Revealed: Hour by hour the FULL story of the most infamous and bloody bank raid in American history and the Wild West manhunt that ensured the legend of Jesse James...and sealed his fate

Those who saw the eight men riding into town that morning would later recall an uneasy feeling that rippled in their wake.
Druggist George Bates watched them cross the iron bridge, the sound of their horses’ hooves briefly drowned out by the rush of water into the mill dam below, and worried at their ‘reckless, bold swagger.’ He judged them ‘dangerous men to handle. ‘ He was right.
It was 10am, 7 September 1876. Northfield was about to experience ‘the hottest day it ever saw.’ And the James-Younger gang were about to embark on the disastrous bank job that today stands in history as the raid that both sparked their downfall and cemented the legend of their most infamous member, Jesse James.

Sixteen years old and already a cold-blooded killer, Jesse James, above, fought for the Union as a guerrilla in the Civil War - after that, his brother said, they could only ever be outlaws

Now a compelling new book has chronicled that day, the epic manhunt that followed and the fates of the gang members up to Jesse James’s assassination and beyond..
In ‘Shot All To Hell: Jesse James, The Northfield Raid, And the Wild West’s Greatest Escape’ award-winning author and historian Mark Lee Gardner reveals the workings of the gang, using previously unseen documents and eye-witness accounts.

He reveals the catastrophic miscalculation that led to the chaos that left two robbers and two townsfolk dead.
He charts the extraordinary escape across 14 days and some of the country’s most forbidding terrain that drew admiration from the lawmen hunting the criminald down and citizens following their story.

And he names the man who shot Jesse James as Robert Ford. A member of the gang James himself formed after the James-Younger crew fell apart.

The iron bridge over which the James-Younger Gang rode into Northfield on that fateful day in 1876 - the 'hottest day Northfield ever saw.'

Brothers in crime: Jesse, front left, and Frank, front right, James pose with Cole and Bob Younger (rear left and right)At their peak they were the most feared gang of robbers in the Wild West

Ford cut James down as he stood to adjust a picture in the parlour of his home. James was parnoid after a life on the run and had invited Ford and his brother Charles to live with him and his wife Zee and protect them.

''Meet me in Kansas City tonight or tomorrow. I have my man,' Jesse James assassin Robert Ford's telegram to Governor Crittenden

Instead the man who had survived shooting battles and daring raids, died as he had lived; by the bullet and for bounty.
While his wife wept by her dying husband’s side Bob and Charley Ford, Mr Gardner writes: ‘Quickly grabbed their hats and also Jesse’s revolvers and gun belt and hurried off for the town’s only telegraph office.
‘Once there, Charley paced nervously…as Bob tried several times to write out a telegram.’
When he finally handed a piece of paper to the operator it read as follows: ‘Meet me in Kansas City tonight or tomorrow. I have my man.'

Clell Miller, left, and Bill Chadwell, right, in death: shot down by the people of Northfield and left in the dust

Bob Younger, left, wounded in the Northfield raid later died of his wounds and brother Jim, above, captured

The telegram was addressed to Thomas Crittenden, Governor of Missouri who had placed a $10,000 reward on Jesse, dead - $40,000 if he was taken alive but no-one really believed Jesse James would be taken alive.
‘If you hear they’ve captured me alive,’ he once said to a cousin. ‘Say it’s a lie; they may kill me, but they will never get me otherwise.’

One year before the Northfield Raid, Jesse James, then 28, cut a romantic figure with his bright blue eyes and fearless manner

That they captured him at all was an event that, according to Mr Gardner, had its beginnings in the chaos of Northfield, Minnesota and the raid on the town’s First National Bank.
Brothers Jesse and Frank, four years his senior, had been riding and raiding with Cole and Bob Younger since the end of the Civil War. Along with Clell Miller, Bill Chadwell and Charlie Pitts they made up the Younger-James gang.
If the James brothers had been brutal to begin with a botched attempt to arrest them at their home only hardened their resolve.
Officers were one day too late to catch the gangsters but their 8 year old brother was killed and their mother maimed in the attempt.
They were feared and rightly so. James, with his bright blue eyes and horsemanship was a dazzling sort of figure by all accounts but the glint in those eyes was steel. He murdered without missing a beat – all of them did.
The gang had chosen Northfield, Minnesota because it was small and thought to be peaceable. But most importantly there was only one bank and recent newspaper stories had reported that a new safe and time lock and two heavy doors for the vault had just been added to First National’s building.
This didn’t put the gang off. They reasoned the threat of a gun would be enough to persuade most men to unlock a vault. It just meant that all the money in town was in one place and if there was enough of it to make it worth investing in a such security there was enough to make it worth robbing.

Scene of the crime: Inside Nortfield's First National Bank, the vault door that Joseph Heywoods attempted to shut with fatal consequences is clearly visible

atal consequences is clearly visible

Blueprint of a disaster: The floorplan for First National at the time of the raid, Heywood's desk at the door to the vault is to the top right the positions of tellers Wilcox and Bunker (wounded in the raid) are shown at the bottom of the plan

The day they rode into Northfield they were ‘at the top of their game.’ Mr Gardner writes: ‘They excelled at deception..As outlaws they took on aliases, stopped trains or emptied bank vaults while moving freely in public telling people they were livestock dealers, businessmen or land speculators.’
Yet something was amiss from the start at Northfield. They did attract attention.  Jesse James once stated, ‘It is true we are robbers, but we always rob in the glare of the day and in the teeth of the multitude.’
But Northfield was the town that bit back.

