Rube Burrow

“ Despite Rube’s threat to kill her if she66 entered she flew to the assistance of her dying husband. He was conscious, however, long enough for his ante-mortem statement to be carefully taken, in the presence of witnesses, certifying to the fact that Rube Burrow was his murderer. Rube walked out of the town unmolested, and at ten o’clock that night reached the house of Jim Cash, his hands stained with the blood of one of Lamar County’s most respected citizens—the perpetrator of a deed as wanton and as cold-blooded as ever blackened the annals of crime. ”

“ THE RIDE INTO ARKANSAS TO LIBERATE JIM BURROW—FAILURE AND RETURN TO MISSISSIPPI. On his arrival in Lamar County Rube Burrow anxiously inquired after Jim’s fate. Jim Cash, the brother-in-law, had visited Little Rock, where Jim was confined in the penitentiary for safe keeping, and had learned that he would be taken about September 5th to Texarkana for trial. Rube brooded over the fatal blunder which had resulted in Jim’s capture at Montgomery, and blamed himself all the more because it was against the judgment of his brother that they had boarded the unlucky train. ”

“ In 1876 Rube was joined by Jim Burrow, his younger brother, who remained in Texas until 1880, when, returning to Lamar County, Alabama, he married and resided there until 1884, when he rejoined his brother Rube in Texas, taking his wife thither. Jim Burrow was a “burly, roaring, roistering blade,” six feet tall, as straight as an Indian, which race of people he very closely resembled, with his beardless face, his high cheek bones and coal-black hair. ”

“ THE CAPTURE OF RUBE SMITH AND JAMES M’CLUNG AT AMORY, MISS.—M’CLUNG’S CONFESSION—A PLAN TO ROB THE TRAIN FALLS THROUGH—A SAFE ROBBERY NIPPED IN THE BUD. When the Buckatunna robbery of September 25, 1889, occurred, the fact that three men participated in that deed proved that a third man had joined Rube Burrow since his last robbery at Duck Hill, on December 15, 1888, and the identity of the third man puzzled the detectives of the Express Company for some weeks. ”

“ John T. Burrow, the oldest child, lives near Vernon, the county seat of Lamar. Apart from harboring his brother Rube, while an outlaw, he has always borne a fair reputation. He is of a rollicking disposition, possesses a keen sense of the ridiculous, is a fine mimic and recounts an anecdote inimitably, and, though crude of speech and manner, having little education, is a man of more than average intelligence. Jasper Burrow, the second son, is a quiet, taciturn man; he lives with his father, and is reputed to be of unsound mind. Four of the daughters married citizens of Lamar County. ”

“ Rube is credited with possessing a sense of the ridiculous, inherent in the Burrow family, and doubtless this turning of the tables on his would-be captors appealed strongly to his sense of humor, if, indeed, the dare-devil deed was not inspired thereby.
The train pulled into the station of Flomaton about ten P. M., where it was delayed some twenty minutes in awaiting the Pensacola connection. Meantime a tall man, coarsely dressed, was seen to mount the steps of the express car, next the engine, and look in upon the messenger through the glass door in the end of the car. ”

“ Rube Burrow never talked with me about any particular robbery he was engaged in, except at Genoa, Ark. He did tell me he was in that robbery, and indirectly mentioned the Gordon and Ben Brook, Texas, robberies, giving me to understand he was in those robberies also.
I have heard Rube Burrow say that if he was out of trouble, or if he was where he could quit robbing trains, that he would stop it. He thinks a great deal of his children, and is anxious to have them educated, and spoke of coming back to Lamar County in the spring to see if they were at school. ”

“ The horse cost $90. Burrow paid $85 for his horse. From Dixon we went to Oxford, via Houston, Miss. We went through Oxford on horseback. We went on to Berryhill’s, Rube Burrow’s brother-in-law, arriving there about eleven o’clock A. M. Berryhill was absent, but returned that evening. We remained there two days. Left there in the afternoon, and went east to Okolona. Went thence to Cotton Gin, Miss., and from there to Vernon, Ala., stopping at Cash’s house. We got to Lamar County in the middle of May. Cash kept my horse and Burrow took his to his father’s. ”

