Its my pleasure to welcome back tj stiles to cwi. He spoke yesterday as you know. He spoke on George Armstrong custer, based upon a book that he received the pulitzer for. He is, as you all know, the winner of two pulitzers. This afternoon he is going to speak on another lets say misunderstood character in jesse james. Jesse james, the study of him by tj stiles is really at the point of a new wave of civil war scholarship thats focusing on guerilla warfare. You heard bart meyers yesterday. You met kim noe. They have all been doing work on what many have considered to be the periphery of the civil war. Thanks to these scholars and thanks to tj stiles, we now have a more expansive view of civil war military history. Jesse james, unfortunately, is sometimes perceived as a robin hood figure of the old west. We often see jesse james as being apolitical. That he is part of those bandits like bloody Bill Anderson. I think what is so impressive about what tj styles has done is that he has taken this man and he has enabled us to see a man who we should note has left very few written records but a man who was during the civil war, who was deeply political. So it is my pleasure to bring back to the stage, tj stiles. [ applause ] thank you very much. My grandfather did some public speaking. Once before he was going to talk somebody came up to him in the lobby and said, i really want to go to the ball game. Is this guy any good . He said, ive heard him a few times. Sometimes hes pretty good. Sometimes find him rather disappointing. So anyway, if you are disappointed, i apologize. I hope i dont. Jesse james was my first subject as a biographer. I wrote about him i came to him because i wanted to write about the civil war and reconstruction as one story. And i didnt want to write a boring story. What i found in looking at jesse james is that theres personally is that this person we know best through Popular Culture in fact, had a significant role in American History. That rather than debunking him the way that scholars often do with popular figures, i found that he probably played a much more Important Role than people had previously realized. And that role is very closely tied to the civil war. I will talk later about how that whole robin hood image emerged. But in fact, the proper way to understand him, the reason why we even know his name is because of the civil war. Now, im going to be talking about that civil war a little bit before i really even get into jesse james. And the reason is that because during much of this history, he is quite young. Lets start with basic facts about the guerilla warfare that racked missouri during the civil war. A couple of facts i have up on the screen tell you why this was such a traumatic event and how it could give rise to jesse james. For one thing, in 1864, the state conducted a census and it found that it was missing about onethird of the 1860 population. It was a state of about a Million People in 1860. About 300,000 were gone. Now, they werent all dead. But a lot of them had fled or had been driven out or simply were just unavailable. They were displaced for counting. Another fact is that in one study done of trials of civilians by military commissions, by the u. S. Army, 42 were in the state of missouri. That is more than in the occupied areas of all 11 Confederate States combined. That gives you an idea of how savage this war was. So lets try to understand that. Missouri was the northwest frontier of slavery. Of course, it came into the union as a part of the missouri compromise in 1820. As you look at this map, missouri is this area if you notice where the Missouri River is, you see st. Louis there. Missouri river flows west. This shows population density. Slavery followed the rivers. The mississippi and Missouri River counties were not only where the population of white people was densest but also of enslaved africanamericans as well. So those counties, even though missouri itself was not one of the states in which slavery was most pronounced, it was i think 12 of the population were enslaved in 1850. A little less than 10 in 1860. Still, it played a very important part in the states economy. Again, the economy and the population are concentrated in the slave holding counties. Also, the states leaders its political leaders were slave holders from especially the Missouri River county. A third fact that we have to remember is that slaves were the second most valuable form of property. Those human beings who were held in bondage. It was very much central to the states economy. I will get to some of the details in jesse james family in a minute. What happened, though, is in 1854, missouris civility and its public political life was disrupted by the kansasnebraska act. Remember, at this point, by 1850s, missouri is not a frontier state. Its on frontier of settlement, but especially in the Missouri River counties, it is very much a settled, prosperous, established area with commercial agriculture. Theyre connected to national markets. Jesse james own father, who is a baptist preacher, baptists didnt pay their preachers, at least not then, he was a slave owner and also a commercial hemp farmer during the crimean war u. S. Hemp found a market. He was selling it for cotton baling primarily in the south. This is not some selfsustaining frontier person. This is someone who is a part of the nations commercial agricultural economy. In 1854, the state gets thrown up in disarray by opening up kansas to the idea of popular sovereignty. That the settlers of kansas will vote on whether there will be slavery there or not. As the strongly proslavery senator david achison said in 1854, we, meaning the proslavery forces are playing for a mighty stake. If we win, we carry slavery to the pacific ocean. We are organizing to meet their, the antislavery forces based in new england, their organization. We will be compelled to shoot, burn and hang. But the thing will soon be over. In other words, at the very outset of the race to settle kansas, between free soilers from the northeast and missourians, there is already a willingness, at