Henry Starr said later, ‘Scores of people saw us enter and knew us for bandits. Shooting began the moment we entered the bank.’ But for a little while it was Link Cumplin’s shooting only. In fact, Cumplin’s position and demonstration of shooting skill were histrionic. Even the setting was perfect. The door of the bank was in the snubbed off corner of the building, facing the square. Standing on the fifth step which led to the entrance from the sidewalk, he was not only framed by the two white iron pillars which flanked the door, but he was elevated above his surroundings, so that with his gun he commanded the streets on the south and west sides of the square, and the entire square as well. He stood there shooting in the direction of every head that showed, though obviously careful not to hit it. When no head showed, he shot down one side of the square, then exchanged guns and shot down the other side of the square, keeping everyone indoors. For a minute he actually had the whole town at bay, His boldness and skill fascinated the surprised and affronted citizens.”

How did the citizens react to this invasion?

The venerable W.L. Marley, then a young peace officer, wrote me recently, ‘It was as surprising as a sudden clap of thunder. The people of Bentonville…were suddenly face to face with an emergency for which they had made no preparation. They had no guns with which to defend themselves against such desperate intruders. They didn’t know the robber’s strength, they didn’t know which way to turn, and they were without a leader.” But here is what some of them did:

Ben Allison, city marshal, was in town without his gun. He ran home, northeast of the square, got his gun, and, entering the square at the opposite corner from the bank, worked his way into the square, then to the band stand, dodging behind some shelter at moments of greatest danger and dodging out between times to shoot or advance. He is credited with hitting the gunman, with making a dent in one of the iron pillars beside the door, and unhappily with shooting a horse in the hip as it stood hitched beside the square.

Sheriff Pierce Galbraith, sitting unarmed in his office at the courthouse, came out through a window and climbed up on the board fence to see what all the commotion was about. His little son, Hunter, who had been on the bank corner when the bandits came up, came running up to him, telling him what happened. Galbraith and his son ran home, skirting the square on the north and east sides, to get his gun. When he arrived his wife and Clem Williams, one of his deputies, were already in the front yard loading the guns. Realizing they couldn’t afford to walk into the fire of that high powered gun, he and Williams hunted out the robber’s horses, intending to stampeded them with gunfire. When they took up position between the hotel and Dr. Smartt’s, Galbraith’s gun wouldn’t work. Some people say it hadn’t been used in so long it was rusty.

At the courthouse, meanwhile, W.L. Marley was attending JP court. He says that when he heard the robber’s gunshots ‘the loud report of which seemed to carry and spread like wildfire…Getting his revolver, he made his way across the street, where he had a whole block of brick buildings as breastworks. So far, so good. He was joined there by two other citizens, who also had revolvers, the late Joe Peel and Colonel J. Dillard James, who kept a store on the north side of the square. Peeping around the corner of their breastworks, they could see when the gunman was shooting up their way and when he was shooting down the south side of the square. Choosing the latter times, Colonel James worked his way down the west side of the square, dodging into the protection of one store door after another, and firing at the gunman with each advance. He kept advancing until he had covered most of the block, when his bullets evidently began to take effect. He, like Allison, was credited with hitting the gunman and also making a bullet dent in the iron pillar. It was about this time that Cumplin called to the robbers inside the bank to hurry up, that it was getting hot out there.

Taylor Stone, a farmer who happened to be in town, secured a gun and stepped out from Craig’s drug store, across the street east from the bank, with the intention of shooting the man on the steps. But the man stationed in the alley shot Stone in the hip. He fell behind some packing boxes on the street but succeeded in dragging himself into Hamel and Wood’s barber shop nearby, where Drs. T.W. and Charles Hurley dressed his wounds.

Marley, meantime, had gone around the backs of the buildings as Colonel James had progressed down the front. When he arrived at the street across from the bank, he could see the robbers at work inside the bank. It looked like such an easy shot that he fired at them. However, he was shooting at an angle and the plate glass window offered so much resistance that he succeeded only in breaking the window.

By this time, some two or three minutes had elapsed since the robbers entered the bank. Soon Starr and his two allies emerged, marching four bank officials ahead of them as a shield. They were J.G. McAndrew and George P. Jackson, cashier and assistant cashier, and A.W. Dinsmore and I.R. Hall, directors of the bank. The robbers were carrying bags of currency and gold. But Jackson was being forced to carry the heavy sack of silver.

Crumplin was so badly wounded by now that he had to be helped down the street. He and the two men carrying the gold and currency walked ahead and the two others followed as a rear guard, keeping Jackson in line and fighting off citizens. A citizen named Tom Baker had secured a shotgun and fired point blank at the retreating robbers. The shot scattered too much to do much damage, but Jackson, for one, was hit.

The citizens were keeping the two gunmen in the rear pretty busy. Just as the robbers’ procession was passing the Sun office, Miss Maggie Wood, acting on impulse, unlocked the door, reached out and pulled Cashier Jackson in, then shut and locked the door before anyone had time to interfere…Jackson, who was more than six feet tall, had been hit by three birdshot from Baker’s gun. He didn’t know how badly he was hurt. When he got inside the Sun office, he let the bag of silver slip to the floor and let himself be taken to the back room. Miss Wood lifted the bag with much effort and difficulty and carried it upstairs and hid it. Later, it was found to contain about a thousand dollars and the weight was about sixty-five pounds…It was with this money that the bank opened for business the next morning.

After the battle came the pursuit, which was rapid, vigorous, and exciting. At the beginning of the flight F.G. Lindsey ran home for his pistol. As the robbers passed, he fired, seriously injuring one of them… After a skirmish in Decatur in which the robbers were worsted, the sheriff’s posse exhausted their ammunition. Mayor J.B. Patterson and Mr. Grimsley, however, continued to harass the fleeing bandits… until nightfall.

Later, Starr said that Link Cumplin, who had done the spectacular shooting from the bank steps, was almost shot to rags. He said one eye was shot out and an arm through twice, and that he had eight bullet wounds in other places.

Starr met his end in 1921 at the People’s Bank in Harrison, where the former president of the bank obtained a rifle from inside the bank and shot Starr as he filled the money bag. His gang escaped into a waiting car and fled. This is said to be the first bank robbery in the United States in which an automobile was used in the getaway. The robbery was on Friday and Starr lasted until Wednesday before succumbing to his injuries.

The next time you are on the square, look at the Fiamma Restaurant on the corner of Central and Main. That is where the bank was built in 1887. One of the few remnants of the exterior of the original building are the two columns in the front. If you look closely you’ll see a couple of indentations that are likely bullet holes from that gunfight. Look south down Main Street and imagine the walk from the bank door to the horses with gunfire coming from all around. In the back part of the bank was Kit Campbell’s barber shop. Kit was rumored to have hidden in a trash barrel once the shooting started. Then just past that was the Sun office where GP Jackson was rescued. Finally, the corner of Main and SW 2nd where the horses were waiting.