Jesse Woodson James (1847-1882) is a member of the Bloody Bill Anderson gang, which was engaged in robbery and murder during the American Civil War. He was shot with a revolver by accomplice Robert Ford.
- Where is everyone? Frank asked.
“In the church,” said the clerk.
“So much the better,” said Jesse, and pulled out a revolver.
William Bloody Bill Anderson and his men were not part of the regular Southerners. They were partisans and acted independently during the war between the North and South. Once, escaping pursuit, Bloody Bill ordered his men to turn to face their pursuers and open fire. After half a minute, it was all over. The Bloody Bill guerrillas emerged victorious from the battle. In particular, a 17-year-old daredevil from Missouri who had just joined the detachment distinguished himself, who killed several people with shots from both hands at once. His name was Jesse James.
Partisan
Anderson's partisan detachment clashed with the northerners in 1864, shortly before the southerners were finally defeated. When the war ended, Jesse headed north with his brother Frank and several other ex-guerrillas under the white flag. They were forgiven.
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But Jesse's sins were forgiven by people far from the war from Washington. The northerners had a special opinion on this matter. James's squad was ambushed, he himself was wounded in the chest and was only miraculously saved.
Back in Missouri, brothers Jesse and Frank began working on their farm. However, peasant life was no longer for them. And perhaps she was never for them. Indeed, even during the war, the James went not to the regular units, but to the Bloody Bill gang.
Be that as it may, in 1866 the brothers gathered a small gang and began to rob banks. They preferred to act in two ways: traditionally and in a partisan way. In the first case, the bandits simply pointed revolvers at bankers and demanded money. In the second - at first they drove into the houses of the inhabitants and only then went to take the bank. In addition, sometimes they released the inmates of the local prison.
Soon the whole country started talking about the impudent bandit. But it was not possible for a long time to find him, and even more so to convict of the crimes committed. It wasn't until late 1869 that Jesse's gang attacked a bank in Gallatin, Missouri.
The clerk raised the alarm as soon as the gang left the bank. The hijackers rushed to the horses, but Jesse was unlucky. At the time when he put his foot in the stirrup, the horse, frightened by the screams, dashed and dragged him 10-15 meters along the ground. Frank rushed to the rescue, helped his brother to free himself from the stirrup and, having put him behind him, rode away.
Unable to immediately arrange a pursuit, the discouraged Gallatians did the only thing left for them - they caught the horse. She turned out to be unusually thoroughbred - this was already evidence (like today a custom-made Ferrari). Jesse's passion for beautiful horses was well known. In addition, one of the townspeople drew attention to the fact that the leader of the gang does not have a phalanx of the middle finger on his left hand - Jesse inadvertently shot it, cleaning the revolver on the evening of that memorable day when Anderson's squad left the chase. In general, James was able to figure out.
However, they still could not prove anything. The absence of a phalanx is not evidence, but about the horse, James said that it had been stolen from him long ago. As for the witnesses - clerks and others, they apparently decided not to get involved. The authorities followed suit.
Artist
Jesse would never have been able to find all-American fame if he were a common robber and murderer. It's pretty boring. To get people to talk about themselves, you need to impress them with something. Jesse was second to none in her ability to do this.
1871 June - Jesse James and his comrades (with him were his brother Frank, cousins Cole, Jim and John Youngers, with whom he raided gardens and vegetable gardens since childhood, Jim Cummings, Charlie Pitts and Ed Miller) were brought to Coridon, Iowa. Upon entering the city, they did not see a single person on the streets. Even in the bank - no one. 5 people remained on the street, 3 - James and Cole Younger - entered the building. There was only one clerk. “Where is everyone?” Frank asked. “At the church,” said the clerk. "Listen to Mr. Dean." “So much the better,” said Jesse, and pulled out a revolver.
Scratching the bottom of the barrel, the bandits collected no less than $ 45,000 (a very good salary in those days was $ 750 a year), loaded the precious load on the horses and headed to the outskirts of the city. Then Jesse stopped the cavalcade, jumped off his horse and went to the church. He stood in the middle of the aisle and raised his hand. "What's the matter, young man?" - dignifiedly addressed to him Mr. Dean. “Sir,” Jesse said drawling his words and anticipating the effect, “then some thugs came to the bank, tied up the cashier and cleaned out all the boxes. So the guys would have better hurry there."
Jesse is said to have very clear blue eyes. At that time, a mute scene should have been reflected in them - the unexpectedly speechless preacher Mr. Dean and several dozen corridors frozen with horror. Not even Jesse's demonic laughter brought them out of their stupor. Laughing at the top of his lungs, he left the church, jumped into the saddle and left the city he had fooled.
