Volume 50, Number 3 · February 27, 2003
A Confederate Guerrilla
By James M. McPherson
Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War
by T.J. Stiles
Knopf, 510 pp., $27.50
One of the enduring myths of American folklore is that Jesse James was a home-grown Robin Hood who 'stole from the rich and gave to the poor,' in the words of 'The Ballad of Jesse James,' which enjoyed a revived popularity among the romantic left in the 1960s. Supported by Hollywood movies, pulp fiction, and even serious scholarship, this image has dominated our understanding of the post–Civil War James gang and other western outlaws. The British historian Eric J. Hobsbawm placed James squarely in the category of 'social bandit.' He was a 'primitive rebel,' a 'noble robber' who championed 'a special type of peasant protest and rebellion.' He was one of the 'peasant outlaws...who remain within peasant society, and are considered by their people as heroes, as champions, avengers, fighters for justice.'[1]
Review, 2549 words
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