Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 61, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 March 1913 — The Napoleon of American Bandits [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Napoleon of American Bandits

The Account of a Forgotten National Conspiracy

By G. T. Ferris

(Copyright, by Ridrway Co. >'

Organized banditry doesn’t flourish under our contemporary conditions in the United States. Sporadic crimes such as those of the train robber, of the so-called I Black Hand, and the t W lone highwayman are v pregnant enough to ocW cupy considerable por- - y portion of the news- _ papers, as they are in

all civilized communities. But we must look back to a much earlier period to find a chronicle of an attempt to bring together in a widely extended conspiracy under a single; head all the forces of evil which festered over 60,000 square miles, of sparsely settled territory*;

The field of this satanic campaign extended from Cairo, 111., to the Mississippi delta and cut the width of a broad swath through a half score of slave states. Wholesale and retail robbery, counterfeiting, land dwindling, negro stealing and selling, blackmailing, and even murder and assassination, all played their part in thii vast campaign of crime. John Murrell, the apostle and leader of this Infernal cult, the would-be Napoleon of chaos and crime in the Mississippi valley, the organizer of a desperate clan of Borne twelve hundred miscreants, taught his followers that it was the safest way in most cases to kill the victim, unless there was some obvious reason to the contrary.

“Make an end of the fool,” he as wont to say; “rip out his bowels and heave him into the nearest swamp or bayou; then the body won’t rise as testimony.” He himself would boast, in the swagger of his cups, that he had slaughtered 40 men with his own hand. But most of* his crimes were committed through agents. But this diabolism was only the fringe of his ambition, appalling as it waß. The goal of his hopes was a great negro insurrection throughout the south, which would sweep the ■lave states like a devasting flame. With this lust of rapine, giving it a sharper, edge, was a venomous Jealousy and hatred of the rich which had become like the mania of a rabid dog. The time of the slave uprising he had fixed for Christmas night, 1835 About 18 months before this expected climax, an interesting encounter occurred in the woods of Madison county, West Tennessee, in what was then known as the Choctaw purchase.

Virgil Stewart, a young Georgian, had come into a small inheritance from his father a year before and had then concluded to Invest it in the virgin lands of that newly opened tract. He had made his entry, paid the fee, and after keeping the store of one Clanton, a probate judge, for a while, had returned to Georgia to complete the purchase and take residence.

Stewart was out riding one evening in the early dusk when he overtook a striking figure mounted on a fine hunter, which he sat with the ease of a finished horseman. He accosted Stewart with wellbred ease and the resonant voice of one accustomed to public speaking: “Good evening, sir. I hope that you are enjoyin’ your ride in the twilight gloaming. There is something delightful at this hour in the woods. Nature declares the glory of God”—-part-ly shutting his eyes with an air of pensive enthusiasm —“but this meetin’ of day and dark among the tree-pillars always makes me think of a great church made without hands." Stewart stared at this salutation, which he politely returned, and for a moment fancied the stranger an itinerant minister of the better class. But he thought it odd that a gospeler should ride a thoroughbred hunter and carry heavy pistols in his holsters, with a knife in his belt and a sawed-off shotgun on his pommel. Tet almost all white men were .wont to ride armed then in that-country and there waa nothing suspicious in the fact, except the pious twang of the overture.

The stranger caught Stewart'S look and said suavely: “My host, who Uvea about ten miles from hyar, is out of venison, and so I thought Ood would send me a chance for a buck. I don't .believe In slayln’ the beasts of the field wantonly, but they were created tot the use of man, we are taught In Holy Scripture. Do you reside In this district, sir?*’ "Probably I shall,” answered Stew* art. “as I have recently bought land here, and am on the outlook now for some likely slaves. I may have to run down to New Orleans to get them, though It is a costly trip, tor a good lot of them have disappeared from here of late—ran away or stolen. That’s a fine horse you’re riding.” “Yes,” said the other with a sinister twinkling In his eye which Stewart’s keen observation noted, "I'm a good Judge of a hoes, or of the sons el Ham whoa Ood made for service. J

trust, sir, you will find a nag as good, and all the black boys you need. 1 shall be hereabouts for the negt rortnight, and then I shall obey the command of God to call sinners to repentance at the campmeetin’ over in Shelby county, up Memphis way. Pardon me, sir, but I took an instant likin’ for you and I hope we shall get further acquainted. I ride in these woods every evenin’. Goodby till we meet again’.” He dofTed his hat with great punctilio and spurred his horse through a by-road in the darkling woods. Neither had mentioned his name to the other. Stewart pondered over the meeting ah he ambled home, conscious of its incongruities. He mentioned the etccurrence to his host. Rev. John Hennlng, Baptist preacher in the scattered hamlet' of Tuscahoma and a small planter who worked a dozen negroes. The dominie rubbed a stubby chin, and wagged his head: <- -*

