"Jesse was none of these things. Underneath the layers of lies, myths, and tall tales, he was just a murderer and a thief." - EBSCO Research Starters"Hungry for a sympathetic former Rebel to frame as a freedom fighter, Southern newspapers painted James as a victim of Northern exploitation." - EBSCO Research Starters, on how the James myth was manufacturedJesse James participated in the Centralia Massacre at age 16 - 22 unarmed Union soldiers murdered, then over a hundred more killed and mutilated in the Battle of Centralia. He shot and killed a bank cashier in Gallatin, Missouri, in 1869 because he mistakenly thought the man was someone else. He robbed banks, trains, and stagecoaches from Iowa to Texas for sixteen years. He killed people who got in his way.There is no evidence he ever gave a single dollar of stolen money to anyone outside his gang.The Robin Hood story was invented. John Newman Edwards, editor of the Kansas City Times and a former Confederate officer, systematically constructed the image of Jesse James as a Confederate folk hero striking back against Northern banks and railroads on behalf of the Southern poor. Jesse James helped build it himself: he left written press releases at the scenes of his robberies, framing his crimes in the language of political resistance.On April 3, 1882, Robert Ford - a 20-year-old gang member who had secretly arranged with Missouri's governor to kill James for a reward - shot Jesse James in the back of the head while Jesse stood on a chair adjusting a picture frame. Ford was tried for murder, convicted, and immediately pardoned. Jesse James was 34 years old. Within days, the coward Robert Ford narrative was in circulation, and the man who had been a murderer and a thief had become a martyred saint.Jesse James is Book 1 of the Dead or Alive series: American outlaws whose public image was deliberately constructed - and how the myth diverged from the person.
