In 1863 Jesse James joined the war on the "Confederate side", under the self-appointed Colonel Quantrill (a sadistic man that used the war as an excuse to pillage and murder indiscriminately).
In 1866 Jesse and his brother Frank formed a gang that was going to rob banks. In February the same year they robbed a bank in Liberty, Missouri. Jesse couldn‘t join the gang at this their first robbery, but he would make up for that later. After this they robbed all the banks they could find, leaving several men dead in their trail (actually fewer than you would expect, since everyone in the gang were lousy shots).
In 1873 they switched from banks to trains. Now the Pinkerton National Detective Agency had been consulted to track down and arrest the brothers. A Pinkertonagent was shot in Liberty and the brothers were accused of the crime.
In january 1875 Pinkerton's agents (see 13.1 Pinkerton's detective-agency) surrounded the James‘ home, sure that the brothers were there. But Jesse and Frank had already escaped, so when a bomb was thrown into the house and exploded, only Archie (Jesse‘s nine-year old brother) died and their mother Zerelda lost he arm.
The following year everyone in the gang, except for Jesse and Frank, were killed by the people of Northfield, Minnesota. This made the brothers to lie low for a couple of years.
In 1879 they started robbing trains again, now with a new gang. This goes on until 1882, when Jesse is shot in the back, in his own house, by Bob Ford. The news makes big headlines, since the newspapers had portrayed Jesse as a kind of Robin Hood of the wild west (a picture far from the truth). Some months later Bob Ford was shot in an argument.