I majored in history in journalism, a double major in college and i took american studies for my masters degree. My summer jobs i worked for the National Parks service. I spent one summer at harpers ferry. Spent another some at the Stonewall Jackson house in lexington virginia but ive always been fascinated by history. I also like to write about history. Of course, the other thing is that in my research, im a music lover, too. When i found references in that respect a particular song or an instrument i would make note of that as well. I feel as i said earlier that music is great time machine. I really tried to mimic that with my writing and make my books a valid of sorts to take you back and tell you that sto story. Im also from missouri, and ive been down highway 44 and seen the jesse james hideout and the caverns, all the kind of stuff. So im aware about him being kind of a celebrity, but i was sort taken aback when you said he was a hero. Id like you to explain, because im not sure exactly how you met that. And then movies, which one do you think most accurately portrays the northfield raid or jesse james . Okay, sure. Hes not a hero to me now, as an adult. He was a childhood hero. And i think obviously jesse, the quality that made him, or that i saw as heroic was the myth. He grew to become a robin hood. I mean, we put attributes on him that he did not really have. He never gave to the poor. He gave to himself. But the song, shortly after he was killed this song was created where robert ford is the coward. Tee shot jesse in the back and they were dime novels. And then the movies that came out, and jesse has been transformed, this kind of superman the font the railroads like the railroads were the enemy and fought the mean old bankers are going to take the house because of the mortgage payment. Payment. Thats the star you see over and over again. So thats what he was a hero. There are people that still look up to jesse actually today that are out there. But no, the real jesse, and again, one of the reasons why i wanted to revisit the subject wasnt because of my childhood that i wanted to see the real jesse james and what he was like, and frank and the gang members themselves. Hes very, very different than robin hood. Now, as far as movies, there have been several and i think thats a good thing to bring a. Several movies have featured the northfield raid, and almost always in these movies they show the northfield raid as a trap, that people get ahead of time. I think what that tells me is that people find it very hard to believe that this hardened gang of criminals could be defeated by everyday citizens, which they were. So its got to be a trap. Theres no way it could happen but thats exactly the way happen. My favorite jesse james movie is the assassination of jesse james by the coward robert ford starring brad pitt. I think its accurate except for the aspen trees. It was building candidate. It a beautiful film and i think brad pitt is the best jesse james ive ever seen on film. Tyrone bowers is great. Robert wagner is great. Robert duvall is a good jesse but by far the best is this characterization by brad pitt. I have two questions. Number one, to any of the outlaws have any descendents . My second question is, if you were to fire a revolver and poll of six shots pretty quickly, so how heavily with these men armed . Did have several rifles, revolvers on the . What did they have . As for the descendents, yes, there are descendents of the james family, both frank and jesse had children to jesse left two children, opal and a girl. And then frank had a son, Robert Franklin james. The younger brothers did not have any children, but they had nieces. They are offshoots from the younger families that are still out there. I was contacted recently by a relative of build shadwell, and get a photograph. He always wondered if bill chad will was related and it turns out that his ancestor was a brother of build shadwell. His name was james or jim. Iran into all types of people that were descended from the citizens that had fought back or encountered the game as they escaped through minnesota. I met a relative of nicolas gustafson. There was a family that encountered the robbers just before their captured in a shootout on the river, the thompsons family. I met them at northfield. Theres a lot of descendents out there. I get lots and lots of emails and i get lots of people with Great Stories about jesse and frank watered their horses at our horsedrawn. A really good buddy of mine i grew up with has a hope that belonged to jesse source. Now. Nicely polished. I think it probably is why would you go to all that effort to polish it up and make it presentable . So yeah. What was the second . The guns, yes. They did not carry rifles or shotguns. They did not carry shoulder guns but they did have multiple principles. Sometimes three or four revolvers to get as much firepower as possible. That goes back to the days as bushwhackers because again these guys are light cavalry. They have multiple revolvers to get off shots. At that time in the civil war they are cap and ball pistols. Each chamber had to be loaded individually. By 1876 the our cartridge guns but there used to getting several. They wanted as much firepower as possible. Their favorite weapons of the top weapons of the day, the cold revolver and the smith wesson sometimes referred to as the smith wesson russian. The smith wesson was the perfect weapon for them, and unlike the cold it broke open at the top and had an injector that was supposed to pop the cartridge. That was very quick to reload. It was slower. Sometimes they had both, smith wesson or a couple of calls. At jesses death he barely had a Colt Single Action Army and the smith wesson as part of his arsenal. But a bunch of revolvers. [inaudible] i think they probably did have a shoulder holster type assembly, and also holsters on their belts as well. And then the dead bodies of the robbers in one of the robbers they discussed their clothing and most in the pockets. Build shadwell, his pockets were stuffed with cartridges they said. If you have a cartridge build you dont have to fill your pockets of. They said his pockets were filled full of cartridges. He was ready. He was prepared. We were in liberty last week, and they robbed a bank there and got almost 60,000. And then they robbed other banks around. All that money, did they spend it as fast as they got it or do they stash it somewhere . They spent it as fast as they got it. It went through their fingers like water. They spend it very quickly. Jesse had hardly anything at his death. The family, his wife and children were pretty much destitute. Ahead and auction and auctioned off a lot of the furnishings in the house they were living in. He was planning another robbery at his death to replenish some of those funds. But youre right, that robbery was i think 1866. Jesse probably wasnt involved in that, but some of the other youngers might have been part of that. We dont know all of the identities. In fact, its difficult to know the makeup of the gang for each particular robbery until we get to that rocky to robbery in ju july 1876 when hobbes very confesses he made all eight men and for the first time theres solid identification of every man of the gain. Again would be different before that and it would be different later as well. I want to thank the st. Louis county library. I want to thank cspan, and i really had a great time here tonight. Anyway, my next book is going to be a Teddy Roosevelt and the roughriders. Thanks. No more outlaws for a while. [applause] you are watching 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books on cspan2s tv. Now more from erie, pennsylvania. Booktv visited the area with the help of our local cable partner time warner cable. The lagoon area was formed by a series of ponds that were connected back in the late 1920s, early 1930s, and was originally meant to be a statewide worlds biggest Fish Hatchery. That connected all the ponds but they ran out of money before they could take it any further. The results to date have been the fact that we still have a great natural Fish Hatchery that is semiclose to the public because the only transportation back your our bioelectric powerboats or kayaks and canoes. The public is sort of limited consequently which is a fairly natural and with all kinds of animals and birds and things populating it all summer long. Presque isle is french for almost an island. Thats because six times during history of recorded history of the park, it was an island that it broke through the neck of the financial and became an island. At one point the opening was over a mile across and 20 feet deep. In the 1920, the state turned it into a state park. It was the second state park in the whole state of pennsylvania, valley forge was first. Then this park. It wasnt called Presque Isle State Park at a time. They originally named it Pennsylvania State park at erie. One of the ares i like to talk about and you will see is where the Perry Monument is at one point was called crystal by a