Cole Younger

Cole Younger circa 1915

Cole Younger as a young man

Thomas Coleman Cole Younger (January 15, 1844

March 21, 1916) was an American Confederate guerrilla
during the American Civil War and later a leader with the ing the Civil War was largely between pro-Union and proJames-Younger gang. He was the eldest brother of Jim, Confederate Missourians, though the bushwhackers held
John and Bob Younger.
special hatred for the Union troops from Kansas who frequently crossed the border and earned a reputation for
ruthlessness. Younger joined the Confederate guerrilla
leader Quantrill in a raid on August 21, 1863, taking part
1 Early life
in the killing of some 200 men and boys at Lawrence,
Kansas, which the guerrillas looted and burned.[1]
Thomas Coleman Cole Younger, was born on January
15, 1844 on the Younger family farm. He was a son of Younger later claimed he left the bushwhacker ranks to
Henry Washington Younger, a prosperous farmer from enlist in the Confederate Army, and was sent to California
Greenwood, Missouri and Bersheba Leighton Fristoe, on a recruiting mission. He returned after the Southern
daughter of a prominent Jackson County farmer. Cole defeat to nd Missouri under the rule of a militant faction of Unionists, the Radicals in the state. In the closing
was the seventh of fourteen children.
days of the war, the Radicals pushed through a new state
constitution that barred Confederate sympathizers from
voting, serving on juries, holding public oce, preaching
2 Civil War
the gospel, or carrying out any number of public roles.
The constitution also freed the slaves ahead of the ratiDuring the American Civil War, savage guerrilla warfare cation of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
wracked Missouri. Younger fought as a guerrilla under It enacted a number of reforms, but the restrictions on
William Clarke Quantrill. The ghting in Missouri dur- former Confederates created disunity.[2]
1

4 DOWNFALL OF THE GANG

Bandit career

Most of the former bushwhackers returned to peaceful

lives. Many left Missouri for friendlier places, particularly Kentucky, where many had relatives. Most of their
leaders, including Quantrill and Bloody Bill Anderson,
had been killed in the war. But a small core of Andersons men, led by the ruthless Archie Clement, remained
together. State authorities believed that Clement planned
and led the rst daylight peacetime armed bank robbery
in U.S. history, holding up the Clay County Savings Association on February 13, 1866. The bank was run by
the leading Radicals of Clay County, who had just held a
public meeting for their party. The governor posted a reward for Clement, but he and his men conducted further
robberies that year. On election day of 1866, Clement led
his men into Lexington, Missouri, where they intimidated
Radical voters and secured the election of a conservative
slate of candidates. A state militia unit entered the town
shortly thereafter and killed Clement when he resisted arrest.
It is uncertain when Cole Younger and his brothers joined
this gang. The rst mention of his involvement came
in 1868, when authorities identied him as a member
of a gang who robbed Nimrod Long & Co., a bank in
Russellville, Kentucky. Former guerrillas, John Jarrett
(brother in law of Cole Younger), Arthur McCoy, and
George and Oliver Shepard were also implicated. Oliver
Shepard was killed resisting arrest and George was imprisoned. Once the more senior members of the gang had
been killed, captured, or quit, its core thereafter consisted
of the James and Younger brothers.[3]
Witnesses repeatedly gave identications that matched
Cole Younger in robberies carried out over the next few
years, as the outlaws robbed banks and stagecoaches in
Missouri and Kentucky. On July 21, 1873, they turned
to train robbery, derailing a locomotive and looting the
express car on the Rock Island Railroad in Adair, Iowa.
Younger and his brothers were also suspects in hold-ups
of stage coaches, banks, and trains in Missouri, Kentucky, Kansas, and West Virginia.

the public face of the gang, appealing to the public in letters to the press.

