Central States Lawman and Outlaws Historic Assoc. In the late 1800s - and early 1900s The River of humanity flowing west, was both wide and deep. Caught in the current of manifest destiny, were settlers, soldiers, business interests, and Outlaws. It was a perfect whirlwind of the Wild west. G.C. Stevens
Army of the Southwest at Chautauqua Park Jefferson Iowa.
Group photo posted Armies of the blue and gray met in Jefferson Iowa for two days. Parades were marched in, the rattle of musketry and the thunder of muskets and cannon were heard. American history was kept alive by the many members of the Army of the Southwest.
Black and white photos courtesy of Dennis Sasse.
Jesse James As A Suicide 1 By Michelle Pollard
Jesse James was shot twice in the chest during the Civil War, the first while attempting to steal a saddle from the home of George Heisinger in the fall of 1864, and the second while contemplating surrender just outside Lexington on 15 May 1865.2 Found by a local farmer, Jesse was taken into Lexington and lodged at the Virginia Hotel before being taken to the home of his uncle, John W. Mimms, owner of a boarding house in Harlem, later part of Kansas City.3 Once there, Jesse was attended by Drs Lykins and Wood, the latter recalling that Jesse “lay in an upstairs room, and had two bullet wounds in his right breast, and through these the air and blood and matter came every time he breathed.” When asked how Jesse was as a patient, Dr. Wood replied, “He did not seem to care much about the wounds, although they were very serious ones. He was quite a boy then, but he had plenty of grit.”4
Despite his resilience, the wounds refused to heal and, by 1867, Jesse was travelling to Nashville with his brother, Frank James, who had received a nasty gunshot wound to the hip during a fight at Brandenburg, Kentucky, in 1866, and Fletch Taylor, a Civil War friend who had suffered an arm amputation. Dr. Paul Fitzsimmons Eve, a well-known Confederate surgeon, told Jesse his lung “was so badly decayed that I was bound to die, and that the best thing I could do was to go home and die among my own people.” Jesse subsequently travelled first to Kentucky, then, briefly, home to Missouri, where a young Leonidas W. Leavell Jnr. recalled Jesse coming to his home and needing to drain the wound after dinner.5 Returning to Kentucky, Jesse continued to suffer until, at 7 o’clock one “early January” morning in 1868, Dr. Demarcus Green Simmons was called to the home of Maj. George Hite, uncle of the James brothers by marriage. “I found [Jesse] apparently in the embrace of death,” he recalled, “in a profound stupor, insensible to his surroundings, except under the influence of the strongest excitement; pulse slow, full and very forcible, and respiration of that heavy, slow and stertorous nature, characteristic of opium poisoning.” The doctor observed that Jesse was, at that time, “suffering from the effects of a gunshot wound in his right breast and from the long continued discharge was rather thin and in feeble health.” He concluded that “there had been some degree of tolerance to the drug [morphine] acquired by a resort to it some weeks previously, to mitigate the violence of the sufferings incident to the wound.” The doctor “found willing and very capable assistants in Frank and Susie,” he said, who all continued through the night until Jesse finally failed to respond to “appeals and circumambulatory stimulants”. Still needing his patient to remain alert, Dr. Simmons called on Frank to keep his brother awake. “I shall never forget the powerful excitement he evinced,” the doctor recalled, “and the prompt response he continued to make when Frank would whisper certain warning words to him, as if certain persons who were very obnoxious to him were coming and it was very necessary to escape or defend to the death.”6
Frank’s words of warning worked until 4am, at which point “all efforts to keep him awake proved futile. His pulse had reduced in volume to a mere thread, his breathing was feeble and very slow and it seemed the death angel was hovering over him.” The doctor suggested Jesse be left to rest and prepared the family for the worst. “I sat with my finger on the pulse for perhaps half an hour,” he said and in that time the doctor noticed improvement. “Within an hour he was sleeping a natural and refreshing sleep” and at 6am he woke and ate breakfast.7
Although it was entirely possible that Jesse had accidentally overdosed on morphine, as the headline suggested there were more sinister suggestions as to his motivation. “In a fit of despondency,” the doctor offered, “produced partly by his low state of health, and partly, as I afterward learned, by his bitter opposition to the prospective marriage of his sister, Susan, to Allen Parmer, Jesse determined to [die by] suicide. For this purpose,” the doctor continued, “he rode to town and procured sixteen grains of morphine, which he took at one dose immediately on his arrival at his uncle’s.”8 As Susan did not marry until 1870, it appears the doctor may have been mistaken, with the Governess of the Hite household, recorded only as Jennie, providing an alternate version during an interview published some years later. “I discovered that [Jesse] was desperately in love with his cousin, Mary,” the Governess recalled. Although “she was ever with him, watching and tending him with true cousinly devotion,” it seems Jesse’s feelings were not returned. In fact, unlike Susan, Mary was preparing to marry in a matter of weeks. One evening before her marriage, Mary confided to Jennie that, “I have often spoken of the unreasonable love [Jesse] has for me. Last night he told that if I did not consent to break my engagement and marry him he would die, if it had to be by his own hand.”9 Whether or not Jesse deliberately overdosed on morphine, either due to the persistent pain resulting from gunshot wounds, despondency over a failed love, or both, Jennie testified it was Mary Hite who assisted the doctor that night at Maj. Hite’s home, not Susan James. And on 21 January 1868, Mary married local farmer, Rufus Tully.10
1. The Kansas City Journal, Missouri, 6 May 1882.
2. “Judge T. R. Shouse, After 56 Years, Explains Why Jesse James Was Killed”, Richmond Observer, Missouri, 9, 16, and 23 January 1939. Contains extracts from the manuscript – ‘My Father and Jesse James’; A Terrible Quintette, St. Louis Dispatch, Missouri, 22 November 1873.
