Will the real Thomas F. Harney, PLEASE STAND UP!

[Wild Bill]

T.J. Stiles in Jesse James the Last Rebel, makes the assertion that Missouri in 1861 was a quarter Rebel and three quarters Yankee. Hence it did not secede. The James and Youngers and their friends came from around Independence.

To the North was a place known as the Platte Region Addition, a section added to Missouri in 1838 that extended the settle western boundary to the Missouri River north of Kansas City. It was a slave region that produced mostly Hemp, for rope and bagging use for making up cotton bales.

From here, back down the Missouri river to the Mississippi and north to the Iowa line was section known as Little Dixie that had many plantations and slaves.This region produced many of the guerrilla fighters. They were generally the older sons of slaveowners cut off from the South by the Ozark Mountains, which were Union.

Again according to Stiles, by 1875, Missouri had become three quarters pro-rebel and one quarter Yankee. Stiles says this occurred from Reconstruction, and the propaganda of Jesse and Editor Edwards of the Kansas City newspapers which made the James-Younger gang into Southern heroes, still fighting the Yankee evils of high taxes, railroads, banks, and Radical Republican government.

As Missouri became more and more pro-rebel, the Democrats began to take over the government and the governors often were relations to the gang members. Hence, in the end, Frank James was able to dodge any responsibility of their robberies and murders. A good movie on this is Clint Eastwood, the Outlaw Josey Wales. Also of interest are Ride with the Devil and the Long Riders. A good book on the Northfield Raid that broke up the gang with Youngers going to Prison in Minnesota is Mark Lee Gardner, Shot all to Hell. But nothing comes a s close to understanding Jesse as Will Henry's novel, The Raiders.