Cuckoo in the next: Robert Ford lived with Jesse James who had asked him to protect him. Instead he shot him dead for $10,000 in cash

The bank staff resisted. Frustrated, Frank James fired shots above bookkeeper Joseph Heywood’s head.
In the smoke and confusion a colleague though he had been shot and made a run for it,bringing more shots from the robber.
Everything began to unravel.
The town was alerted to the raid taking place. All their money was held in that building – all uninsured. They decided to fight.
The gun battle lasted less than ten minutes – panicked the gang members who had been keeping watched dashed to and fro amid bullets and rocks that arced through the air as locals fought with anything to hand.
Inside all was confusion and violence.
Mr Gardner states,‘While the townspeople were shooting to kill, the outlaws’ shots were really meant to frighten, to scare away, to buy time – at least in the beginning.’
Keeping watch outside, panic growing Cole Younger signalled the retreat: ‘For God’s sake,’ he shouted. ‘Come out. They are shooting us all to pieces.’
When it was over robbers Clell Miller and Bill Chadwell lay dead in the street. Bookkeeper Joseph Heywood had a bullet in his head and another local had been killed in the frenzy outside.  The gang’s haul totalled just $26.60 ‘in coin and crip.’
Bob Coles had been hit. They left, six men on five horses and for the next 14 days evaded captuer in what became the largest manhunt in US history.

A family out for revenge: Frank, left, and Jesse, right, James with their mother Zerelda. She was horribly wounded and her youngest child killed in a botched attempt to arrest the James boys

More than 1000 men chased them across marsh and woodland. Cole Younger later recalled: ‘We suffered in those fourteen days a hundred deaths.’
The public followed the tale with horror and excitement as reporters wrote of the robbers’ escape with undisguised awe.
Mr Gardner quotes one report in the local news: ‘Here were six men hunted by a thousand…Every device was resorted to. Every rod of a vast extent of country was searched. The best detective talent employed. The best woodsmen were engaged in the hunt.

Mark Lee Gardner's account of the Northfield raid and the chain of events it set off is the most detailed yet

‘Yet in the face and eyes of eager pursuers they have passed through the most carefully arranged traps.
‘Such determination, daring and perseverance..cannot but evoke the admiration even of those who most desire their extermination.’
Ultimately his brother’s wound slowed them down. Cole wouldn’t leave him so the James brothers split from the rest and the gang as it had been known and feared ceased to exist.
The straggling gang members were arrested and convicted. The James brothers notoriety grew as they continued to evade capture.
Had they been able to live the new lives they ultimately both established as farmers in Tennessee that might have been that.
But for Jesse, Mr Gardner writes: ‘The rush of that wind-in-your-face, gun-in-your-hand lifestyle was like a drug.’
He craved attention. He craved notoriety. He started a new gang. But it had none of the ‘honour’ of his old brothers in arms.
Jesse James was shot on 3 April 1882. He as 34 years old. Terrified of suffering a similar fate older brother Frank gave himself up.
Nobody knows the details of the deal he struck, but the man who rode as part of the most notorious gang in the Wild West was never charged with a single crime. Instead he returned to the Missouri farm where he and Jesse were raised, giving tours for 75 cents. He died age 72.
As for Jesse, the last sound he heard was the click of the metallic hammer as Robert Ford cocked his revolver and took aim. But his fate had been sealed years earlier, on 3 September 1876, at the First National Bank in Northfield.
It was the day James’s legend was cemented and it was the day his luck truly ran out.

'Shot All To Hell: Jesse James, the Northfield Raid, And the Wild West's Greatest Escape,' by Mark Lee Gardner is published by William Morrow an imprint of HarperCollins on August 1 Price $27.00


To order a copy log onto www.amazon.com

Bradley Manning could still die in jail despite being found NOT GUILTY of being a traitor - as military judge rules army private is guilty of spying by passing 700,000 secret files to WikiLeaks

Private Bradley Manning, the former Army intelligence who sent over 700,000 secret government documents to WikiLeaks, was dramatically convicted of all espionage charges leveled against him this afternoon, but acquitted of being a traitor.
Manning stood at attention, flanked by his attorneys, as the judge read her verdicts. He appeared not to react, though his attorney, David Coombs, smiled faintly when he heard not guilty on Aiding the Enemy.
When the judge was done, Coombs put his hand on Manning's back and whispered something to him, eliciting a slight smile on the soldier's face.

Pyrrhic Victory: U.S. Army Private First Class Bradley Manning departs the courthouse at Fort Meade, Maryland after his acquittal for Aiding the Enemy

Manning, 25, was found guilty of 20 out of 21 charges for handing documents to WikiLeaks, headed by Julian Assange three years ago and still faces the possibility of up to 136 years behind bars.
The verdict was announced by Colonel Denise Lind, the judge at Manning's long court-martial at Fort Meade, Maryland. Manning's sentencing will begin at 9.30 a.m. (EST) tomorrow.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange issued a statement in which he praised Manning as the 'quintessential whistleblower' and attacked the United States and President Obama for pursuing an espionage conviction against him.
Accusing President Obama of hypocrisy, Assange, who is currently holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London evading extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges, said that the administration had 'betrayed' their principles. 

