Jesse Woodson James, was born in the small town of Kearney, Clay County, Missouri on 5 September, 1847. His father, Robert, a Baptist Minister, died when Jesse was aged just 2, and the family, Jesse’s older brother Alexander Franklin James and his younger sister Susan Lavernia, were raised for a short time on her own by their formidable mother, Zerelda. However, she remarried twice during Jesse’s lifetime, first, briefly, to Benjamin Simms, and then in 1855 to to a doctor, Reuben Samuel. These liasons were to provide Jesse with a further 4 half-brothers and sisters.

Missouri was a Border State and along with Kansas tensions ran high between pro and anti-slavers. The Kansas-Nebraska Act had left the slavery issue in the Border States to be settled by those on the ground. Jesse’s father had owned slaves whom he had used to grow tobacco on the farm. Likewise, his step-father Reuben Samuel, was also a slave owner, and it was clear from an early age where Jesse’s sympathies lay.

Upon the outbreak of the Civil War, Frank James left the family home to join the local pro-southern guerilla bands, in particular Quantrills Raiders. Encouraged by his close friend and Bloody Bill Anderson’s second-in-command Archie Clement, Jesse joined the gang in 1863 when aged just 15. He fought alongside Quantrill and was believed to have been present at the attack upon the town of Lawrence during which more than 150 unarmed civilians were summarily executed (Frank certainly was). He was though an enthusiastic participant in the massacre at Centralia, and it was around this time that he became acquainted with many of his future gang, including the Younger brothers.

Because of Frank and Jesse’s pro-rebellion activities during the war the James family were forcibly expelled from their land and made to abandon their home, and for a time they were itinerant. It grieved Jesse greatly that his family were made to suffer for his activities and that he was unable to defend them. Furious with the Federals for punishing innocent women and children he would avenge himself upon them time and time again, indeed it was an anger that was never to leave him. At the war’s conclusion both Jessie and Archie refused to surrender either their weapons or themselves and in the fierce firefight that followed Jesse received a gunshot wound to the chest that almost killed him. Both, however, managed to make their escape.

The conclusion of the Civil War left Missouri lawless and in turmoil. The slaves had been freed and now made up the best part of the State Militia, known ex-Confederates were barred from voting or holding public office, northern carpetbaggers bought up land cheap and asset-stripped abandoned farms, while Federal placemen governed the State as if were a colony. Frank and Jesse James, who had participated in some of the worse atrocities of the Civil War, remained wanted men despite the loudly-mouthed platitudes of reconciliation.

On 13 February, 1866, Archie Clement and his gang robbed the bank in the town of Liberty, Missouri (now widely acknowledged as the first peacetime bank robbery in American history) and it is almost certain that Frank and Jesse participated. Later the same year Clement occupied and robbed the town of Liberty, killing the Mayor and two others in the process.

Archie Clement. or ‘Little Arch’, he was only 5.2″, besides being the first professional bank robber in American history was determined to prolong the Civil War at all costs. He had taken charge of Bill Anderson’s gang following Anderson’s death in October, 1864, and as far as he was concerned the Civil War had never ended. In 1866, elections to public office were being held throughout Missouri. With the disbarrment of ex-Confederates from the electoral roll the Republicans were widely expected to win. Clement and more than a hundred former fellow Confederate Bushwackers through acts of intimidation and violence ensured that the elections went the way of the pro-Confederate Democrats. On 13 December, 1866, in an act of bravura he led his men in a show of force through the streets of Lexington. Major Bacon Montgomery, in charge of the State Militia, declined to confront Clement instead placating him by acknowledging his de facto authority. Perhaps lulled into a false sense of security, Archie returned alone to Lexington later that same evening to drink in the saloons. Hearing of this Montgomery determined to arrest him. Surrounding the saloon where he was drinking with armed men, Montgomery demanded Clement’s surrender. Instead ‘Little Arch’ came out fighting. Dodging the bullets that whistled about his head and tore at his clothes he managed to mount his horse. Galloping down mainstreet at a furious pace, firing as he went, it looked at one point as if he would escape, but not far from safety he was seen to slow, writhe in his saddle, and slump to the ground. Prostrate on the ground and unable to move his arms he was seen to pick at his pistol with his teeth. Approached by one of the Militiamen who said to him  ” Arch, you are dying. What shall I do with you? “, Arch replied, ” I have done what I said I would always do, that I’d die before I ever surrendered.” He was 19 years of age.

Following Archie’s death his old friend Jesse James was more than willing and able to take up his mantle. Jesse didn’t come to prominence, however, until his cause was taken up by the pro-Confederate journalist, John Newman Edwards from Kansas. He would write up Jesse’s escapades and portrayed him as an honourable man leading Southern resistance to Northern expliotation and oppression. He hailed Jesse’s achievements and published his letters. 

Jesse, his brother Frank, the Younger brothers, and other ex-Confederate guerillas, now referred to collectively as the James Gang, set about staging a whole series of spectacular bank, train and stagecoach robberies as far away as Iowa, Texas and West Virginia, as well as nearer to home in Kansas and Missouri. Often they would play to the crowd and even on one memorable occassion robbed a State Fair. Jesse rarely robbed civilians which soon acquired him the reputation as a Robin Hood character, though there is little evidence that he ever gave money away to the poor, or indeed to anyone else.

