Jesse James : Last Rebel of the Civil War

Rating:
Summary: Good writing, but not definitive
Review: T.J. Stiles book is well written and has uncovered some new sources, but falls short of being the definitive work on the subject. The author has a tendency to present his speculation on a certain episode as fact, when in point the evidence is inconclusive if one looks at the primary sources. It's such a good, free flowing narrative that one is tempted to suspend any disbelief one might have, which is quite a quality. However, this works much better for historical fiction than for history, where one must tell the reader up front what is speculation in a "scholarly" work, as this book claims to be. I'm sorry, but this is simply popular history with source notes and bibliography. Stiles writes as though he was there, looking over the shoulder of the outlaw and inside his mind. But how could he over a period of over 125 years? Much of the documentation for the James story is fragmentary. This work, in many ways, reminds me of Edmund Morris' biography of Ronald Reagan, DUTCH, where the author assumes the role of a fictional character in the book to narrate it.Inventive, yes, a "good read", yes, good biography....well.......Some people questioned it, as I do here with this book.

Stiles seems to focus with tunnel vision on Jesse James, and leaves us with a blurry, if incoherent view of the role of his brother Frank in all of this. Frank is not quite the innocent Stiles makes him out to be, nor did he have a "banal existence" in his later life. Read Yeatman's FRANK AND JESSE JAMES for "the rest of the story", as Paul Harvey would put it. This is not to totally demean Stiles work. He has done a good bit of digging, but a good bit of what he presents was first surfaced by Yeatman two years ago. Some of this he chose to ignore and not address, probably because it weakened his thesis about Jesse James. Yeatman's book came from a small publisher and did not really receive the media attention this book has drawn.

With regard to the Northfield raid, Stiles' seems intent to pick that place as the target in advance because Adelbert Ames was somehow associated. What is not mentioned is how other banks were cased as well, such as that in Mankato. Mankato and surrounding area had been hit by grasshoppers and the gang decided to look further east. It was common practice for the gang to case several banks over a wide area before settling on a target. According to Cole Younger, it was the rumor that former Gen. Ben Butler had funds in the bank that was at least in part responsible for the targeting of it.

He does a fair job on parts of the Civil War, but one must understand he writes with a rather obvious bias to the North. Lawrence, Kansas is portrayed as just an innocent settlement, when in fact it was a place where loot taken by the Jayhawkers in their raids into Missouri had been fenced. Nor does he tell us that the killings of Bond and Dagley in June of 1864 were motivated because both had been a party to the raid on the James homestead almost a year before, and one had a role in the hanging of Jesse's step-father. They are presented to the readers as an example of senseless and unmotivated killing by Jesse and the guerrillas. This was mentioned in Yeatman's book, but, strangely, not here.

I'm afraid that the definitive book on the James story remains to be written, though this has certainly added a number of pieces to the puzzle. I would have like to have given it higher marks, but storytelling alone doesn't make good history. If it did, this might well deserve a Pulitzer.

Rating:
Summary: Thoroughly researched biography of both the man and his time
Review: T.J. Stiles' biography of Jesse James is in the "Life and Times" form. As Stiles admits, it is impossible to really know Jesse James. Much of his life passed in obscurity. While letters attributed to him were published in the newspaper, their authenticity has always been open to question. Stiles is careful to report what is reliably known about James, but to note any contrary facts that call into question his conclusions about what Jesse James actually did or said. Because neither he nor any members of the gangs he belonged to provided an account of how the groups worked together, it is impossible to know how dominant Jesse James was until his last years, when death, capture, or loss of interest removed most of his contemporaries from the scene. At this time he had to rely on younger men like the Ford brothers, which proved his undoing.

Stiles sees James as a product of his times, the Civil War. Unlike the large battles of the East or even what is considered the Western theaters of the war, the Civil War in Missouri was mostly a small-scale but brutual conflict, with murder of unarmed civilians the norm. In contrast, for all of the hatred that Sherman that incurred as a result of his march through Georgia and the other Confederate states, few if any civilians were physically harmed; the damage was done to property instead. Jesse James served with some of the most brutal leaders in the war, and most of the men he and his comrades killed were murdered, not killed in combat. Stiles is careful to point out that Jesse James also suffered at the hands of Union forces, being beaten as teenager and seeing his stepfather hanged (but not killed). Even given this mistreatment, it is hard to justify James' actions during and after the war.

Stiles's biography is likely the best that we will have about Jesse James. One can argue about how much politics played in Jesse James's motivation, but Stiles makes a convincing case that he was strongly motivated by a hatred for the North. This may have been the prime reason that he and other engaged in the disastorous attempt to rob a bank in Northfield Minnesota; one of the owners was a Northern soldier who had been governor of Mississippi during the reconstruction.

