, who were sometimes Indians, sometimes negresses, and but rarely pure white. He was about thirty-five years old, square built, had broad shoulders, a swaggering gait, stood six feet when at himself, and erect, had red hair and a bad eye and a face that meant fight when cornered—and desperate fight at that. November 22, 1864, was an autumn day full of sunshine and falling leaves. Riding southward from Missouri Lieutenant Shepherd met Captain Goss riding northward from Cane Hill. Shepherd had twenty-six men, rank and file. It was an accidental meeting—one of those sudden, forlorn, isolated, murderous meetings not rare during the war—a meeting of outlying detachments that asked no quarter and gave none. It took place on Cabin Creek, in the Cherokee Nation. Each rank arrayed itself speedily. There were twenty-six men against thirty-two. The odds were not great—indeed they never had been considered at all. There225 came a charge and a sudden and terrible storm of revolver bullets. Nothing so weak as the Kansas detachment could possibly live before the deadly prowess and pistol practice of the Missourians. Of the thirty-two, twenty-nine were killed. One, riding a magnificent race horse, escaped on the wings of the wind—one, a negro barber, was taken along to wait upon the Guerrillas, and the third, a poor emaciated skeleton, as good as dead of consumption, was permitted to ride on northward, bearing the story of the thunderbolt. Among the Missourians four were killed. In the melee Jesse James encountered Goss and singled him out from all the rest. As James bore down upon him, he found that his horse, an extremely high-spirited and powerful one, had taken the bit in its teeth and was perfectly unmanageable. Besides, his left arm being left weak from a scarcely healed wound, it was impossible for him to control his horse or even to guide him. Pistol balls were as plentiful as the leaves that were pattering down. However, James had to put up his revolver as he rode, and rely upon his right hand to reinforce his left. Before he could turn his horse and break its hold upon his bit, Goss had fired upon him four times. Close upon him at last James shot him through and through. Goss swayed heavily in his saddle, but held on. 226 “Will you surrender?” Jesse asked, recocking his pistol and presenting it again. “Never,” was the stern reply. Goss, still reeling in the saddle and bleeding dreadfully. When the blue white smoke curled up again there was a riderless steed among the trees and a guilty spirit somewhere out in the darkness of the unknown. It took two dragoon revolver bullets to finish this one, and yet James was not satisfied with his work. There was a preacher along who also had sat himself steadfast in the saddle, and had fought as the best of them did. James rode straight at him after he had finished Goss. The parson’s heart failed him at last, however, and he started to run. James gained upon him at every step. When close enough for a shot, he called out to him: “Turn about like a man, that I may not shoot you in the back.” The Jayhawker turned, and his face was white and his tongue voluble. “Don’t shoot me,” he pleaded, “I am the chaplain of the Thirteenth Kansas; my name is U. P. Gardner, I have killed no man, but have prayed for many; spare me.” James did not answer. Perhaps he turned away his head a little as he drew out his revolver. When the smoke lifted, Gardner was dead upon the crisp sere grass with a bullet through his brain. 227 Maddox, in this fight, killed three of Goss’ men, Gregg five, Press Webb three, Wayman four, Hendrix three, and others one or two each. The march through the Indian country was one long stretch of ambushments and skirmishes. Wayman stirred up a hornet’s nest one afternoon, and though stung twice himself quite severely, he killed four Indians in single combat and wounded the fifth who escaped. Press Webb, hunting the same day for a horse, was ambushed by three Pins and wounded slightly in the arm. He charged singlehanded into the brush and was shot again before he got out of it, but he killed the three Indians and captured three excellent ponies, veritably a god-send to all. The next day about noon the rear guard, composed of Jesse James, Bud Story, Harrison Trow and Jack Rupe, was savagely attacked by seventy-five Federal Cherokees and driven back upon the main body rapidly. Shepherd, one of the quickest and keenest soldiers the war produced, had formed every man of the command in the rear of an open field through which the enemy must advance and over which in return a telling charge could be made. The three heroic women, mounted on excellent horses and given shelter in some timber still further to the rear of the Guerrilla line, bade their husbands, as they kissed them, fight to the death or conquer. The Indians bore down as if they meant to ride228 down a regiment. Firing their pistols into their very faces with deadly effect, the rear guard had not succeeded in stopping them a single second, but when in the counter-charge Shepherd dashed at the oncoming line, it melted away as snow in a thaw. Shepherd, Maddox, Gregg, the two Corums, Rupe, Story, James, Hendrick, Webb, Smith Commons, Castle, Wayman and King fought like men who wanted to make a clean and a merciless sweep. John Maupin, not yet well from the two ugly wounds received the day Anderson was killed, insisted on riding in the charge, and was shot the third time by the Indian into whom he had put two bullets and whose horse he rushed up to secure. Jesse James had his horse killed and a pistol shot from his hand. Several other Guerrillas were wounded but none killed, and Williams, James Corum and Maddox lost horses. Of the sixty-five Indians, fifty-two were counted killed, while some, known to be wounded, dragged themselves off into the mountain and escaped. During the battle Dick Maddox’s wife could not keep still under cover, and commenced to shoot at the enemy, and had a lock of her hair shot off just above the ear.