American History

The Assassination of Jesse JamesElmer I. EspirituNormalElmer I. Espiritu4DbTd.,D.,M 0Caolan80 6wBlZZZL88,jWX The Assassination of Jesse James

Jesse James (1847-1882) was regarded as a legend in his time.  His claim to fame was being an outlaw along with his brother Frank and his gang who were former Confederate soldiers who staged a series of robberies following the end of the American civil war.  News of their deeds traveled far and wide and although it made the law obsessed in tracking them down and bringing them to justice, James and his gang were greatly admired and given uncommon adulation by the people in the old west who regarded them more as Robin Hoods than hoodlums.

After a string of robberies and deaths under his belt, Jesse James planned to settle down permanently but it did not happen when met his tragic end in 1882 not in the hands of the law that wanted to serve justice, but in the hands of one of his gang members, Robert Ford who idolized James and professed in wanting to be like him and because of what he did, some branded him a  coward   because he shot him the the back.  Despite Ford s deed, there are those who were not convinced that Jesse James was killed by Ford and that everything was staged to make James  disappear  from the long arm of the law and a gimmick on the part of Ford to make himself famous.  Despite the controversy, the author is convinced that Jesse James died in the hands of Robert Ford.

This paper intends to look into the death of Jesse James though it will also look into the points raised that James  assassination was a hoax and staged to allow James to forever escape the law and live in relative peace for the rest of his life.  After providing the background of both men involved, James and Ford, an analysis and conclusion shall be drawn to validate the thesis statement given above.

Background
Jesse Woodson James was born on a farm in Kearney, Missouri on September 5, 1847. to the Reverend Robert James, was a Baptist minister, and Zerelda Elizabeth Cole. Jesse was the third of four children with his brother Frank (Alexander Franklin) being the eldest.  By the time Jesse turned 15, the civil war broke out, and he joined Quantrills Raiders, a group of pro-Confederate guerrillas, conducting covert operations behind Union lines fighting and sabotaging the Union armys resources in the service of the Confederacy. It was here that Jesse acquired the skills and the experience of killing people he would later use in his outlaw  career  following the end of the civil war. When the war ended, Jesse was not happy on how the war turned out when the Confederacy was defeated.  He wanted to continue the war albeit more private and personal and Jesse came up with a rather  unique way of continuing the war which was to rob banks that supported the Union.  At the age of 19, he formed a gang, made up of himself, his older brother, Frank and cousin, Cole Younger, Jesse and his gang began a spate of bank robberies in since 1866.

After a string of bank robberies, they would take a break for sometime before resuming again.  Their notoriety grew and the names of the gang became household names.  They became so well-known that they were even credit for robberies they did not actually commit. Strangely enough, Jesse James legend began to grow and became the object of public adulation in 1866 when people, especially southern sympathizers and  oppressed  ones who lost their property due to  greedy  bankers began reading stories written by John Newman Edwards who would follow the exploits of the James Gang and was a former Confederate soldier who naturally sympathized with the Gang.  Because of the way Edwards presented his stories, it would appear as though he was glorifying the James Gang.

Because of this, Jesse and his gang were considered heroes by many though the law still regarded them as outlaws who needed to be brought to justice.  In all practical purposes, Jesse James became Americas  Robin Hood  though he did not actually give to the poor any money except vindication, giving them some measure of justice when the law could not redress their grievances.   As his band dwindled, James took on new members and among these fresh faces to join his gang was a young man named Robert Ford who idolized him.  He would eventually be the one who would take his life in 1882.

Robert Ford was born in 1860 in Ray Country, Missouri.  He was too young back then to take part in the civil war though he already began following the exploits of Jesse James and his gang ever since their raider days.  Along with his older brother Charles, they joined the Jesse James Gang in 1879 after the gang was depleted due to the deaths and retirement of several of its members, including Jesses older brother Frank who permanently settle down in relative comfort and obscurity.  Since he was young, Robert, or Bob acted in a supporting role such as watching the horses while the rest of the gang, including his older brother, committed the robbery.  Most of the new batch of gang members were pretty young, a far cry from the battle-hardened bunch Jesse led yet his insecurity caused him to kill some of his men while others decided to leave the gang for good if they were not killed yet.  Because of his apparent mistrust of the rest of his men, Jesse came to trust the Ford Brothers more and even allowed them to stay with him in his house as his  bodyguards.  The Fords resided in St. Joseph with James where Jesse lived under the assumed name of Thomas Howard while the Ford brothers passed themselves off as his cousins, Bob and Charles Johnson.

Despite deeply idolizing James to the point of emulation, the Ford brothers were secretly conspiring against him.  Bob was brought before Missouri Governor Thomas T. Crittenden  because he was already made out as being associated with the Gange when he was seen in the presence of Jesses cousin. Governor Crittenden was obsessed in bringing law and order to his state and made it his  crusade  to bring down Jesse James, one of the most wanted men in Amerca.  Crittenden proposed that the Fords kill Jesse James and in exchange, they would collect the 10,000 bounty and be granted a full pardon personally from himself if they would do the deed.

On April 3, 1882, while Jesse and the Fords were having breakfast, James learned of the death of his cousin Wood Hite and he became wary of the Fords for not telling him since they were with Hite at the time and had a sinking feeling he might be betrayed though he never showed it.  As James was adjusting a picture hanging askew on the wall, he took off his guns, laid them on a table and got on a chair to adjust it.  While he was doing that, Bob Ford appeared and shot him while his back was turned.  Jesses wife Zerelda appeared, screamed and called Ford a killer which he denied.  Afterwards, he and Charles sent a telegram to the governor before turning themselves in.  Surprisingly, they were arrested, tried for first degree murder and sentenced to be hanged but were immediately acquitted by Crittenden.  The brothers did not receive the promised sum and instead got a fraction of it.  They later on toured the country reenacting the death of James which was a flop in most cases.  In 1892, Bob Ford met his end in a similar manner at the hands of a deranged man named Edward OKelley who was tried but released on grounds of insanity.

