On many occasions Jesse has written, or caused to be written, exculpatory letters for publication in the public journals. We present a few of these as specimens of Jesse's epistolary style, and because of the interesting character of their allusions to his own conduct. It will be observed that the dates of outrages on banks and railways, are wrong in several instances, as given in these letters. For instance:
The following communication appeared in the Nashville (Tenn.) Banner, of July 10th, 1875:
Ray Town, Mo., July 5th, 1875.
Gentlemen:
As my attention has been called, recently, to the notice of several sensational pieces copied from the Nashville Union and American, stating that the Jameses and Youngers are in Kentucky, I ask space in your valuable paper to say a few words in my defence. I would treat these reports with silent contempt, but I have many friends in Kentucky and Nashville that I wish to know that these reports are false and without foundation. I have never been out of Missouri since the Amnesty Bill was introduced into the Missouri Legislature, last March, asking for pardon for the James and Younger Boys. I am in constant communication with Governor Hardin, Sheriff Groom, of Clay county, Mo., and several other honorable county and state officials, and there are hundreds of persons in Missouri who will swear that I have not been in Kentucky. There are desperadoes roving round in Kentucky, and it is probably very important for the officials of Kentucky to be vigilant. If a robbery is committed in Kentucky to-day, detective Bligh, of Louisville, would telegraph all over the United States that the James and Younger Boys did it, just as he did when the Columbia, Kentucky, bank was robbed, April 29th, 1872. Old Bly, the Sherman bummer, who is keeping up all the sensational reports in Kentucky, and if the truth was known, I am satisfied some of the informers are concerned in many robberies charged to the James and Younger Boys for ten years. The radical papers in Missouri and other states have charged nearly every daring robbery in America to the James and Younger Boys. It is enough for the northern papers to persecute us without the papers of the south; the land we fought for for four years, to save from Northern tyranny, to be persecuted by papers claiming to be Democratic, is against reason. The people of the south have only heard one side of the report. I will give a true history of the lives of the James and Younger Boys to the Banner in the future; or rather a sketch of our lives. We have not only been persecuted, but on the night of the 25th of January, 1875, at the midnight hour, nine Chicago assassins and Sherman bummers, led by Billy Pinkerton, Jr., crept up to my mother's house and hurled a missile of war (a 32-pound shell) in a room among innocent women and children, murdering my eight year old brother and tearing my mother's right arm off, and wounding several others of the family, and then firing the house in seven places. The radical papers here in Missouri have repeatedly charged the Russellville, Kentucky, bank robbery to the James and Younger Boys, while it is well known, that on the day of the robbery, March 20th, 1869, I was at the Chaplin Hotel in Chaplin, Nelson county, Kentucky, which I can prove by Mr. Tom Marshall, the proprietor, and fifty others; and on that day my brother Frank was at work on the Laponsu Ranche in San Luis Obispo county, California, for J. D. P. Thompson, which can be proven by the sheriff of San Luis Obispo county, and many others. Frank was in Kentucky the winter previous to the robbery, but he left Alexander Sayer's, in Nelson county, January 25th, 1868, and sailed from New York City, January the 16th, which the books of the United States mail line of steamers will show. Probably I have written too much, and probably not enough, but I hope to write much more to the Banner in the future. I will close by sending my kindest regards to old Dr. Eve, and many thanks to him for kindness to me when I was wounded and under his care.
Yours respectfully,
Jesse James.
The following communications appeared in the Kansas City Times during the excitement succeeding the great train robbery at Rocky Cut, near Otterville, Missouri. The first one appeared in the Times in its edition of August 14th, 1876, and the second one came out on the morning of the 23d of the same month.
JESSE JAMES' FIRST LETTER.
Oak Grove, Kan., August 14, 1876.
You have published Hobbs Kerry's confession, which makes it appear that the Jameses and the Youngers were the Rocky Cut robbers. If there was only one side to be told, it would probably be believed by a good many people that Kerry has told the truth. But his so-called confession is a well-built pack of lies from beginning to end. I never heard of Hobbs Kerry, Charles Pitts and William Chadwell until Kerry's arrest. I can prove my innocence by eight good, well-known men of Jackson county, and show conclusively that I was not at the train robbery. But at present I will only give the names of two of those gentlemen to whom I will refer for proof.