Unquestionably the sanguinary conflict that raged along the Missouri-Kansas border between anti-slavery and pro-slavery partisans for years, both before and after the War Between the States, supplied the seed and atmosphere that brought the organized gangs of horseback outlaws into flower, with William Clarke Quantrill, the noted Rebel guerrilla, the outstanding leader. Here are the factual, documented case histories of two score and more of Quantrill’s fledglings, men who either rode with him or whose lives were shaped by him: Frank and Jesse James; Cole Younger and his brothers; the Dalton boys; Belle Starr, the so-called “Bandit Queen”; Bill Cook; Cherokee Bill; the Rufus Buck Gang; Ned Christie; the Bill Doolin Gang; Henry Starr, the gentleman bandit; and the comic-opera Jennings Gang, all of whom, with one or two exceptions, were, shot down, hanged or put away by Judge Isaac Parker, the famous “Hanging Judge,” and a veritable army of deputy U.S. marshals, among them the “Three Guardsmen,” Bill Tilghman, Heck Thomas and Chris Madsen; and, in addition, Bud Ledbetter, Jim Masterson, Bat’s brother, John Hixon and Ed Short. For the first time you will read the true story of the “Battle of Ingalls” and be confronted with some gaping holes in the romantic legend of the beautiful (and mythical) Rose of the Cimarron. Truth also catches up with the tale of “beautiful and fabulous” Belle Starr. These are only two of many hoary old fables that are shattered by the author, called by the late and preeminent critic, Stanley Walker, “one of the most careful and energetic of the present-day writers of Western lore.”