To convict Manning of Aiding the Enemy, prosecutors had to prove during the trial that Manning had 'a general evil intent' and was aware that the material leaked to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks would go directly to al-Qaeda.
Their failure to will be seen as a victory for champions of freedom of speech and investigative journalism not just in the United States, but worldwide.
However, the victory will be viewed as pyrrhic, because Manning still faces the likelihood of dying behind bars due to the guilty verdicts on the other charges.
Wikileaks initially responded to Manning's espionage convictions to label them 'dangerous national security extremism from the Obama administration.'
Coombs came outside the court to a round of applause and shouts of 'thank you' from a few dozen Manning supporters.
'We won the battle, now we need to go win the war,' Coombs said of the sentencing phase. 'Today is a good day, but Bradley is by no means out of the fire.'
Supporters thanked him for his work. One slipped him a private note. Others asked questions about verdicts that they didn't understand.
Manning's court-martial was unusual because he acknowledged giving the anti-secrecy website more than 700,000 battlefield reports and diplomatic cables, and video of a 2007 U.S. helicopter attack that killed civilians in Iraq, including a Reuters news photographer and his driver.
In the footage, airmen laughed and called targets 'dead b******ds.' A military investigation found troops mistook the camera equipment for weapons.

Conflicting Results: David Coombs, lead defense attorney for Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, walks out of a courthouse in Fort Meade, today after receiving a verdict in Manning's court martial

A supporter of U.S. Army Private First Class Bradley Manning protests outside the main gate before the reading of the verdict in Manning's military trial at Fort Meade, Maryland July 30th, 2013

Supporters of Army Pfc. Bradley Manning flash peace signs outside of a courthouse in Fort Meade, Maryland on Tuesday, July 30th, 2013, after Manning receiving a verdict in his court martial

On the eve of the verdict, WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange had called Manning a 'hero'.

'We call those types of people that are willing to risk ... being a martyr for all the rest of us, we call those people heroes,' Assange told CNN's Jake Tapper. 'Bradley Manning is a hero.'

If he had been found guilty of Aiding the Enemy, Manning would have faced a sentence of up to 154 years.
Glenn Greenwald, the journalist, commentator and former civil rights lawyer who first reported Edward Snowden’s disclosure of U.S. surveillance programs, said Manning’s acquittal on the charge of aiding the enemy represented a 'tiny sliver of justice.'

 (this is) 'dangerous national security extremism from the Obama administration.' Wikileaks statement posted to Twitter on the Manning Verdict 

Manning stood and faced the judge as she read the decision. She didn't explain her verdict, but said she would release detailed written findings. She didn't say when she would do that.
Military prosecutors argued all along that Manning, who was arrested in May, 2010, knew that the secret State Department cables, real-time combat videos and battle-field assessments would be obtained by al-Qaeda once they were posted onto WikiLeaks.
The U.S. government was pushing for the maximum penalty for the intelligence analyst's leaking of information that included battlefield reports from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. It viewed the action as a serious breach of national security, while anti-secrecy activists praised it as shining a light on shadowy U.S. operations abroad.

Army prosecutors contended during the court-martial that U.S. security was harmed when the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy website published combat videos of an attack by an American Apache helicopter gunship, diplomatic cables and secret details on prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay that Manning provided to the site while he was a junior intelligence analyst in Iraq in 2009 and 2010.
Manning, who early this year pleaded guilty to lesser charges that carried a 20-year sentence, will still be looking at a long prison term when the trial's sentencing phase gets under way on Wednesday.
'This is a historic verdict,' said Elizabeth Goitein, a security specialist at New York University's Brennan Center for Justice.
'Manning is one of very few people ever charged under the Espionage Act prosecutions for leaks to the media ... Despite the lack of any evidence that he intended any harm to the United States, Manning faces decades in prison. That's a very scary precedent,' she added.

Controversial: Army Pfc. Bradley Manning was acquitted of aiding the enemy - the most serious charge he faced - but was convicted of espionage, theft and other charges

U.S. Army Private First Class Bradley Manning (C) is escorted out of court after the verdict for his military trial at Fort Meade, Maryland today

Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project, issued a statement in response to the verdict saying that 'it seems clear that the government was seeking to intimidate anyone who might consider revealing valuable information' to the press in the future.
The verdict 'reveals the U.S. government's misplaced priorities on national security,' according to Amnesty International.
'The government's pursuit of the 'aiding the enemy' charge was a serious overreach of the law, not least because there was no credible evidence of Manning's intent to harm the USA by releasing classified information to Wikileaks,' said Widney Brown, senior director of international law and policy at Amnesty International according to CNN.
A crowd of about 30 Manning supporters had gathered outside Fort Meade ahead of the reading of the verdict.
Besides the aiding the enemy acquittal, Manning was also found not guilty of an espionage charge when the judge found prosecutors had not proved their assertion Manning started giving material to WikiLeaks in late 2009. Manning said he started the leaks in February the following year.

Manning pleaded guilty earlier this year to lesser offenses that could have brought him 20 years behind bars, yet the government continued to pursue all but one of the original, more serious charges.
Manning said during a pre-trial hearing in February he leaked the material to expose the U.S military's 'bloodlust' and disregard for human life, and what he considered American diplomatic deceit. He said he chose information he believed would not the harm the United States and he wanted to start a debate on military and foreign policy. He did not testify at his court-martial.
Coombs portrayed Manning as a 'young, naive but good-intentioned' soldier who was in emotional turmoil, partly because he was a gay service member at a time when homosexuals were barred from serving openly in the U.S. military.

'The Only Victim was the United States' Wounded Pride': Statement by WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange on the Bradley Manning Verdict

'Today Bradley Manning, a whistleblower, was convicted by a military court at Fort Meade of 19 offences for supplying the press with information, including five counts of ’espionage’. He now faces a maximum sentence of 136 years.

'The ’aiding the enemy’ charge has fallen away. It was only included, it seems, to make calling journalism ’espionage’ seem reasonable. It is not.

