See if you can identify which of the following are myths about Jesse James -- and which ones are true. Print out this page to mark your answers and then check to see how many you got right.
| | He left press releases at his train robberies. |
| | He married his cousin. |
| | His gang only killed in self-defense. |
| | His father was a Baptist preacher. |
| | Union soldiers shot him when he rode into Lexington, Missouri, intending to surrender. |
| | He was killed by a member of his gang. |
| | His crimes were motivated by pro-Confederate ideals, not personal immorality. |
| | His mother sold pebbles from his grave to tourists. |
| | His neighbors feared him and refused to aid his gang. |
| | His brother was captured by Union troops during the Civil War. |
| | His family owned slaves. |
| | The James gang robbed the rich in order to share their gains with the poor. |
| | He had two children, named Jesse and Mary. |
| | He was a teenage "bushwhacker," attacking Union forces. |
| | He fought off five Missouri militiamen who had come to arrest him. |
| | His gang murdered a Pinkerton detective and pinned a warning to the body. |
| | He was shot in the chest by Union militia. |
| | He was incapacitated for years after being shot by Union forces. |
| | His brother quoted Shakespeare to a trainload of robbery victims. |
| | Pinkerton detectives killed his eight-year-old stepbrother. |
| | He traveled to a California mineral spa to be miraculously healed from a gunshot wound. |
| | He squandered much of his money gambling. |
| | The James gang held up trains and banks to protest big business. |
| | He rode with a gang of brutal killers who mutilated their victims. |
| | He participated in the Centralia massacre, slaughtering federal soldiers. |
| | He grew up working on his family's Missouri farm. |
| | He hid out in Mexico with other Confederate exiles. |
| | He gave a supporter, journalist John Newman Edwards, a stolen gold watch. |
| | He carried multiple pistols during raids. |
| | He wrote to newspapers, protesting his innocence. |
| | Today, Northfield, Minnesota still celebrates their defeat of the James gang. |
| | He faked his death, and lived long past 1882. |
| | His brother Frank created a traveling "Wild West" show after Jesse's death. |
