The Civil War's Influence - Bank /Train Robbers of the James/Younger era

Thank you for your comments regarding the Civil War and it's horrible aftermath. I feel for the people who have lost land and possessions to the war. War is hell and it's effects last for generations!

Originally from Pennsylvania, I lived in Georgia and Texas from 1975 through 1981. I was shocked how often the Civil War came up. It's never mentioned up North. Even at a bar, if a guy found out I was a Yankee, he'd say something like, "We had better generals than you." Or, he would make a defensive remark against the idea that the South was inferior to the North. Yes, the men were a bit more mannerly but my smart mouth often took them aback. The only man I really got close to was an older fellow from New Mexico.

Neither side of my family was even in the country during the Civil War. That didn't matter; I was from another country.

"Two more swords and I'll be Queen of the Monkey People." Roseanne

What you say is very well said. The James family was more about resistance than robbery. That is, initially. Later on, not so much.

The thing about the Civil War was that it created economic ruin for the middle and lower classes in small towns. Folks like the James family were treated very badly by Union forces and it is understandable that some would fight back after the war was over.

I visited Suffolk, Virginia last Spring. The history books carefully leave out the full story of how Union forces treated southern towns to include Suffolk. When the Union took hold of Suffolk, they took civilians as hostages and kept them as prisoners just to prevent any kind of resistance. These were innocent people who had their civil rights fully violated just as slaves did. Yet we never hear about that part. We only hear about the slavery.

While slavery was definitely a factor in the war, there was more to it than only that. States have their own rights and their own laws which should be fully respected by the federal government, but the federal government was not going to respect it. The states have a right to secede from the union, should they vote to do so. Yet the feds used an iron fist to get their way. There was no diplomacy whatsoever.

It's no wonder southerners were angry. They lost their jobs, their families and their lives, all because the Union refused to work things out diplomatically.

I think if the Union had instead allowed the southern states to secede and enforced a very heavy embargo against the southern states, the chips would have fallen to the Union side sooner or later. Slavery was doomed, it was going to have to end, and end in a very short time. The world was pressuring them and they would not have been able to continue for much longer. Instead of using restraint and patience, the Union used tactics which were deplorable to the southern states. This was the foundation for southern anger and resentment, which led to other more dirty tactics on their end (racial tensions, etc.) later on. Actions were shameful on both sides.

Either way, the James family and friends stuck together. I think their legendary status lies in not so much as being outlaws, though that is a definite factor, but that it is a large group of family and friends who had a belief and a will to fight back, as a team, as well as to the death, if necessary.

I've really enjoyed your thoughtful commentary!

With all due respect, allow me to point out that the movie takes place in Missouri which stayed in the union before during and after the Civil War, so that the situation with the outlaws would not have measureably changed even if the confederates had won.
Why I like the movie is that it very accurately captured the feelings of some of the people in Missouri who had fought for the confederacy, and their supporters and family members who had been stomped on by union forces from Kansas (read the history of the burnt districts in Missouri to really get a sense of where these men came from).
The fact is, there was border warfare on the Kansas-Missouri border for years before the war and in fact there are those of us who think that the fuse for the war was lit there way before Sumter