As for the negative reviews that are contained here, Stiles's has thoroughly identified his sources. Thus, those who are experts in this area (and I do not claim any expertise) can judge the basis for any statements he makes in the book. In the end, he presents a convincing picture of Jesse James as someone brutalized by the Civil War and who found that enjoyed the brutality. Stiles also shows how Jesse James became more than a common robber because he was politically useful in the struggle for control of Missouri in the aftermath of the Civil War.

Rating:
Summary: The Last Rebel was Also a Politician.
Review: T.J. Stiles' writings on American history have included articles in Smithsonian magazine, essays in the Los Angeles Times and the Denver Post. Stiles' biography on Jesse James is presented in a clean, crisp style and one that is also well documented (100-plus pages of notes).
The writing in "Jesse James" is often very engaging and intimate as if conveying a fantastic bedtime story to a child. However, one may easily forget at times the book is about James. As much as this is a James biography it is equally (especially during the first 200 hundred pages) a history book on Missouri twenty years before the Civil War. Yes, you need to write about the backdrop, the context from which a character like James emerges, but it appears to be overkill here. I slept at times during the first half of the book as I was told ad nauseam the spirit of the times and James' personality fit together perfectly to produce a rebel who would not accept the Civil War's end. History buffs that like to know every crevice of an era will appreciate the myriad of details that are informative, but for most the lack of any real new knowledge will produce boredom.
Around page 200 as the Civil War is ending, the text becomes infused with a lively energy as the main character James takes center stage for good. James was known by many labels-hero, bandit, robin hood, rebel and so on. Stiles boldly rips away the aforementioned masks and reveals a far more complex man-a political activist. The author states, "The Civil War created the most politically active population in perhaps all of American history, and nowhere more than in badly divided Missouri." James' home was the border state of Missouri: a slave state that did not secede from the Union during the Civil War and a state where complete political power transferred to the North during Reconstruction. Stiles precisely illustrates how James and various other Confederate guerrillas ignored the surrender at Appomattox and continued to fight in order to resurrect the Confederate Democrats' power.
As we learn more about James we also learn a dark part of American history. Stiles states, "James's life illustrates how bitterly divided Americans have been in the course of their history." James refused to let the Radicals and Reconstruction keep control over Missouri. His targets were for money, excitement, and fame, but also as the author conveys convincingly, the horrific violence was used to further a political agenda. James was able to accomplish his political goals by masterfully manipulating the media during his outlaw days.
"Jesse James" is a thought-provoking look at the man and his times. Redundancy does rear its ugly head at times during the first half of the book, but Stiles does shed light on Jesse James and an emotionally-charged period of American history.


Rating:
Summary: Fascinating history, great read
Review: T.J. Stiles's excellent new biography on Jesse James--gripping from beginning to end--makes a compelling case that James, no Robin Hood, was a publicity-hungry terrorist who embarked on a killing spree to avenge the lost Confederate cause.

The book is packed with fascinating accounts not just of James, his family, and his gang, but of the times that shaped him. Especially interesting are Stiles's accounts of slave life and the fratricidal struggles that characterized Missouri's politics leading up to and during the Civil War.

Though it is clear Stiles spent a great deal of time researching his subject, he wears his scholarship lightly. The book reads very well, almost like a novel, and is not larded down with mundane details that seem to diminish the power of so many biographies written today. Highly recommended!

Rating:
Summary: David Ables - UMBC History Major Review on Jesse Jame
Review: T.J. Stiles. Jesse James Last Rebel of the Civil War. New York: A.A. Knopf: Distributed by Random House, 2002. pp, ix-489, Index, $27.50 (cloth), ISBN 0-375-40583-6; $16.00 (paper), ISBN 0-375-70558-9.
Reviewed by David Gabriel Ables, University of Maryland Baltimore County.
Published by History 201 (March 2004)

T.J. Stiles opens "Jesse James Last Rebel of the Civil War," with the murder of this notorious outlaw in St. Joseph, Missouri on the morning of April 3, 1882. Stiles captures the mind with this tragic ending and makes us ask, "What forces, what conflicts, and what wounds," lead Jesse to this outcome. Through out this book Stiles evaluates all the things that has guided Jesse Woodson James to a life of crime and rebellion. Stiles will also debate the question, "To what extent was Jesse James a participant in his rise to legend, in his symbolic role in the public eye?" With these inquirys at hand we push forward into the times before, during, and after the Civil War in the context in the State of Missouri.