A little later, Jesse got a paid informant on the railway, informing the criminals when the next batch of gold was being prepared for shipment. After the first train robbery (then the gangsters took $ 22,000) Jesse drove up to the driver and handed him a sheet of paper covered with writing: "Pass it to the newspapers." The sheet read:
The most daring robbery in history
The train heading south was stopped at the Iron Rock tonight by 5 well-armed men who stole $ _ (Jesse provided the reporters with the necessary amount - Ed.). The robbers arrived at the station a few minutes before the train, arrested the agent, turned the switches and stopped the train. The robbers are all big men, just under six feet tall. After the robbery, they left in a southerly direction. All were on beautiful horses.
PS It's a hell of a lot of fun in this land.
In reality, there were not 5 robbers, but 10. But the fact that they left in a southerly direction and had beautiful horses is the true truth. Jesse played for sure. He understood well that the newspaper people would still believe him no more than if he wrote that he had gone north and on a stubborn mule. On the first - and only on the first! - the strips of local newspapers commented on the message of the All-American criminal: Jesse James is covering his tracks.
Meanwhile, James could only go south and only on a beautiful horse. As befits the symbol of the defeated but unconquered South. A national hero who declared himself an avenger. American Robin Hood, who robbed these presumptuous Yankees and skelovogi (supporters of the North among the Southerners), who owned most of the banks and transported their gold by rail. The southerners did not have that kind of money after the war, because Jesse James' partisanship was considered a holy cause.
Jesse did not rob his own. More precisely, I tried not to rob. And more precisely - the southerners simply forgot about it. Because it was much more pleasant for them to remember the cases when the stern James showed justice.
So, with the next raid on the stagecoach while collecting taxes from passengers, one of them began to protest violently. By accent, the bandits recognized him as a fellow countryman. Huge, covering the entire passage, Cole Younger asked him a question: "Are you a southerner?" - "Yes, sir". - "Have you been in the Confederate army?" “I had the honor, sir.” “State your rank, regiment and commander,” Younger ordered. The passenger complied. “We are not robbing Southerners, especially Confederate soldiers,” Cole said at the time, and gave him back everything he had just taken. "But the Yankees and spies are not concerned."
The question is, could Jesse not become a national hero after this? A man with such a sonorous name, who goes out to business dressed up, on an expensive horse, just asks for the pages of westerns and love stories. Jesse's courage and generosity were legendary during his lifetime. Either he helped the poor widows, then he protected the boy from scoundrels, then he gave money to an orphanage, so that "the kids would have something to eat in winter." Perhaps this is a lie. But what was certain was that dozens of those killed who paid with their lives for their sluggishness - they did not have time to give Jesse the wallet or the keys to the safe.
Farmer
The artist needs to feel when it is time for him to leave. For an ordinary artist it is a matter of fame, for a criminal artist - life and death. Jesse did not notice such a moment and paid dearly for it.
The period of confusion in front of crime has passed. While you are robbing somewhere far away, you are a brave guy who is not afraid of anyone, and I respect you. However, if you robbed a bank in my city, where my money is (already!), Then you are a scoundrel and a scoundrel, and I, together with my neighbors, take weapons and start persecuting. This is doubly true for the West - a country of pioneers, hardened in battles with Indians.
1876 Jesse decides to raid Northfield, Minnesota, home to the richest bank in the Midwest. His people - there were 8 in total (two James, three Youngers, Charlie Pitts, Clell Miller and Bill Chadwell) - gathered like a parade. Boots are polished, suits are ironed. The king would not disdain to ride any of their horses.
On August 7, they reached Northfield. Jesse entered the bank along with John Younger and Pitts. Miller and Cole Younger remained at the entrance. Frank, Jim Younger and Chadwell sat on horseback at the end of the street looking like people who don't know exactly where to go: they were covering the escape route.
It all happened unexpectedly. Clell Miller paid little attention to the man heading to the bank. He simply took him by the collar and said: "Shut up, you bastard." But the owner of a small store, Allen, turned out to be not timid. “For weapons, guys! They are robbing the bank! " He yelled.
It was then that Jesse became convinced that times were changing. Hearing Allen's cry, the townspeople did not hide as one might expect - they actually took up arms.
Student Henry Wheeler, who came to his hometown on vacation, happened to be nearby. He rushed to his house for weapons, shouting: “They are robbing! Robbing! They are in the bank! " Cole Younger and Miller mounted their horses and, along with Jim Younger, Frank and Chadwell, raced down the street: “Hide! Hide!"
However, the armed townspeople were already pounding from all doors. Some impudent people have galloped into their city and ordered them to hide! They are being robbed! Robbing their bank! The wrong ones were attacked.
At that time, the bank also did not go according to the script. At Jesse's demand to open the safe, the cashier only threw up his hands: the lock, they say, with a clock mechanism - you just can't open it. The safe was not actually locked, but it had never occurred to Jesse or Bob. Then they noticed a clerk rushing towards the back door. Pitts shot him, but missed. Shots were heard from the street. Pitts rushed to the door and saw that almost the whole city was shooting. "Drop everything," he shouted to Jesse, "or they'll shoot us like rabbits!" - and ran out. Jesse and Bob followed him. Some of them, turning with anger, shot the cashier in the head.