“ McDuffie had joined Detective Jackson on the afternoon of October 2d. From that hour he had been to the fore, riding night and day in the arduous chase that followed. Worn and fagged with the toils of the pursuit, he was perhaps less watchful than otherwise he would have been. Humanus est errare.
A coroner’s inquest was held, and the body of Rube Burrow being thoroughly identified a verdict of death in the manner described was rendered. After treating the body with preservatives it was taken to Demopolis, Ala. Here hundreds of people assembled to view the remains of the great bandit. ”

“ As he grew to manhood he had given full bent to his love for the athletic pursuits incident to life upon the then sparsely settled plains of the Lone Star State. Taming the unbridled broncho, shooting the antelope, and lassoing the wild steer, under whip and spur, he soon gained fame as an equestrian,10 and was reckoned as the most unerring marksman in all the adjacent country. With a reputation for all these accomplishments, strengthened by an innate capacity for leadership, Rube ere long gathered about him a band of trusty comrades, of which he was easily the leader. ”

“ PREFACE. Since the days of the James and Younger brothers, bold types of Western outlawry, which were the immediate products of the late civil war, no banditti have challenged such universal attention as those led by the famous outlaw, Rube Burrow. The press of the country has woven, from the wildest woof of fancy, full many a fiction touching his daring deeds, and manufacturers of sensational literature have made of the bandit as mystical a genius as the “Headless Hessian of Sleepy Hollow.” ”

“ Although lawless by instinct, training and ambition, these men had drunk the bitter cup of crime to the dregs, and longed, no doubt, to enfranchise themselves from the toils that beset them, and which, like an avenging Nemesis, pursued them to the end.
The Southern Express Company expended, independently193 of all rewards, about twenty thousand dollars in the hunting down of this band of train robbers. The total rewards offered for Rube Burrow amounted to about $3,500. ”

“ About a month prior to the Duck Hill robbery the United States Express Company had been robbed at Derby, Miss., a station sixty-five miles north of New Orleans, on the Queen and Crescent Railway, by Eugene Bunch, a man who is supposed by some persons, even at this day, to be identical with Rube Burrow. Eugene Bunch, a native of Louisiana, and long a resident of Texas, bore a remarkable resemblance to Rube Burrow. ”

“ Rube Burrow had always been designated in correspondence between the officers and detectives as number one, and the telegram therefore meant that Jackson had located his man, that his plans were in good shape, and the capture would be made at the hour and place designated.
At four o’clock on the morning of February 6th Jackson was joined at Milton by the express officials, to whom the details of the situation were given. At an early hour the start for Broxton’s ferry was made in a hack, Jackson having selected four reliable men from Milton to assist him. ”

“ All other rewards for Rube Burrow have been paid to Carter and his associates. The rewards for Brock and Smith, excepting those offered by the Government and the State of Mississippi, have also been paid to the parties interested.
194
William Brock, of Texas, was in nowise related to L. C. Brock. The two men never met, and that two of Burrow’s clansmen bore the same name was merely a coincidence.
The question recurs, “Does train-robbing pay?”
Here were men whose untoward inclinings, fostered by evil association, inflamed them with a passion for lawlessness. ”

“ William Brock, although sentenced to a short term of imprisonment, will carry to his grave the stigma of an ex-convict. Rube Smith has entered the gloomy portals of a prison, in which he is doomed to spend the remaining days of his life—a fate more horrible than death.
Rube Burrow, Jim Burrow and L. C. Brock lie in unhallowed graves, their memories kept alive only by the recollection of their atrocious deeds, leaving their kindred and friends to realize the bitter truth that
“The evil that men do lives after them ”

“ Rube set out at once for the log camp, arriving there about midnight. Arousing the cook, he bade him prepare supper, which he ate with great relish, while he recounted a story of thrilling adventure with highwaymen, in which he had luckily escaped with his life. Supplying himself with a goodly store of provisions from the camp’s larder, the outlaw about three o’clock A. M. said good-bye to his comrades, and went forth into the solitude of the forest, consoling himself with the reflection that he had again outwitted the detectives. ”