Within the first chapter, Stiles tries to get us to understand what lead Jesse to become a rebel and Confederate. He does this by showing us how he was raised and the people that he interacted with growing up. Stiles goes into great detail about his father, Reverend Robert James and the Pastor's views of slavery. Stiles discusses the hardships of loosing his father at three years old, to the ever growing separation of ideals of the North and South. This will escalade Stiles' stance as to what causes Jesse to join the Confederated side of the war and eventually lands Jesse in the war as a Guerrilla. From Jesse's Guerrilla days Stiles will show us how Jesse started his life of crime that inevitably finds Jesse dead in St. Joseph. Stiles also shows us how outside influence has made Jesse's name rise above the names of his fellow outlaws. He does this by insisting the idea that if the leader of the guerilla groups had lived for as long as Jesse did after the war then Jesse would never be so well know. He also shows how he had help with his image from a Confederate sympathizer and founder of the Kansas City Times newspaper, John Newman Edwards.

This is Stiles first book on the subject as well as any other topic, but has written several essays on the topic according to his official web site www.tjstiles.com. Through this site he does show how he researched this topic for this book, as well as discusses were he fond some of the primary sources he used. Stiles graduated from Carleton College as well as Columbia University were he received two graduate degrees.

Stiles sites numerous newspapers from Missouri that were published at the time of Jesse James' life. He sites such historical books as Homer Croy's book "Jesse James was My Neighbor," published in 1949, Frank Triplett's book, "The Life, Times, and Treacherous Death of Jesse James," published in 1882, and Robertus Love's, "The Rise and Fall of Jesse James," published in 1926. These were considered good historical reads of their day but have not the background of new evidence about certain issues that have been brought to light since their publications. The biography and endnotes alone consists of 86 pages of this 510 page book.

In his history of Jesse James, Stiles tries to distinguish himself by using an overwhelming amount of primary sources that illustrate the social and economical struggles that were going on at the time. In this I feel he spent more time talking about those around Jesse than Jesse himself. You can see poring out from his commentaries that Stiles thought that Jesse was not a noble creature, but a criminal and murder hiding behind the support of the areas popular view of the Confederate rebels.

The book read like a well crafted story, touching on historical antidotes about each character that you met along the way. Such as when he sites the words of Major General Sterling Price of the Confederate Army describing William 'Bloody Bill' Anderson, when Anderson presents Price with a pair of silver-plated pistols, "If I had 50,000 such men, I could hold Missouri forever." These little quotes pull you into the fabric of the story that Stiles is weaving. My only bitterness in this book is that Stiles spends so much time talking about what lead up to the Civil War in Missouri and the reactions of the Missourians there after, that it looses its intended target, Jesse James. I did however learn a lot about the times and area of Missouri; that I as a former Missourian had not know.

I recommend this book for anyone that would like to know see how the troubles of a society can lead someone into a life of crime as well as those interested in the what lead up to and the reactions of the people in Missouri, concerning the Civil War . This book also entails a lot of historical documentation on Jesse James and his family, as well as the people that influenced his life.

Rating:
Summary: Good Biography but flawed Theory
Review: The author posits that Jesse James' career as an outlaw was really political terrorism directed at the policies of the Radical Republicans after the Civil War. He uses as evidence Jesse James writings to newspapers and the use of James as a political tool by others, such as John Edwards, a Democratic newspaperman. And he claims that James' targets were politically motivated as well. I'm not buying it.

Jesse James, was plainly and simply, a career criminal. Stiles' theory of violentization does seem correct, where at the age of 16, James became a bushwacker and participated in some of the most violent and dirty fighting of the Civil War. After the war, all James really knew was violence and turned to crime and banditry because that's what he knew best. James' writings to newspapers and the basking in the adulation of politically motivated men like Edwards was simply a stroking of his ego.

A perfect example of Jesse James' character can be seen when he tried to live a normal life. His brother Frank, who was also a bushwhacker and criminal as well, only wanted to settle down and have a normal family life. And was successful and happy doing so. Jesse got restless and just couldn't do it - going back to his life of banditry and crime.

Again, I think this is an excellent, well-researched biography, but it makes Jesse out to be something he wasn't.

