The infamous Younger Brothers of Jackson County, Missouri, sons of a prosperous slave-owning farmer would grow up to become some of the most well-known Civil War guerrillas and outlaws in history when they joined up with Frank and Jesse James to form the James-Younger Gang.

The four brothers -- Thomas Coleman, James Hardin, John Harrison, and Robert Ewing, were from a large family of 14 children born to Henry Washington and Busheba Fristoe Younger. Henry came to the Kansas City, Missouri area from Kentucky where he met Busheba Leighton Fristoe, the daughter of a prominent area farmer. The two soon married, settled on a farm, and began to have children. Henry was quickly successful in his farming endeavors and began to accumulate quite a bit of land, as well as expanding into business ventures, which included earning a contract as a “mail agent” with the federal government.

The many children of the prosperous Henry Younger were well-educated and lived a good life up until the time that major strife began to break out in the area during what would become known as the Kansas-Missouri Border War. Kansas, established as a “free-state,” was in constant conflict with its neighbor of Missouri, which was primarily populated with slave-owning families. Despite the fact that Henry  owned a couple of slaves, he was a Union sympathizer, believing that the union should be preserved and that slavery should be abolished.

His beliefs; however, would not stop raids on his farm by Kansas guerillas, which were referred to as “Jayhawkers.” During these raids, his stock and wagons would be stolen and his property destroyed. These actions began to turn his sons against the Union and more specifically, against the Kansas guerillas. After watching the violence for years, Cole Younger went against his father's beliefs and sided with the confederates, becoming a guerilla himself, under William Quantrill. When his father was killed by a detachment of Union militiamen in July, 1862, Cole's anger was fired even further against the Union and the Kansas Jayhawkers. On August 21, 1863, he participated in the notorious raid against Lawrence, Kansas where some 200 men and boys were killed and the town was ransacked and burned.