Mississippi Outlaws and the Detectives. Pinkerton Allan
persons were, it was quite certain that this quartette of strangers had committed the robbery.
In the case of the Moscow robbery, we had strongly suspected two notorious thieves, named Jack Nelson and Miles Ogle, so that my first action, on learning of this second affair in the same vicinity, was to telegraph to my correspondents and agents throughout the country, to learn whether either of these men had been seen lately. I could gain no news whatever, except from St. Louis, whence an answer was returned to the effect that Nelson was said to be stopping somewhere in the country back of Hickman, Kentucky. Ogle's wife was in St. Louis, and she had been seen by a detective walking and talking earnestly with a strange man a short time previous. The information about Nelson was important, since, if true, it showed that he was in the immediate neighborhood of the points where the robberies had occurred. The man seen with Mrs. Ogle might have been one of the party, sent by her husband to appoint a future rendezvous. The description of the tall, dark man, mentioned by Hicks and others, tallied very closely with Ogle's appearance. My son, William, was well advised of these facts, and, as soon as he had obtained the statements of every one acquainted with any of the occurrences at the time of the robbery, he was ready for action.
His first inquiries were directed toward discovering where Nelson was staying near Hickman, and he learned in a very short time that this rumor had no truth in it. While making search for Nelson, however, he heard of a low grocery-store at Lester's Landing, about twelve miles below Hickman on the Mississippi River. The store was situated four miles from any other house in a sparsely settled country, where the amount of legitimate trade would hardly amount to twelve hundred dollars per year. It was said to be the resort of a very low class of men, and the proprietors passed for river gamblers.
On William's return to Union City from Hickman, he decided to make a visit to this grocery-store to learn something about the men who frequented it. Having none of his own men with him, he chose one of the express company's detectives, named Patrick Connell, to accompany him, and, on the last day of October, they started on horseback, with an old resident named Bledsoe for a guide. On arriving at the house of a well-to-do planter, named Wilson Merrick, they obtained considerable information about the men who kept the store and the people who visited it.
Mr. Merrick said that a man named John Wesley Lester kept a wood-yard on the Mississippi, and the spot was called Lester's Landing. About three or four months before, three men arrived there and obtained leave from Lester to put up a store, which they stocked with groceries and whisky. The men gave their names as J. H. Clark, Ed. J. Russell, and William Barton, and they seemed to have some means, as the store did only a limited business, except in whisky. They were all men of ability and determination, and, as they were always well armed, the people of the cane-brake country were rather afraid of them. Nothing positive was known against them, but it was suspected from their looks and actions that they were Northern desperadoes lying quiet for a time. They seemed to be well acquainted in Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis, Memphis, Vicksburg, and New Orleans, but they were careful never to give any hint of their previous place of residence in the hearing of strangers. Mr. Merrick had, however, heard Russell say that he had once run a stationary engine in Missouri, and from occasional expressions by Barton it would appear that the latter had once worked on a railroad in some capacity. They dressed quite well, and treated strangers politely, though not cordially. Although they were all three rather hard drinkers, they never became intoxicated, and they seemed to understand each other well enough not to quarrel among themselves. Clark was the oldest of the party, but Russell seemed to be the leader, Barton being apparently quite a young man. They stated that they intended to exchange groceries for fish and game, and ship the latter articles to St. Louis and Memphis.
From the description of the men, William began to suspect that they formed a portion of the party of robbers, and he determined to push on at once. He induced a young man named Gordon to go with him as guide and to assist in making the arrest of these men, if he should deem it advisable. By hard riding they succeeded in reaching Lester's Landing before nightfall, but the twilight was fast fading as they came out of the dense underbrush and cane-brake into the clearing around Lester's log-cabin.
The spot was dreary and forlorn in the extreme. The river was then nearly at low water, and its muddy current skirted one side of the clearing at a distance of about thirty yards from the house. The wood-yard and landing at the water's level were some ten or fifteen feet below the rising ground upon which the house stood. The store was a shanty of rough pine boards with one door and one window, and it stood at the head of the diagonal path leading from the landing to the high ground. A short distance back was a rail fence surrounding Lester's house and cornfield, and back of this clearing, about one hundred yards from the house, was a dense cane-brake. The corn-stalks had never been cut, and, as they grew very high and thick within twenty feet of the house, they offered a good cover to any one approaching or retreating through them. A rough log barn stood a short distance inside the rail fence, and, like the house, it was raised several feet above the ground, on account of the annual overflow of the whole tract. The house was a rather large building built of logs, the chinks being partly filled with mud, but it was in a dilapidated condition, the roof being leaky and the sides partly open, where the mud had fallen out from between the timbers.
On entering the clearing, William's party rode up to the store and tried to enter, but, finding the door locked, they approached the house. At the rail fence, William and Connell dismounted, leaving Gordon and Bledsoe to hold their horses. Up to this time, they had seen no signs of life about the place, and they began to think that the birds had flown. The quiet and the absence of men about the clearing did not prevent William from exercising his usual caution in approaching the house; but he did consider it unnecessary to take any stronger force into an apparently unoccupied log-cabin, where at most he had only vague suspicions of finding the objects of his search; hence, he left Gordon and Bledsoe behind. Knowing the general construction of this class of houses to be the same, he sent Connell to the rear, while he entered the front door. A wide hall divided the house through the center, and the occupants of the house were in the room on the right. William's door leading into the room opened from this hall, while Connell's was a direct entrance from the back porch, and there were no other doors to the room.
As the two strangers entered simultaneously, five men, a woman, and a girl started to their feet and demanded what they wanted. The situation was evidently one of great danger to the detectives; one glance at the men, coupled with the fierce tones of their inquiries, showed William that he had entered a den of snakes without adequate force; but it was too late to retreat, and he replied that they were strangers who, having lost their way, desired information.
The scene was a striking one, and it remains as vividly in William's mind to-day, as if it had occurred but yesterday. In the center of the room, opposite him, was a broad fireplace, in which the smouldering logs feebly burned and gave forth the only light in the room. In one corner stood several shot-guns, and in another, four or five heavy axes. Grouped about near the fire, in different attitudes of surprise, defiance, and alarm, were the occupants of the cabin, while to the left, in the half-open door stood Connell. The flickering flame of the rotten wood gave a most unsatisfactory light, in which they all seemed nearly as dark as negroes, so that William asked the woman to light a candle. She replied that they had none, and at the same moment a young fellow tried to slip by Connell, but he was promptly stopped. Another large, powerful man, whose name afterward proved to be Burtine, again demanded, with several oaths, what their business was.
"I've told you once that I want some information," replied William, "and now I intend to have you stop here until I can take a look at your faces."
While William was making them stand up in line against the wall, one of the largest drew a navy revolver quickly and fired straight at William's stomach, the ball just cutting the flesh on his left side. At the same instant, the young fellow previously mentioned, darted out the door, Connell having sprang to William's side, thinking him seriously wounded. Connell's approach prevented William from returning the fire of the tall man, who had jumped for the door also the moment he had fired. William fired two shots at him through the doorway, and Connell followed him instantly, on seeing that William was unhurt. Once outside, the tall fellow sprang behind a large cottonwood tree and fired back at Connell and William, who were in full view on the porch. The second shot struck Connell in the pit of the