4 Downfall of the gang

On September 7, 1876 the James-Younger Gang attempted to rob a bank in Northeld, Minnesota. Cole
Younger and his brother Bob both later said that they
selected the bank because of its connection to two former Union generals and Radical Republican politicians,
Benjamin Butler and Adelbert Ames. Three of the outlaws entered the bank, as the remaining ve, led by Cole
Younger, remained on the street to provide cover. The
crime soon went awry, however, when the townspeople
sent up the alarm and ran for their guns. Younger and
his brothers began to re in the air to clear the streets,
but the townspeople (shooting from under cover, through
windows and around the corners of buildings) opened
a deadly fusillade, killing gang members Clell Miller
and William Chadwell and badly wounding Bob Younger
through the elbow. Herb Potter rode o in a hail of bullets. The outlaws killed two townspeople, including the
acting cashier of the bank, and ed empty-handed. As
hundreds of Minnesotans formed posses to pursue the
eeing gang, the outlaws separated. The James brothers
made it back to Missouri, but the three Youngers (Cole,
Bob, and Jim) did not. They and another gang member, Charlie Pitts, waged a gun battle with a local posse
in a wooded ravine along the Watonwan River west of
Madelia, Minnesota. Pitts was killed, and Cole, Jim, and
Bob Younger were badly wounded and captured. Cole,
asked about the robbery, responded, We tried a desperate game and lost. But we are rough men used to rough
ways, and we will abide by the consequences.

Following the robbery of the Iron Mountain Railroad at

Gads Hill, Missouri, in 1874, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency began to pursue the James and Younger
brothers. Two agents (Louis J. Lull and John Boyle) engaged John and Jim Younger in a gunght on a Missouri
road on March 17, 1874; Boyle ed the scene, and both
John Younger and Lull were killed. Simultaneously, another Pinkerton agent W.J. Whicher [4] who pursued the
James brothers was abducted and later found dead along- Cole Younger gravesite in Lees Summit, Missouri.
side a rural road in Jackson County, Missouri.
Cole, Jim and Bob pleaded guilty to their crimes to avoid
Some Younger families changed their last names to being hanged. They were sentenced to life in prison
Jungers to avoid a family association with the gangsters. at the Stillwater Prison at Stillwater on November 18,
The James and Younger brothers survived capture longer 1876. Frank and Jesse James ed to Nashville, Tenthan most Western outlaws because of their strong sup- nessee, where they lived peacefully for the next three
port among former Confederates. Jesse James became years. In 1879, Jesse returned to a life of crime, end-

3
ing in his murder on April 3, 1882, in Saint Joseph, Missouri. Frank James surrendered to Missouri Governor
Thomas T. Crittenden on October 4, 1882. Eventually
Frank James was acquitted, and lived quietly and peacefully thereafter. Herb Potter was shot and killed while
taking up with another mans wife in December 1883.
Bob Younger died in Stillwater prison on September 16,
1889, of tuberculosis. Cole and Jim were paroled on July
10, 1901, with the help of the prison warden. Jim committed suicide in a hotel room in St Paul, Minnesota, on
October 19, 1902. Cole wrote a memoir that portrayed
himself as a Confederate avenger more than an outlaw,
admitting to only one crime, that at Northeld. He lectured and toured the south with Frank James in a wild
west show, The Cole Younger and Frank James Wild
West Company in 1903. On August 21, 1912, Cole declared that he had become a Christian and repented of his
criminal past.

The 1980 movie The Long Riders depicts this era of

the James-Younger gang exploits (with David Carradine playing Cole).
The 1994 movie Frank and Jesse depicts the JamesYounger gangs outlaw days (with Randy Travis playing Cole).
The TV series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman featured
Cole portrayed by Ian Bohen in the episode "Baby
Outlaws S3E21"
The 2001 movie American Outlaws depicts the early
years of the James-Younger Gang (with Scott Caan
playing Cole)
The 2010 version of True Grit depicts Younger operating his Wild West show (with Don Pirl playing
Cole)

