Received my author's copies for my latest book!

A big box of books came to my door this week, my own books! Here's yours truly in need of a haircut holding a copy of the second edition of It Happened in Missouri. This is a collection of tales about interesting and odd events in the state's history.

This edition has a new cover showing Vice President John Garner playing around with a pair of Jesse James' pistols while Harry Truman looks on. The book also includes two new chapters. One covers a champion bicycle race in 1887 where the racers used those strange old bikes with one giant tire and one small one, except for one plucky cyclist who did the race with a tricycle! The other new chapter is about the various hucksters who impersonated Jesse James after his death. One guy was even so bold as to do this as late as 1950.

The book is available for preorder now. If you'd like a free signed copy I'll be happy to send one along, although I'll have to ask you to pay for the international shipping.

Tsarist coastal artillery in Estonia and Jesse James in Italy

While I was away on my writing retreat in Tangier I popped up on the Web a couple of times. The organizers of the èStoria Festival, who hosted me for the release of the Italian edition of my Jesse James book, have posted this video of my panel on the outlaw. Everyone's speaking Italian except for yours truly, so I'll forgive you if you don't watch it.

I also did a guest post for the Osprey Publishing blog on a shore battery in Estonia dating to the Tsarist era. It’s located near the village of Suurupi, overlooking the Gulf of Finland. It's an interesting bit of military history and nearly gave us a nasty surprise!

Reading an old Jesse James dime novel

While preparing my talk for the book launch of the Italian edition of my Jesse James book I read through a bunch of Jesse James material. The theme of my talk was the outlaw's transformation into a legend.

One of the books I read was the oldest Jesse James book in my collection: Jesse James' Mid-Winter Lark, or The Plundering of the Iron Mountain Train, by William Ward. This dime novel dates from 1909, when Frank James and several gang members were still alive.

Dime novels were cheaply produced magazines or paperback books that were the popular literature of their day. There were countless titles from their beginning in the 1860s to their demise in favor of pulp magazines in the 1920s.

This one, number 27 of a series about Jesse, portrays the outlaw as a strange hybrid. He's neither the noble Robin Hood some dime novels made him out to be nor the evil crook from the newspapers. He's both at the same time.

James is hiding out in the Kentucky hills when he hears a beautiful girl has been arrested for selling moonshine. Of course Jesse doesn't like government men harassing the rural poor, so he sets off to save her, leaving a trail of dead government agents wherever he goes. While he's doing this Robin Hood impersonation he's also taking vengeance out on any of the hill folk who don't stand by her side. When one man who volunteered to fight the police shows a bit of fear, Jesse shoots his ear off! Then Jesse discovers one of the hill folk had reported on the girl, and Jesse takes gruesome vengeance.

It's an odd book and I wonder what audiences 104 years ago thought of it. Perhaps they just wanted a thrill and didn't think about it much at all. Dime novels weren't exactly high literature. It does make an interesting curio, though, and an unusual landmark in the reputation of America's most famous outlaw.

If you want to get a copy, there's one for sale on Ebay.

My book launch in Italy

I'm baaaack!

As I mentioned before, I was in Gorizia, Italy, for the ninth annual èStoria Festival. This history/book fair is hosted by my Italian publisher, who recently came out with these Italian-language editions of two of my books. For three days, a park in Gorizia was filled with tents. Several book dealers set up shop and the other tents were given over for talks and panels.

The theme this year was Bandits, and I was on a panel about Jesse James. I was the only non-Italian in the room but luckily they provided me with a translator. This guy was amazing. He grew up speaking four languages and went on to learn a dozen more. He gave a simultaneous translation so seamless it almost felt like the other panelists were speaking two languages at the same time.

My fellow panelists were a historian, a journalist, and a philosopher, and so we were an eclectic bunch. I gave a talk on "Jesse James, Inc.", on how the James legend was commodified even in his own lifetime.

