Jim Reynolds was a
miner working at California Gulch, now Leadville. He got permission from
the governor of Colorado to go down into Texas, his native state, and
raise a regiment for the Union army. When he started for Texas, people
believed that he was honest in his object, but on his return they soon
learned that his undertaking was not to aid the government, but to take
advantage of it during its struggles and help himself.
He left
Texas with twenty-two men, but only had eight men and nine first class
horses with him on the Platte.
The following narrative is only one
of their numerous deeds. Nearly all of their attacks on the stage coaches
were along the old Powell road. This road wound around through timber and
over hills, down on the Platte again. Being a well concealed road, it
afforded shelter along the sides of it for the outlaws to hide in so they
could not be seen until they would spring out on their victims.
This stage line was owned by Billy Berry, Ad Williamson and Bob Spotswood.
They ran the stage from Denver by Breckenridge, Fairplay, Alma and back
into Denver.
On one occasion, Reynolds and his gang held up the
coach and robbed it of eighteen thousand dollars in gold dust, the United
States mail and express. Among the passengers was a young girl who had
been working in the hotel at Fairplay and saved up four hundred dollars of
her own money and had the same amount of her brother-in-law's money, which
the robbers took from her. Mr. Dunbar, one of the passengers, as soon as
he saw the robbers, got a bottle and played drunk. When one of them came
up to him he said, "If you fellers come, hic, hic, come over here, hic,
hic, I'll hit yer on the nose , hic, hic, with this bottle, hie." The
bandits just supposed he was a penniless drunkard and left him alone, so
he saved all his money and had the most money of all the passengers.
A band of Denver citizens formed a posse under George Shoop and went
in pursuit of Reynolds and his gang.
The outlaws were camped in
the timber about ten miles down on the Platte below South Park. They were
always on the alert and expected to be chased, so buried the money and
other stolen valuables in a well chosen spot near the road. It is said
that even today there are people hunting along the old road for the buried
fortune, while others say they know it was found shortly after the
execution of Reynolds.
The posse which was familiar with the
vicinity around the outlaws' camp, when once on their trail, was not long
in finding them.
Reynolds and his men being overpowered and taken
at a disadvantage had no other means to save themselves except scatter and
take their chances.
Reynolds was shot through the arm, shattering
it from the elbow to the wrist, but he and two others escaped. Four of
their companions were taken prisoners, while one was killed.
A few
days later, Reynolds was suffering so with his arm that he went into
Pueblo for medical attention and gave himself up to the authorities there.
He was taken to Denver and placed in jail with his four companions. It is
said that while he was handcuffed and sitting on a box in front of his
cell door, he sang in a clear rich voice and with such a depth of feeling,
a beautiful hymn. Being in such contrast to the life he had been living
and a song the men seldom heard since leaving their old homes, it touched
the hearts of all who heard it.
The outlaws were given a trial
under martial law and sentenced to be shot. Owing to the rebellious and
antagonistic feeling among the people and the presence of rebels in
Denver, who would be expected to interfere, it was decided not to carry
out the sentence in Denver.
Therefore, Jim Reynolds and his four
remaining comrades were confined in the jail during July and part of
August.
August 19th, 1864, when Company A of the 3rd Regiment of
Colorado Volunteers was ordered to Fort Lyons, they were also ordered to
take the five prisoners along and send them on to headquarters at Fort
Leavenworth, Kansas.
The soldiers marched up Cherry creek,
conveying the bandits in the ambulance with Henry Crow, assisted by an
escort having charge of them. The second day out they were guarded by
Sloan and an escort.
Aston Shaw had been kept on guard and escort
since the first day out. On the morning of the third day he went to
Captain Cree and said, "How does it come, Captain, that I have to be with
the prisoners all the time?'
"Shaw, I want a man with them that
will keep those fellows prisoners and not let them escape."
"Well,
I will tell you this much, Cree, I am not going to herd 'em every night."
