As followers of William Quantrill and "Bloody Bill" Anderson, they were accused of committing atrocities against Union soldiers and civilian abolitionists, including the Centralia Massacre in 1864.

After the war, as members of various gangs of outlaws, Jesse and Frank robbed banks, stagecoaches, and trains across the Midwest, gaining national fame and often popular sympathy despite the brutality of their crimes.

Popular portrayals of James as an embodiment of Robin Hood, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, are a case of romantic revisionism as there is no evidence his gang shared any loot from their robberies with anyone outside their network.

[1] Scholars and historians have characterized James as one of many criminals inspired by the regional insurgencies of ex-Confederates following the Civil War, rather than as a manifestation of alleged economic justice or of frontier lawlessness.

After the passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act in 1854, Clay County became the scene of great turmoil as the question of whether slavery would be expanded into the neighboring Kansas Territory bred tension and hostility.

[7][9] After a series of campaigns and battles between conventional armies in 1861, guerrilla warfare gripped Missouri, waged between secessionist "bushwhackers" and Union forces which largely consisted of local militias known as "jayhawkers".

The Union presence enforced martial law with raids on homes, arrests of civilians, summary executions, and banishment of Confederate sympathizers from the state.

[11] Frank James joined a local company recruited for the secessionist Drew Lobbs Army, and fought at the Battle of Wilson's Creek in August 1861.

[14] At the age of 17, Jesse suffered the second of two life-threatening chest wounds when he was shot while trying to surrender after they ran into a Union cavalry patrol near Lexington, Missouri.

During the gang's escape from the town, an innocent bystander, 17-year-old George C. "Jolly" Wymore, a student at William Jewell College, was shot dead on the street.

[citation needed] Local violence continued to increase in the state; Governor Thomas Clement Fletcher had recently ordered a company of militia into Johnson County to suppress guerrilla activity.

[24] Archie Clement continued his career of crime and harassment of the Republican government, to the extent of occupying the town of Lexington, Missouri, on election day in 1866.

[28] James claimed he was taking revenge, and the daring escape he and Frank made through the middle of a posse shortly afterward attracted newspaper coverage for the first time.

In the case, Daniel Smoote asked for $223.50 from Frank and Jesse James to replace a horse, saddle, and bridle stolen as they fled the robbery of the Daviess County Savings Bank.

The robbers inside the bank were thwarted when acting cashier Joseph Lee Heywood refused to open the safe, falsely claiming that it was secured by a time lock even as they held a Bowie knife to his throat and cracked his skull with a pistol butt.

[1] By that time, Bob Ford had conducted secret negotiations with Missouri Governor Thomas T. Crittenden, planning to bring in the famous outlaw.

[53] Crittenden had made capture of the James brothers his top priority; in his inaugural address he declared that no political motives could be allowed to keep them from justice.

Barred by law from offering a large reward, he had turned to the railroad and express corporations to put up a $5,000 bounty for the delivery of each of them and an additional $5,000 for the conviction of either of them.

In the course of a single day, the Ford brothers were indicted, pleaded guilty, were sentenced to death by hanging, and were granted a full pardon by Governor Crittenden.

James's mother Zerelda Samuel wrote the following epitaph for him: "In Loving Memory of my Beloved Son, Murdered by a Traitor and Coward Whose Name is not Worthy to Appear Here.

The documentary was dismissed as pseudo history and pseudoscience by historian Nancy Samuelson in a review she wrote for the Winter 2009–2010 edition of The James-Younger Gang Journal.

[69] Oran Baker, Hood County sheriff, conducted a visual postmortem exam and found he had thirty-two bullet wounds and a rope burn around his neck.

[71] James's turn to crime after the end of the Reconstruction era helped cement his place in American life and memory as a simple but remarkably effective bandit.

[73] During the Populist and Progressive eras, James became an icon as America's Robin Hood, standing up against corporations in defense of the small farmer, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor.

[60][75][76] However, renewed cultural battles over the place of the Civil War in American history have replaced the long-standing interpretation of James as a Western frontier hero.

Thousands of visitors watch reenactments of the robbery, a championship rodeo, a carnival, performances of a 19th-century style melodrama musical, and a parade during the five-day event.

[90] The annual Victorian Festival in Jersey County, Illinois, is held on Labor Day weekend[91] at the 1866 Col. William H. Fulkerson estate Hazel Dell.

Over the three-day event, thousands of spectators learn of the documented James Gang's stopover at Hazel Dell and of their connection with ex-Confederate Fulkerson.

[92] The small town of Oak Grove, Louisiana, also hosts a town-wide annual Jesse James Outlaw Roundup Festival, usually in the early to mid autumn.

Written by Nunnally Johnson, the supporting cast includes Henry Hull, John Carradine, Brian Donlevy, Jane Darwell and Lon Chaney Jr..