Leon Claire Metz
The Way of a GunFighter: An Introduction ix
Acknowledgments xv
Entries 1
Bibliography 273
Index 281
As a boy growing up in Parkersburg, West Virginia, during the late 1940s, I remember reading my first western gunfighter biography. I do not recall the publisher, but the book was entitled Tie of Bid r tPie Kid, by Walter Noble Burns.
That book had a profound effect upon my life, although I would not realize it until much later. In those simple, beguiling days, it never occurred to this gullible youngster that not everything in print was necessarily true. I thought it was illegal to lie in print, that one went to jail for things like that. Another 20 years would pass before it finally dawned on me that Billy the Kid had never killed the fabled 21 men, that he had not likely slain over six. During later years I almost cried when I learned that he was probably born in New York City, that his real name wasn't William Bonney but Henry McCarty, and that he could have been as old as 24 or 25 when Sheriff Pat Garrett shot him dead at around midnight at Fort Sumner, New Mexico.
I carried many of my false western impressions and beliefs with me when I moved to El Paso, Texas, during the early 1950s. Roughly 10 years later I began researching and writing about the Wild West, initially skipping over Billy the Kid and John Wesley Hardin, believing them to have already been too well covered by other authors. Hardin in particular had written his autobiography in 1895, finishing it per
haps only hours before his death. Who could quarrel with the authenticity of that?
So my research began with the gathering of information regarding lesser-known individuals, gunfighters, and outlaws, significant personalities who had not yet become household words regarding the Wild West. Thus my first book was a biography of John Selman, the lawman/outlaw gunman who killed John Wesley Hardin. In the process of researching Selman, even though his and Hardin's lives did not come together until the mid-1890s, shortly before their deaths, I nevertheless accumulated considerable information regarding Hardin, information I retained but rarely utilized for 20 years until the early 1990s, when it occurred to me that the 100th anniversary of Hardin's violent death in El Paso, Texas, was coming up. "This might be a good time to write his biography," I said to myself.
My next book after Selman was a biography of Dallas Stoudenmire, a gunman whose name was hardly a household word anywhere in the world. He both built his reputation and met his death in El Paso.
After that, with two gunfighter biographies behind me, I ached to write about Billy the Kid, even though at the time I suspected that I could add little that was new to what Walter Noble Burns, and many other writers as well, had already recorded. Therefore, I changed my mind and instead wrote a biography of the tall sheriff who killed Billy the Kid-Pat Garrett. Surprisingly, although Billy the Kid had by now become the subject of uncounted articles and biographies, since Burns no author had turned his or her attention to Garrett. Sheriff Pat Garrett in these Billy the Kid stories had been reduced to little more than a footnote. But Garrett was much more than that. During my research, Garrett turned out to be quite a revelation; in fact, Pat Garrett changed my life. He is in many respects responsible for this encyclopedia. He made me realize that in terms of the American gunfighting West, there truly were no minor or irrelevant figures. There are merely lives that have never been properly investigated.
Pat Garrett, who even I anticipated would be peripheral to Billy the Kid, if still a figure worth writing about, turned out to be one of southwestern America's most dynamic and tragic images. In the Pat Garrett biography, it surprisingly wasn't he who was marginal but Henry McCarty-or Henry Antrim, or William Bonney, or Billy the Kid, or whatever else one prefers to call him.
From this writer's perspective, Garrett was a fascinating and towering, if deeply flawed, individual. Billy the Kid was just flawed. Nevertheless, old heroes die hard in our mental and emotional pantheons. In spite of my efforts, it remains Billy the Kid and not Pat Garrett whom folks remember. The reason, I believe, lies in the name. The name "Billy the Kid" somehow grabs the imagination, implying perpetual youth, a young man full of promise cruelly cut down in his prime. If his real name, Henry McCarty, had been used, I am convinced most folks would never have heard of him. "Pat Garrett," on the other hand, would be a nice name for a bottle of Ketchup; it is small wonder that Garrett has never grabbed intense public attention.