"What will you do about it?"
"Go kill the whole bunch."
"That is just what we want done; they were tried and sentenced to
be shot. We dared not carry out the sentence in Denver, and sending them
to Fort Leavenworth was just a bluff. We are to dispose of them on the
road somewhere unknown to anyone. I have sent out Crow and Sloan, but they
have failed to carry out orders, so now I will turn them over to you. You
understand what you are to do with them."
"I will do it, Captain,
if you will let me pick my escort."
"Pick any men you want."
Picking Ad Williamson, Adam Smith, A. Neiland, Oscar Packard, Isaac
Beckman and Frank Parks for his escort, Alston Shaw took charge of Jim
Reynolds and his companions.
The ambulance containing the
condemned prisoners followed the regiment down the Squirrel Creek road.
After traveling a few hours Shaw noticed a little bluff that would conceal
him from the regiment, so ordered Williamson to drive the ambulance back
of the bluff. When the team stopped, he ordered the shackled prisoners
out, then turning to Reynolds, he said, "Jim, you are supposed to be the
captain of this company. I have your obligations where you were sworn to
stay together until your bones bleached on the prairie."
"That was
our obligations."
"Jim, this is your finish. If you have anything
or any word you want sent to your people, give me their address and I will
see that it is done."
"No, I do not want any of my people to know
what became of me."
Reynolds, nor any of his companions, would not
give a word of information concerning his home or people.
"Jim,
you have no show. Here is an order from the commander-in-chief of the
western department stating that you have been tried by court martial and
sentenced to be shot."
"That is just what I expected and I am
ready."
"Would you rather be shot separate or all together?"
"You read our obligations where it said we would stick together until
our bones bleached on the prairie, and that is the way I prefer to die."
Shaw placed Reynolds in the center with two of his comrades on
each side, then had the escort stand sixteen feet in front of them.
Jim Reynolds knelt on his knees, pushed his hat back from his
forehead, folded his arms across his breast and said, "I am ready," being
game to the last. But one of his men began to cry and said, "I never
killed anybody." Shaw replied, "Remember the story of old dog Tray. You
were caught in bad company."
Shaw loaded the guns, putting a blank
cartridge in one so the men could not tell whose bullets did the killing.
He then ordered them all to fire at the same time on the man to the right.
Reloading the guns, he ordered them to fire at the next. They repeated
this until all the prisoners were killed.
Just before the orders
were carried out, one of the escort dropped his gun and began crying.
"Frank, what's wrong?" "Pick up your gun and hold yourself in readiness,"
commanded Shaw.
To make sure that they were all dead, Ad
Williamson shot each in the head with a big brass mounted revolver.
When the execution was over, Neiland, Smith and Shaw took off the
shackles and handcuffs, and one of them said, "We will leave you free to
carry out the last of your obligations, 'To stick together while your
bones bleach on the prairie.' "
The escort just let them lie as
they fell and turned on down the road to join the regiment. On the way
down they met Captain Cree, who demanded, "Where are those prisoners, Shaw
1 ?"
"We stopped down there in a hollow to dig some potatoes and
they got away in the brush and we couldn't find them."
Cree
whirled his horse and started in pursuit of the escaping prisoners. After
a time he returned without them and that night in camp he wrote a report
according to Shaw's account of how the prisoners escaped and sent it in to
Denver. The disappearance of Jim Reynolds and his gang was published in
the Rocky Mountain News, the only newspaper in Colorado at that time,
according to Captain Cree's report.
The true statement of the
execution was not made known for about twenty years afterward.
The
executing of these men was a hard task for Shaw and his escort to do. But
it was orders from headquarters and if they failed to carry them out
before reaching Fort Lyons, they would have shared the same fate as the
outlaws.
Some of the Pioneers of Colorado
Source: True History of some of the Pioneers of Colorado, by Miss
Luella Shaw, Press of Carson Harper Co, Denver, Colorado, 1909 |
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