'Bradley Manning’s alleged disclosures have exposed war crimes, sparked revolutions, and induced democratic reform. He is the quintessential whistleblower.

'This is the first ever espionage conviction against a whistleblower. It is a dangerous precedent and an example of national security extremism. It is a short sighted judgment that can not be tolerated and must be reversed. It can never be that conveying true information to the public is ’espionage’.

'President Obama has initiated more espionage proceedings against whistleblowers and publishers than all previous presidents combined.

'In 2008 presidential candidate Barack Obama ran on a platform that praised whistleblowing as an act of courage and patriotism. That platform has been comprehensively betrayed. His campaign document described whistleblowers as watchdogs when government abuses its authority. It was removed from the internet last week.

'Throughout the proceedings there has been a conspicuous absence: the absence of any victim. The prosecution did not present evidence that - or even claim that - a single person came to harm as a result of Bradley Manning’s disclosures. The government never claimed Mr. Manning was working for a foreign power.

'The only ’victim’ was the US government’s wounded pride, but the abuse of this fine young man was never the way to restore it. Rather, the abuse of Bradley Manning has left the world with a sense of disgust at how low the Obama administration has fallen. It is not a sign of strength, but of weakness.

'The judge has allowed the prosecution to substantially alter the charges after both the defense and the prosecution had rested their cases, permitted the prosecution 141 witnesses and extensive secret testimony.
'The government kept Bradley Manning in a cage, stripped him naked and isolated him in order to crack him, an act formally condemned by the United Nations Special Rapporteur for torture. This was never a fair trial.

'The Obama administration has been chipping away democratic freedoms in the United States. With today’s verdict, Obama has hacked off much more. The administration is intent on deterring and silencing whistleblowers, intent on weakening freedom of the press.

'The US first amendment states that "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press". What part of ’no’ does Barack Obama fail to comprehend?'

He said Manning could have sold the information or given it directly to the enemy, but he gave it to WikiLeaks in an attempt to 'spark reform' and provoke debate.
Counterintelligence witnesses valued the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs at about $5.7 million.
Coombs said Manning had no way of knowing whether al-Qaeda would access the secret-spilling website and a 2008 counterintelligence report showed the government itself didn't know much about the site.
The defense attorney also mocked the testimony of a former supervisor who said Manning told her the American flag meant nothing to him and she suspected before they deployed to Iraq that Manning was a spy.

Coombs noted she had not written up a report on Manning's alleged disloyalty, though had written ones on him taking too many smoke breaks and drinking too much coffee.

A file photograph dated 22 December 2011 shows US Army Private Bradley Manning (C) being escorted out of the courthouse following the closing arguments in his pre-trial hearing at Fort Meade, Maryland, USA

The government alleged during the court martial that Manning had sophisticated security training and broke signed agreements to protect the secrets.
He even had to give a presentation on operational security during his training after he got in trouble for posting a YouTube video about what he was learning.
The guilty verdict on most of the counts could make it difficult for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to persuade future sources of information to share classified details with the website.
That is going to make it more difficult for people who want to deal with Assange. They are going to be at greater risk and that will put his operation at risk," said Michael Corgan, a professor of international relations at Boston University and former officer in the U.S. Navy.
'It will have a very chilling effect on WikiLeaks,' he said ahead of the verdict.

Manning, originally from Crescent, Oklahoma, opted to have his case heard by a judge, rather than a panel of military jurors.
During the court-martial proceedings, military prosecutors called the defendant a 'traitor' for publicly posting information that the U.S. government said could jeopardize national security and intelligence operations.

Members of the prosecution team, (L-R) Captain Angel Overgaard and Major Ashden Fein, arrive for a motion hearing in the case United States vs. Pfc. Bradley E. Manning June 6, 2012 in Fort Meade, Maryland

Tribunal: In this courtroom sketch provided by the U.S. Army, Army Pfc. Bradley Manning (2nd L) sits with his military defense attorneys before Army Judge Denise Lind (R) in a courthouse in Fort Meade, in Maryland

Defense lawyers described Manning as well-intentioned but naive in hoping that his disclosures would provoke a more intense debate in the United States about diplomatic and military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Prior to the verdict, two dozen supporters of Manning demonstrated outside Fort Meade where Colonel Denise Lind prepared to deliver her decision on whether Manning aided the enemy at 1 p.m (EST) on Tuesday afternoon.

Fresh Faced: A 24 October 2010image shows Army Specialist Bradley Manning. Private Bradley Manning was found not guilty on 30 July 2013 by a U.S. military judge on the key charge of aiding the enemy in the Wikileaks case

Manning, 25, faced 22 counts including espionage, computer fraud and theft charges for providing 700,000 classified government documents to the WikiLeaks website - but the most serious was Aiding the enemy, which carried the possibility of a life sentence.
Prosecutors were charged with proving Manning had 'a general evil intent' and knew the documents and videos he provided to WikiLeaks would be seen by al-Qaeda.
However, anti-secrecy campaigners across the world have praised him for highlighting shadowy U.S. operations abroad.
An Aiding-the- enemy conviction could have set a precedent because Manning did not directly give the classified material to al-Qaeda and WikiLeaks have never confirmed they received the material.
'Most of the aiding-the-enemy charges historically have had to do with POWs who gave information to the Japanese during World War II, or to Chinese communists during Korea, or during the Vietnam War,' Duke law school professor and former Air Force judge advocate Scott Silliman told The Associated Press.
Air Force Reserve Lt. Col. David J.R. Frakt, a visiting professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh, said a conviction on the most serious charge, if upheld on appeal, 'would essentially create a new way of aiding the enemy in a very indirect fashion, even an unintended fashion.'