Argument   James  Death was Staged
Despite the facts presented by history, there are those who are not convinced that the man Robert Ford shot was Jesse James.  Several proofs, evidence and testimonies have been presented to support these claims.

Betty Dorsett Duke, who claims to be a direct descendant of Jesse James albeit under a different name, she has presented several proofs or pieces of evidence to validate her claim that since her grandfather lived to be an old man, this could not the Jesse James killed by Robert Ford and this was all in the book she wrote and published titled The Truth About Jesse James.  In her introduction, she believed that the Ford brothers were hungry for publicity and felt that killing Jesse James would enhance their image. But she pointed out that they were part of a conspiracy to  insure that Jesse James was officially declared dead so he could make a fresh start and they could get the reward money.

In one chapter, the author enumerated several instances to prove that her grandfather (J.L. Courtney) was indeed Jesse James.  The supporting evidence is based on  Courtney s  diary which Duke has in her possession.  The entries list the exact names of Jesse James  gang as well as known members of the Confederate Army.  He had the habit of signing his name  J. James.  Courtneys military records show that he fit the description of Jesse James in physique and appearance although James was a member of an irregular military unit.  The main point is to prove that Dukes grandfather was not the same man killed by Robert Ford in 1882 that he lived to a ripe old age.

It can further be inferred that one has to take into consideration that James was a former soldier though an unconventional one.  As a member of a unit that would be classified as a  special operations unit  by modern standards (Quantrills Raiders), Jesse James was hardened by his wartime experience and given the nature of such units, developed acute survival skills to enable them to cope with any situation such as living off the land, reappearing and disappearing at will.  If this were to be the basis, it would be unlikely that James was killed by Ford and that James may have staged his death as a way to forever elude the long arm of the law and live in obscurity under a different identity and live out the rest of his life a free man not having to pay for his crimes.   It can be speculated that the only way to disappear would be to  die  and it would appear that the Fords and even his wife were made to go along with the ploy.  One evidence here was James willingly laid down his guns as he tried to fix a picture rather than keep them on his person as though he was willingly presenting himself as a target to Ford.  James had killed some of his gang members whom he had suspected of trying to betray or kill him in the past and this would be very unusual or something out of character for a cautious, if not paranoid man like Jesse James.

Argument   James Was Indeed Killed
Whereas there are claims that Jesse James staged his own death to forever disappear from the law, there are those who are firmly convinced that James did die on that fateful April of 1882 at the hands of Ford.

Robertus Love, in his book, The Rise and Fall of Jesse James, supports the claim that Jesse James was shot by Ford.  Besides accounts of the actual killing, one has to take into consideration that Bob Ford and his brother Charles were convicted of killing Jesse James and were sentenced to be hanged and they were fortunate to be acquitted in time by Governor Crittenden as Loves entry reads
 Robert Ford, aged twenty, and Charles Ford, twenty-four, were found guilty of the murder of Jesse W. James and were sentenced to be hanged. Two hours after the court pronounced sentence, the wires carried the news  the issuance a pardon to each from the governor of Missouri.

It can be inferred here that the accounts supporting the claim of James deaths were true.  This is further supported by this swift and sudden pardon of the Ford brothers by Governor Crittenden who delivered on his promise as soon as he received word and confirmation of James death although he did not follow through on the promised monetary rewards.  It would be unlikely that Crittenden would not grant the pardon if he found out the Fords were lying all along and made up the story they killed James.  This would suggest that Crittenden got confirmation from other sources to corroborate the Fords claim to ensure they were not trying to dupe him although he did  dupe  them on the money by claiming he never made any promise of a 10,000 reward and the Fords only got a pittance for it.

Conclusion
The author would like to conclude that Jesse James was indeed killed by Robert Ford in 1882.  If there is one supporting reason for saying this, it is science through present-day DNA testing to support numerous eyewitness accounts in 1882 on the death of Jesse James.  Scientific (DNA) reports were accurate by 98 to 99 percent and this should put aside any doubts on the remains buried on the spot where Jesse James was buried.

Despite claims to the contrary, one of the problems which made these claims lack credibility was they are mostly hearsay and there is the likelihood, that those who claim to be Jesse James may have known or heard about him and took on his identity just so to perpetuate his legend that he was not killed.  It would turn out later that despite knowing things Jesse James personally knew, it was science again that refuted these claims and further reaffirmed the death of James in 1882.

One also has to take into consideration on what became of James assailant, Robert Ford following James death.  Ford tried to make a fortune by capitalizing on his new-found reputation as James killer but unfortunately, nobody gave him praise for killing James and instead of being respected as a hero, he was reviled as a coward, a testament to the adulation James continued to receive from many people.  But still, the mere fact he was branded a coward proved that he did kill James though not in a rather dignified manner when he shot him the in the back, an easy kill for a man who was considered hard to catch and kill and shooting him in the back was probably the only way to get Jesse James for good and this was further reinforced by a movie made in 2007 titled The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford with Brad Pitt playing Jesse James and Casey Affleck as Robert Ford.  The movie has sort of given life to these accounts that James was indeed killed by Ford and further reinforced it.  As far as everybody knows, Jesse James died ingloriously, at the hands of Robert Ford who unfortunately did not get the glory he was hoping for and ironically, he made James even more legendary in death.