Frank James died February 18, 1915. A year later, Cole

Younger died March 21, 1916, in his home town of Lees 6 In television
Summit, Missouri, and is buried in the Lees Summit Historical Cemetery.[5]
In the episode One Way Ticket of the ABC/Warner
Brothers western series, Cheyenne, Philip Carey plays
Cole Younger, who in the story line is being transported
by railway to the penitentiary in Denver, Colorado. The
5 Films
Clint Walker character Cheyenne Bodie, in this episode
a United States marshal, is assigned to guard Younger,
The 1941 movie Bad Men of Missouri featured but Bodie encounters one distraction after another, inYounger (played by Dennis Morgan) and his two cluding friendship with a widow and her ten-year-old son
outlaw brothers ghting the bank.
played by Maureen Leeds and Ronnie Dapo, respectively.
Twice Younger escapes, but he ultimately decides based
The 1949 movie The Younger Brothers had Wayne
on Bodies stern advice to accept prison with the hope of
Morris play Cole in a ctional story of the Youngers
a later pardon. Younger in the episode says that Bodie is
receiving their pardon.
so convincing that he should have been a politician or a
[6]
The 1957 movie The True Story of Jesse James, di- preacher.
rected by Nicholas Ray, featured Alan Hale, Jr. as Cole Younger is the main antagonist in the Hulu OrigiYounger.
nal Series Quick Draw. In the show he is characterized
by a large leather mask that he wears in perpetuity, and
The 1958 movie Cole Younger, Gunghter featured the only reference to a brother is his follower: Ephram
Cole played by Frank Lovejoy.
Younger. The character resides just outside the town of
Great Bend, Kansas and is played by Brian O'Connor.[7]
In 1960, Robert J. Wilke (19141989) played
Younger in the episode Perilous Passage, the series premiere of the NBC western Overland Trail,
7 In literature
starring William Bendix and Doug McClure.
In 1960, Bronco TV Western episode Shadow of Cole Younger is a major character in Wildwood Boys
Jesse James told the story of the Northeld Bank (William Morrow, 2000; New York), a biographical
Robbery
novel of Bloody Bill Anderson by James Carlos Blake.
In One Way Ticket, a 1962 episode of Cheyenne,
Clint Walker, in the title role of Cheyenne Bodie, is a
federal marshal escorting Younger, played by Philip
Carey, to prison to begin his sentence.
The 1972 movie The Great Northeld Minnesota
Raid depicts this failed bank robbery, with Cli
Robertson as Cole Younger.

8 References
[1] John Simkin (September 1997). Cole Younger. Spartacus Educational. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
[2] Cole Younger AKA Thomas Coleman Younger.
NNDB. Retrieved 18 November 2014.

10

[3] Carlyn Trout. Thomas Coleman Cole Younger.

The State Historical History of Missouri. Retrieved 18
November 2014.
[4] The story of Cole Younger by himself: being an autobiography of the Missouri ...By Cole Younger
[5] Carlyn Trout. Thomas Coleman Cole Younger.
The State Historical History of Missouri. Retrieved 18
November 2014.
[6] One Way Ticket. Internet Movie Data Base. February
12, 1962. Retrieved April 9, 2015.
[7] Quick Draw TV Series, Outlaw: Cole Younger. SFGate.
Hearst Communications, Inc. Retrieved 15 August 2014.

Further reading
Brant, Marley (April 1995). The Outlaw Youngers:
A Confederate Brotherhood. Madison Books. p.
408. ISBN 978-1568330457.
Wellman Jr., Paul I; Brown, Richard Maxwell (April
1986). A Dynasty of Western Outlaws. University of
Nebraska Press. p. 384. ISBN 978-0803297098.
Younger, Cole (December 2012). The Story of
Cole Younger, by Himself. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. p. 158. ISBN 9781481256131.

10

External links

Works by Cole Younger at Project Gutenberg

Works by or about Cole Younger at Internet Archive
Works by Cole Younger at LibriVox (public domain
audiobooks)
Thomas Coleman Cole Younger. Post Civil War
Outlaw. Find a Grave. January 1, 2001. Retrieved
January 1, 2013.

EXTERNAL LINKS

11

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