The others put him in the context of the greater theme of banditry, and compared him with some of the famous bandits of southern Italy. Italian unification in the 19th century was mostly led by northern Italians, and while the southern Italians went along with it, there was some grumbling over the loss of independence. Some bandits took advantage of this by branding themselves rebels as well as thieves. Hmmm. . .sounds familiar.

I managed to slip away to do some sightseeing as well. Hit the link above about Gorizia to learn about this interesting town on the border with Slovenia. I also went to visit the Isonzo World War One battlefield.

I had a great time and hope to go back some other year. After the festival I headed over to Slovenia for a week. I'll be starting a series on Gadling this week about that.

Heading to Italy and Slovenia

Tomorrow I'm off to Gorizia, an Italian town on the border with Slovenia. I'm going to be a guest speaker at the town's annual history fair, sponsored by the publisher Editrice Goriziana, who have come out with the Italian editions of a couple of my history books.

The theme this year is Bandits, and of course I'm on the Jesse James panel! My talk is called "Jesse James, Inc." I'll be talking about how Missouri's most famous outlaw was used to sell books, movies, tourist attractions, and generally make money. The process started even while Jesse was still running around robbing banks!

I'll have four days to meet other historians and enjoy views like this one, and then I'm off to Slovenia for a week to write a travel series for Gadling. I'll have regular access to email and I've scheduled some posts, but I may be a bit slow in replying to comments and emails.

Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons. My photos coming soon!

Dime Novels in the Wild West

Before Saturday morning cartoons. . .before matinees. . .before pulp magazines. . .there were dime novels! These cheaply produced paperbacks thrilled little boys and grown men with stories of adventure and derring-do from their advent in the 1860s to their demise in favor of pulp magazines in the 1920s.

During their height in the 1880s-1900, there were countless series released by dozens of publishers and written by a small army of hacks. There were Westerns, mysteries, espionage, historicals, and more. The vast majority were marketed towards juvenile boys and often featured young heroes.

I've read about a dozen dime novels and have several in my book collection. Most are atrociously written with formulaic plots yet show an energy and innocence lacking in much of today's popular writing. The most interesting ones for me are the Westerns, especially the many titles starring a heroic Jesse James. Some of these were published even while Frank and Jesse were still out robbing banks and helped add to their mythic character.

In many ways, the legend of the Wild West was born in dime novels. While researching my book on Wyatt Earp, I came across an interesting anecdote. Wyatt was chasing some stagecoach robbers outside of Tombstone, Arizona, and found their recently vacated camp. Among the items he found there was half of a dime novel. It was common back then to tear off the pages you had already read in order to lighten your load. As Earp followed the trail of the outlaws, he found another camp, with the missing pages. So real-life Western outlaws were reading dime novels!

Photos courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

 

B is for Bloody Bill Anderson

It's the second day of the A to Z blogfest, and how could I not dedicate this to Bloody Bill Anderson? I have a longtime interest in the Civil War west of the Mississippi River, where the name Bloody Bill was spoken with dread.

Bloody Bill was one of the many nobodies who was projected to fame by the war. He was a Confederate bushwhacker, a guerrilla fighter who attacked isolated Union outposts and patrols and caused havoc in rural Missouri. There were many such groups, and his was the toughest and most feared. Among his many followers rode a young Frank and Jesse James.

The Union army had a hard time stamping out the bushwhackers. Drained of men to fight the bigger battles in the east, the Union forces were spread thin across the state. In desperation the Union command ordered the imprisonment of the bushwhackers' families in the hope that this would make them give up. Bloody Bill's sister was put into prison in Kansas City.

In 1863 the prison collapsed and she was killed. It seems this tragedy unhinged Bloody Bill's mind. He took his revenge by sacking Lawrence, Kansas, killing some 200 civilians. The next year he went on a rampage through central Missouri, killing, scalping, and destroying everything in his path. Nominally this was in support of Confederate General Sterling Price's invasion, but in reality it was to quench Bloody Bill's thirst for revenge.

