Jesse James was a legendary American outlaw of the mid-nineteenth century. As a member of the James-Younger gang, Jesse James robbed banks, trains, and stagecoaches, and extensive newspaper coverage ensured that his actions were widely known throughout the United States. During his criminal career, Jesse James and the entire James-Younger gang became a hotly debated political issue, particularly in their home state of Missouri, and since his death, Jesse James has become a legendary figure appearing and reinterpreted in innumerable books, movies, television shows, tourist attractions, and oral narratives.
Jesse James (1847–1882) was one of the most famous and infamous outlaws of the American West. A former Confederate soldier, James was portrayed by sympathetic newspapers as a heroic figure fighting against corruption and Northern tyranny. Shot in the back by a turncoat compatriot angling for a pardon, Jesse James, already a celebrity outlaw, became in death a doomed Robin Hood figure and an icon of the Old West. (Library of Congress)
Like the other members of the James-Younger gang, which included his older brother Frank, Jesse James fought for the Confederacy during the U.S. Civil War. Consequently, his robberies were seen as symbolic Southern resistance during the Reconstruction Era, a notion that was promoted by sympathetic newspapers that would often publish letters defending the gang’s actions written by Jesse James himself. The coverage and letters generated widespread public support for the James-Younger gang, who came to be seen as antagonists of corrupt financial institutions, and it was through this media image that the legend of Jesse James as heroic outlaw first started spreading through oral storytelling. In the more than a century since Jesse James’s death, his legend has continued to spread, yet the political aspects that were so crucial during his life have largely faded from significance. Rather, Jesse James now exists in public memory as perhaps the archetypal legendary outlaw.
Jesse James was born in Kearney, Missouri, into a relatively prominent and strongly religious family on September 5, 1847. His father, Robert, a Baptist preacher, was one of the founders of William Jewell College, and his mother, Zerelda, was a spirited and outspoken member of the community. Jesse’s older brother Frank joined the Confederacy in 1862, fighting under William Quantrill, a military leader notorious for using guerrilla tactics against the more powerful and better-armed Union troops. Supposedly, Union forces sought Frank at the James household, and when they did not find him, they beat up Jesse and his mother as well as attempting to hang James’s stepfather (Zerelda had remarried twice following Robert’s death in 1850). Following the event, Jesse James joined a troop led by Bloody Bill Anderson, a disciple of Quantrill’s, which is where he would learn many of the tactics that the James-Younger gang employed during their robberies.
The James-Younger gang robbed their first bank roughly one year after the end of the American Civil War (1866), stealing $60,000 and killing one man in Liberty, Missouri. Over the next sixteen years, the gang carried out many bank, train, and stagecoach robberies throughout numerous U.S. states. In response, banks and railroads jointly hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency to stop the James-Younger gang. The agency set fire to the James home in 1875, and the resultant explosion killed Jesse’s half-brother and blew off one of his mother’s arms, an event that greatly contributed to public sympathy for Jesse James. Moreover, the United States was in a depression during the 1870s, and the general public took an increasingly hostile view of banks. So strong was public support for Jesse James and his gang that a bill to pardon the James brothers nearly passed in the Missouri legislature in 1875.
The James-Younger gang would eventually fall apart following a botched robbery in Northfield, Minnesota, that landed three gang members in jail. Frank and Jesse James eluded capture, and following a brief attempt to lead a lawful life in Nashville, Tennessee, Jesse moved to St. Joseph, Missouri, where he lived under the name Tom Howard. While planning yet another bank robbery in 1882, Jesse James was shot in the back of the head, supposedly while carrying out mundane household chores, by one of his new partners, Bob Ford, who had been promised a reward and full pardon for the killing of James.
Fueled by sympathetic news coverage, as well as the dastardly nature of being shot from behind, the telling of the Jesse James legend greatly accelerated following his death. As Jesse James robbed wealthy people exclusively, he was seen by many to be a Robin Hood type, despite no evidence that he or his gang ever gave money to the poor. Nevertheless, stories began to spread of Jesse James’s generosity; a frequently shared story recounts James paying the mortgage of a poor widow who showed him hospitality while he was on the run. Another well-traveled story, for which there is some anecdotal evidence, tells of Jesse James and his gang checking for calluses on people’s hands to ensure that they never took money from a working man.
As is often the case with legendary figures, stories persist that Jesse James did not actually die in 1882. The most popular version holds that Jesse James and Bob Ford worked together to stage his death—proponents of this theory often point to a mysterious sixth pallbearer at Jesse James’s funeral, whom they insist was James himself. So popular and persistent are the tales that Jesse James did not die that his body was exhumed in the late twentieth century to conduct genetic testing. These tests concluded that it was in fact the body of Jesse James, and yet the story of his faked death still persists.
Tales of Jesse James and the James-Younger gang have been told through a variety of media. Dime novels about Jesse James started being published during James’s lifetime, and more than a thousand books have now been written about Jesse James. Likewise, his name appears in countless popular songs, and Jesse James has been a character in hundreds of movies, the first of which was a 1921 film entitled Under the Black Flag, partially funded by the James family and starring Jesse James’s son, Jesse James, Jr.
Todd Richardson
See also Bass, Sam; Boles, Charles E. “Black Bart”; Bonney, William “Billy the Kid”; Bonnie and Clyde; Outlaw Heroes
Further Reading
Botkin, B. A. 1944. A Treasury of American Folklore. New York: Crown.
