As well as the notorious James brothers, at various times it included the Younger brothers (Cole, Jim, John, and Bob), John Jarrett (married to the Youngers' sister Josie), Arthur McCoy, George Shepherd, Oliver Shepherd, William McDaniel, Tom McDaniel, Clell Miller, Charlie Pitts, William Chadwell (alias Bill Stiles), and Matthew "Ace" Nelson.

The gang's activities spanned much of the central part of the country; they are suspected of having robbed banks, trains, and stagecoaches in at least eleven states: Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, and West Virginia.

From the beginning of the American Civil War, the state of Missouri had chosen not to secede from the Union but neither to fight for it nor against it: its position, as determined by an 1861 constitutional convention, was officially neutral.

In the mid-1850s, local Unionists and Secessionists had begun to battle each other throughout the state, and by the end of 1861, guerrilla warfare erupted between Confederate partisans known as "bushwhackers" and the more organized Union forces.

Still, pro-Confederate guerrillas resisted; by early 1862, the Unionist provisional government mobilized a state militia to fight the increasingly organized and deadly partisans.

This conflict (fought largely, though not exclusively, between Missourians themselves) raged until after the fall of Richmond and the surrender of General Robert E. Lee, costing thousands of lives and devastating broad swathes of the Missouri countryside.

Jesse James began his guerrilla career in 1864, at the age of sixteen, fighting alongside Frank under the leadership of Archie Clement and "Bloody Bill" Anderson.

On February 12, 1866, a group of gunmen carried out one of the first daylight, peacetime, armed bank robberies in U.S. history when they held up the Clay County Savings Association in Liberty, Missouri.

[6] Jesse is suspected of having shot down the cashier, John W. Sheets, in the mistaken belief that he was Samuel P. Cox, the Union militia officer who had ambushed and killed "Bloody Bill" Anderson during the Civil War.

On June 24, Jesse James wrote a letter to the Kansas City Times, claiming Republicans were persecuting him for his Confederate loyalties by accusing him and Frank of carrying out the robberies.

On September 23, 1872, three men (identified by former bushwhacker Jim Chiles as Jesse James and Cole and John Younger) robbed a ticket booth of the Second Annual Kansas City Industrial Exposition, amid thousands of people.

Edwards soon published an anonymous letter from one of the outlaws (believed to be Jesse) that referred to the approaching presidential election: "Just let a party of men commit a bold robbery, and the cry is hang them.

[citation needed] On July 21, 1873, the gang carried out what was arguably the first train robbery west of the Mississippi River, derailing a locomotive of the Rock Island Railroad near Adair, Iowa.

In both train robberies, their usual target, the safe in the baggage car belonging to an express company, held an unusually small amount of money.

On March 11, 1874, Joseph W. Whicher, the agent who was sent to investigate the James brothers, was found shot to death alongside a rural road in Jackson County, Missouri.

[10] Two other agents, John Boyle and Louis J. Lull, accompanied by Deputy Sheriff Edwin B. Daniels to track the Youngers, posed as cattle buyers.

On April 12, 1875, an unknown gunman shot dead Daniel Askew, a neighbor and former Union militiaman who may have been suspected of providing the Pinkertons with a base for their raid.

Once there, Jesse James began to write letters to the local press, asserting his place as a Confederate hero and a martyr to Radical Republican vindictiveness.

Shortly after the robbery, Bob Younger declared that they had selected it because of its connection to two Union generals and Radical Republican politicians: Benjamin Butler and his son-in-law Adelbert Ames.

Cole, Jim and Bob Younger, Frank and Jesse James, Charlie Pitts, Clell Miller and Bill Chadwell took the train to St. Paul, Minnesota, in early September 1876.

They purchased expensive horses and scouted the terrain around the towns, agreeing to meet south of Northfield along the Cannon River near Dundas on the morning of September 7, 1876.

During the gun battle, medical student Henry Wheeler killed Miller, shooting from a third-floor window of the Dampier House Hotel, across the street from the bank.

Thirteen Swedish families lived west of Northfield in the Millersburg area in 1876, including Peter Gustafson, who had recently been joined by his brother Nicolaus and nephew Ernst from Sweden.

After several days the gang had only reached the western outskirts of Mankato when they decided to split up (despite persistent stories to the contrary, Cole Younger told interviewers that they all agreed to the decision).

The Youngers and Pitts remained on foot, moving west, until finally they were cornered in a swamp called Hanska Slough, just south of La Salle, Minnesota, on September 21, two weeks after the Northfield raid.

Peter Youngquist and Carl Hirdler donated an acre of land adjacent to their homes overlooking Circle Lake and in 1877 John Olson was hired to build the Christdala Evangelical Swedish Lutheran Church 2 miles (3.2 km) west of Millersburg.

[14] Shortly afterward, a drunk and boastful Ryan was arrested in Whites Creek, near Nashville, and both Frank and Jesse James fled back to Missouri.

[citation needed] On July 15, 1881, Frank and Jesse James, Wood and Clarence Hite, and Dick Liddil robbed the Rock Island Railroad near Winston, Missouri, of $900.

With this new outbreak of train robberies, the new Governor of Missouri, Thomas T. Crittenden, convinced the state's railroad and express executives to put up the money for a large reward for the capture of the James brothers.

[21] Bill Ayers and Diana Oughton headed a splinter group of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) that called itself the "Jesse James Gang" and evolved into the Weather Underground.