Jesse JamesEssay Preview: Jesse JamesReport this essayJesse James[edit] Early lifeJesse Woodson James was born in Clay County, Missouri, at the site of present day Kearney on September 4, 1847. His father Robert James was a commercial hemp farmer and Baptist minister in Kentucky who migrated to Missouri after marriage and helped found Liberty College in Liberty, Missouri. (Hemp was the raw material for rope, and a major crop in the Missouri River valley)[3] Robert James traveled to California during the Gold Rush and died there when Jesse was three years old.
After Roberts death, Jesses mother Zerelda remarried, first to Benjamin Simms, and then to a doctor named Reuben Samuel. After their marriage in 1855, Samuel moved into the James home. Jesse had two full siblings: his older brother, Alexander Franklin “Frank” James, and a younger sister, Susan Lavenia James. In addition, Reuben Samuel and Zerelda eventually had four children: Sarah Louisa Samuel (aka Sarah Ellen), John Thomas Samuel, Fannie Quantrell Samuel, and Archie Peyton Samuel.[4]
The approach of the American Civil War overshadowed the James-Samuel household. Missouri was a border state between the North and South, but Clay County lay in a region of Missouri later dubbed “Little Dixie”, where slaveholding and Southern identity were stronger than in other areas. It had been settled chiefly by migrants from the Upper South who brought their cultural practices, including slaveholding, with them. Robert James owned six slaves; after his death, Zerelda and Reuben Samuel acquired a total of seven slaves who raised tobacco on the farm. Clay County became the scene of great turmoil after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, when the question of whether slavery would be expanded into the neighboring Kansas Territory dominated public life. Much of the tension that led up to the American Civil War centered on the violence that erupted in nearby Kansas between pro- and anti-slavery militias.[5]
Following the defeat of his opponents in 1849, Mr. James had no one to lead the rebellion, but he did mobilize and win support from his neighbors, whom he was soon to become a mentor in. His father, William Clay, was the second President of the Confederate States of America. While William and Catherine Thomas Clay became the most powerful political figures in the land in 1860, Henry Clay soon thereafter took charge and had a son, Henry Henry, who became president. They were well-recognized for a strong commitment to the ideals of freedom, democracy, and religious tolerance and were in an alliance against slavery, but their own views were not completely independent. When the war broke out in 1861, the Missouri branch of a slave owned local newspaper was attacked by an army force and its owner, Henry Clay, took over. At that time, Clay did not believe that slavery had any place in the state. Instead, he thought there was no such thing in the state and that it could be brought down by “outlandishly bigoted and uneducated black people.” The Southern Army, Clay argued, would not succeed because it would never bring down slavery. The Southern Association of Sons of Confederate Veterans, a group formed to lobby members of the Missouri House of Representatives opposing a law to expand slavery into Missouri, began lobbying against the measure in June 1861; in January 1861 Congress passed a motion to enlarge the boundaries to include Virginia and the South as slaves, but Clay opposed any expansion of slaves into the county. He argued the measure would only further enslave and oppress the poor and white citizens in Missouri and Louisiana. In July 1862, Clay and the militia moved to seize power in the region. Clay’s son and future President, William Henry Clay, signed the Missouri Law providing that Missouri and Missourians were to be allowed freedom of religion, but he refused to sign the same law with the Missouri Confederacy. However, the law was vetoed by Clay, who had to fight to keep it. When Clay and others failed to protect their rights after the war, he sued the Confederate states to get their rights honored. He refused to sign and in April 1865 the law was amended to make it illegal for a local government in Missouri to provide the support to “foreign religious or military establishments” to be “involuntarily separated from their militia and members of the Militia.” When the General Assembly finally passed the constitution in May, it made Missouri its official state and declared many other states to be free. The War that lasted until the start of the War for Independence in 1865 sparked a revolution in Missouri. Clay was an ardent Democrat, and he led the South in his defense of slavery to the point of its establishment in 1862. Over the next year, Clay and other lawmakers, from the local churches to the militia, battled against the military and led the forces of the Confederacy in a bloody Civil War. In 1861, the Lincoln government forced the Confederates into allowing the Kansas Territory to give up its slavery. The battle quickly became an international one: President Abraham Lincoln appointed Clay as the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. In 1861 he became the first African-American to serve for president in a US government position and, along with Lincoln, began building military bases for African-Americans in areas surrounding Jefferson City, Louisiana. Lincoln’s vision of a strong Southern state and the importance of the South’s role in the conflict was met with national fervor.[6] When President Lincoln took office, the two-year war ended. The South joined forces with the army as part of a plan to rebuild its civil war in South Carolina. He issued a proclamation that said the federal government was the only guarantor of liberty in South Carolina. The United
