Book Reviews

Sam Bass & Gang

$34.95 hard; $21.95 paper

Sam Bass was born in Indiana, it was his native home;

And at the age of seventeen young Sam began to roam.

Sam first came out to Texas, a cowboy for to be —

A kinder-hearted fellow you seldom ever see.

He made a deal in race-stock — one called the Denton mare.

He matched her in scrub races and took her to the fair.

Sam used to coin the money and spent it just as free;

He always drank good whiskey, wherever he might be. — The Ballad of Sam Bass

Two things have always appealed to me about Western outlaw legend Sam Bass: His grandmother’s name was Sarah Fender Bass (!), and his last words were: “Let me go. The world is bobbing around.” Now he’s got an excellent and marvelously complete new biography.

Sam Bass had everything it takes to achieve eternal life as a folk hero. He was young, good looking, lived fast, died young, and his downfall was sparked by the betrayal of one of the boys in his merry band. Something about that “Denton mare” of his made his the perfect cowboy Robin Hood saga. The fact that he robbed trains was cool; back then the railroad companies were almighty and people rightfully resented the hell out of them. Last but certainly not least, Sam Bass had a good song. The worms had barely taken a nibble from his bullet-riddled corpse before “The Ballad of Sam Bass” was making the rounds. Charlie Siringo, the Texas cowboy, detective, and author, claimed that the ballad helped bring calm to longhorns in bad weather and restless nights, and it helped to keep the elastic legend of Sam Bass stretching and growing and flowing melodiously along from cow camp to cow town, from warbling wrangler to rumbling jukebox.

Of course, the bare facts in Bass’ legend are true, but, as author Rick Miller’s diligent research and keen insight proves beyond the shadow of a doubt, Sam Bass was no Robin Hood. In fact, aside from when he and his gang miraculously and accidentally stumbled upon a cache of $20,000 in gold coins during a train robbery (ironically, the amount was a fraction of the usual shipment), Bass was pretty much a failure as an outlaw. His yearlong spree robbing stagecoaches and trains was, however, somewhat meteoric, ending as it did with a massive manhunt in Texas and the famously bloody shoot-out in Round Rock in 1878. Bass and gang had come to town to case the local bank, blissfully unaware that comrade Jim Murphy had spilled the beans to the Texas Rangers. Consequently, on the day before the robbery was to take place, two local lawmen accosted Bass and demanded that he turn over his weapons. Bass replied, “You can have them both,” and opened fire. The gunfight that followed resulted in the death of one lawman, one of the gang members, and Sam himself, who lingered in delirium and agony for two days.

In writing this new history, Miller had to bullishly buck the tide of legend, by going up against the monumental history written by the venerated Texas author Wayne Gard, whose own Sam Bass, published in 1936, has served as the first and last word on the subject ever since. Miller, a veteran Texas lawman himself and currently the county attorney of Bell County, found one possible redeeming element to the saga: The high-profile case proved the need for a well-equipped and adequately funded statewide police force, and quite possibly was one of the deciding factors that convinced people that the Texas Rangers — originally established to protect citizens from Indians — might need to be beefed up and maintained to keep the public safe from outlaws and ruffians.

This article appears in March 3 • 2000.