This was a surprising book. I'm not sure what I expected of it. My exposure to this phase of history was mostly by way of Saturday afternoon movies and television westerns which I shared with my father when I was a kid. I was aware of the character Cole Younger and his "brothers"-they were usually not named-but the "bad guys" always seemed of limited dimension and intellect, avarice being their single most defining characteristic; that and, I suppose, a profound underlying wickedness that actually found satisfaction in doing evil. I had long since given up westerns and their "black hat/white hat" mentality, and probably wouldn't have given a book about Cole Younger a second glance in the ordinary way of things.
I found the autobiography, The Story of Cole Younger, tangentially when reading about the Civil War and its outcomes. A book I had already read on the James brothers made it quite clear that much of what happened before and after the war in Missouri and Kansas had set the tone for the later history of the "Wild West" and for the American character in general. It reminded me once more that history is not just a disconnected series of interesting vignettes, despite the fact that it's often studied, taught and written about in that fashion. History is a linear and multifaceted continuum that helps to structure, define and direct the present and the future in a much more profound way than most people realize. What was surprising about this book was the degree to which the author himself was aware of that fact.
Even more surprising was the erudition and insight with which Cole Younger wrote about his activities. I had expected a less literate individual, a flatter, less multidimensional figure than I discovered. It would appear that although he did not receive a great deal of education, he did receive some. It would also seem that he was a reader. He was made librarian at Stillwater Prison for many years, and I suspect made good use of the facility. While time in a 19th century prison may well have weighed heavily on many men, it would appear that Younger made good use of it. It would also seem that he was smart enough to realize that obeying the rules and conforming to the lifestyle would make his life easier and more satisfying than railing against the system. It was certainly central to his having been paroled rather than left confined until his death. It was also probably responsible for his having lived as long as he did (he died in 1916). Removed from a hostile environment and protected by the law itself, he lived considerably longer than others of the kind, as for instance Jessie James who died in 1882.
While I agree with some of the statements of Marley Brant, who discusses the author's personality and history and his relationships with his family and with the James brothers, I am not so certain that Younger was quite as intentionally devious as Brant suggests. I believe that in common with most mature people-the author was almost 60 when he wrote the book-Younger desired to appear in a good light. Certainly the lengthy philosophical summing up of life, both his own and life in general, suggests someone who has given the events that shaped the course of his personal history considerable thought. Certainly until he wrote his own thoughts down for posterity, nearly everything written about him had been penned by individuals with their own personal agendas, usually with a profit motive heading their list. While he may have fudged to make himself and his motives appear in more favorable light, I suspect that much of what he wrote he believed was true.
Whatever the case, I agree with Brant that Younger seems distinctly aware of his own place in events. His was a life forcibly shaped by where he was born, to whom he was born, by what happened to those he cared about, by his choice of sides in the Civil War and the cultural, moral and normative definitions that that choice signaled. Had the South won the war, he may well have achieved important financial and political status, as he himself suggested, while other disaffected young men in the North became the "bad guys."
Interesting too was the realization that my notion of the "wild west" and that of the time period were two different things. I doubt that I really gave much thought to the fact that Minnesota-Northfield and its environs-and other mid-western states had been the "wild west" at the time of the bank robbery. Raised in the mid-west themselves it was here the James and the Youngers as well as other disenfranchised and disaffected young men, enured to violence by their early introduction to warfare and catapulted into adult roles by virtue of the attrition among more mature men, made niches for themselves in a postwar environment and a frontier setting that was conducive to it. Just as after most wars when youths of 18 to 20 have lived a larger than life existence, post-civil war soldiers became "misfits and adrenaline junkies" as my husband Mark says. (He made the comparison with the WWII pilots who founded the Hell's Angels.)
What made it an especially intriguing time was that things were changing and changing rapidly, as Cole and his brother Jim discovered after 25 years in prison. They were paroled after 1900, and plunged into a 20th century world that had made them essentially historical figures. One of the stipulations in their parole was that the brothers could not use their notoriety to make themselves side-show characters for a curious audience. This was a time when real cowboys and real Indians were appearing in Wild West shows, most notably Wild Bill's and beginning to find employment in early western movies. So different was the early 20th century from that of the post-Civil War period, that those who had made a name for themselves during the war were a source of considerable wonder. The change in expectations and life styles caused so sudden a transition that Jim Younger committed suicide after only a short period of freedom.
I found the book very enlightening, quite believable and wonderfully entertaining. Although the author of the modern introduction points out there are points where the story is probably more fabrication than truth, it's still well worth reading for anyone interested in the Civil War Era, (pre-, during, and post,) and in the transition between 19th and 20th century life.