“I wonder if it can be that fellow Murrell, who’s beep hangln’ aroun’ fur the last six months off and on, down at the Corners. Ye know two of my boys have disappeared. ’Twas a fortnigh.t since. Just before you came back, and I’ve suspected him of slavestealin’, but couldn’t get any clue. My Dick smells the same rat and has been lyiti’ low, but ye see neither of us ever met him; he comes and goes like a shadder.

“Then got a lot of pals aroun’, apd some of my neighbors swear he’s all right; hearn him preach the finest sermons in the world —lay preacher, ye know—and got the spurrit of God in him.”

A few days later he again crossed the stranger not far from the scene of the first meeting, and the latter greeted him with an air of unmistak- . able pleasure: “I have thought a good deal about you, sir, since I met you the other night. I reckon we're kindred spirits somehow, for I know human nature pretty well and,rarely make a mistake,” with an air of great complacency. *T thought I’d like to have a long powwow,, for I’m a lonely man, though I know many people. I am unexpectedly called away tomorrow evening. Pray, sir, come and spend the night with me at the Corners. My host of the tavern has fine old ‘apple,’ and a brace -of wild /ducks fit for a king or for—” stopping with lips pursed into an enigmatic smile. Stewart gladly assented, and they rode together a few miles farther to the Corners, which consisted of a log tavern, a ramshackle store and a rude .blacksmith shop. The ruffianly landlord lowered at Stewart with a glance of suspicion, but quailed at the imperious scowl which his more familiar guest shot at him, as, turning with a wave of his hand, he said: “This is my friend, Mr ” with inquiring look. ''Oh. my name is Hues, Adam Hues,” answered Stewart, wondering with alarm whether the landlord could possibly know of him. After supper under a huge gumtree, and with a tongue well loosened by frequent libations of apple toddy, the man of mystery began to unbosom himself.

“You are a speculator, „ Hues, and so am I, though not perhaps in the same Mne. The world has treated me badly and you, too, I reckon, if I read you aright. See the swarms of the rich, whose claws are fastened on all the good things of life, the best td eat, the best of drink, the finest of clothes to wear. If ye could only hear my friend, John Murrell, talk on the thing! He’s one of the greatest men in the wdrld, sir—beats Andy Jackson all to death, and I want ye to meet him.”

And so he went on In a fierce tirade against the whole order of society. The young man had listened without a word, with the same feeling that a hidden spectator would have at watching cannibals at their ghastly banquet He had had time enough to make up his mind, and he nerved himself to see the thing through. \ “Sir.” he said, extending his hand, ”1 don’t know who you are, but put It right there! What you’ve said has sounded a hidden chord. I feel you’re exactly right, sir, and that we ought to get even with our oppressors In any way we can. You reckoned straight when you saw in me a congenial spirit” -

The next morning as they rode through the woods, talking of Indifferent matters. Stewart was accosted with the sudden Interjection. “I am John Murrell!” accompanied by a look of \ piercing question. **! suspected so last night.** was the answer, “and was rejoiced to know a man of my own kidney.” A handclasp seemed to relieve the other’s mind of any passing doubt, and Murrell said bluntly: “I need a lieutenant, a man of grit, of brains an’ resources. Will you be that man. Hues? I picked you by an unfailin’ Instinct, Instantly I saw you.” The young man agreed, and two hours later they parted, arranging a rendezvous for two weeks later aq

,Murrell was compelled to go away on some call of his nefarious work. Poring, that ride and on subsequent occasions this colossal villain told in part the story of a life bristling with crimes of every sort with a smack of infernal pride which Satan himself could not have surpassed. Murrell’s mother, a Tennessee mountain woman, had. in spite of an honest father, trained her young son as a thief from early childhood. While yet a stripling, he. began to steal horses, and in disposing of these he fell in with various small predatory gangs, who did not hesitate to murder v as well as rob.- Young Murrell’s

superior address and cunning made him an adept in disposing of robber loot, and he gradually became initiated into all the successive grades of crime. He brought to the business great craft and power of organization and the ability to make use of the villainy of others.