Rating:
Summary: Much more than a biography
Review: The United States has never truly come to grips with its history. Slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and white supremacy are the designs on our national Rorschach test. People who are serious about history and what it means to be a U.S. citizen have wildly divergent interpretations. Any book that squarely addresses all four subjects is bound to be a veritable minefield. And when the prism used to revisit these issues is America's most mythic outlaw-Jesse James-an author is overtly offering to rewrite history.
T. J. Stiles has undertaken this task. He has written a densely detailed account of the James brothers involvement in the Confederate guerilla organizations led by William Clarke Quantrill and "Bloody Bill" Anderson. Stiles then argues that Jesse became the leader of the James-Younger gang-men who continued the Missouri bushwhacker tactics after the end of the war. And, more importantly, Jesse and his gang had the same motives as the bushwhackers. As the title implies, Stiles biography is not about an "outlaw." Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War is the story of rebel, a traitor, a man who could not and would not accept Northern victory and racial equality.
This book requires careful reading. I suggest using two bookmarks so the reader can quickly turn to the endnotes. Those notes are invaluable in grasping the scope of Stiles portrait of Jesse James. The author is intentionally challenging several long-held beliefs about this period of history and the criminals that became folk heroes. His interpretation is solid and he has logic and scholarly support behind it.
In the second to last note, Stiles references a book that was published just as his own was going to press: David Blight's Race and Reunion. Blight's masterful book should be next on the reading list for anyone who is intrigued by Stiles' biography. Both books make a strong case that the cultural icons that were created in years immediately following the Civil War have distorted our view of history toward sympathy for the Confederacy, Lost Cause mythology, and unrepentant criminals (like Jesse James) who refused to accept a federal victory and a slave-free culture.
In his final chapter, Stiles confronts the questions that his biography raises. It is a concise indictment of the myth that has surrounded Jesse James for years. For anyone concerned with the importance of history, this chapter alone makes Stiles' book one of the year's most important.

Rating:
Summary: Better luck next time.......
Review: This appears to be the author's first stab at historical biography, and as such is a bit of a disappointment. It reads well, but one is constantly aware of it's bias. It tends to judge the past based on the present as the author sees it; monday morning quarterbacking as it were. The author's version of the Civil War has the radical Republicans able to do no wrong.
What he misses is the fact that both sides committed atrocities.
This is history at its most politically correct. Sort of like an account of the war in Iraq as written by someone in the West Wing of the White House. The book presents some incidents as "fact" that actually can't be verified, despite the extensive notes. He has Jesse entering the bank at Northfield when it has never been fully established which of the bandits entered. The idea of Jesse James is a Confederate "terrorist" is flawed. One is expected to see political manifestos handed out AT robberies, if this be the case. At best, Jesse seems to have been after the money and hiding behind the editorial writings of John N. Edwards, who DID have a political agenda to restore a two party system in Missouri after the war. In reading this book one has the feeling that imposition of the "old order" was the only thing the Democrats were after following the war. It was more complex than that. Prior to this revisionist account, it was generally assumed that Edwards was behind the letters that appeared in his newspaper. There are no Lawrence-style massacres in connection with robberies, on several occasions the outlaws even told people they just wanted the money, but this fails to be mentioned. I expect we'll have a book that claims that Bonnie and Clyde were politically motivated "terrorists" next. I presume the "terror" hook was intended to sell books. This book is going for bargain basement prices for good reason.

Rating:
Summary: The Definitive Biography on Jesse James
Review: This biography of Jesse James treats its subject right. The book gives the reader a rich background of what was going on in America and a serious look at who James was. Stile reveals that James' story has more to do with the Civil War and its aftermath than with the conditions that produced frontier outlaws. If you want to know the truth-and not the movie version of James' life-read this book. You'll come away with not only a greater understanding of who James was, but also what drives humans to do the most noble and the most horrible things.

Rating:
Summary: A rivetingly entertaining & invaluably informative book.
Review: This book engages you from the very beginning, primarily because of the context & perspective into which Mr. Stiles puts all the characters & events. He powerfully demonstrates how frontier violence & the outlaw gangs that became & still are such a strong part of the mythology of this country had their origins after the civil war with guerilla "bushwhackers" llike Quantrill's raiders & Bloody Bill Anderson's gang (the James Brothers were members of both before striking out on their own) as a form of terrorism against former Unionist foes.

It's highly entertaining as well, much more, in my opinion, than most works of fiction on similar subjects, & never more so than in the riveting & detailed depiction of the prelude, event & aftermath of the disastrous Northfield Minnesota raid. From the lunatic political logic of its genesis to the appalling & pathetically grim aftermath of the escape, (the James brothers horseless at one point & subsisting on foraged potatoes & field corn)this is spell-binding stuff.

Among the many fascinating things I found out along the way were that "gun-slinging" as such did not exist before the war between the states; that local banks printed their own "currency" until the 1860s when state & national banks took over & lent stability to the monetary system; that the express companies were the ones who suffered the most financially when trains were robbed, the railroads sustaining relatively minor financial damage; that before the James Gang & their ilk, most robberies involved little violence.

It's a book that leaves you with enormous insights into the historical workings of the press, of government, of the many contemporaneous industries of the day & their impact on the social & political fabric that is still 100% relevant to this day. It reminds me of the kinds of books Barbara Tuchman used to write.

It's a superb work. I cannot recommend it highly enough.