The Surprising Case for Jesse James as a Great Missouri Writer

There is no doubt that Jesse James is one of the most colorful personalities in Missouri history. I've seen him labeled as an outlaw, a hero, a thief, a murder, but the one aspect of his life I rarely see mentioned is what a great writer he was. I'll do my best to explain why.

Let's start with the era that Jesse James was born into. He entered this world on September 5, 1847 and left it (involuntarily thanks to the coward Robert Ford) on April 3, 1882. I saw a biography on Jesse James shared by PBS that said "Jesse James never stopped fighting the Civil War" and I think that's true. But, I've just come across a video that asserts something that I don't hear that often about Jesse James. It says that Jesse James was a PR mastermind.

The Historic Missourians website explains how Jesse James would write letters to John Newman Edwards, the editor of the Kansas City Times. Their story says that Edwards was sympathetic to Jesse James and his Confederate cause and would publish his letters where Jesse would proclaim his innocence. This is how Jesse James used his writing skills to shift the narrative away from him being a cold-blooded killer to a "Robin Hood type".

Not everyone bought into the stories that Jesse James was writing about

Robert Pinkerton famously wrote about Jesse James in 1879 that "I consider Jesse James the worst man, without any exemption, in America. He is utterly devoid of fear and has no more compunction about cold-blooded murder than he has about eating his breakfast".

I can only find evidence that four major letters written by Jesse James were ever published, but that just reinforces my point that his writing ability has been underreported over the years not for the elegance of his prose, but for Jesse's ability to craft an image of a hero that lives on to this day. If you ask any random person in Missouri about Jesse James, I predict that more than half will consider him a hero or at least a sympathetic character. Not many writers can accomplish such a great feat with just four letters.