THE OUTLAW JESSE JAMES (1860-1882)

LOCATION: Western Missouri

PERPETRATORS: Jesse and Frank James, the Younger brothers

MOTIVATION: Murder and robbery

BACKGROUND: 

In May 1864, the 16-year-old Jesse James joined his older brother Frank in a band of Confederate guerilla fighters.

The guerilla was in Missouri was a brutal and dirty affair in which neither side observed the usual rules of war and the murder of civilians and unarmed soldier was a common occurrence.

In 1850, when Jesse was three years old, his father went to California to find his fortune in the Gold Rush but contracted cholera shortly after arriving there and died, leaving his family in serious financial trouble.

During this period, many migrants were settling in Missouri, some of whom, like James family, came from the southern states of America and brought their slaves with them. Others came from the north and from Europe, principally Ireland and Germany, and of these arrivals were opposed to the institution of slavery.

After the civil war started in 1861, Missouri remained in the Union, but many people in the sate supported the secessionist Confederacy in the South, including the James family, who, at the start of the war, owned six slaves.

By the summer of 1864, Frank and Jesse had joined the bushwhacker band led by William T. Anderson, who had a murderous reputation and was known as Bloody Bill.

Jesse James was shot in the chest during an encounter with Union soldiers in May 1865 and spent time convalescing under the care of his cousin Zee Mimms, who he would later marry.

Jesse James appears to have rejoined his former comrades at some pint during the summer of 1866, but did not begin to emerge as a prominent figure until December 7, 1869, when he and his brother robbed the bank in Gallatin, Missouri.

One newspaperman who would become closely associated with the James brothers was John Newman Edwards and began with what we might now call a publicity campaign in their favor.

 In 1879 Jesse recruited a new gang, including the brothers Charley and Bob Ford, and set up on a crime spree.

In December 1881, Jesse and Zee James rented a house in the town of St. Joseph. It was here that, on April 3 1882, he was killed at the age of 34, shot in the back of the head by Bob Ford, who had apparently agreed with his brother Charley to kill Jesse so they could collect the reward.

OUTCOME: The civil war finally ended for James when he was shot dead by Bob Ford.