Historical person
Jesse James
1847–1882
Jesse James was a Confederate guerrilla who became a bank and train robber after the American Civil War. The James–Younger gang’s crimes and political sympathies were transformed by sympathetic newspapers into an outlaw legend, obscuring the violence and racial politics of post-war Missouri.
James fought as a teenager with pro-Confederate guerrillas in Missouri, an experience that shaped the violent networks from which the post-war James-Younger gang emerged. The gang robbed banks, trains and stagecoaches across several states while sympathetic newspapers and former Confederates helped turn James into a political folk figure. In 1882 he was shot and killed in his home by Robert Ford, a member of his own gang seeking a reward.
Hourly History’s Jesse James follows James from his service with pro-Confederate guerrillas in Missouri into the bank and train robberies of the James–Younger gang, ending with his killing by Robert Ford and the growth of the outlaw legend. The Wild West places him in a wider survey of nineteenth-century western expansion, using the James gang to illustrate how Civil War violence, railroads, sensational journalism and weak local law enforcement contributed to the mythology of the frontier outlaw.
Non Fiction
Non Fiction featuring Jesse James (2 books)
Biographies, histories and other non-fiction are listed separately from the historical novels above.