Target: A still from a video shot from a U.S. army Apache helicopter showing a group of men in the streets of eastern Baghdad just prior to being fired upon in 2007

'Collateral damage: One of the wounded men dashes for cover as the helicopter pilot urges his colleague to continue firing. He is eventually brought down

'He's just a dumb kid who got himself into a situation where he felt he was saving the world,' Joseph Wippl, a professor of international relations at Boston University and a former CIA officer, told Reuters before the verdict.

WHAT DOES THE MANNING VERDICT MEAN FOR EDWARD SNOWDEN?

• Like Bradley Manning, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden maintains the release of sensitive information was for the benefit of U.S. citizens - but as today's verdict proves, that argument is no defense in the face of espionage charges.
• Manning was convicted on five charges of espionage under a legal rationale similar to the one presented by prosecutors in indicting Snowden under the 1917 Espionage Act. As a result, Manning faces up to 136 years behind bars - and Snowden could expect similar treatment if he returns to the U.S.
• Manning was acquitted of aiding the enemy as the government could not prove that he knew the release of the information would find its way to al-Qaeda. While Snowden does not face this charge, it does provide reassurance of the difficulties in proving it.
• But while there are similarities between the Manning and Snowden cases, they are also distinct - in part because of what Snowden learned from the Manning case - and this makes judgments about Snowden's future trickier.First of all, he approached newspapers to publish the information, rather than through Wikileaks, allowing the releases to be more selective. Secondly, after how Manning was treated - arrested and tortured - Snowden learned that avoiding capture made sense and that the way Manning was treated could be used politically. Indeed, when Attorney General Eric Holder said last week that Snowden would not be tortured, it was likely the result of the whistleblower and his supporters referring to the Manning case.

'I think he should be convicted and they should be easy on him. They need to do more on limiting access to classified information,' he added.

The verdict by judge Col. Denise Lind follows about two months of conflicting testimony and evidence.

Manning, a 25-year-old native of Crescent, Oklahoma, admitted to sending more than 470,000 Iraq and Afghanistan battlefield reports, 250,000 State Department diplomatic cables and other material, including several battlefield video clips, to WikiLeaks while in Iraq in early 2010. WikiLeaks published most of the material online.

The video included footage of a 2007 U.S. Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad that killed at least nine men, including a Reuters news photographer and his driver.
Manning claims he selected material that wouldn't harm troops or national security.
Prosecutors called him an anarchist hacker and traitor who indiscriminately leaked classified information he had sworn to protect.
They said al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden obtained copies of some of the documents WikiLeaks published before he was killed by U.S. Navy Seals in 2011.
In bringing the charge against Manning, prosecutors cited the Civil War-era court-martial of Pvt. Henry Vanderwater, a Union soldier convicted in 1863 of aiding the enemy by giving an Alexandria, Va., newspaper a command roster that was then published.
Coombs countered that the Civil War-era cases involved coded messages disguised as advertisements.
He said all modern cases involve military members who gave the enemy information directly.
In closing arguments last week, the defense portrayed Manning as a naive whistleblower who wanted to expose war crimes. Prosecutors call him an anarchist hacker and a traitor.
They characterized him as a a traitor with one mission as an intelligence analyst in Iraq: to find and reveal government secrets to a group of anarchists and bask in the glory as a whistleblower, a prosecutor said last week during closing arguments.
Major Ashden Fein said Manning betrayed his country's trust and gave classified information to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, knowing the material would be seen by Al-Qaeda

Defence: David Coombs, center, civilian attorney for Army Pfc. Bradley Manning. Coombs said supporters on Friday would hear what truth sounds like

Manning, 25, was not the troubled, naive soldier defense attorneys have made him out to be, Fein said.
He displayed a smiling photo of Manning from 2010 when he was visiting relatives while on leave.
Fein said: 'This is a gleeful, grinning Pfc. Manning' who sent battlefield reports to WikiLeaks, accompanied by the message: 'Have a good day.'
Manning has acknowledged giving WikiLeaks hundreds of thousands of battlefield reports, diplomatic cables and videos in late 2009 and early 2010.

But he says he didn't believe the information would harm troops in Afghanistan and Iraq or threaten national security.

Three Years in Custody: A Timeline of the Bradley Manning Trial

• Late 2009 - early 2010
• Private First Class Bradley Manning arrives in Baghdad, Iraq and begins downloading classified material to hand to WikiLeaks.
• 2010
• February: Manning hands Julian Assange and WikiLeaks video footage of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack the U.S. carried out on Iraqi insurgents. The footage also shows two employees of Reuters being shot dead
• April: WikiLeaks releases the footage causing a worldwide sensation under the title 'Collateral Murder'
• May 21st: Hacker Adrian Lamo and Manning begin to talk online and the soldier confesses to handing over the footage to WikiLeaks - Lamo contacts authorities.
• May 29th: Bradley Manning is arrested in Baghdad by U.S. Military authorities
• June: Manning is detained at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait and allegedly held in an eight-by-eight-foot cafe for a month
• June 6th: The United States files charges against Manning
• July 25th: WikiLeaks releases 'Afghan War Diary' - classified documents that chart the progress of the Afghan campaign from 2004-10
• July 29th: Manning is flown from Kuwait to the United States and held at the Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Virginia - where he is allegedly held in solitary confinement for nine months
• 2011
• March: Manning receives charges of 22 violations including, 'aiding the enemy'
• April: He is sent to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he is not kept in solitary confinement
• 2012
• January 8th: The judge in Manning's cases does not drop the charges against the Private First Class
• February 3rd: A military investigators says that he will stand trial, preceded by months of pretrial hearings
• 2013
• June 3rd: Bradley Manning's eight-week trial begins in Fort Meade, Maryland
• July 25th: Closing arguments delivered in the dramatic trial
• July 29th: Judge Lind announces the verdict in the trial will be delivered at 1 p.m. on July 30th