Following the defeat of his opponents in 1849, Mr. James had no one to lead the rebellion, but he did mobilize and win support from his neighbors, whom he was soon to become a mentor in. His father, William Clay, was the second President of the Confederate States of America. While William and Catherine Thomas Clay became the most powerful political figures in the land in 1860, Henry Clay soon thereafter took charge and had a son, Henry Henry, who became president. They were well-recognized for a strong commitment to the ideals of freedom, democracy, and religious tolerance and were in an alliance against slavery, but their own views were not completely independent. When the war broke out in 1861, the Missouri branch of a slave owned local newspaper was attacked by an army force and its owner, Henry Clay, took over. At that time, Clay did not believe that slavery had any place in the state. Instead, he thought there was no such thing in the state and that it could be brought down by “outlandishly bigoted and uneducated black people.” The Southern Army, Clay argued, would not succeed because it would never bring down slavery. The Southern Association of Sons of Confederate Veterans, a group formed to lobby members of the Missouri House of Representatives opposing a law to expand slavery into Missouri, began lobbying against the measure in June 1861; in January 1861 Congress passed a motion to enlarge the boundaries to include Virginia and the South as slaves, but Clay opposed any expansion of slaves into the county. He argued the measure would only further enslave and oppress the poor and white citizens in Missouri and Louisiana. In July 1862, Clay and the militia moved to seize power in the region. Clay’s son and future President, William Henry Clay, signed the Missouri Law providing that Missouri and Missourians were to be allowed freedom of religion, but he refused to sign the same law with the Missouri Confederacy. However, the law was vetoed by Clay, who had to fight to keep it. When Clay and others failed to protect their rights after the war, he sued the Confederate states to get their rights honored. He refused to sign and in April 1865 the law was amended to make it illegal for a local government in Missouri to provide the support to “foreign religious or military establishments” to be “involuntarily separated from their militia and members of the Militia.” When the General Assembly finally passed the constitution in May, it made Missouri its official state and declared many other states to be free. The War that lasted until the start of the War for Independence in 1865 sparked a revolution in Missouri. Clay was an ardent Democrat, and he led the South in his defense of slavery to the point of its establishment in 1862. Over the next year, Clay and other lawmakers, from the local churches to the militia, battled against the military and led the forces of the Confederacy in a bloody Civil War. In 1861, the Lincoln government forced the Confederates into allowing the Kansas Territory to give up its slavery. The battle quickly became an international one: President Abraham Lincoln appointed Clay as the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. In 1861 he became the first African-American to serve for president in a US government position and, along with Lincoln, began building military bases for African-Americans in areas surrounding Jefferson City, Louisiana. Lincoln’s vision of a strong Southern state and the importance of the South’s role in the conflict was met with national fervor.[6] When President Lincoln took office, the two-year war ended. The South joined forces with the army as part of a plan to rebuild its civil war in South Carolina. He issued a proclamation that said the federal government was the only guarantor of liberty in South Carolina. The United
[edit] Civil WarThe Civil War ripped Missouri apart, and shaped the life of Jesse James. Guerrilla warfare gripped the state after a series of campaigns and battles between conventional armies in 1861, waged between secessionist “bushwhackers” and Union forces, which largely consisted of local militia organizations. A bitter conflict ensued, bringing an escalating cycle of atrocities by both sides. Guerrillas murdered civilian Unionists, executed prisoners, and scalped the dead. Union forces enforced martial law with raids on homes, arrests of civilians, summary executions, and banishment of Confederate sympathizers.[6]
The James-Samuel family took the Confederate side at the outset of the war. Frank James joined a local company recruited for the secessionist Missouri State Guard, and fought at the battle of Wilsons Creek, though he fell ill and returned home soon afterward. In 1863, he was identified as a member of a guerrilla