A terrible sight awaited them on the street. One of the townsfolk stuck a charge of buckshot in Miller's face. Filled with blood, he drove from end to end of the street and fired blindly. A stray bullet hit a bystander.
The criminals had a bad time. An unidentified Northfield bank depositor has already slain Bill Chadwell. Miller was finished off by the tireless student Wheeler, who returned to the battlefield with his father's shotgun. Then a descendant of the pioneers wounded Bob Younger. But neither the James, nor the Youngers, nor the Charlie Pitts, who ran down the street, holding the reins in their teeth and firing from both hands, showed no miracles of accuracy.
When all the bandits were wounded except the lucky brothers James, Jesse led the squad out of town. The gang drove off a few miles and stopped. Bob Younger was bleeding. Jesse examined the wound and told Cole to either keep Bob or end his suffering. Cole silently reached for the revolver with the clear intention of killing not Bob but Jesse. He said that he would never leave his brother, and offered to disperse peacefully. On that and decided.
After this disastrous sortie, Jesse and Frank took refuge in Tennessee, where they settled on small farms. Jesse adopted the name Howard and even showed his favorite horse at local races. It is difficult to say what the inhabitants thought of the tall man with blue eyes and without the last phalanx of the middle finger on his left hand, who had a passion for good horses. But Jesse-Howard was not disturbed.
Perhaps he was not really recognized. Perhaps they were afraid. Or maybe no one cared about the national hero who turned into a provincial farmer. Isn't it true that for the biography of American Robin Hood, such an end sounds somehow not entirely convincing.
Jesse James himself is a criminal; he hardly wanted the last pages of his life to be written in the genre of a classic western. It's just that this man could not live without thrills. Three years later, he was fed up with the measured farming life and he put together a new gang.
Dead man
1879, October 7 - James stops a train near Glendale. Catch - $ 35,000. The reward, which, after a series of new robberies, was promised by the authorities for his head, is $ 25,000. For Frank's head - $ 15,000. Previously, one could promise at least a million - no one would betray the James. However, now the danger came even from insiders. The members of Jesse's new gang were no longer the cousins with whom the James stole carrots from the neighboring gardens as a child. These were Charlie and Bob Fords, Ed Miller, Dick Liddell, Wood Hight and others - people ready to lay the chieftain at any opportunity.
Jesse was forced to seal his power over accomplices in blood. It was rumored that he himself shot Ed Miller when he announced that he wanted to surrender to the authorities. Then Wood Hight was killed. Dick Liddell was able to escape - he confessed and told the authorities everything he knew.
1882, April 3 - both Fords arrived at Jesse's house. Allegedly to discuss a new robbery plan. In fact, Bob Ford agreed with the authorities to hand over the chieftain for amnesty and a reward. The way Jesse behaved at this meeting suggests that he knew everything. James decided to play hide and seek with death.
In between, he read Dick Liddell's confessions published in the local newspaper. Then, throwing away the newspaper, he went to the window. Turned around. Noticing that the picture, which was hanging high on the wall, looked askew, went towards it. On the way, he took off both belts with revolvers, a regular one and a shoulder belt, which he did not part with even at night, and hung them on a chair. Approaching the picture, he began to correct it.
All the while, Bob Ford was drenched in a cold sweat. He was completely stunned with fear and, seeing the back of James in front of him, drew his revolver and fired. Then he ran out into the yard and yelled in a voice that was not his own: “I killed Jesse James! I killed Jesse James !!! I killed…"
Hero
The bandit and murderer, as the best son, was mourned all over America. Therefore, the verdict handed down to Frank James, who surrendered to the authorities six months after his brother's death, surprised few people: he was acquitted.
Bob Ford performed on various shows, where he told again and again how he killed Jesse. He even did a stage adaptation. Again and again the artist-partner corrected the picture, and Bob bravely and decisively shot him in the back. True, single. This unpretentious performance enjoyed unwavering success with the public for 10 years. By the end of the decade, they began to throw all kinds of rotten stuff at Ford, but they still went to watch. Until one day, instead of a rotten egg, the artist received a charge of lead - on June 24, 1892, a certain Kelly, a relative of the Youngers, fired his shotgun into Bob.
The victim outlived her executioner. Many books have been written about Jesse James, almost 30 films have been shot. The first of them was released in 1921, the last - "How the cowardly Robert Ford killed Jesse James" - in 2007. The image of Jesse James has not faded away in popular memory. It has acquired more and more new legends, behind which over time it has become difficult to discern a real person. So difficult that, probably, there was not and there is not a single American who, as a boy, would not dream of waking up one fine morning as Jesse James - a criminal, a murderer.
A. Soloviev