Anderson was killed by a lucky Union militia in October of that year. He's appeared in many movies and books since then, including The Outlaw Josey Wales and my Civil War novel A Fine Likeness. He's an irresistable character straight out of central casting!

Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

How Frank and Jesse James swore loyalty to the Union

As I discussed in my post on loyalty oaths in the Civil War, many rebels swore to stop fighting the Union in return for being allowed to live as civilians. Some stopped fighting and some didn't.

Two of the most famous people to take the oath were Frank and Jesse James. At the beginning of the war, Frank joined the rebellious Missouri State Guard and saw action at Wilson's Creek and Lexington in 1861. While the State Guard was retreating to southwest Missouri in September of that year Frank fell ill, got left behind, and was captured and paroled. He took the loyalty oath and returned to the family farm in Clay County.

And he might have stayed there for the duration if it weren't for General Order No. 19, enacted in July of 1862, which forced all able-bodied men, including paroled Confederates, to join local Union militias. While this swelled the ranks of the militia, it also made many hardcore Southerners flee to the Confederate army or become bushwhackers. Frank took the latter option and joined the band of the notorious William Quantrill.

His younger brother Jesse joined him the next year. They became hardcore guerrillas and fought until the end. In May of 1865, Jesse and a group of bushwhackers rode into Lexington to surrender and Jesse got shot by a nervous group of Union troops. He survived his wound and formally surrendered on May 21. Frank was in Kentucky with the remnants of Quantrill's group and surrendered on July 26, more than three months after Lee's surrender at Appomattox.

You can read more about Frank and Jesse in my book The Last Ride of the James-Younger Gang. They also make an appearance in my Civil War novel A Fine Likeness.


Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons. For a photo of 16 year-old Jesse James the bushwhacker, click on the link.

The Italian Connection

My book Armies of the Adowa Campaign, about the disastrous Italian attempt to invade Ethiopia in 1896, has been translated into Italian by the publisher Editrice Goriziana. I haven't seen an actual copy yet, but I notice that they've changed the cover. You can see the new cover here.

I've also been invited to give a talk at a history conference in Italy this May. The subject of the conference is historical bandits, and my talk is tentatively called "Jesse James, Inc." I'll be talking about how Missouri's most famous outlaw was used to sell books, movies, tourist attractions, and generally make money. The process started even while Jesse was still running around robbing banks!

I'll post more details on this conference when the plans get finalized.

My Jesse James book gets its first review, and it's four stars!

My latest book, The Last Ride of the James-Younger Gang: Jesse James and the Northfield Raid 1876 has received its first Amazon review less than a month after being released. It must have been from one of the many people who preordered it. I love preorders. It's is my fifth book for Osprey and twelfth book in total. To see my other Osprey titles, click on my Osprey author's page. You can see some interior images here.

The review was four stars and reads:

"The James-Younger Gang's attempted robbery of the First National Bank in Northfield, Minnesota in September 1876 is probably the most famous bank robbery in American history, not to mention the most disastrous in terms of execution. Three of eight gang members were killed. Three more were wounded and captured. Only Frank and Jesse James, both wounded, escaped. Two civilians died as well. The robbery netted a total of $26.70!?! Sean McLachlan recounts the story of this horribly botched robbery in THE LAST RIDE OF THE JAMES-YOUNGER GANG, a 2012 Osprey release.

"After sketching in the early lives of the James and Younger Brothers, McLachlan details the origins of the Northfield caper, pre-planning, execution and the post-raid fates of the surviving robbers. Though I've read other books on the Northfield robbery, McLachlan's account still makes for compelling reading. The narrative is complimented by vintage B&W and contemporary photographs, color maps and exciting, color crime scene artwork by Peter Dennis.

Wild West afficiandos will enjoy THE LAST RIDE OF THE JAMES-YOUNGER GANG. It's a comprehensive, exciting summary of outlaws in action. Recommended."

My latest Wild West book out now!