Indeed, during the trial it emerged how troubled Manning, who is openly gay, had become.
Coombs told the court that Manning sent a distressed email to his immediate supervisor, Master Sergeant Paul Watkins in 2009 telling him he was suffering from a gender identity disorder and even sent Watkins a picture of himself as a woman.
He even told Watkins his ability to work as an analyst was impaired by his emotional problems.
Fein said Manning relied on WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange for guidance on what to leak, starting within two weeks of his arrival in Iraq in November 2009.
Referring to a 'Most Wanted Leaks' list the organization published, Fein said WikiLeaks sought almost exclusively information about the U.S.
Federal authorities also are looking into whether Assange can be prosecuted.
He has been holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden on sex crimes allegations.

Still, more than three years after Manning's arrest in May 2010, the U.S. intelligence community is reeling again from leaked secrets.
The latest revelations came from former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who has been holed up in the transit area of a Moscow airport for more than a month despite U.S. calls for Russian authorities to turn him over.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has surfaced again as a major player in the newest scandal, this time aiding Snowden in eluding authorities to seek asylum abroad.
The cases of Manning and Snowden illustrate the difficulties of keeping government secrets at a time the Internet makes it easy to disseminate them widely and quickly. In addition, more people are granted access to classified data.

After WikiLeaks published a trove of documents related to the Afghanistan war in 2010, the site launched to international fame, along with its founder, Julian Assange.

'We call those types of people that are willing to risk ... being a martyr for all the rest of us, we call those people heroes,' Assange told CNN's Jake Tapper. 'Bradley Manning is a hero.'

Assange described the case against Manning, specifically the aiding the enemy charge, as a serious attack against investigative journalism.

'It will be the end, essentially, of national security journalism in the United States,' he said on the eve of the verdict.

Assange spoke to CNN from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. He is hiding there to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over allegations of sex crimes.

dailymail.co.uk

Revealed: 36 hospital wards where care is so bad patients would warn loved ones to stay away

Doctors and nurses have been warned by David Cameron that ‘standards are not good enough' after one in three patients said they would not recommend their local hospital to family and friends.
The Prime Minister said the new test would give a single measure for the quality of NHS care across the country.
The first set of results revealed patients in 36 hospital wards across England would not recommend them to loved ones.

Care: David Cameron said the new Friends and Family Test would expose areas where healthcare is poor

The first wave of the ‘Friends and Family’ test also saw one English A&E department get a ‘negative score’ - at Chase Farm Hospital, part of the Barnet and Chase Farm Hospital NHS Trust, in north London.
Patients are simply asked whether they would recommend the hospital where they were treated to their loved ones.

Each hospital is then given a score based on patient satisfaction levels - if every single patient says they would be ‘extremely likely’ to recommend the service the ward would receive a score of 100, if every single patient said they would be ‘neither unlikely nor likely’, ‘unlikely’ or ‘extremely unlikely’ to recommend the service, the trust receives a score of minus 100.
Mr Cameron, who is on holiday in Portugal, said: ‘I am determined to give patients a far greater voice within the NHS as a way of highlighting the best and worst of care within our hospitals.

Health minister Anna Soubry claims the Mid-Staffs scandal could have been prevented if the test had been in place

‘With the 'Friends and Family' test, we now have a single measure that looks at the quality of care across the country.
‘I want the NHS to put patient satisfaction at the heart of what they do and expect action to be taken at hospitals where patients and staff say standards are not good enough.’
Health minister Anna Soubry suggested that the test could have highlighted earlier the Mid-Staffs NHS scandal, in which up to 1,200 people died needdessly as a result of poor care.
She told BBC News: 'We are clearing away some of the smokescreen, some of the systems that prevented people from knowing what's actually happening in their hospitals.
'People in Stafford had known what was happening in their hospital had they been listend to then hopefully some of those people that died wouldn't have died if people had taken proper action considerably sooner.'
More than 400,000 NHS hospital inpatients or A&E attendees completed the test during April, May and June.
NHS England will now publish monthly updates to ensure patients can regularly give feedback about the care they receive.
By the end of next year, NHS England hopes to roll the test out to include GP practices, community services and mental health services. All other services will be included by April 2015.
Tim Kelsey, NHS England's national director for patients and information, said: ‘This is the boldest move yet to promote real openness in the NHS and to concentrate our focus on improvement in care.
‘At the heart of Robert Francis's report into the tragedy at Stafford hospital was one basic message: to ensure the NHS delivers high quality care for all, we need transparency of the patient and carer experience. It is the absence of this transparency that often allows poor care to go undetected.’
But Jocelyn Cornwell, director of new patient charity the Point of Care Foundation, said the data are ‘not meaningful’.
She said: ‘The way in which the data for the friends and family test is collected varies widely and is open to gaming.
‘People who respond are not part of a random sample, but are self-selecting or, worse, are encouraged to respond by staff.
‘Clearly there is a temptation for staff to encourage responses from patients who they feel will respond positively, especially as a positive result is linked to financial reward.’

