Sketch of Sam Bass, the Bandit Book

Best known for his robbery of the Union Pacific at Big Springs, Nebraska, on September 19, 1877, Sam Bass is perhaps the most notorious Texas outlaw of the 1870s. Within four years he and his band robbed trains, stages, and stores from the Dakota Territory to the Mexican border. He was not a killer, and because the railroads and their high freight rates were unpopular, Bass quickly became a legendary hero. Nevertheless, Wells Fargo agents, railroad detectives, Texas Rangers, and posses of private citizens chased Bass from his hideout in Denton County, Texas, throughout the old Southwest until he was shot by Texas Rangers in an attempted bank robbery at Round Rock, Texas, in 1878. According to Ramon F. Adams, in his introduction, Charles L. Martin's account, first published in 1880, is the most complete of several contemporary books about the outlaw. For this edition, Robert K. DeArment updates the story of Sam Bass in a new foreword.