Best of the Badmen (1951)

At the conclusion of the Civil War, Jeff Clanton, an Army major from Missouri, persuades the last of the Confederacy's Quantrill's Raiders to give themselves up and pledge their allegiance to the Union. Many of the Raiders are infamous wanted men, including the Younger brothers, Jesse and Frank James, Curley Ringo and "Doc" Butcher, a veteran horse thief. Although Jeff promises that they will be paroled as long as records indicate they were on the Confederacy's payroll, Matthew Fowler, a carpetbagger who runs a powerful detective agency, determines to arrest them for the reward money. While Fowler and Joad, the sheriff of Breckenridge, the Missouri town in which the Raiders are being held, stir up sentiment against the outlaws, Jeff races to issue the allegiance pledge. Before they can say the pledge's last words, one of Fowler's deputies shoots and wounds Bob Younger, prompting Jeff to return fire.