The Encyclopedia of Lawmen, Outlaws, and Gunfighters

by Leon Claire Metz

  Shibell, a partisan Democrat, served from 1867 to 1869 as an inspector of customs at El Paso. He then returned to the Tucson area, ranched, prospected, and worked as a deputy under Sheriff William Sanders Oury of Pima County.

  By at least one account Shibell was a participant in the infamous Camp Grant Massacre. During his long tenure in Arizona, Charley was from time to time involved in skirmishes with raiding Apache. During 1865 alone, Indians raided his ranch three times, although rare indeed was the early Arizona settler who was not occasionally confronted by Indian depredations.

  Charles Shibell in 1876 became sheriff of Pima County, its 12,000,000 acres containing a scattered population of 3,000. However, he had been in office but a few days before he had to drop his administrative duties (as tax assessor and collector) and arrest a dangerous murderer, Thomas Kerr. From then on, burdened by paperwork and the colossal size of the county, there was little time for routine patrol or preventive law enforcement. In Tucson, there was paperwork to complete, a jail to maintain, arrests to be made, subpoenas to be served, and an occasional pursuit of escaping prisoners.

  Naturally as the Arizona Territory "opened up," the sheriff's headaches increased. To the south and southeast of Tucson lay the Mexican border, an almost unbelievably isolated area, perfect for smuggling cattle, horses, and other contraband back and forth across the international boundary. The vacuum filled with disputable characters. As new towns sprang up, they too overflowed, the riffraff meandering from one boomtown to the next. Stagecoach robberies seemed epidemic.

  William W. Brazelton in particular grabbed Shibell's attention. On the night of August 19, 1878, Shibell and his deputies staked out a site where Brazelton expected food and ammunition. During the ensuing shootout, or murder, as some claim, the career of the noted desperado came to an abrupt end. Regardless of how it was done, the Arizona populace cheered, and Shibell was handily reelected sheriff in 1878.

  East of Tucson, as Tombstone began to flourish and Republican Party politics started taking hold, Shibell sensed a challenge to his Democratic administration. He gave Wyatt Earp (a Republican) an opportunity to become a deputy, but he terminated the commission when Earp publicly supported Shibell's political rival, Bob Paul.

  In the hotly contested election of 1880, Shibell was defeated by Paul, although the decision was argued before the Arizona Supreme Court. After his defeat, Shibell operated the Palace Hotel in Tucson. When Democrats regained control of the Pima County sheriff's office, Charles Shibell became the number-two man (undersheriff) in Eugene O. Shaw's administration.

  In one stirring adventure, Shibell and U.S. Marshal William Kidder Meade, accompained by deputies, rode in pursuit of suspects who had robbed a Southern Pacific train at Stein's Pass, New Mexico, on February 22, 1888. The lawmen followed the trail deep into Mexico, where they belatedly reported their mission. The Mexican authorities jailed them for illegally entering the country. After two weeks, the embarrassed possemen were released without their horses and shooting irons, and returned home, absent any prisoners.

  At 48 years of age, Shibell changed careers, successfully campaigning for the office of county recorder, a position to which he continually won reelection until his death from natural causes on October 21, 1908.

  .Sr'+' dW0; BRAZELTON, WILLIAM; EARP, WYATT BERRY STAPP; MEADE, WILLIAM KIDDER

  SHINN, George (?-?)

  George Shinn was obscure at both ends of his life. He appeared from out of nowhere and ultimately vanished the same way. In the end he wasn't as successful as he was awkwardly dangerous in his chosen occupation as a desperado. He and four other men attempted to rob the Central Pacific out of Colfax, California, on September 1, 1881. They managed to derail the train, but when no one on board cooperated by opening their wallets, the outlaws panicked and vanished, taking nothing but bad tempers with them. Within 10 days lawmen had rounded up the luckless robbers; George Shinn was marched off to the San Quentin Prison at San Rafael, California. At the end of three years he requested a pardon. He had a good record, and numerous influential names supported him, but the governor refused the request.

  Shinn and another inmate, Charles Dorsey, a stage robber locked up for killing a passenger, now teamed up. On December 1, 1887, they took advantage of pouring rain and, without any challenges, drove a horse-drawn cart through the prison gates and disap peared. They made it to Sacramento, then moved south and east through Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, all the while engaging in a series of holdups before arriving in Chicago, where both men were arrested by Wells Fargo and Pinkerton agents. The bandits readily confessed, the media subsequently dubbing them "the most daring desperados of the Pacific Coast." Upon being returned to Oakland, California, the lawmen and outlaws were greeted by overwhelming crowds. Even a brass band showed up and played.

  Dorsey now returned to San Quentin, while Shinn went to Folsom Prison, where the authorities released him in 1899. After that he dropped from sight, and all efforts to trace him have come to naught.

  SHORT, Luke (1854-1893)

  Luke Short was born in Mississippi, but within a year or two his folks had moved to East Texas to work on a farm. At a very young age he hired out as a cowboy, working the cattle trails between Texas and Kansas, in the process noting that whiskey peddlers and gamblers lived much more clean, relaxed, and pleasant lives than wranglers did.

  In later years, Luke would be described as a fastidious dresser, a man with a small, even frail body that supported a somewhat oversized head. He stood about five feet six inches in height and weighed about 125 pounds. A thick, drooping mustache partially obscured a clean-shaven face. Thinning brown hair sometimes hung wistfully over bright blue eyes.

