"Life in the open, the rides at night, the spice of danger, the mastery over men, the pride of being able to hold a mob at bay –it tingles in my veins. I love it. It is wild adventure." Henry Starr, gang leader operating in Indian Territory.

All along the history of the Wild West no gang has contributed more significantly to its lore than the one led by Jesse James and his brother Frank. The James boys were well trained for outlaw careers. During the the Civil War they had fought in Confederate guerrilla bands whose hit-and run raids on Union troops terrorized the Kansas-Missouri border zone. Once the war was over, the two young rebels organized fellow comrades into a bunch ranging in number from three to a dozen men at any one time. They planned assaults with masterly precision, struck so fast that they paralyze an entire town to immediately vanish into the surrounding countryside. The James gang remained at work for 15 years, from 1866 to 1881, and performed 26 raids in and around Missouri for a total take of about half a million dollars.

On the morning of September 7, 1876 Jesse, Frank, the Younger brothers –Cole, Jim and Bob-, Clell Miller, Charlie Pitts and Bill Chadwell set for Northfield, Minnesota, riding clad in typical cattlemen linen dusters. First in arriving town were Jesse on a striking white legged sorrel, and Bob Younger and Charlie Pitts on handsome bays. The three outlaws walked around to the front of First National Bank and surveyed the points across the street from which trouble might come. Shortly after two in the afternoon the three outlaws dismounted on Division Street, hitching their horses directly in front of the bank. For a few minutes they stood at the door; immediately three more horsemen came clattering, shooting and whooping as they rounded the corner. From the opposite end of the street came two more horsemen, charging. As terrified bystanders scattered, Jesse, Bob and Charlie rushed into the bank, shouting “Throw up your hands!” The cashier, Joseph Heywood, and the clerks, A. E. Bunker and Frank Wilcox, turned to see the three climbing the counter with revolvers in hand. Heywood ran for the vault; Charlie reached it first. Heywood tried to slam the vault door shut on Pitts, but at that instant Jesse got there and spotted the safe inside. “Open it”, he demanded.

“It has a time lock. It can’t be opened” the cashier protested.

“That’s a dammed lie”, Jesse shouted, and with his revolver he struck Heywood to the floor.

Bob Younger, meanwhile, had ordered the two clerks to get down on their knees, demanding the whereabouts on the cash drawer. Bunker pointed to it. Then, while Younger examined the rolls of coins and loose bills in the till Bunker made a dash for the bank’s back door. Whirling from the vault, Charlie Pitts took a shot at him, missed, rushed to the door and fired again, winging Bunker as he reached down a stairway to the back alley.

At the front of the bank, the five mounted lookouts found themselves under unexpected fire. Their blazing six- shooters had failed to cow Northfield’s citizens; despite the shortage of weapons, the townsfolk were putting up a stiff fight throwing stones, and with a few rifles and shotguns hastily seized from the two hardware stores. One man, Elias Stacy, raced to Division Street and fired at Clell Miller knocking him from his horse. His face badly bleeding, the outlaw mounted again and charged toward Stacy but young Henry Wheeler, a medical student on vacation from the University of Michigan intervened. Henry had been in his father’s drugstore across the bank when the shooting started. Remembering an old army carbine that was in the baggage room of the Dampier House next door, he ran into the hotel, found the gun and carried it into an upstairs front room. From there he saw Clell Miller riding hard at Stacy. Henry fired, and the outlaw again fell from his horse. Cole Younger galloped up dismounted and spoke to him. Miller tried to raise himself on his arms then rolled over dead. Younger seized his cartridge belt and pistols and speed off.

In the midst of the shooting a Swedish immigrant, newly arrived in Northfield, blundered up Division Street toward the bank. One of the horsemen shouted at him to get out o the way; not understanding, the Swede plodded on and was shot through the head. Suddenly a single shot shattered the silence inside the bank. On the way out, Jesse had passed the cashier lying dazed on the floor. He abruptly turned back, put his revolver to the man’s temple and blew his brains out.

As the robbers rushed out and mounted up, it was clear that the usual quick getaway was out of the question. Northfield’s citizens were seeing to that. Elias Stacy was still blasting lead at the invaders. A.E. Manning leveled a Remington repeating rifle at Bill Chadwell as he rode the street. Manning took aim and toppled Chadwell with a bullet through the heart. Another shot form Manning’s rifle hit Cole Younger in the shoulder at the same time young Henry Wheeler, firing form the hotel window, blew the hat off Cole’s head.

By now the gunfire on Division Street had became general and citizens fought the gang with rocks, rifles and revolvers. Frank James was hit in the leg and Jim younger in the face: blood gushed from his mouth. Still, the gang went on riding up and down the street, shooting into doors and windows. Bob Younger leaped from his horse took cover behind it and aimed at merchant Manning. Manning drew a slug on the head of the handsome bay and shot it down. Younger dodged behind a stack of boxes, but he was still in the view of Henry Wheeler in his perch upstairs at the Dampier House. Henry fired his carbine and hit Younger in the right thigh.

Suddenly an outlaw shouted “We are beat, let’s go!” Bob Younger limped out in the street, calling “Hold on, don’t leave me! I am shot!” Cole Younger wheeled back just as another Northfield man discharged a load that shattered Bob’s right elbow. Lifting Bob onto his own horse, Cole raced after his friends. In about twenty minutes, the people of Northfield had virtually destroyed the famous gang. Six of the eight robbers had escaped alive –but a further reckoning was still pending. A few days later the Youngers and Charlie Pitts were trapped. They fought on until only Bob Younger was left standing. Finally he cried out, “The boys are shot to pieces. For God ‘s sake, don’t kill me!” Charlie Pitts was dead; all the three Youngers were wounded.

Jesse and Frank James made it to the Dakota Territory and their trail vanished near Sioux Falls. Eventually, they tried to revive their gang with new recruits and did manage to rob three trains in later years, but their great days were over. Their chief feat was simply to remain at large some more years till 1882, when Jesse was murdered by the infamous Bob Ford when whipping dust on a picture in his own home.

Blackhawk is proud to present this collection of figures recreating the famous raid in some of his most dramatic moments.