James gang

The James gang, led by brothers Jesse and Frank James, were notorious outlaws of the American West in the post-Civil War era. Reared in Missouri with Southern sympathies, they joined Confederate guerrilla bands during the Civil War. After the war, they began a career of robbing banks, trains, and stagecoaches across the Midwest and South. Their exploits were often romanticized by writers, portraying Jesse James as an American Robin Hood. The gang, which included the Younger brothers, suffered a near-destruction during a failed bank robbery in Northfield, Minnesota, in 1876. Jesse James was killed in 1882 by Robert Ford, while Frank James surrendered and was later acquitted of charges. The Younger brothers also faced capture and imprisonment, with some eventually pardoned. It is important to distinguish the James gang from the Jameson Raid, which was a different historical event involving Cecil Rhodes and Leander Starr Jameson in South Africa.123