While I was traveling in Iraq my latest book was published by Osprey Publishing. The Last Ride of the James-Younger Gang: Jesse James and the Northfield Raid 1876 came out on October 20, while I was somewhere in the Sunni Triangle. This book detailed the ill-fated raid that destroyed the James-Younger gang. It's is my fifth book for Osprey and twelfth book in total. To see my other Osprey titles, click on my Osprey author's page. You can see some interior images here.

A Sneak Peek At My Next Wild West Book

I've just received an advance copy of my next book for Osprey Publishing, The Last Ride of the James-Younger Gang: Jesse James and the Northfield Raid 1876. While I call this a Wild West book, I suppose it's really a Wild North book, since it chronicles the gang's ill-fated raid on a bank in Northfield, Minnesota. Here's yours truly showing off a copy.

The interior is illustrated with about 50 period photographs. . .

. . .plus original color artwork.

This is my fifth book for Osprey and twelfth book in total. To see my other Osprey titles, click on my Osprey author's page. I'm currently writing a sixth and discussing future projects with them. It's a great company to work for! This title is already available for preorder and doing pretty well in the Amazon rankings considering it doesn't come out until October 23. Osprey titles tend to do well on preorder. Check out my post on why readers preorder books.

Y is for Cole Younger

Thomas Coleman “Cole” Younger grew up on a wealthy farm in Missouri. When the Civil War started, he joined the rebel bushwhacker band of William Clarke Quantrill. In those chaotic days, his father was murdered by a Union militia, and this gave him a burning hatred of the North.

When the South lost he found he couldn't put the war behind him and was a founding member of the James–Younger gang with fellow bushwhackers Frank and Jesse James and other ex-rebels. He participated in the gang's first robbery, that of the Clay County Savings Association in Liberty, Missouri, in 1866. Cole went on to a successful life in crime, sometimes teaming up with the James brothers and sometimes working with his two brothers, Jim and Bob, or other outlaws. The "gang's" membership was always fluid.

Cole hit stagecoaches, trains, and banks, and his activity included Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas, Iowa, and West Virginia. He had a reputation for being practical and level-headed, which put him at odds with the impulsive and showy Jesse James. The gang came to disaster during the robbery of a bank at Northfield, Minnesota in 1876. During the shootout and ensuing chase, three robbers were killed and everyone else wounded. Only the James brothers escaped. Cole and his brothers were captured and sentenced to life in prison.

After serving 25 years, Cole was released. For a while he was a traveling tombstone salesman, then he co-managed a Wild West show with Frank James, and also took time to lecture on the subject of how crime doesn’t pay. In 1903 he wrote the book The Story of Cole Younger by Himself: An Auto-biography of the Missouri Guerrilla, Confederate Cavalry Officer, and Western Outlaw, a remarkable piece of self-puffery that's fun to read but shouldn't be taken as anything close to history.


Here's a weird bit of trivia: in the 1957 movie The True Story of Jesse James, Gilligan's Island Skipper Alan Hale, Jr., plays Cole Younger. Having that actor forever associated in my mind as the Skipper made his appearance in this western more than a little distracting! Here's another bit of trivia, the actor's father, Alan Hale, Senior, who looked much like his son, played Little John in two versions of Robin Hood: the 1938 Errol Flynn version and the silent 1922 version.

There, I've managed to link Jesse James and Gilligan's Island. My life is complete.

Photo courtesy Wikipedia. The entry for Cole Younger in Wikipedia is peppered with errors. Read a book about him instead.

D is for Derringer

Here's a cute little gun that's fun for all ages. It's called a Derringer, a small pistol used for personal protection. They were mostly one-shot models, although a double-barreled Derringer was also produced. Being so small they didn't have room for a magazine or cylinder.

These guns were so small they could be hidden in pockets or even ladies' stockings and were favored by gamblers, prostitutes, and other citizens who sometimes had need to protect themselves. A newsboy even fired one at Jesse James and his gang when they held up the Missouri Pacific Express in 1876. The newsboy objected to one of the gang members stealing his assortment of pies and tried to plug him. The gang took it in stride and laughed, "Listen to that son of a bitch bark!"