In December, 1869, Jesse and Frank alone, robbed the Davis County Association Bank in Galatin, Missouri. It was intended to be a murder raid. A Director of the Bank was Samuel P Cox whom Jesse believed had set the ambush that led to the death of Bill Anderson. Jesse had previously vowed to personally kill Cox. During the robbery the bank cashier was shot dead in cold blood. Jesse had believed him to be Cox but it was a case of mistaken identity.

Such was the reputation and fame of the James Gang, such was their notoriety their every move was reported in newspapers across the country, the Authorities were determined to bring them to justice. One man, in particular, became obssessed with doing just that. Allan Pinkerton, the emigre Scotsman who had founded the Pinkerton Detective Agency and had been the main source of intelligence gathering for the Union forces during the Civil War, now decided to target the James family home and kept it under constant 24 hour surveillance. After agents who were despatched to infiltrate the gang or ingratiate themselves with the family were found murdered, Pinkerton decided to act. On the night of 25 January, 1876, Pinkerton agents fire-bombed the James home. In the explosion Jesse’s mother Zerelda lost an arm, and his young half-brother Archie was killed. The Nation was appalled. were the Authorities so desparate for revenge that they were willing to kill children! Pinkerton’s reputation was in tatters and Jesse was more popular than ever. The events of early 1876 were to be the high-water mark of Jesse’s fame but things were soon to take a decided turn for the worse.

On 7 September, 1876, the James Gang entered the town of Northfield, Minnesota. It was their intention to rob the First National Bank. Jesse was aware that on its Board of Directors were a great many ex-Union Generals. It represented for Jesse and his comrades, therefore, a nest of vipers to be cleaned out. But despite considerable pre-planning the whole escapade soon began to unravel. The cashier refused to be intimidated and falsely claimed that the safe had a time-lock and that he was unable to open it. They pistol-whipped and beat him severely but still he refused. Then another cashier tried to flee the bank and was shot. Hearing the commotion townspeople now began to gather in the street outside the bank. The Younger brothers standing guard outside fired into the air to disperse the crowd. Much to their amazement some of the locals took cover and began to fire back. Jesse decided that the gang should make their escape while they still could. Frustrated at being unable to open the safe, Jesse shot the cashier in the head. As the gang fled 2 were killed and all the others wounded. The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid, as it was to become known, had been a fiasco. It was now Jesse’s reputation that was in tatters, demonised as cold-bloodied killers, the James-Younger Gang was destroyed.

In the years immediately following, death, defections, and imprisonment effectively destroyed the original James-Younger Gang. By 1882, the Civil War was becoming to many people a distant memory. Those who wished to continue it by proxy were at best an inconvenience. No longer the darling of the press and shorn of his popularity as the Robin Hood of the West, Jesse tried to settle into an ordinary life with his wife and two small children. But it didn’t work out. Unable to work, in constant threat of arrest, and fearing betrayal, he lived in a secret address under an assumed name. He was though desparate for money. Against the advice of his wife who emphasised his responsibilities now as a father, Jesse decided to form a new gang. But they, unlike his old comrades, had no connection to his past and no Confederate affiliations. Increasingly suspicious of everyone around him the $5000 bounty on his and his brother Frank’s head only increased his paranoia. Always unpredictable and increasingly unstable, he had already murdered one of his gang he thought might betray him, he now insisted that the others, Bob and Charley Ford, stay with him at his home where he could keep an eye on them. Unknown to Jesse, however, Bob Ford had already been in negotiations with Missouri Governor Thomas P Crittenden, to bring Jesse to justice. On 3 April, 1882, as he and the Ford’s were preparing another robbery, Jesse suddenly removed his coat and gunbelt (something he never did) to mount a chair and straighten a picture. As he did so, prompted by his brother Charley, Bob Ford took out his pistol and shot Jesse in the back of the head. He died instantly. But why did Jesse behave in such an uncharacteristic way. Was he testing the fidelity of his friends? Perhaps, it was after all, time to die.

Bob and Charley Ford had committed murder but they did nothing to hide what they had done. Indeed, Bob wired the Governor demanding his share of the reward. Instead, much to their surprise, both  Bob and Charley Ford were tried, convicted and sentenced to hang for the murder of Jessie James by a Missouri Court. Just a few hours after their conviction, however, Governor Crittenden pardoned them. Having received just a small portion of the reward Bob and Charley, fearing for their own lives, were forced to flee Missouri. But there was no place to hide from what they had done. On 6 May, 1884, Charley Ford committed suicide. Bob Ford, after briefly trying to cash in on his fame, descended into a life of alcoholism and violence. He was shot to death in a bar room brawl in the town of Creed, Colorado, on 8 June, 1892.

After learning of his brother’s death, Frank James surrndered himself to Governor Crittenden on the promise of a fair trial, and he was indeed acquitted of the charges brought against him despite being just as culpable in deed as his brother, Jesse. He never tried to cash in on his, or his brother’s fame, until very late in life, and he survived by doing mostly menial jobs. He died in 1915, aged 72.

Following his death the legend of Jesse James just grew and grew, and not all displayed Frank’s rectitude. His mother Zerelda certainly had no qualms about making money from her son’s demise. She chose for his epitaph the words, ” In Loving Memory Of My Beloved Son, Murdered By A Traitor And Coward, Whose Name Is Not Worthy To Appear Here. ” Inscribed on his tombstone she then charged 25 cents a time for people to see it.