He was arrested for horse-stealing and was sentenced to the penitentiary for three years. He was a model prisoner and gave up his spare time to assiduous reading, more especially to the study of theology, law and the rudiments of the healing art. < Stewart met the bandit chief, and as they rode west Murrell told him that they were on the way to one of i the principal headquarters of the clan which was on an island in a Mississippi bayou, just across the river from Memphis. Here he would meet some of the jirincipal men and be cworn into the band \ Murrell was exhilarated into a fierce hilarity, for this Napoleonic ruffian seemß to have been inspired by a genial liking for his chance recruit which, banished all his native- caution. He had, In his craving for a perfect confidence, beguiled himself into the conviction that in Hues he had found the very twin of his soul. He now outlined to his companion something of the colossal Bcheme of a negro uprising, over which his diabolical spirit had brooded so long. “This may s'eem too bold to ybu. Hues, but that is what I glory in,’’ he said. “All the crimes I have ever committed have been of the most daring. I’ve been successful in all of ’em. I am confident I shall be 'Victorious in this matter. I’ll have the pleasure and honor of seeing and knowing that by my management I have glutted the earth with more human blood and destroyed more property than any robber who has ever lived in America or the known world. I look on the American people as my common enemy. They have disgraced me” —thus he designated his short term of imprisonment—“and they can do no more.

“My life is nothin’ to me, and it ihall be spent as their devoted enemy. My elan is strong, brave, experienced and rapidly increasing in numbers. I shouldn’t be surprised if we numbered 20,000 at the time of the uprising. And I am strong in the high standing of so many of my chief councilors, many, indeed, in honorable and lucrative offices. Should anything leak out prematurely, those men would drive away the fears of the people by ridicule, turning it into a cock-and-bull story.

“We have considerable money in the hands of our treasurers to complete our purchases of arms and ammunition, to fit out the companies that are to attack the cities and towns. We will manage to get possession of the different arsenals and supply ourselves from every source that may offer. The negroes wouldn’t want many arms till they get ’em from the houses they destroy, as a knife, a club, a pick or an ax will do to murder families at night, when they are dazed with sleep and terror at the light of their burning homes.” ' .

Stewart tells us that he afterward marveled that he refrained from shooting Murrell then and there, for he always kept one band on a pocket derringer, a silver-mounted pair of which had beeq given him the day before by this incarnate demon. Perhaps the feeling that the one soft spot in Murrell’s nature was the curious infatuation for himself restraned his itching hand. They found themselves on the banks of the Mississippi, at that time stormlashed, at dusk, but the rowboat on which Murrell relied was gone. So they applied for hospitality at the house of a planter named Champion. He looked askance at Murrell when the latter requested the loan of a skiff on which to cross. Stewart At once appraised-him as an honest man and not one of the many secret confederates of the robber gang. Champion felt a note slipped into his hand as the twain parted from him next morning, read a warning in Stewart's eyes, saw a finger motioned to the lips.-

The Island rendezvous was a sin-ister-looking place set in a little river oend that somewhat concealed It All day long smell parties arrived at the Island. To these “Adam Hues” was Introduced as a new and trusted recruit, until about 50 were assembled, a few of whom would never have been suspected of other than a reputable life. These were some of the principal members of the “Orand Council,” and this was the night of the regular quarterly meeting.

The council was held In the evening. Reports were read from local centers as to ihe progress of the slaveuprising conspiracy. Figures were given for the three months past as to the various money-making crimes which bad been committed In some five states. Plans were discussed tor perfecting the methods of propaganda among the hosts of negroes on the plantations. The last business done was the formal Initiation of “Hues” aa a member of the gang and as a Grand Councilor.

