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Most People Picture History Wrong, These Facts Will Set them Straight

Khalid Elhassan April 25, 2020 34 min

Franklin D. Roosevelt - Joseph Stalin — The Big Three of Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill, at the Tehran Conference in 1943. Rare Historical Photos

18. Far From a Romantic Antihero, Jesse James Was a Stone Cold Murderous Psychopath

The Lawrence Massacre, in which Bloody Bill Anderson played a leading role. Wikimedia

Nineteenth-century outlaw Jesse James (1847 – 1882) is often depicted as a romantic antihero. He was anything but. Born and raised in a part of Missouri that had strong Southern sympathies, he joined pro-Confederacy guerrillas at the start of the Civil War.

He attached himself to bands led by psychopaths such as “Bloody Bill” Anderson and William Quantrill, who committed sundry atrocities and war crimes during the conflict. Atrocities and war crimes in which Jesse and his elder brother Frank took part. Jesse was twice wounded during the war, the second occurring at the war’s end, when he was shot in the chest by Union cavalry as he tried to surrender.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.