“ The youngest, who bears the prosaic name of Ann Eliza, is a tall blonde of twenty summers, and is yet unmarried. She is of a defiant nature, has a comely and attractive face, and is a favorite with many a rustic youth in the vicinage of the Burrow homestead. She was devoted to Rube, afforded a constant medium of communication between the parental home and the hiding place of the outlaws, and was the courier through whom Rube Smith was added to the robber band while in rendezvous in Lamar County. ”

“ In the contiguous counties of Lamar, Fayette and Marion the kindred of the Burrow family abounded on every hand. The homes of his kinsmen, notably Cash, Terry, Barker, Smith and Hankins, not only furnished a safe refuge for the robbers, but they were worshiped as heroes, and each household vied with the other in its fealty and loyalty to the robber chief. “Rube never robs a poor man,” they were often wont to say, forgetting that one never gets blood out of a turnip. ”

“ Guarding all the adjacent landings on the river that night, the detectives were quite sure that Rube had not crossed the Alabama River at daylight on the morning of October 3d. While reconnoitering in the vicinity of Bell’s Landing, about ten o’clock that morning a negro came with a message from Mrs. McDuffie that Rube was then eating breakfast at a negro cabin on McDuffie’s farm, then six miles distant. ”

“ The robbers demanded admittance, showering volleys of oaths and shots in one common fusilade. The heavy Winchesters sped shot after shot through the car, the balls piercing it from side to side, and yet young Cavin held his ground until Rube Burrow ordered the engineer to bring his oil can and saturate the car with the contents. The engineer was ordered to set fire to the car, but before doing so he made an earnest appeal to the messenger, who agreed to surrender, under the condition that he should not be hurt. The robbers were some thirty minutes gaining access to the car. ”

“ I was never in a train robbery with Burrow in Texas, and he never mentioned that he had engaged in train robbing in that State, except indirectly, as I have stated.
When we started on the Arkansas trip I had134 one Colt’s forty-five caliber pistol. Burrow had two forty-five caliber pistols. Had no rifle. These were the arms we used in the Duck Hill robbery, and, as far as I know, Rube Burrow now has these same pistols. ”

“ Jefferson Davis Carter, who fought the duel unto death with the great outlaw, was named in honor of the President of the Confederacy. His ancestors, who moved from South Carolina to Alabama in 1832, distinguished themselves as soldiers both during the American Revolution and the late civil war. Young Carter was born in 1860, is unmarried, and is a prosperous merchant in the village of Myrtlewood, Ala. He is quiet and modest in his demeanor, and his encounter with Rube Burrow is the only time he was ever engaged in serious combat. ”

“ Possees were at once organized and sent in pursuit. It was evident that the work was that of Rube Burrow. “I will rob this train or kill every man on it” was the identical expression used at Genoa and at Duck Hill. His disposition to be humorous—in fact, every detail of the robbery gave evidence of his identity as the leader.
The robbers were traced from the scene of their crime in an easterly course. Blood-hounds were used in the pursuit, but the trail being cold they were abandoned. The detectives, however, quietly took up the trail and followed it towards Demopolis, Ala. ”

“ He proposed, after trudging about eighteen miles, to return to Lamar County, purchase horses, and make the trip on horseback. Rube dissented, fearing their trail would be discovered94 and that pursuit would ensue, but suggested that they return to the home of Jim Cash and purchase a yoke of oxen and a wagon owned by him and make the trip in that way. Joe Jackson was averse to this proposition at first, but Rube argued that as drivers of an ox-cart they could assume the role of laborers and thus fully disguise themselves. Returning, therefore, to Cash’s house, the oxen and cart were purchased. ”

“ Rube Smith said he wanted to buy a Winchester rifle. Burrow said, “Go ahead and get a rifle; but be careful about fooling around, inquiring for guns.” Burrow said to Smith that he wanted half a pint of whisky. Smith went into a saloon and got it. Burrow said to Smith, “I will meet you and McClung at the round-house.” Burrow had hidden the rifle between the Junction and Amory. Rube Smith and I went into several stores inquiring for Winchester rifles, but could find none. We went into Snow’s saloon, and Rube Smith bought one gallon of whisky in a jug, also one-half pint. ”