Below is the most infamous Derringer of all, the one that was used by John Wilkes Booth to assassinate Abraham Lincoln.

Photos courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

My upcoming Jesse James book gets a cover!

I've just seen the cover art for my next book, The Last Ride of the James-Younger Gang: Jesse James & the Northfield Raid 1876. This is a new title in the Raid series for Osprey Publishing and my fifth book for that publisher. Osprey is great to work with and I'm busy on another book for them on Wyatt Earp and the Arizona War.

These two titles are a bit of a departure for Osprey, in that they aren't strictly military history (for which Osprey is famous) but rather Wild West. Despite hard times for publishers and the economy in general, Osprey continues to grow because they're a leader and innovator in a popular niche market.

Thanks to artist Johnny Shumate for such a great cover! I've seen the interior art too and it includes a train robbery, the gunfight at Northfield, and the Younger brothers' last stand at Hanksa Slough. Expect some exciting, detailed, and historically accurate paintings. This title is already available for preorder on Amazon and has already garnered a sale despite it's not coming out until October. It's available for preorder on Barnes & Noble too.

In other good news, I've heard that another of my Osprey books, Armies of the Adowa Campaign: The Italian Disaster in Ethiopia, is going to have a second printing. It's been selling well! It's often in the the top 20 or top 10 in Amazon's Ethiopia category. While that's a rather narrow category, there's a good chance anyone searching for books on Ethiopia would be interested in mine.

Book Review: The Many Faces of Jesse James

The Many Faces of Jesse James by Phillip W. Steele

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


There have been hundreds of books about Jesse James. As far as I know, this is the only one that focuses on what he looked like and attempts to separate legitimate photos of the famous outlaw from the piles of fakes.

This short (128p page) book starts with a potted history of his life and death. This has been done more in-depth in several other books, especially Yeatman's landmark biography. The facts are accurately laid out, though, which is more than I can say for some Jesse James books. There's also a sizable and amusing chapter on the many Jesse James imposters.

Authors Steele and Warfel then move on to the meat of the book--examining the many purported photos of Jesse James, and to a lesser extent his brother Frank, to figure out which are real and which are fake. This is generally well done. I'm not convinced by some of their "genuine" photos, but this just makes the chapter all the more engaging. They also debunk many of the widely circulated fake photographs.

The last section of the book is given over to Warfel's sketches of Jesse at various stages of his life. While these are well done, I don't see much point in them. Many are simply copies of existing photos, such as the famous bushwhacker shot taken in Platte City in 1864.

This book will be of some interest to those who want a deeper understanding of Jesse James and the legend surrounding him. For someone looking for the definitive biography, Yeatman's "Frank and Jesse James" remains the leader in the field.

View all my reviews

Civil War Photo Friday: Quantrill's black flag

Here's yours truly with a reproduction of Quantrill's famous black flag the rebel guerrilla supposedly flew as a sign that he'd take no prisoners. It's in the Clay County Savings Association bank museum. This bank, of course, was the first target of the James gang. This photo was taken by Rex Dickson, who shows no patience whatsoever with my obsession with Missouri's Civil War, but has seen a lot of the sights anyway. I wrote about the Liberty bank as part of my Gadling series on our Jesse James road trip.

Quantrill was the baddest of a bad crew. His gang slaughtered civilians, scalped soldiers, and raised hell generally. Frank James rode with him during the Civil War, as did famous outlaw Cole Younger. Jesse James may have ridden with Quantrill too before joining Bloody Bill Anderson in his own group.

This is an interesting flag for several reasons. You'll notice that Quantrill's name is misspelled. During the war his name was generally spelled with an "e", and the bushwhacker leader didn't exactly have a strong motive for correcting people. It's debatable whether he actually had a flag like this, though. There are several references to Quantrill's black flag, but both Frank James and Cole Younger said there never was one. At the time, "raising the black flag" meant that you'd show no mercy, so Quantrill's flag was probably metaphorical. In my Civil War novel A Fine Likeness none of the bushwhackers carry a black flag.

