Chapter I: 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.”

With the view of correcting the erroneous accounts heretofore given the public, I have yielded to the solicitations of many friends in the Express service and consented to give a faithful and accurate history, compiled from the official reports of the detectives, detailing the daring deeds, the thrilling scenes and hair-breadth escapes of the outlaw and his band of highwaymen. Important confessions of some of the principal participants in the eight train robberies committed, covering a period of nearly four years, are also given, without color of fiction or the caprice of fancy.

It is the province of this volume, therefore, not to laud evil endeavor, but rather to chronicle the hapless fate of those who, turning aside from the paths of peace and honor, elect to tread the devious and thorny road which leads on to the open gateway, over which is emblazoned, in letters of living fire, the accursed malediction, “All hope abandon, ye who enter here.”

G. W. AGEE.

_Memphis, Tenn., December, 1890._

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
PAGE
Lamar County, Alabama--The Home of the Burrow Family--
Biographical Sketch of Rube Burrow’s Ancestors 1

CHAPTER II.

Rube Leaves Lamar County, Alabama--His Early Life in the Lone
Star State--His Brother Jim Joins Him--The Bellevue, Gordon
and Ben Brook, Texas, Train Robberies 8

CHAPTER III.

The Genoa, Ark., Robbery, December 9, 1887--Arrest of William
Brock--His Confession 19

CHAPTER IV.

The Pinkertons After Rube and Jim Burrow in Lamar County--Their
Narrow Escape 27

CHAPTER V.

Rube and Jim Board an L. & N. Railway Train at Brock’s
Gap--Their Arrest and the Subsequent Escape of Rube 31

CHAPTER VI.

Rube Burrow Returns to Lamar County--Joe Jackson Joins Him in
March, 1888--Their Trip into Baldwin County, Alabama 38

CHAPTER VII.

The Ride into Arkansas to Liberate Jim Burrow--Failure and
Return to Mississippi 42

CHAPTER VIII.

Rube Burrow and Joe Jackson Leave Arkansas--They Turn up as
Cotton Pickers in Tate County, Mississippi 45

CHAPTER IX.

Jim Burrow Arraigned--Trial Postponed--His Return to Little
Rock Prison--Letters Home--His Death in Prison 49

CHAPTER X.

The Duck Hill, Miss., Robbery--The Killing of Passenger Chester
Hughes 52

CHAPTER XI.

The Cold-blooded Murder of Moses Graves, the Postmaster of
Jewell, Alabama 61

CHAPTER XII.

Smith Joins Rube Burrow and Joe Jackson--The Buckatunna Robbery 68

CHAPTER XIII.

The Capture of Rube Smith and James McClung at Amory, Miss.--
McClung’s Confession--A Plan to Rob the Train Falls
Through--A Safe Robbery Nipped in the Bud 82

CHAPTER XIV.

A False Alarm--The Ox-cart Trip to Florida--The Separation--
Rube Located at Broxton Ferry--His Escape 91

CHAPTER XV.

Capture of Joe Jackson 104

CHAPTER XVI.

Confession of Leonard Calvert Brock, _alias_ Joe Jackson, made
at Memphis, Tenn., July 19, 1890, and Corrected and Amended
at Jackson, Miss., October 16, 1890 107

CHAPTER XVII.

Rube Smith’s Plot to Escape from Prison--His Plans Discovered--
The Tell-tale Letters 136

CHAPTER XVIII.

Rube Burrow Harbored in Santa Rosa--The Flomaton Robbery 142

CHAPTER XIX.

Rube Routed from Florida--The Chase into Marengo County,
Ala.--His Capture 151

CHAPTER XX.

Rube’s Last Desperate Act--Escape from Jail--The Deadly Duel on
the Streets of Linden--The Outlaw Killed 164

CHAPTER XXI.

Tragic Suicide of L. C. Brock, _alias_ Joe Jackson--He Leaps
from the Fourth Story of the Prison into the Open Court,
Sixty Feet Below, Causing Instant Death--His Last Statement 176

CHAPTER XXII.

Rube Smith’s Trial for the Buckatunna Mail Robbery--An
Unsuccessful Alibi--Perjured Witnesses--Masterly
Speeches--Conviction and Sentence 185

CHAPTER XXIII.

Conclusion 191

RUBE BURROW.