Muehlberger, James P. 2013. The Lost Cause: The Trials of Frank and Jesse James. Yardley, PA: Westholme.
Settle, William A., Jr. 1977. Jesse James Was His Name; or, Fact and Fiction concerning the Careers of the Notorious James Brothers of Missouri. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Stiles, T. J. 2002. Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War. New York: Knopf.
Triplett, Frank. 2013. Jesse James: The Life, Times, and Treacherous Death of the Most Infamous Outlaw of All Time. New York: Skyhorse.
James, Jesse—Primary Document
Death of Jesse James in the News (1882)
The deeds of outlaw heroes like the Caribbean pirates of the colonial period and the gangsters of Prohibition thrilled readers and launched countless myths and legends. However, few outlaws rival Jesse James in notoriety. Already a legend for his exploits in the U.S. Civil War, he soon went on to a celebrated career as an outlaw bandit and murderer, as well as a type of American “Robin Hood,” who stood up for the poor. Accounts of his murder in 1882 drew national attention and even counterclaims that alleged that reports of his death were fabricated.
JESSE JAMES
Details of the assassination of the bandit chief and outlaw
St Joseph, Missouri, April 4 1882—Between 8 and 9 o’clock this morning, Jesse James, the Missouri outlaw, before whom the deeds of Fra Diavolo, Dick Turpin and Shindarhannes dwindle into insignificance, was killed by a boy twenty years old, named Robert Ford, at his temporary residence on Thirteenth and Lafayette streets, in this city.
In the light of all moral reasoning, the shooting was wholly unjustifiable, but the law is vindicated, and the $50,000 reward offered by the State for the body of the brigand, dead or alive, will doubtless go to the man who had courage to draw a revolver on the notorious outlaw when his back was turned, as in this case. There is little doubt that the killing was the result of a premeditated plan formed by Robert and Charles Ford several months ago.
Charles had been an accomplice of Jesse James since the 3rd of last November, and entirely possessed his confidence. Robert Ford, his brother, joined Jesse near Mrs. Samuels’ house, mother of the James boys, last Friday a week ago, and accompanied Jesse and Charles to this city Sunday, March 23. Jesse, his wife and two children removed from Kansas City, where they had lived several months until they feared their whereabouts would be suspected, in a wagon, to this city, arriving here November 8, 1881, accompanied by Charles Ford, and rented a house on the corner of Lafayette and Twenty-first streets, where they stayed two months, when they secured house 1318 on Lafayette Street, formerly the property of Councilman Aylesbury, paying fourteen dollars a month for it, and giving the name of Thomas Howard.
The house is a one-story cottage, painted white, with green shutters, and romantically situated on the brow of a lofty eminence east of the city, commanding a fine view of the principal portion of the city, the river and railroads are adapted as by nature for the perilous and desperate calling of James. Just east of the house is a deep, gulchlike ravine, and beyond a broad expanse of open country, backed by a belt of timber. The house, except from the west side, can be seen for several miles. There is a large yard attached to cottage and stable, where Jesse had been keeping two horses, which were found there this morning.
Charles and Robert Ford have been occupying one of the rooms in the rear of the dwelling, and have secretly had an understanding to kill Jesse ever since last fall. A short time ago, before Robert had joined James, the latter proposed to rob the bank at Platte City. He said the Burgess murder trial would commence there that day and his plan was, if they could get another companion, to take a view of the situation of the Platte City Bank, and while the arguments were being heard in the murder case, which would naturally engage the attention of citizens, boldly execute one of his favorite raids. Chas. Ford approved of the plan, and suggested his brother Robert as a companion worthy of sharing the enterprise with them. Jesse had met the boy at the latter’s house near Richmond three years ago, and consented to see him. The two men accordingly went to where Robert was, and arranged to have him accompany them to Platte City.
As stated, all three came to St. Joseph a week ago Sunday. They remained at the house all the week. Jesse thought it best that Robert should not exhibit himself on the premises, lest the presence of three able-bodied men, who were doing nothing, should excite suspicion. They had fixed upon tonight to go to Platte City. Ever since the boys had been with Jesse they had watched for an opportunity to shoot him, but he was always so heavily armed that it was impossible to draw a weapon without his seeing it. They declare that they had no idea of taking him alive, considering the undertaking suicidal.
Mrs. James was in the kitchen when the shooting was done, divided from the room in which the bloody tragedy occurred by a dining room. She heard the shot, and dropping her household duties ran into the front room. She saw her husband lying on his back, and his slayers, each holding his revolver in his hand, making for the fence in the rear of the house.
Robert had reached the enclosure, and was in the act of scaling it, when she stepped to the door and called to him, “Robert, you have done this; come back.” Robert answered. “I swear to God I did not.” They then returned to where she stood. Mrs. James ran to the side of her husband and lifted up his head. Life was not yet extinct. When asked if he was hurt, it seemed to her that he wanted to say something, but could not. She tried to wash away the blood that was coursing over his face from the hole in his forehead, but it seemed, to her “that the blood would come faster than she could wash it away,” and in her hands, Jesse James died.
Charles Ford explained to Mrs. James that a “pistol had accidentally gone off.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. James, “I guess it went off on purpose.”
Source: The Evening Bulletin (Maysville, Kentucky), April 5, 1882.