Analysis: Jesse James in His Own Defense

Date: 1870–1872

Author: Jesse James

Genre: letter

Summary Overview

Of all the outsized outlaws to stir the public imagination, none has ever equaled the stature of Jesse James. A one-time Confederate guerilla who never gave up the fight, Jesse, with the help of his brother Frank and an ever evolving gang of likeminded bandits and killers, became a sort of living myth throughout the American South and West during the 1870s. Portrayed as an American Robin Hood, stealing from the rich to give to the poor, he was made the symbol for Southern resentment against the victorious North, and later, after his own violent end, the nation's most enduring folk hero—a bulwark against the forces of modernity, which only a few decades later swelled to unmake the agrarian nation that was. But Jesse was none of these things. Underneath the layers of lies, myths, and tall tales, he was just a murderer and a thief. He was an outlaw who found brief success in the chaos of the postwar frontier.

Defining Moment

In the aftermath of the Civil War, tensions ran high throughout the old Confederacy. Anger over the South's defeat, the emancipation of the slaves, and the imposition of Northern Republican rule on state governments, swirled to create a storm of resentment. Violence flared against carpetbaggers, Union sympathizers, and recently freed blacks. As the old Southern Democratic establishment fought to regain power, millions of men who had served in the Rebel armies found little work and little opportunity in the towns and cities they called home. Some turned to vigilante groups, like the Ku Klux Klan, as a means to exact revenge for their perceived wrongs, while others decided to leverage the experience they gained in the war to seek a more lucrative form of vengeance.

Jesse James was no stranger to violence. Having been too young to enlist in the regular army when the Civil War broke out, and taught by his mother to despise the Union, he instead became a bushwhacker—a Confederate guerilla fighter—in a Missouri band led by the infamous William “Bloody Bill” Anderson. Free from the rules and conventions of war, Bloody Bill's bushwhackers instigated chaos across the state, butchering Northerners by the hundreds and spreading terror wherever they went. James, who had lost his father at an early age, admired the psychotic Bloody Bill and was deeply affected when Union forces finally gunned him down in 1864.

After the surrender of Robert E. Lee, James and his brother Frank, possessing little in the way of non-lethal skill, decided to keep fighting. Reinventing themselves as outlaws, they started robbing banks and stagecoaches. Jesse James might have been no one of consequence, just another criminal operating on the edge of the frontier, but in 1870, upon learning that Bloody Bill's killer now operated a bank in the town of Gallatin, Missouri, James murdered a bank teller in hopes of exacting revenge. Despite having botched the assassination by killing the wrong man and stealing nothing of consequence, Jesse James was suddenly thrust into the national spotlight. Hungry for a sympathetic former Rebel to frame as a freedom fighter, Southern newspapers, following the lead of the respected editor John Newman, painted James as a victim of Northern exploitation. While the James brothers robbed the banks and the railroads, murdering dozens of innocent people, Newman crafted an image of Jesse as a sort of American Robin Hood and personally edited letters written by Jesse for publication across the South. In the eyes of many, Jesse James had taken on the mantle of the Confederate cause, a “bold robber,” as he wrote himself.

For over ten years, the James gang, pursued by lawmen and even the famed Pinkerton Detective Agency, evaded capture while wreaking havoc across the American South and West. It wasn't until the 1880s that the popularity of the mythic outlaw finally began to wane. As Southern Democrats regained control of the old Confederacy, Jesse James became their problem to deal with. Out of favor, and grown increasingly paranoid and violent, James was finally gunned down in April 1882 by one of his own men on the promise of a pardon.

Author Biography

Jesse Woodson James was born in Clay County, Missouri in 1847. The son of a rabidly pro-slavery Baptist preacher, Jesse and his brother, Frank, were brought up to despise what their mother, Zerelda, considered a hostile and intrusive North. After the death of their father, and the start of the Civil War, the James boys joined the violent Confederate guerilla factions operating within the state. Jesse came under the mentorship of William “Bloody Bill” Anderson, an infamous bushwhacker, known for scalping his Union victims. After the loss of the Confederacy, Jesse and Frank became outlaws, specifically robbing stagecoaches, banks, and trains. In 1870, Jesse James gained notoriety for the murder of a bank clerk in the town of Gallatin. With help from Confederate loyalists and a sympathetic Southern press, Jesse James quickly rose to become the most famous outlaw in America. Ultimately, he was killed by Robert Ford, a member of his own gang in 1882.

Document Analysis

The first document, written by Jesse James in 1870 and edited by John Newman, is a complete denial of charges in the robbery of the bank in Gallatin, Missouri some time earlier, which resulted in the death of the bank's clerk. Although James had indeed committed the crimes of which he was accused, even boasting of it as he escaped, the letter, addressed to the Governor of the state, claims that James can produce evidence of his innocence, while also asserting that if he were to try and surrender to authorities, as he'd like to do, he'd be mobbed and lynched. In fact, the letter was a carefully crafted narrative, masterminded by Newman, to paint Jesse James as the victim of Northern persecution. A Southern man, the letter claimed, could no longer find justice in the South. James wasn't a saint by any stretch, but under a cloud of danger, he'd have to take action. The second letter, also written by Jesse James and edited by John Newman, was a more direct attack on the Republican-dominated federal government. Yes, the letter stated, James had robbed the Kansas City Exposition and had killed people in the process, but his crimes were nothing compared to those of President Ulysses S. Grant and his government. James was a “bold robber,” a man of conviction fighting for the common man, while Grant and his Northern cronies were nothing more than simple thieves. In terms that any person with common sense can understand, James had committed murder only when he had to. He was a bold robber, in the company of other bold robbers, such as Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, and William Wallace. All at once, he was a conqueror, a liberator, and a freedom fighter. A great man destined to remake the world, but also the embodiment of all Southerners.

Together these letters represent the split duality of the former Confederacy. Victim on the one hand, exploited and mistreated by a criminal government, and champion on the other, still fighting the War of Northern Aggression. Put together, they are the story of Robin Hood: victim and savior both. Forced by injustice into a life of crime, to steal from the rich to give to the poor, Jesse James would ultimately liberate those enslaved by villainy. In fact, James himself makes the connection when he writes: “Grant's party has no respect for anyone. They rob the poor and rich, and we rob the rich and give to the poor.”

Bibliography and Additional Reading

Jackson, Cathy M. “The Making of an American Outlaw Hero: Jesse James, Folklore and Late Nineteenth-Century Print Media.” PhD dissertation, University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. Print.

“Jesse James.” American Experience. Dir. Mark Zwonitzer. PBS, 2006. Film.

Stiles, T. J. Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War. New York: Random House, 2002. Print.

Yeatman, Ted P. Frank and Jesse James: The Story Behind the Legend. Nashville, TN: Cumberland House Publishing, 2000. Print.