The gunifights of Jesse James - The Ayoob Files

American Handgunner, July-August, 2003 by Massad Ayoob

Flash forward to September 14, 1876, a week after the James-Younger gang was cut to pieces by the gunfire of armed citizens in the famous aborted bank robbery in Northfield, Minnesota. Bedraggled, exhausted, and desperately on the run, Jesse and Frank had at least emerged from the epic gun battle unwounded. They were riding heading for the Dakota Territories when they were ambushed. Jesse was hit in the right knee with a blast of buckshot.

The injury was serious, but he was able to escape on foot with his brother, who had sustained a less severe buckshot wound of one foot. Both men were slowed but not stopped. Getting patched up as they went, finally ordering a physician to treat Jesse's leg at gunpoint, they managed to find transportation and, in a long and grueling ordeal, escape to freedom. Jesse James appears to have recovered from this serious wound with no lingering debilitation.

The lesson is clear: if the wound hasn't killed you, ignore the pain and keep going. There is an excellent chance this determination will be rewarded with survival, as it was so many times for Jesse James.

Lesson 6: Learning Points

As everyone reading this probably knows, Jesse James was shot in the back of the head and killed instantly by Bob Ford on the morning of April 3, 1882. The murder -- it can't be called anything else -- was committed in the living room of the small house at 1318 Lafayette Street in St. Joseph, Missouri, where Jesse lived under the name of Thomas Howard with his wife and children.

Some details of the incident are debated to this day, but we know that Jesse was hosting Bob and his brother Charlie Ford, "wanna-be" James gang hangers on, while his wife Zee was cooking breakfast for them. It was unseasonably hot, too warm for a concealing outer garment, and Jesse said something about not wanting the neighbors to spot the two guns he was wearing.

He removed the holstered revolvers and set them aside, then stood on either a stool or a straight back chair to either straighten or dust a portrait on the wall. It was then that a single large caliber bullet smashed into his brain from behind.

The exact nature of the hardware in the room at that fateful moment is still disputed. The great gun expert Elmer Keith wrote, "Jesse James carried a .45 Schofield S&W in one holster and a Colt single action .45 in the other, and he was probably one of the fastest gunmen of the times." (10)

S&W's official historian Roy Jinks writes of the company's #3 American revolver, "Records have been found that indicate this model served in the hands of such legendary figures as Jesse James .." (11) There is also the matter of the gunleather involved on the fateful day. According to British gun experts Richard Law and Peter Brookesmith, "Jesse James carried a ... Schofield in a shoulder rig, which one day he reputedly took off after removing his jacket in the presence of his friend Bob Ford -- who drew the gun and shot James dead." (12) Legendary holster expert Chic Gaylord confirmed, "There were some 'shoulder scabbards' in use during the Civil War, but these were little more than the conventional belt scabbard attached to a rather crude shoulder harness -- Jesse James was reputed to have concealed his guns in this fashion at times." (13) However, Stiles' research indicates on the morning of his death Jesse was wearing two sixguns in conventional holsters on a separate, dedicated belt which he unbuckled an d set down in the presence of the Fords. (14)