The story of Western outlaw Jesse James gets rewritten for every generation — indeed it was being rewritten even while he lived. As the former confederate guerrilla-turned-bandit embarked on a spree of bank and train robberies in the 1870s, gunning down unarmed bystanders repeatedly, James was also writing letters to a sympathetic (anti-Union) editor at the Kansas City Times, slyly embellishing his myth as a modern-day Robin Hood.
"We are not thieves," wrote James. "We are bold robbers, and I am proud of the name, for Alexander The Great was a bold robber, and Julius Caesar, and Napoleon Bonaparte, and Sir William Wallace. . . . We rob the rich and give to the poor."
Megalomania aside, none of this was true, but a great many people — especially supporters of the confederacy aggrieved by postwar repression — wanted to believe it was.