Movie Review: The True Story of Jesse James (1957)

One of the nice things about my new home in Santander is that it's just five minute's walk away from the local Filmoteca. These are a national chain of government-subsidized cinemas showing local films, international indies, and classics.

Last week I saw The True Story of Jesse James, a 1957 remake of a 1939 film. It stars Robert Wagner as Jesse, Jeffrey Hunter as Frank, and Gilligan's Island skipper Alan Hale, Jr., as Cole Younger. I recently completed a book about the James gang so I was interested to see how much of the "true story" was in this picture.

OK, now that all of you've finished laughing, I can attest that while it doesn't come anywhere close to the true story, it's the most accurate film about the James gang other than Brad Pitt's The Assassination of Jesse James. That's not saying much. Read my post on Jesse James in Hollywood to see just how bad the Dream Factory screws up history.

The film opens with a presumptuous text saying how this is the real story, unvarnished by myth. That's a bit like Dan Brown saying at the beginning of The Da Vinci Code that his story is all true. What follows is about ten percent history, ninety percent myth. The basics of Jesse James' life are outlined fairly accurately: his beating at the hands of a Unionist militia, his subsequent enlistment in Quantrill's bushwhacker band, his inability to stop fighting after the end of the Civil War, etc. Much of the film is dedicated to the gang getting shot up during their failed heist at Northfield, Minnesota, and the ensuing chase.

Throughout this basically correct narrative are strewn historical errors and fables. Robert Ford is somehow along for the ride to Northfield despite his not being a member of the gang yet. The Northfield shootout is turned into a fairly even gunfight in which several armed citizens die, when in fact only two unarmed civilians were shot down in cold blood. There's also a completely made up subplot about a neighbor of the James family who wants their land and is conspiring with the local Union soldiers and law enforcement.

No such neighbor existed. The James brothers were no more persecuted for their wartime record than any other ex-Confederate. Yes, in post-war Missouri former secessionists had many of their rights curtailed, but the James family had a prosperous farm and were in fact better off than many of their Unionist neighbors. Greed drove Frank and Jesse to rob banks, not persecution. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder may have also played a part. They weren't the first, or the last, veterans who were unable to put a war behind them.

The overall point of this movie seems to be to put the James brothers on a pedestal, making them into American Robin Hoods when in fact they were nothing more than capable bandits with a flair for public relations. This was only one of the many films that helped create the Jesse James legend and as such, it's worth watching for those with an interest in the Old West and folklore. Plus it's got some cool gunfights.

At least it wasn't as bad as Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter. That made my list of the ten worst horror films ever.

Guest blogging over at Guerrilla Explorer

I'm a bit late in announcing this one, sorry! I recently guest blogged over at the super-cool Guerrilla Explorer on the enduring historical debate: Did Jesse James fake his own Death?

David Meyer does a fine job with his blog. Guerrilla Explorer explores mysteries of science and history, as well as conspiracy theories and other interesting subjects. His combination of an open mind and a critical eye make for interesting reading. Drop on by to my post and leave a comment, and don't forget to read his other postings!

Laying poor Jesse in his grave

I just finished my latest book for Osprey Publishing. The Last Ride of the James-Younger Gang—Jesse James and the Northfield Raid 1876 examines the gang's disastrous robbery attempt of a bank in Northfield. The gang swaggered into this Minnesota town thinking they'd get some easy money, and instead got the mother of all shootouts, followed by a grueling chase across the state.

All of this is covered in detail, along with biographical information about each of the gang members (some of whom were quite obscure) and will be richly illustrated in Osprey's trademark style. The book will come out in 2012.

As usual, I had a lot of fun writing this book. I learned about odd customs such as anvil artillery, and got some more insights into Jesse James, who is a minor character in my Civil War novel. The only problem is that I sent it off on a Monday. Anytime I finish a major project I get a post-book slump and I'm useless for the rest of the week!

Photo courtesy Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs division.