Kenny Wagner's Surrender

1. I am sure you have heard my story
From "The Kenny Wagner Song":
How down in Mississippi
I took the road that's wrong.

2. It was down in Mississippi
Where I murdered my first man,
When the sheriff there at Leachville
For justice took his stand.

3. Then I went from Mississippi
To the state of Tennessee.
Two men went down before me
Ere they took my liberty.

4. I wandered through the country,
But I never could find rest,
Till I went to Texarkana,
Away out in the West.

5. Again I started drinking,
And again I pulled my gun
And within a single moment
The deadly work was done.

6. The sheriff was a woman,
But she got the drop on me.
I quit the game and surrendered,
Gave up my liberty.


From Hudson, Folksongs of Mississippi.  Collected from Elizabeth Reynolds.  There are a surprising number of versions of this song about a true story.  He was a bootlegger who stole a watch in 1925 and was jailed in Mississippi at the age of 22.  He escaped, and while being pursued shot a deputy.  Months later he was surrounded in Kingsport, Tennessee, but again escaped, having killed two more.  He gave himself up in Virginia and was sentenced to death, but once again escaped.  He fled to Mexico, becoming well-known for bank and train robberies, but returned to the United States.  In Texarkana, Arkansas, he killed two brothers and turned himself in to Mrs. Lillie Barber, the sheriff.  He was extradited to Mississippi in 1926 and placed in the penitentiary, from which he escaped twice before dying in 1958.