Rebel Raider to Rebel Hero

How Jesse James became one of Hollywood’s favorite outlaws.

- JOHNNY D. BOGGS

The best movie about Jesse James is Ride with the Devil, which isn’t about Jesse James, but that’s all right because the best movie about George Custer is Fort Apache, which isn’t about Custer, either, and the best movie about the O.K. Corral is My Darling Clementine, which gets almost all of the facts—including the year of the famous gunfight —wrong.”

That was the start of a speech I gave in suburban Des Moines, Iowa, in 2006. Hearing that I was writing a novel about the James-Younger Gang’s ill-fated bank robbery in Northfield, Minnesota, John J. Koblas, then president of the National JamesYounger Gang, invited me to give the keynote address at the group’s annual conference. Now, the last thing I want to do when talking to historians and, as in the case of the National JamesYounger Gang, descendants of historical figures, is bring up a subject sure to prompt arduous debate. After all, I am, primarily, a novelist, albeit one firmly grounded in history. As I explained to Jack Koblas, I did not want to get into a discussion about who was inside the bank in Liberty, Missouri, on February 13, 1866; how many bandits actually took part in the Northfield raid on September 7, 1876; what brand of revolver Robert Ford used when he shot Jesse James to death at his home in St. Joseph, Missouri, on April 3, 1882; the color of Cole Younger’s vest, if he preferred pewter or brass buttons; what cobbler made Jim Cummins’s boots; or whether the Pinkertons were nothing more than hired assassins.

So I told Koblas that I would prefer to talk about something light, maybe the movies featuring Jesse James.