Still, this encyclopedia is about outlaw/lawman violence and associate themes in the American West, the West understood to lie between Canada and the Mexican border, between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean. The time period starts immediately after the Civil War and closes shortly after 1900, when the last remnants of outlaw/lawmen/gunfighters rode across the western horizon and into legend.
It is fair to say that the Civil War set the stage for the gunfighter era. The war left not only chaos but hopelessness, lawlessness, and an uprooted population, especially in the South. The South also had the
added burden of military occupation by a federal army unequipped for stabilization and rehabilitation.
Hundreds of ex-Confederate soldiers wandered the dusty roads and village towns, communities where most civilian jobs had been swept away. Markets had vanished. Schools had closed. Families had scattered. Many aimless southerners subsequently turned westward.
Oklahoma was still mostly Indian. Kansas and Missouri had hardly entered the war in the accepted sense of the word, and yet guerrilla forces had bitterly mangled each other there, leaving Kansas with an apt nickname it never deserved but certainly earned-Bleeding Kansas. Although California took the side of the Union, it had no real presence in the war and was remote from everywhere. Arkansas contributed manpower primarily to the South but became little more than a footnote to the war. As for Texas, it was big and wide, empty and yet settled when the war started, perhaps the only state still struggling with Indian problems. It was a land harboring its own sense of destiny, a people still wondering if they had done the right thing by joining the American union in the first place.
It wasn't long before two widely separated states, Kansas and Texas, far apart in distance and time, recognized that each had something the other needed. By the late 1860s, Kansas had railroads and grass but little in the way of manufactured or grown products. On the other hand, Texas had thousands of wandering longhorn cattle but no transportation and no markets.
So trails 1,000 miles long arose between Texas and Kansas, main trails and feeder trails with colorful names like Chisholm, Western, National, PotterBacon, Sedalia, and Goodnight-Loving. Within months of the end of the Civil War, the great cattle drives from Texas began in earnest, and from these drives grew violent, wide-open Kansas communities with names like Wichita, Dodge City, Newton, Ellsworth, Kansas City, Abilene, and Ogollala (in Nebraska).
Young Texas cowboys, many having just returned from the war but many away from home for the first time, spent lonesome months on the trails north. At their termini the cattle were sold, the cowhands were paid, and everybody went to town. In town it wasn't the churches that greeted them but saloons, plus firewater, wild women, and gambling. These boisterous and disorderly communities, known as "cow towns," catered to young, wild cowboys used to carrying firearms. Out of this, with many twists and turns and shades of opinion, arose the American gunfighter, without question the most colorful individual ever to grace the old Wild West.
A wide-open gunfighting era spread from Texas to Montana, and into New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming, Nevada, California, Idaho, Missouri, and Oklahoma.
This does not mean t
hat every cowboy was a gunfighter, for in fact, very few cowboys drew guns in anger. All would have argued that they carried guns only for self-defense, when in reality they shot snakes, lame horses, livestock that couldn't keep up, or whatever object stirred the cowboy's fancy in terms of rocks, trees, posts, and signs. Most disputes, however, were resolved by fistfights.
Of course, it can be legitimately asked, "Did not these states and territories have laws against carrying firearms, both concealed and exposed?" The answer is yes! Practically all of them did, as did their respective communities. The useful question is, "Why were the laws and ordinances not enforced?"
One reason was that many laws lacked specifics. On occasion, a law would forbid someone from carrying concealed weapons but say nothing about packing them openly. Other laws specified or implied "intent to harm." That "intent to harm" became a difficult motivation to prove in court.
Other laws implied that a person might openly bear firearms if he feared assault or other injury or violence to himself, his family, or his property. In this case the word "feared" became difficult to dgprove in court. Furthermore, fines were typically set somewhere between three and 10 dollars, which in those days might have been a lot of money, but not sufficiently large to discourage most desperados.
To keep a relative peace, the towns retained gunmen-Wild Bill Hickok, the Earps, and the Masterson brothers. They became known as city marshals, lawmen, shooters, and finally gunfighters, although the term "gunfighter" is far better known and more widely used in modern times than it ever was during the wildest periods of the Old West.
