Jesse James Research Papers

Jesse James was an American outlaw, gang leader, bank robber, train robber, and the most notorious member of the James-Younger gang straight out of Mississippi. Before Jesse embarked on his crime ridden life, he was a young boy growing up in Missouri. Jesse Woodson James was born on September 5, 1847, in Kearney, Missouri. James and his brother Frank James were educated and were raised by a prestigious family of farmers. Their father, Reverend Robert James, was a Baptist minister who married Zerelda Cole James and moved from Kentucky to Missouri in 1842. As a young boy, James had a very happy life with his siblings and his parents until his father left the family without notice. James’s mother remarried twice and this put the household in an

The humiliation of the Confederates’ lost in the war made James feel like a victim and he did not want to have to live with the guilt of being a failure of what the South stood up for. He decided to keep fighting against the North and started targeting banks. One in particular targeted in Gallatin, Missouri he knew was owned by the man that murdered one of his fellow gang members during his time with the Confederate Guerrillas, “Bloody Bill” Anderson. Still teamed up with his brother Frank James, on December 7, 1869, Jesse and his brother shot a cashier and stole some papers worth nothing. They made a promise that they would never be captured alive. James was mentioned in the newspapers for his criminal act but for some odd reason, he liked it. From that day on he started to commit more and more crimes to attract more attention to himself. Later on James was aided by an Ex-Confederate soldier named John Edwards who was a newspaper editor to tell James to begin making himself out to be a heroic Southern fighter who helped poor Missourians over ruled by the rich Republican outrages. In letters that Edwards published, James continually proclaimed innocence for specific crimes saying, "We are not thieves, we are bold robbers. I am proud of the name, for Alexander the Great was a bold robber, and Julius Caesar, and Napoleon Bonaparte." Even though the history of Jesse James was legendary there is actually no physical evidence stating that he actually gave the poor citizens of Missouri the money he stole from the rich. As time rolled by Jesse became obsessed with crime. He committed so many robberies and got away with them that he thought he was untouchable by authorities. One day, he and his gang were doing another bank robbery but this was unsafe for the gang because they were 500 miles away from