What Drove Wild West's Jesse James To Become An Outlaw?
Tales of Jesse James's exploits have grown to almost mythological proportions since the actual man and his gang galloped over the plains stealing horses, holding up trains, and robbing banks in the years after the Civil War. Shot All To Hell: Jesse James, The Northfield Raid, and the Wild West's Greatest Escape is a new book about the legendary man.
Most people know that Jesse James, and his brother Frank were outlaws, but not why. As author Mark Lee Gardner tells weekends on All Things Considered guest host Don Gonyea, it was the violence and hatred of the Civil War that led Jesse and his gang to crime.
"It changed them permanently," he says. "Jesse was whipped by militia soldiers who were trying to get information on Frank's whereabouts. And then after that Jesse had to witness his step-father being strung up and tortured and suffocated, trying to get information from the family."
As Gardner noted, those experiences can certainly warp a person. Jesse started fighting in Missouri as a bushwhacker, or guerrilla warrior, at the age of 16. Other members in the gang, the Younger brothers, also had terrible experiences during the Civil war.
"Their father is murdered by federal militia." Gardner says. "He was a very prominent business man in Jackson County, Missouri. "