The mid eighteen hundreds was a turbulent time in America. People started facing problems such as the Civil War, issues on slavery, and how to deal with the gaining of new territories. Through all these problems came Jesse James and his gang of sneaky robbers who were the most wanted men all across the Missouri territory. In the late 19th century, Jesse James erupted as one of America’s greatest outlaws through train and bank robberies, organizing crime, and countless murders making him the most wanted criminal of the time period. Jesse James was born on September 5th, 1847 to a slave owning family in Kearney Missouri (History Channel). James was born into a wealthy family of planters. His father, Robert James was a prestigious reverend who made a good name for himself locally in Kearney. After Jesse was born, Robert went out west looking for gold, but was unsuccessful and had died in his search. He had two siblings, an older brother Frank who had left to fight in the war when Jesse was 16, and a younger sister Susan (History Channel). Once his mother remarried a wealthy doctor, life began to get better for the James family; until the summer of 1863, where a group of Union soldiers attacked the plantation for information due to Frank’s activity with a group of Confederate guerrillas (Biography: Jesse James). Watching as his home was being attacked and his family tortured for information, a spark ignited in Jesse James and he decided to join William Quantrill’s Missouri guerrilla force; this led to Jesse aiding in the killing of 25 unarmed union soldiers in August 1863 which helped define the man he would become (History Channel). After the Civil War ended, Jesse and Frank refused to go back to a life on a farm and were still angry at the Confederate defeat in the war, which was unlike their fellow guerrillas who traded in their guns for plows, and went back to life on a plantation. The brothers legacy of robbing banks and tr