Jesse James

[Audio] Hi, Im Collin, and I have chosen to represent Jesse James in court. To start, we need to understand who he was and what it was that he exactly did Was jesse james an American outlaw or a hero of the south? Was he a real-world robin hood or was he a self-obsessed criminal? These are the views going around about him.

[Audio] How Did he grow up? Jesse grew up in an honest, loving family. They had a farm where him and his sibblings would work to put food on the table for the family Once the civil war broke out, jesses brother had gone off to serve in the confederate army  leaving jesse with an extreme sense of pride for where he was from and his family name Not long after, a group of union solideer had attacked the farm, beating jesse and torturing his step father because of the oldest son's involvement in the war After this Jesse joined a band of confederate militia men at 16 where they participated in many brutal events, including the harsh murder of 22 unarmed union soliders.

[Audio] After the civil war was over, most people moved on with their lives and began a life of honest earning, but jesse was enraged with the outcome of the war and felt cheated by this Jesse began to rob republican banks, stagecoaches and trains  where his name quickly grew The press began to write to him, and he would respond in a way that made him out to be a robin hood figure- stealing from the rich and giving to the poor- although there was no proof of this The attention jesse was receiving only fueled his fire to keep angering the republican higher-ups Soon, his family farm was burned to the ground and one of his siblings were killed by a group of detectives hunting jesse Eventually, jesse was shot and killed by a member of his own gang that was seeking a reward put on his head.

[Audio] For the sake of this project, im going to assume that Jesse had been arrested and put on trial right before his death. In terms of his brutal actions that he had committed during the war, the nature of the environment and time period can justify this War is a dangerous place for a person to be, as it forces them to act in a way that keeps themself alive and anyone that proses a threat dead Guerilla warfare had become more prevalent in this era, completely taking the honor and fairness out of battle, where surprise ambushes and traps were means used Centralia Masacre- killing of 22 unarmed union soliders- was brutal however not anymore brutal than the attack on his family home when he was 15. The men that were killed were not innocent by any means and had just as much blood on their hands as everyone else in the war In terms of the robbing of republican institutions and killing of bank clerks Jesse believed often that the bank clerks were former union generals and would act on instinct to attack them This derives from his PTSD from the war and the childhood attack History has shown that war does unimaginable things to the human mind, completely changing the person they once were His violent nature and misinterpretation of threats is due to his war experiences, which conditioned him to act in a protective manner Regarding the death of detectives responsible for the torching of the James family home and the murder of the youngest james sibling Soon after the attack of jesses family home, murder of his youngest sibling and beating of his mother, a few detectives wound up dead with nothing but speculation that it was the doing of Jesse Though these allegations can not be proven to be jesse, If they were; however, they could be justified by the era The time period in the south valued the " eye foe an eye" thinking Jesse acted out of revenge for the horrible acts that were committed to his family and should not be punished for simply protecting them and their name In the end, Jesse james is not a brutal criminal but rather a broken solider that is burdened with the effects of war and memories of childhood torture by a foreign institution Although his actions were not moral, they can be accredited to the trauma and PTSD that he suffered.

References. “Biography: Jesse James.” PBS , Public Broadcasting Service, https:// www.pbs.org / wgbh / americanexperience /features/ james - jesse /. “Jesse James.” SHSMO Historic Missourians , 22 Feb. 2021, https:// historicmissourians.shsmo.org / jesse-james . Nix, Elizabeth. “7 Things You May Not Know about Jesse James.” History.com , A&E Television Networks, 8 Dec. 2014, https:// www.history.com /news/7-things-you-might-not-know-about-jesse-james..