Traditionally, Jesse James has been portrayed as a Wild West bandit, a Robin Hood of sorts. But in this meticulously researched, vividly written account of his life, James emerges as a far more significant figure- a ruthless, purposeful and intensely political man who used his crimes and notoriety to promote the Confederate cause during the bitter decade that followed Appomattox. Raised in a fiercely pro-slavery atmosphere in bitterly divided Missouri, he began at 16 to fight alongside some of the most savage Confederate guerrillas. In the bloodshed and bitterness that followed the Civil War, we see James and his fellow guerrillas, with their gunfights and holdups, become part of the intensely brutal struggle by the White South against the racial egalitarianism and Federal power fostered by Reconstruction. We see how James placed himself squarely in this context with his thirst for attention, his partisan pronouncements and his alliance with a rising ex-Confederate newspaper editor who helped shape James's image for their common purpose. In using violence and the news media on behalf of a political cause, Jesse James was neither a Robin Hood nor a quaint Wild West figure. Rather,Author BiographyT. J. Stiles studied history at Carleton College and Columbia University, where he was awarded a President's Fellowship. He has written about American history for Smithsonian and the Los Angeles Times, and is the editor of a five-volume series of anthologies of primary sources. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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