Jesse James Research Papers

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He was an American outlaw, guerrilla, gang leader, bank robber, train robber, and murderer from the state of Missouri and the most famous member of the James-Younger Gang. Jesse and his brother Frank James were Confederate guerrillas or bushwhackers during the Civil War. After the war, as members of various gangs of outlaws, they robbed banks, stagecoaches, and trains. Jesse Woodson James was born in Clay County, Missouri, near the site of present-day Kearney, on September 5, 1847. This area of Missouri was settled by many Southerners and became known as Little Dixie. Jesse James had two full siblings: his older brother, Alexander Franklin "Frank" James, and a younger sister, Susan Lavenia James. His father was a baptist minister in Kentucky, …show more content…

The 1869 robbery marked the emergence of Jesse James as the most famous survivor of guerrillas. This was his first time he was publicly labeled an Outlaw, as Missouri Governor Thomas T Crittenden set a reward for his capture. Six months after the Gallatin robbery, Edwards published the first of many letters from Jesse James to the public, asserting his innocence. Over time, the letters gradually became more political in tone, denouncing the Republicans and voicing James' pride in his Confederate loyalties. Meanwhile, the James brothers joined with Cole Younger and his brothers John, Jim and Bob, as well as Clell Miller and other former Confederates to form what came to be known as the James-Younger Gang. Jesse James as the public face of the gang.On July 21, 1873, they turned to train robbery, derailing the Rock Island train in Adair, Iowa, and stealing approximately $3,000. For this, they wore Ku Klux Klan masks, deliberately taking on a potent symbol years after the Klan had been suppressed in the South by President Grant's use of the Enforcement Act. With his gang nearly annihilated, James trusted only the Ford brothers,By that time, Bob Ford had already conducted secret negotiations with Thomas T. Crittenden, the Missouri governor, to bring in the famous