The years following the Civil War were a time of great unrest. It was an era that gave rise to the Western outlaws. They were bandits, gunfighters, and rustlers — men guilty of a thousand crimes — but they were also to become an important part of American folklore.
First among all these “American Robin Hoods” was Jesse James, who was born on September 5, 1847, in Clay County, Missouri. By 15, he was fighting in the Civil War with his older brother Frank, in the pro-Southern guerrillas led by William C. Quantrill. After the war, Jesse, his brother, and cousins Cole, Bob, and Jim Younger, formed a highly successful gang. They held up banks, stagecoaches, and trains, until 1876 when the gang was shot to pieces by the folks of Northfield, Minnesota, when they tried to rob two banks at once. The Youngers were captured and sent to prison. The James boys escaped and formed a new gang. Jesse was shot and killed by fellow gang members Bob and Charlie Ford, while straightening a picture in his own home. The Fords were pardoned by the governor. This outraged so many Missourians that Frank James was found innocent when he stood trial later that year.
Second only to the James Brothers in fame is William H. Bonney — better known as Billy the Kid. Born in New York City on November 23, 1859, he moved to New Mexico as a youth and by the time he was a teenager was already into the short, bloody career that would make him a legend. By 18 he had killed 12 men and was taking part in a bitter range war in Lincoln County, where he killed a sheriff and a deputy. Captured and sentenced to hang, Billy escaped from jail, killing two guards as he made his getaway.
Billy the Kid was shot to death on July 13, 1881, by Sheriff Pat Garrett, one of his oldest friends. He was just 22 years old when he died and had killed a man for every year of his life.
Other famous outlaws included John Wesley Harding, Sam Bass, Black Bart, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and the Dalton Brothers — Bob, Grat, and Emmett. The Daltons were distant cousins of the Jameses and Youngers. And like them, tried to hold up two banks at once — this time in their own hometown of Coffeyville, Kansas. The brothers and three other gang members were shot down in the streets by the people they had grown up with. Only Emmett, then 18, survived though badly wounded. He went to prison, but was pardoned by President Theodore Roosevelt and became a deputy marshal and a successful businessman in Los Angeles, California, where he summed up the sad life of the outlaw: “I made more money in one business deal than in all my years of robbing banks.”