least in rhetoric, to use force. There are many reasons for this. We can spend all day talking about it. Basically, there is a real sense of threat that if free soilers establish kansas as a free state, then missouri will have free territory on three sides. Theyre worried about the app ligsists who are moving in to settle the state, that they would be actively stealing slaves as they would call freeing slaves. There was a great ideological struggle over the idea of whether Southern States should be able to export their labor system, slavery, into the west or whether it could be closed off to slavery. So even people who were anti who did not want to live around africanamericans were fighting for banning slavery, even people who were not slave owners themselves wanted to spread slavery. It was wrapped up with several different political issues and cultural issues. What happened is that in the state of missouri, the state mobilized to spread slavery into kansas. So i have mentioned a few things. 1854 in june, there are mass meetings across the western part of the state. The james family, his father died in the gold rush, his mother remarried to a man named samuels. The jamessamuels family was on the Missouri River in a denser slave owning part of the state but very close to the western frontier. This is happening in their territory. In their home county. There were men who joined 1,000 men joined the plat county selfdefense association. Theyre beginning to form private militia organizations to go into kansas. By november of 1855, fighting broke out in kansas. The border ruffians inside missouri are raising money and theyre organizing. So we have in clay county the proslavery Aid Association is formed. In december 5, 1855, a group of border ruffians captures the federal arsenal in liberty, the county seat of clay county. That gives you an idea of how the fighting in kansas, which becomes known as bleeding kansas, is making people militant. Theyre actually seizing a federal arsenal inside missouri. Now, what happens is that this mobilization divides people within missouri. This is an underreported, under discussed aspect of the bleeding kansas fight where theres 200 People Killed in the civil war in kansas in the 1850s. Within missouri, there is a real polarization that is created. For example, as i mentioned on the screen, on july 29, 1854, a preacher who is perceived as anti slavery in Platte County is put on trial in his own church. The man who organizes this is a strident proslavery ideologue who argues slavery is necessary for white people to be free. He says every man who works for a living is slave and every poor while working woman is a whore. He says we have to have slavery so that we can be free and not engage in menial work. There are boycotts called of those who are opposed not opposed to slavery but those who simply dont think there should be warfare over it in kansas. That preacher was driven out of the county in 1855. Also in 1855, a mob in Platte County destroyed a newspaper that was critical of this warfare going on in kansas or this at least the militant mobilization for it. Warfare hadnt yet taken place. In clay county, a mass meeting denounced traitors in our midst. In july 12 of 1855, a proslavery convention in lexington, Missouri River town close to the western border, actually endorses secession six years before the outbreak of the civil war. Now, of course, the war arrives. In 1861. By that time missouri is now divided firmly into camps. Pro union and pro secession. Theres few abolitionists in missouri. Most are found in the german population, which is very strong especially in st. Louises. St. Louis. But there are many people who are moderately pro slavery but who dont believe in disunion. That border state unionism is very strong in missouri. There are slave owners who say, if we secede, were going to lose the benefit of the fugitive slave act. Well have an International Boundary on three sides and then well really lose our slaves. Its not a simple thing. The state is very polarized because of the intolerance for dissent in what becomes the secessionist movement. I wont go through all the details how the war erupts. Theres a convention on secession. It votes against secession strongly. The governor is very much in favor of secession. He organizes a state guard. Theres a clash with general na thannial lion. The state guard retreats to the southwest. Lyon attacks them at wilsons creek. He is killed. Price leads the state guard to capture lexington. Finally, general fremont leads a new force which forces price out of the state. By the end of 1861, you have for the next three years basically an end to conventional warfare in missouri. At this point, traditionally historians have lost interest in missouri. Everything is fine now. Instead, a massive Guerilla Campaign breaks out. We have to ask the question of why. Now, theres a traditional answer which is very important in the jesse james myth, especially since he is from western missouri. That is that the antislavery jayhawkers who are fighting alongside john brown in kansas against the proslavery border ruffians, that they want revenge now. They march in and they terrorize and loot and pillage western missouri. Those peaceful missourians rise up to defend themselves. Theres an element of truth to this. There in fact were raids by troops from kansas into western missouri, this absolutely did take place. However, the problem is you i have illustrated very loosely where the raids took place. The problem is that fighting breaks out across the state, especially all along the missouri and Mississippi River valley. Im going to add to because im focusing on jesse james, unfortunately, i will add to the misimpression that this is a border war. Because jesse james is in the western border. In fact, the guerilla warfare takes place across the state. In fact, we see as in this illustration, there were Refugees Union refugees being driven into the major towns held by conventional union forces in 1861. That the kind of missourian against missourian warfare that begins to mark missouris