The young man was Initiated, sworn in under blood-curdling penalties, taught all the grips and signals of recognition, and the night was worn out in a mad debauch. The next day the Grand Council dissolved, its members departed, and Murrell, who' stayed to superintend the loading of the blaek cattle in a fiatboat for the slave-market, was finally left alone with his lieutenant. “There’s $20,000 in that batch,” he exulted, “and we will have another, cargo next jnonth. * The bandit chief in his unbounded confidence then insisted that Stewart Should do wfiat he had feared he might not be able accomplish—make a complete list of the Grand Councilors, their occupations, places of residence, and their assignments In a conspiracy of murder, arson, robbery and devastation unparalleled In American history.

It took two days to secure this fatal transcript from the books, and the scribe was amazed to find, among the four hundred names on the black schedule participants scattered ’ over the states south of Virginia, men of unquestioned repute and social place, even professed ministers of the gospel, wolves in sheep’s clothing, judges on the bench, law practitioners, newspaper edltori, merchants and hotelkeepers, men one would expect to find wedded to the stability of order and suppression of criipe.

When the twain departed from the dismal island, reeking with its crimeladen mystery, Stewart, well-night overburdened witlrßuch a sinister revelation, devised an excuse to stop at Champion’s plantation. To him he told sufficient to secure a pledge of cooperation at a moment’s notice, and silence until the time was ripe. It was arranged with Murrell that his new man should meet him at a rendezvous a week later, to be formally assigned for active duty. Stewart narrated his amazing stoir to Mr. Henning, and the old preacher was stricken dumb; suspicious though be had been in a vague way, by such a disclosure.

It was determined that John Murrell should be arrested in an adjoining county and not in the vicinity of Tuscahoma, as it might mean that Clanton, who was justice of the peace as well as probate judge, would at once discharge him from custody. Champion and some of his friends came, at Stewart’s call and with Parson Henning, his son, and halt a dozen trusty spirits, ail armed tb the teeth, serving as posse, a warrant was duly sworn out and Murrell taken. Whep the robber marked one face among his captors he spat on the ground and growled out between his teeth with a sort of frozen rage:

"It’s well for you that I was such a business isn’t done yet, I reckon!” Stewart half confesses that for a moment, demoniac-like villain as he knew the other to be, he felt a pang of shame that, it had fallen to him, for whom a wretch like this had shown his one human weakness, to be the instrument of his betrayal, necessary as that was for the good of the commonwealth. While awaiting the action of the grand jury, the archdesperado escaped by connivance, but was retaken and lodged in a Memphis prison, where he could be more effecy ively guarded. There he remained for several months before trial, as the indictment being for negro-stealing, as the proofs of his vastly more henious crimes were, as Stewart had anticipated, difficult to marshal. Murrell was convicted and condemned to ten yearß in the penitentiary for kidnaping and selling slave property. Many attempts were made td get him released on bail during the three months interim, as well as to assist him to break Jail. A campaign of abuse and slander of the most envenomed sort had been at once opened against Stewart, and numerous journals throughout the south heartily espoused Murrell’s ride as that of an Innocent man.

The young Georgian’s life, as well as his reputation, hung In evenly balanced scales. Many estimable persons could not persuade themselves to believe in such a prodigy of guilt He wrote and disseminated at his own expense a printed pamphlet, with a detailed account of his experiences with Murrell, scattering the document broadcast One thing he did not do, however. He did not make proclamation .of the names and residences of Murrell’s associates of the Grand Council. He held it In reserve, making It public that the list was In such hands as would publish it If anything untoward happened to him. Such Is the Irony of fate. A malefactor superlative In evil and steeped in every conceivable crime, who merited the scaffold a hundred times over, for whom no long-drawn torture would have been excessive, died In a Tennessee prison after three years of incarceration for a minor offense, passing away almost in the odor of sanctity

Virgil Stewart, who brought him within the meshes of the law and foil ed his satanlc alms, was almost ostrlclsed by a large section of the southern public and was defamed by many of its newspapers as one who had unjustly stigmatised Murrell and created a nightmare out of his own imagination. Time, however, wrought Its compensation. Old members of the Murrell army of criminals were arrested and punished from time to time for new offenses, some condemned by Judge Lynch, others by Judicial process. Their confessions before execution fully confirmed the terrible story told by Stewart, from ordinary murder and robbery up to the baleful consplr acy to drown the whole south in a sea of blood, rapiny. lust and devastation.