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'Do you want to have sex with me?' Young attractive woman propositions men on the street for social experiment - but does not get the response she expects

A young and attractive woman who approached random men on the street for sex has revealed that half of them turned her down flat.
The woman, known only as Andrea, was filmed for a YouTube segment titled: 'Asking Guys for Sex: A Social Experiment'.
It saw her bluntly ask 14 men 'Do you want to have sex with me?' and recorded their reactions.

Missed connection: After Andrea interrupts one man's cell phone conversation with his mom, he hangs up but respectfully declines her offer

Her first target is a man coming out of a grocery store, who not only rejects her - he gets angry and calls the police.

Social experiment: Andrea asks men if they want to have sex and films their reactions

'You're gonna be in jail,' he can be heard saying as two policemen approach. 'This is not China, or wherever you're from.'
A ticker on the screen keeps track of her success rate.
It's obvious that even the men who want to sleep with her seem suspicious - or think that the whole thing must be a joke.
'Are you out of your mind?' asks a baffled young blond guy. 'Have you been drinking?'
But some of them obviously want to hold on to the fantasy.
After she assures him that she's sober and in her right mind, he relents and says 'you can come to my house if you want.'
'Pretty please?' she says to a man who appears to be in his twenties.
'You can just kind of lay there, and I'll just do my thing.'
He hesitates, but agrees and is seen walking off camera with her.
Her blunt behavior also leads to some very funny exchanges. 'Mom, I'll have to call you back,' one guy says when she interrupts him mid-conversation.

Candid camera: Some men appear shocked and ask Andrea if she is serious, yet still agree to sleep with her

Easy approach: One man hesitates, but in the end says 'Why not?' and agrees to her proposition 

No hesitation: One man offers to have sex with her on the spot, while his friend appears shocked

Taking a chance: Even though he's unsure if she is serious and somewhat afraid of getting robbed, this man still says yes to the chance of immediate sex

He appears to think about her offer, but says that he will have to 'respectfully decline.'
Two of the men who turn her down are walking with girlfriends, while another is with his daughter.

Only one young man carrying a guitar accepts the offer immediately. 'I will have sex with you right now,' he says. 'I'm serious.' 

Equal opportunity: Some of the men who say 'no' are with their girlfriends, who surprisingly don't seem angry about Andrea's approach

Forward approach: When Andrea targets a man walking out of a grocery store, he angrily lectures her ((left) before calling the police (right)

'Do you want to hang out with us first?' another guy asks. 'Not really,' she replies. 'It will be really quick, like fifteen minutes.'
He agrees to the liaison, but adds 'I better not be getting robbed right now.'

In total, Andrea had seven men take her up on her offer and seven rejections. But everyone she approached, even the men walking with girlfriends, seemed to be in a good mood when she left.
She definitely had better luck than the hapless man who filmed the 'A Guy Ask 100 Girls For Sex' video, who had to deal with angry women and having a drink thrown in his face. 

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We'll soon be able to bring dead back to life, says heart specialist: He claims he could have saved Sopranos star James Gandolfini

Medical advances mean it will soon be possible to bring the dead back to life, a doctor claims.
Modern techniques will enable a patient to be revived up to 24 hours after they stop breathing, Dr Sam Parnia says.
The American critical care physician, who trained in London, said: ‘We may soon be rescuing people from death’s clutches hours, or even longer, after they have actually died.’

Claims: Dr Sam Parnia says medical advances mean it could soon be possible to bring people back to life 24 hours after they stopped breathing. Dr Parnia also said he could have saved the life of actor James Gandolfini

He claims the US actor James Gandolfini, star of The Sopranos – who died aged 51 in Rome last month – might have survived if he had suffered his massive heart attack in New York.
‘I believe if he died here, he could still be alive. We’d cool him down, pump oxygen to the tissues, which prevents them from dying,’ Dr Parnia told Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine. ‘Clinically dead, he could then be cared for by the cardiologist. He would make an angiogram, find the clot, take it out, put in a stent and we would restart the heart.’
Dr Parnia, whose new book on resuscitation science is called Erasing Death, said death should be reversible for many patients, providing they are in the right place getting the right treatment.

‘Of course we can’t rescue everybody and many people with heart attacks have other major problems,’ he said. ‘But if all the latest medical technologies and training had been implemented, which clearly hasn’t been done, then in principle the only people who should die and stay dead are those that have an underlying condition that is untreatable.
‘A heart attack is treatable. Blood loss as well. A terminal cancer isn’t, neither are many infections with multiresistant pathogens. In these cases, even if we’d restart the heart, it would stop again and again.
‘My basic message: The death we commonly perceive today in 2013 is a death that can be reversed.’ Dr Parnia, head of intensive care at the Stony Brook University Hospital in New York, said resuscitation figures tell their own story.
The average resuscitation rate for cardiac arrest patients is 18 per cent in US hospitals and 16 per cent in Britain. But at his hospital it is 33 per cent – and the rate peaked at 38 per cent earlier this year.

Eternal life: Critical care physician, Dr Sam Parnia, said his 'revival research' is on the cusp of major breakthroughs which will allow the dead to rise again after being dead for some time

‘Most, but not all of our patients, get discharged with no neurological damage whatsoever,’ he said, adding that it is a ‘widely held misconception’ – even among doctors – that the brain begins to suffer massive damage from oxygen deprivation three to five minutes after the heart stops.
‘In the past decade we have seen tremendous progress. With today’s medicine, we can bring people back to life up to one, maybe two hours, sometimes even longer, after their heart stopped beating and they have thus died by circulatory failure.
‘In the future, we will likely get better at reversing death.’
The techniques he advocates are not cryogenics – freezing the body immediately after death – but cooling it down to best preserve brain cells while keeping up the level of oxygen in the blood. This buys time to fix the underlying problem and restart the heart, he claims.
He says that if someone collapses with a heart attack, call 999 then immediately place bags of frozen vegetables on them until the ambulance arrives, as it helps protect the brain.
‘It is possible that in 20 years, we may be able to restore people to life 12 hours or maybe even 24 hours after they have died.
‘You could call that resurrection, if you will. But I still call it resuscitation science.’

