Samuel, a doctor and fellow Kentuckian, whom
she married in 1855.
The woods and fields of Clay County were
the James boys’ playground, but there was a
dark underside to life at that time and place.
Slavery was everywhere in western Missouri,
with its numerous tobacco and hemp farms.
Clay County counted 2,742 slaves in 1850, and
six of those belonged to Reverend James (Rob-
ert sold a young slave to help finance his trip
to California). Only one of those six was an
adult, a 30-year-old woman named Charlotte,
whose work was likely confined to household
chores and caring for the children, both free and
enslaved.The James Brothers’ Civil War
Although living less than 40 miles from the
Kansas border, Jesse’s family was fairly in-
sulated from the violence over whether the
Kansas Territory would enter the Union as a
free or a slave state. The outbreak of the Civil
War in 1861, however, was another matter.
“The people were all mixed up andeven greater dream may have been the saving of
men’s souls.
A story handed down in the family tells how
little Jesse clung to his father and begged him not
to leave. Once on his westward journey, Robert
dutifully wrote home. “Give my love to all in-
quiring friends,”he ended one letter to Zerelda,
“& take a portion of it to your self & kiss Jesse for
me & tell Franklin to be a good boy & learn fast.
I must close by saying live prayerful & ask god
to help you to train your children in the path of
duty. Fare-ye-well till my next letter.”That fall,
those loving letters stopped. Robert James had
succumbed to an unknown illness in a California
mining camp.
Despite the severe hardship of Robert’s death,
and a brief second marriage to a man who was
not fond of the children (he died after falling
from his horse), Zerelda made sure that Jesse
James and his siblings were well taken care
of on the family farm—and that the farm
remained under her control. She went so
far as to insist on a prenuptial agreement
with her third and last husband, ReubenEARLY
DEVELOPMENT
This photograph
of Jesse James
(below), taken when
he was around 15,
was made using
the ambrotype
technique on a
fragile glass plate,
which has cracked in
several places.KANSAS-MISSOURI
MAYHEM
I
t sounded simple and fair: The people of Kan-
sas Territory would decide if it became a free or
slave state. That was the intent of the Kansas-
Nebraska Act of 1854. But neighboring Missouri,
which had entered the Union 33 years before, was largely
settled by people from slave states. The state’s central
Missouri River corridor, from St. Louis to Kansas City,
became known as Little Dixie. Pro-slavery Missourianspoured into Kansas to sway
the vote. Parties of North-
ern abolitionists—includ-
ing John Brown—did the
same. Open warfare soon
followed between the Mis-
sourian “border ruffians”
and the Kansan “jayhawk-
ers.” A small army of Mis-
sourians sacked Lawrence,
Kansas, a Free-Stater
stronghold, in May 1856.
Brown and his followers re-
taliated by murdering five
pro-slavery settlers nearPottawatomie Creek. The
violence of Bleeding Kan-
sas, as this series of events
is now known, continued
for four years, resulting in
the deaths of more than 50
Americans. Kansas was
admitted to the Union as a
free state in 1861, but the
Civil War would ensure
that the conflict between
bushwhackers and jay-
hawkers continued, leaving
the border region in up-
heaval for much of the war.A COLOR MAP OF THE U.S.A.
IN 1854 ILLUSTRATES THE
KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT.
NORTH WIND PICTURE/ALAMY/ACI
THE JESSE JAMES BIRTHPLACE/ MARK LEE GARDNER80 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019