Jesse Woodson James claimed that like Robin Hood, he robbed the rich to feed the poor. There were some in his own time and since who believed him, and who saw him as a freedom fighter rather than a terrorist outlaw. Many did not.

James was born into troubled times, that would leave the State of Misouri, and then the United States Of America, in tatters. Brought up in a slave owning family, Clays County where James lived sympathized with the Confederate cause.

This program looks at the effect that first the Border wars and then the Civil War had in moulding this fighter for the Confederacy into the man, who, along with his bushwhacking comrades, created the prototype of the American gangster.