Was Jesse James a Terrorist?

The new biography Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War, recently published by Alfred A. Knoph, will no doubt cause some waves. Author T.J. Stiles makes a compelling case: “had Jesse James existed a century later, he would have been called a terrorist.” Stiles, originally from St. Cloud, Minnesota, stops short, however, of aligning the James Gang with Al Queda. Stiles clarifies, “The term [terrorist] hardly fits with the traditional image of him as a Wild West outlaw, yippin’ and y