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'I drank five bottles of wine EVERY DAY and ended up on life support': Alcoholic, 45, who dreamed of becoming a model, says she regrets missing out on a career and children

The recommended maximum intake of alcohol for women is between two and three units a day, and no more than 14 units a week.
So it is little wonder that Patricia Murphy - who drank up to 350 units every week for 25 years - eventually ended up in hospital on a life support machine with cirrhosis of the liver, or that she is now waiting to be told if she'll need a liver transplant.
Patricia, 45, lives in Chessington, Surrey, and has been sober for seven months. Feeling lucky to still be alive, the former sales assistant now wishes to tell her story, hoping to warn other women about the dangers of alcohol, the legal substance which ruined her life.

At death's door: Patricia Murphy, last November, when her organs shut down as a result of cirrhosis of the liver and she had developed blood poisoning

Patricia began drinking when she was 17, after leaving school to train as a sales assistant.
Naturally shy, drinking made her feel confident among her peers, and soon she was drinking 10 double brandy and Cokes at the weekends.
When she started working in computer sales she was drinking alcohol every night with colleagues- sometimes up to a litre of brandy.
Aged 28, both her parents died within five months of each other, and alcohol became something with which she could numb her grief.

'Alcohol blocked the pain. I'd have a glass of wine in the morning, then more throughout the day. I lived alone so there was no one to stop me. I lost my job because of it.
'I was so drunk I'd forgotten to turn up and couldn't hold down a routine. My brothers and sisters told me to cut down, but I ignored them, I was ashamed at how my life was turning out but I couldn't stop.'
Soon she was drinking five bottles of wine every day, and waking up in the middle of the night sweating and shaking. She used all of her benefits money to buy alcohol, and spent all day watching TV and feeling depressed.

The effects of alcohol: Patricia, who once hoped to become a model, gained four stone and was left with a blotchy, puffy face through drinking 350 units of alcohol a week

When, aged 35, she met her partner Graham, now 42, in a pub, she couldn't hide her addiction: Graham, an engineer, was teetotal.

Despite attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, Patricia visited the doctor last November and was told her liver was seriously damaged

Graham's mother had been an alcoholic, and he persuaded Patricia into rehab - but as soon as she got out she headed straight to the off-license and bought a bottle of wine.
'We had huge rows and split up for a few months. But he took me back. I became a zombie, existing only for drink. I gained four stone and my face was blotchy and puffy.'
Despite attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and being admitted into rehab twice over the next four years, Patricia visited the doctor last November - after much persuasion by Graham - and was told her liver was seriously damaged.

What a waste: Patricia was spending all her money and time drinking wine, and now regrets not having had a career or any children

She was taken to hospital with cirrhosis and collapsed: while she was on life support Graham was told there was a five per cent chance she'd survive. A priest came to read her last rites.

'I feel so guilty about the hurt I've caused those closest to me, I'll always regret not having a career or children'

But against all the odds - and after a 10-week stay in hospital - Patricia was released. Despite her ordeal, the first thing she did upon release was buy wine. Luckily, she was disgusted with herself for doing it, and has been sober ever since.
'At the moment, doctors are happy with my progress, but my life expectancy will be affected. My liver is so scarred, iot will slowly stop functioning.'
A scan in October will determine whether or not Patricia needs a liver transplant.
'I feel so guilty about the hurt I've caused those closest to me, I'll always regret not having a career or children.'

In the beginning: Patricia began drinking brandy on weekends, but was soon drinking wine solidly throughout the day. Read her whole story in Closer, out now.

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Manhunt launched after girl, 12, is 'pinned down and raped by two teenagers' in midnight attack

A manhunt has been launched after a 12-year-old girl was raped by two men.
The girl was in Walthamstow, east London, between 12.15am and 12.30am on Saturday when she met three men, Scotland Yard said.
She was taken to a garage area at the end of Hibbert Road, near Theydon Street, where she was pinned down and raped by two of the men.
The girl managed to call a friend who came to the scene and they left together. The suspects then left the area.

Manhunt launched: A 12-year-old girl was raped by two teenagers near a garage area in Hibbert Road (pictured), Walthamstow, just after midnight, police have said

The trio are described as being between 17 and 19 years old.
The first was dark-skinned and of mixed race, with a diamond stud in his left ear and a London accent. He told the girl his name was Mo and that he was 17.

He had big brown eyes, short hair, was very skinny and wore a black puffa-style jacket with a hood, black chinos, black trainers and a grey/black T-shirt.
The second was described as black and very tall with big lips. His hair was partly shaven and he wore black trousers and a red and blue shirt.

Investigation: Scotland Yard detectives said it was a 'nasty attack on a vulnerable girl'

The third, who did not rape the girl, was black and had a moustache. He wore a blue-coloured hooded top and a red and blue cap, and told her his name was Miles.

Detective Inspector Simon Ellershaw, who is leading the investigation, said: 'This was a very nasty attack on a vulnerable girl just 12 years old by a group of older males who engaged her in conversation before leading her to a secluded area.
'She was pinned down and two of the males then brutally raped her.
'I would appeal for anyone with information or any witnesses to please contact police as soon as possible.'
Anyone with information is asked to call police on 0208 217 7408 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

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