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Book Review
Sam Bass and Gang
By Rick Miller
Review by Chuck
Parsons
Rick Miller, Sam
Bass & Gang (Austin, TX: State House Press,1999), xii + 412
pages, index. extensive endnotes. 58 photographs and map. ISBN 1-880510-65-0.
$34.95 hardcover, 1-880510-67-7 $24.95 soft cover. Limited edition of
50 numbered and signed copies, slipcased $150.00.
Wayne Gard's
1936 biography of noted outlaw Sam Bass has, up to now, been the only
solid effort to present a complete biography of the Indiana-born thief
who has become a popular Texas legend. Rick Miller, a highly respected
historian of Texas gunfighters, has now taken research and solid writing
well into the second millennium with Sam Bass & Gang. Not only do
we learn much new information about Bass and his immediate family, but
we also find a great deal of new material on the gang members and the
lawmen who worked hard to run them down. Wayne Gard could not have envisioned
the amount of new biographical information Rick Miller has uncovered.
Tracing Bass from
humble beginnings in Indiana, Miller provides in great detail the events
that brought Bass to Texas. Once here, the fast life of being a sporting
man, racing horses and playing cards, slowly steered Bass to illegal
acts. Ultimately, his efforts at "cowboying" led him to his
career of crime: he drove the herds to market and sold them—but
then kept the money!
Once Bass’s
first step into criminal activity had been taken, it was easy to continue.
He joined up with the Collins Gang in the Dakota Territory and tried
to get rich robbing stagecoaches. This failed miserably. After their
disappointments in the Dakota Territory, the gang found great success
in the Nebraska Territory. Here, they robbed a Southern Pacific train
of $60,000 in newly minted, gold coins. This triumph, however, ultimately
led to their destruction as it brought virtually every able-bodied lawman
to hunt and capture them—and get the reward!
Bass split from
his pals in the Collins Gang and made it safely back to Texas. There,
by 1878, he formed a new gang.
Several train robberies
in the Dallas area created a new maelstrom of lawmen now chasing Bass
and his gang. The thieves eluded capture for the most part, occasionally
exchanging gunshots with local lawmen and also Texas Rangers under Captain
June Peak.
However, Bass and
his gang met their Waterloo at Round Rock, north of Austin. The bank
there was a tempting target for a July 19, 1878, forced withdrawl. A
traitor in the gang brought in the Texas Rangers, and Bass and his gang
were attacked in a violent gun battle. Gang member Seaborn Barnes was
killed on the street, and Bass was severely wounded. He managed to get
out of town, however, thanks to his companion Frank Jackson. But Bass
quickly knew he was a dying man, and he convinced Jackson to leave him
and save himself. Bass was captured the next day by Rangers, under squad
leader Lieutenant Charles L. Nevill of Comany E.
In this book, Miller
describes clearly how traitor Jim Murphy betrayed Sam. He also depicts
the efforts of Major John B. Jones of the Frontier Battalion in planning
the action that resulted in the battle with the gang as well as the
hard work of Lieutenant N. O. Reynolds to get to Round Rock in time
with his squad. Reynolds did not make it for the street fight, but it
was his man, Nevill, who found the dying Bass. The next day, Nevill
brought Bass in to Round Rock doctors and, within hours, his grave.
Bass never ratted
on his pals, which was an honor to him. He died on his twenty-seventh
birthday from the deadly effects of bullets from the guns of Rangers
Richard C. Ware and George Herold.
There is a significant
amount of material in Sam Bass & Gang devoted to the law's efforts
at tracking, capturing, and killing Bass. This is as much a worthwhile
book on lawmen—essentially Texas Rangers—as a biography
of Bass, the outlaw.
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