How did a 16-year-old guerrilla fighter become one of the most famous men to survive the Civil War and ignite the country's imagination with their famous (or rather, infamous) exploits? Jesse James has been popularized in numerous books, TV shows and movies.

Jesse James, painted alone on a blank canvas becomes just another outlaw. However, portrayed within the tumultuous times in Missouri – he becomes something more. Some of the most defining times in our country became the music of his violent life: conflict between slavery and opposition to it, the terrible war between ourselves, emancipation, heavy-handed reconstruction, the expansion and corruption of the railroads – even the very beginning of industrialization.

“Jesse James,” said Carl Sandburg, “is the only American who is classical, who is to this country what Robin Hood…is to England, whose exploits are so close to the mythical…”

Was he an American Robin Hood or just a cold-blooded killer? Mel Maurer joins us to tell the true story of Jesse James: The Last Rebel of the Civil War.

Mel Maurer is the past president of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable, a nonprofit historical society and social group dedicated to the study and discussion of the American Civil War and that period of our nation's history. Maurer is a passionate researcher and author, publishing numerous articles on Civil War history.

This program is free and open to the public. It is held in the lecture hall of the Cleo Redd Fisher Museum; doors open at 6:30 and the program begins at 7:00 pm.