Jesse James
On September 5th 1847 Robert and Zerelda gave birth to their second child, Jesse Woodsson James. Jesse’s father Robert died in 1850 when Jesse was 3 years old. He had left behind three children Jesse, his older brother Frank, and his younger sister Susan. Jesse’s father had died without a will and the probate court made the three children the only heirs. ... He doesn’t care for Jesse or his brother and sister so they are sent to live with their legal guardian, Tilman West. ... Reuben Samuel, and in November of 1856 he takes legal custody of Jesse, his brother, sister, and their farm. On December 26, Jesse’s half sister, Sarah was born. Shortly after the Civil war had broken out, in early May of 1861, Frank, Jesse’s older brother, decides to become a soldier and fight for the Confederacy. “Forty men stood to be sworn into the company, from the newly minted captain down to the twenty-eight privates-including that sober eighteen-year old, Frank James. ... 62) Jesse is only 13 at the time and it is very probably that he was jealous of his older brother getting to fight in the war. ... ” Jesse tries to join Frank and the other bushwhackers but he is still too young. ... “In the front yard, in the center of a circle of troops, was Reuben, timid and terrified, aged beyond his years…Frank James had been identified as one of Scott’s men, Fresh reports put the band close by. ‘The militia judged him to be speaking falsely,’ Lieutenant James H. ... The Unionists arrest Reuben and Zerelda and leave Jesse to tend to the farm. This is most likely the moment that Jesse began his quest for revenge. Finally Jesse is 16, old enough to fight. Frank and some of the other bushwhackers return to the James farm to get him. Now Jesse is a bushwhacker and he realizes that the war that he is about to fight is different from any other organized war.