It could be said, and likely with enough patience could be proved, that hundreds, perhaps thousands of gunfighters drifted around the American West, at one time or another participating in perhaps thou
sands of gunfights. Richard Maxwell Brown, in his No Duly to Retreat, Violence grad Values mra care History ared has argued that these gunmen fell into two different categories, glorified gunfighters and grassroots gunfighters. The glorified gunfighters have names that still echo down the halls of history: Wild Bill Hickok, Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp, John Wesley Hardin, and the like. Few people ever heard of grassroots gunfighters, examples being John Behan, Elzy Lay, John Hays, Clay Allison, and David Kemp. The former were well known during their own time and were originals. The latter were known primarily in their own localities.
The exceptions to this rule would have been Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett. Garrett should have been the glorified gunfighter and Billy the Kid the grassroots man. Instead it is the Kid whom folks remember, not Garrett.
Oddly, the best of the glorified top guns rarely "shot it out." There was none of this "fastest gun around" business, no great feuds among the best. Hardin and Hickok never shot it out, in this writer's judgement, because they respected each other, although Hardin tried Hickok's patience on several occasions. Look at Holliday and the Earps, the Earps and the Mastersons, all well known, perhaps more from modern day movies and books than because of any other factor. One might argue about where that left John Ringo, a glorified name even though Ringo was a loner whom few associates particularly liked.
The same could be said for John Wesley Hardin. He has a rather prominent name, particularly in Texas, but Hardin was never a "company man" in the sense of Hickok and the Earps. Gallons of liquor, a murderous disposition, bad luck at the gambling table, his family dead and children scattered, plus 16 justifiable years in the Texas State Prison produced a man who shot a lot of people, most of them society rejects like himself. Later, in September 1895, when Hardin stood at an El Paso bar with his back to the door, one could build a case that he was simply looking for a way to die without pulling the trigger himself. It is no surprise that he was murdered.
Perhaps the "purest" gunfight, in the technical sense of the word, stemmed from the eastern and European practice of dueling, where two men stepped off 10 paces, turned, and fired. In the west ern sense, this was epitomized during a showdown on July 21, 1865, between Wild Bill Hickok-a Unionist who won the sobriquet "Wild Bill" during the Civil War-in Springfield, Missouri, when he killed Dave Tutt. The men, who had quarreled over a gambling debt, approached each other from across the city square. They drew their sidearms at about the same time, roughly 100 yards apart, stood still, aimed, and fired. Hickok scored a direct hit, sending a bullet squarely into Tutt's heart. But truth be known, Hickok was only a so-so shot. On this particular day, he had phenomenal luck.
Nevertheless, from this gunfight arose the modern-day gunfighter tradition. In literature and the movies, both men draw, and the faster draw wins. In reality, few people were stupid enough to stand in the middle of the street and risk being shot down, and those who did were usually intoxicated. Sensible and sober individuals took cover behind a barrel or telephone pole. After all, even losers win sometimes. Like Hickok in his killing of Tutt, someone could just be lucky.
Most gunfights were brawls that got out of hand, shootouts occurring after too much drink and not enough luck at the gambling table. Speed and fair play had nothing to do with it. Likely as not, more bystanders died or were wounded than gunfight participants, most of the slain onlookers being hit as they frantically scrambled to clear the room or the street.
Who was considered the best shot in the desperado/outlaw/lawman category is impossible to say. Probably it would be an unrecognizable name among gunfighter buffs and those who write about such things. None likely could match today's shooters, but today's shooters have advantages of finer weapons, more reliable (and smokeless) ammunition, and better training. An even more important advantage would be that today's expert marksmen do not have someone shooting back at them.
As an example of someone shooting back, take the case of James Butler (Wild Bill) Hickok again. He is usually cited as one of the most deadly-if not the deadliest-of the shootists. However, when he and gambler Phil Coe commenced banging away at one another in Abilene, Kansas, from a distance of less than six feet, Hickok emptied two six-shooters, putting only one bullet in Coe but killing his (own) deputy with another. Even under the best, or
worst, of situations, that would not be considered good shooting.