experience in the civil war begins very early on. That the secessionists did not need the impetus of the union forces marching in and terrorizing them. In fact, a study that was published after my book came out shows that the prosecessionists of the Missouri River valley, who were the leading figures in their communities, they owned all the banks. They carried out a check kiting scheme to fund secessionist state guard regiments. That what happened is, the Cessation Movement failed. They did not get reimbursed by the confederate government. So what happened . Unionists took over the banks. That will come back, believe me, a little bit later on. What happened in this emerging guerilla warfare . I will get to jesse james in a minute. But its important to think about what exactly were talking about. First of all, as i mentioned, its concentrated in the slave holding areas. The leaders of the groups that form spontaneously tend to be from the wealthier more established families. Especially from not only but especially from the slave holding families. Again, that had been leaders in their counties initially. These are the people who lead the organization of these secessionist groups. These were small groups without central direction. Were not talking about mosby who has actually got a direct tie to the confederate chain of command. These groups strongly associate with the confederacy. Yet, they are not responding to orders or any centralized strategy. So that means two things. One, theyre almost impossible to crush out. If you crush out one squad, theres another one thats not affected by that. You kill one guerilla leader, another one shows up. Theres no sense in which you can simply crush it out. The second thing is that it never represents a real threat on its own to seizing control geographically of missouri. Its a constant running sore for the union, and yet theyre never in actual danger of losing missouri. That has important affects. Which i will get to in a second. Another thing about this warfare is that the tactics that were used. These are very close range clashes. There are a lot of ambushes. Theres a heavy use of closerange weapons, particularly the. 36caliber colt naefy vy revolver. This is a cap and ball revolver. The confederates as they accumulated more firearms were known to carry as many as half a dozen revolvers. In a clash, they would pull the revolver, fire it until it was empty or it jammed, drop it down and pull out another one. So there was very intense close range fighting. They developed over time some very sophisticated tactics. Not only ambushes, they began to use decoy ambushes where they would send out someone to lure the union forces into a trap. They carried out various other operations which were designed to trick union forces. After a clash they would then disperse. Very familiar to students of guerilla warfare. And another thing thats very familiar to students of guerilla warfare is that, increasingly as the war went on, theyre not going to seize formal control of missouri, but they are trying to carry out a kind of political cleansing. As is so often the case in guerilla warfare, the target becomes civilians. In the case of the confederate guerillas, theyre beginning to tax people. They are burning out unionists. They are terrorizing people who especially who are leaders of the unionist leaders of the civilian population. Increasingly, they carry out tactics designed to trick people into revealing their true allegiances. Theyll wear captured union uniforms, go to a farmhouse, ask for food. If they give them food willingly, theyll burn out the house and often kill the men on their doorsteps. In fact, savagery begins to creep in. By 1863, 1864, you are seeing sumry executions. You are seeing the killing of prisoners after a clash. You are beginning to see in 1864 especially mutilation. Scalping, severing heads, other parts of the human body which we wont discuss today. This is a real war that becomes increasingly about terror and controlling the civilian population. The last thing is that the confederate guerillas have a winter refuge in texas. In winter the snow falls, the leaves fall off the trees. Theyre easier to track. So they have a refuge. They withdraw. Another thing that makes them hard to stamp out. In texas, the conventional confederate authorities are not too happy about these wild men from missouri. Of course, the union has to invent counter insurgency. Its important to note for the future of jesse james career that this is a war which is actually mostly fought on the union side by missourians. The provisional State Government which replaces governor jackson, it creates the Missouri State militia organized like the cavalry of the u. S. Volunteers. Then re are supplemented by a range of local, countybased militia organizations. The enrolled and provisional enrolled. Some of the enrolled missouri militia were basically confederates who were at home and turned out to be quite disloyal. So they create a hardened corps which amps up the cycle of violence where youve got now under arms men who are the most strongly union fighting against their neighbors. Makes that local neighbor against neighbor fighting more intense. They too develop a range of tactics. They garrison towns, of course. They carry out patrols. When there is a confederate guerilla raid, they pursue. They also target enemy camps. Theyre trying to get intelligence. They try to attack them when theyre in camp in those river bottoms where there is heavy brush and timber. They also begin to carry out more sophisticated tactics like the decoy ambush or the hammer and anvil. As early as 1863, i found evidence of a local Union Officer putting two companies, one on either side of a creek bottom and then sending two companies up one on either side of the creek to drive the confederates out of the brush. They used to hide in those, again, with a lot of cover in the creek bottoms, they tried to drive them toward the anvil waiting at the other end. In one case, i will get to, the confederates anticipated this and the guerillas lured the attacking for