3. A Terrible Quintette, op. cit.; correspondence with Mark Lichte.
4. St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Missouri, 6 April 1882. Jesse mentioned these two doctors and their care of him in A Terrible Quintette, op. cit.
5. Samuel Anderson Pence, I Knew Frank, I Wish I Had Known Jesse, Two Trails Publishing, 2007, pp122-3.
6. The Kansas City Journal, Missouri, 6 May 1882. The Louisville Courier, Kentucky, 24 March 1883, quoted Dr. R. P. Townsend as saying that "he did not attend Jesse James at Mr Hite's house when he had a gunshot wound, but thought that Dr. Simmons had attended him as he had heard the doctor speak of Jesse James having taken an overdose of morphine."
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. The Kentucky Observer, August 1992 – quoting the recollection of Jennie, Governess to the Hite House, 1885.
10. Ibid; Kentucky County Marriages, 1797-1954.
With many thanks to Paul Saeli and Linda Gay Mathis.
For more information on Dr. Demarcus Green Simmons see Jesse James’ Physicians by Michelle Pollard, available from lulu.com.
Now Available in The Dusty Trails Book Store! Dusty Trails of the Old West Issue #2
An authentic piece of American Western History! I picked the saddle up in Stillwater Oklahoma years ago. It’s an absolutely beautiful piece of history. After I brought it home and was cleaning it up I found that It had family inscription on it, the name Jenny Stevenson was engraved on the inside.
Anyhow, I acquired this saddle at Stillwater, and would truly love to know its history although it’s not likely will ever know 100%! I proudly rode in the saddle during the filming of Death Alley, A story on the Dalton gang. As much as I hate to do it, Asking $600 but would take $500 cash today. I’ll entertain other offers if the price is right.
Army of the Southwest Saturday battle reenactment
2025 Civil War. reenactment
Event schedule
Fort Dodge – June 7-8
Jefferson June 14-15
Sioux Rapids July 26th
Albert City – August 8-10
Hollister was appointed Sheriff of Tombstone and Cochise County, Arizona after Wyatt and Virgil Earp left Tombstone, and after Johnny Behan had been arrested for corruption. Hollister was hand picked by certain Republican politicians in Tombstone after the OK Corral debacle. By all accounts, he was an honest, law-abiding sheriff who unlike other regional lawman, like Johnny Behan, had a different idea of frontier justice. His ideas abided by due process and an attempt to keep the peace. He often confronted Cochise County outlaws. Hollister had also occasionally clashed with the town's Democratic leadership, including Mayor Fred Donolon.
He also settled disputes between saloon owners such as J.C. Homer who was a newcomer to Tombstone, who had formed a quick friendships with certain members of the local democrat gentry. In fact, Sam also explained, that Hollister had also rescued his friend Harris Claibourne, his assistant Editor of the Tombstone Epitaph from a duel with the French gambler and gunman Peter de Morence by getting the drop on De Morence before the situation could get out of hand. It was a bright moment in dark times.
Sam approached Hollister, and called “Clay, what in Sam Hill is all the commotion?" "Clay nodded, ...Sam, robbery on the stage to Bisbee, three outlaws, shot a man on the stage. One of them was said to be Johnny Ringo. We're getting up a posse to go find them. They got the strong box, and fleeced the passengers. The man who got shot must have disagreed. They got about five thousand in gold in the box, probably headed to the Dragoons, or maybe towards the Mexican border "
Hollister mounted up with three other men, Bob Wrangle, Will Johnson and another lawman who had worked with Johnny Behan, Billy Breckinridge. Ted never really trusted Breckinridge, he at one time had mixed alliances with the Cow-boy gang. But in Tombstone, blurred lines were not uncommon. When the posse rode out of Tombstone, It was well past 2:00PM and that made the first day of the chase short. Ted watched s the posse faded off into the distance just south Tombstone. The sky clouded up and it began to rain, though in the desert, most of the rain never made to the ground and the air smelled like a boiling pot as the water cooked off.
courtesy Emory Cantey
I'm proud to announce that people can now find my books on the shelves Beaverdale Books in DesMoines Iowa.
Beaverdale Books is located at:
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Phone (515) 279-5400
The path to honor lies before us, our hated foeman gather fast; At home bright eyes are sparkling for us, And we'll defend them to the last.
-The Cavaliers Glee Capt. Blackford, Jeb Stuarts Staff
According to an article written by Terry Coats, in the early months of 1875 Jesse and his pregnant wife, Zee, moved to Nashville Tennesse. It was only forty miles from the home of Frank and Jesse's uncle George Hite, who lived in Adairsville, Ky. Frank and Jesse had visited the city multiple times, racing their horses at the fairgrounds track. Frank James began to see the error of his ways and began the process of trying to reconcile his past. But Jesse, was deeply in debt, and only knew one way out and that was a life of crime.
On September 07th 1876, The James Gang rode into Northfield Minnesota to rob the bank there, The disastrous Northfield, Minnesota, bank robbery. Or as it became known as: “The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid” was Jesse James botched raid and was his own battle of Gettysburg where the confederate high tide was turned. The unreconstructed James outlaws would be decimated in this operation, and the James-Younger Gang would cease to exist. Jesse would eventually be murdered by Bob Ford in St. Joseph Missouri on April 3rd of 1882.
-G.C. Stevens
From the research archives of the Central States Lawman & Outlaws Historic Assn. Three unidentified cabinet card photos of women of fron...