As for who killed the most people, that too is controversial. Almost all numbers are inaccurate or misleading, and one gets the feeling that over time numbers became inflated. As mentioned, Billy the Kid is reputed to have killed 21 men, but the real figure seems to be somewhere between four and six.
The numbers are all over the place. Biographers sometimes fill in the gaps, giving their subjects credit for every shooting in the countryside. Sometimes a desperado himself claimed numerous killings but cited little to back it up. John Wesley Hardin, wrote his autobiography, in which he described page after page of killings. Altogether he claimed to have killed approximately 50 men, although only about half have been documented through independent investigations. Yet, until all the evidence is in, Hardin stands alone in terms of deaths.
Readers might also note that most "gunfighters" who come to mind were actually lawmen, like Hickok and the Earps. Stage, train, and bank robbers rarely had the gunfighter/shooter/gunman reputation. They were usually called desperadoes, and desperadoes killed people. Jesse James, for instance, always carried a gun, and he murdered people with it, his gun being primarily a tool of coercion. Unlike Hickok, we never think of Jesse as meeting anyone in the middle of a dusty street. Desperadoes like Butch Cassidy and Sam Bass weren't ordinarily trying to kill folks; they were simply trying to take all their money. To get a reputation for killing people during a robbery was to ensure a fight every time a holdup took place-and fights, in addition to turning public opinion against you, were too risky insofar as one's own safety was concerned. Furthermore, killing people took the Robin Hood romanticism out of theft; sooner or later, the passengers or guards would win one.
While this encyclopedia has striven for gunfighter/gunman completeness, it has failed. Readers will find here the names of all the well-known outlaws and lawmen-the Billy the K
ids, the John Wesley Hardins, the Wild Bill Hickoks, the Earps, the Ringos, the Wild Bunch, the Texas Rangers, the Pinkertons, and so forth-but many of the names in this encyclopedia are little known to the average reader. Furthermore, there are perhaps dozens, even hundreds, of obscure names still awaiting biogra pliers. There is no such thing-and never will be any such thing-as a "complete" outlaw/lawman/gunfighter book. Itemizing all of them would not be like counting stars in the sky, but it might be roughly similar to counting books in a large public library.
Finally, in addition to these major and minor characters, I have also included definitions where
appropriate, as well as explanations of geographical locations. Furthermore, the scope has occasionally been broadened-with certain distinctions-by descriptions of some of the differences between city marshals, federal marshals, deputy marshals, sheriffs, and so forth.
Leon Claire Metz
I would like to thank a multitude of librarians and archivists from all over the United States, and especially the American Southwest. I need to thank Robert G. McCubbin, owner of Western Publications, for his friendship and always good advice, as well as his generous contribution of photographs. My thanks also go out to Bob Alexander, who put me on to many gunmen I would never have otherwise considered, to my Tombstone friend Ben Tray
wick, who read portions of the manuscript and gave me much-needed advice and encouragement; to Bob DeArment, Bill O'Neal, Chuck Parsons, and Lee Silva, great gunfighter buffs and biographers, all of whom know more about gunfighters than I ever will; and finally to a longtime friend and breakfast companion Dale L. Walker, to my mind the dean of western historians.
ABILENE, Kansas
Kansas did not become a state until January 29, 1861, and it sided with the Union during the Civil War. Strong Confederate guerrilla activity ripped the state asunder, actions that helped set the stage for confrontations between Texas cowboys-many of them Confederate veterans-and Kansas officials with Union sympathies and their own brand of bitterness. Abilene itself was founded in 1861, and after the war it quickly evolved into the first of the notorious cattle-trading centers and shipping points. In 1870 alone, nearly 200,000 head went through Abilene for shipment east. With the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad through Kansas around 1870, and the need for meat in the eastern United States, more than 5 million head of livestock prior to 1885 followed the Chisholm Trail up from Texas.
The Encyclopedia of Lawmen, Outlaws, and Gunfighters Page 1