  By 1876, Short joined whiskey peddlers 100 or so miles north of Sidney, Nebraska, their clients primarily being Sioux Indians. Stories exist-but evidence does not-that he was frequently arrested by U.S. soldiers and charged with selling whiskey to Indians.

  From October 6 to 8, 1878, during a Cheyenne uprising, Short was hired out as a dispatch rider and civilian scout at $10 a day to ride from Ogallala, Nebraska, to the roving headquarters of Maj. Thomas T. Thornburgh. After that he drifted over to Leadville, Colorado, where he allegedly killed a man named Brown during a gambling dispute. He moved next to Dodge City, Kansas, and from there to Tombstone, Arizona, where he became a house dealer in the Oriental Saloon. Here he killed Charlie Storms, a well-known gambler, during an argument over a card game. Short shot Storms three times.

  Luke Short: sometimes a gunFighter, always a gambler and a dandy (Author's Collection)

  After being given a hearing and released, Short returned to Dodge City and worked as a house dealer in the Long Branch Saloon. He also became a central figure in the so-called Dodge City War. It all started with the mayoral election of Larry Deger and his reform ticket. Once in office his administration passed two ordinances, one prohibiting brothels and the second making bordello employees, in the eyes of the law, equivalent to individuals having no visible means of support-in other words, subject to arrest as vagrants.

  Under the law, the Long Branch Saloon became a brothel, and some of its female entertainers were arrested. The city also arrested Luke for shooting at policeman Lewis Hartman. A judge subsequently ordered Luke to leave town. Several officers escorted him to the train. Other gamblers got the same treatment.

  Short went to Kansas City but made plans for returning to Dodge. He wrote all his friends and associates. He petitioned Governor George Glick for state action. Newspapers picked up the story, and what had previously been a controversy now became the Dodge City War. The word went out that Luke Short was returning to Dodge with an army of gunfighters. The governor alerted National Guard companies. They and groups of peace officers met the train, but it had no Short and no gunfighters on it.

  Blizzards of telegrams crisscrossed the state. Then, on June 5, Luke Short, Wyatt Earp, Charlie Bassett, Frank McLane, and Bat Masterson stepped off the train at Dodge. On June 6, city officials wired Governor G
lick about this endangerment to law and order. The city asked for militia, and the governor sent Gen. Thomas Moonlight. He mediated the dispute. The mayor settled down, and Luke Short gathered a group of gunmen and had their photo taken together. Historians have dubbed it "Luke Short and his Dodge City Peace Commission."

  In November 1883, Luke Short and his partner sold the Long Branch Saloon and went to Fort Worth. In August 1884, Short sued Dodge City for $15,000. The matter was settled out of court.

  In February 1887, a Fort Worth gunman and former city marshal, Timothy Isaiah Courtright, better known as "Longhaired" Jim Courtright, now owned his own detective agency. He primarily provided "protection" to his clients, and he approached Short about protection money. Short refused, one word led to another, and both men reached for weapons. Courtright proved the faster, but his weapon caught in his own watch chain. Luke Short simply began pulling the trigger. One bullet shattered Courtright's revolver cylinder and blew off his right thumb. Another struck Courtright in the heart. Still another buried itself in the right shoulder, as two final shots thundered into the wall. Courtright died quickly. It took only a little longer for Luke Short to get out of jail.

  Following the gunfight with Jim Courtright, Luke Short practically went into retirement. His last shooting occurred on December 23, 1890, in a gambling dispute. Charles Wright, with a shotgun, blew off part of Luke's left thumb and buried the other pellets in his left leg. Luke wounded his opponent, who promptly fled.

  Luke visited Geuda Springs, Kansas, in August 1893 for treatment of dropsy but died there of the disease on September 8. He is buried in the Oakwood Cemetery at Fort Worth.

  SSee C190: COURTRIGHT, TIMOTHY ISAIAH; DODGE CITY, KANSAS; DODGE CITY WAR; EARP, WYATT BERRY STAPP; MASTERSON, WILLIAM BARCLAY

  SHOTGUN (a.k.a. Double-barreled Shotgun, Scattergun)

  This weapon never got much play in Western movies, but it remained a favorite weapon of Western lawmen, stagecoach drivers, and (sometimes) saloon owners. It had a certain effectiveness in crowd control and even one-on-one situations. At short range a gunman need not be a good shot in order to be persuasive. Shotguns have always been relatively inexpensive, and at short range they do not require pinpoint accuracy. This in itself adds to their popularity, particularly for home defense.

  SIRINGO, Charles Angelo (1855-1928)

  Charles Siringo epitomized the cowboy detective. He was born in Matagorda County, Texas, and grew up as a cowboy. His experiences while driving cattle on the Chisholm Trail became fodder for an autobiography entitled Fifteen teat or the Deck of a

  Charles A. Siringo (Robert G. McCubbin Collection)

  In 1886, he joined the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, and working out of the Chicago office he spent the next 20 years trailing criminals around the West. He sought the Wild Bunch at the Hole-in-theWall, infiltrated a labor union in Utah, and on occasion acted as bodyguard. His Lore .Star Cowboy, published in 1919, received a favorable audience; his Hitoty ofBify the Kid, published in 1920, was obviously not written to set the record straight but to cash in on a growing Billy the Kid biography market.

  Siringo later bitterly criticized the Pinkerton Agency for filing injunctions stopping him from publishing Two an expose of what he knew about the firm. His F.ictc and published in 1927, did include some agency details. It was his best book. He died in Hollywood, California.

  .See rJLq.o; COGHLAN, PATRICK; PINKERTON NATIONAL DETECTIVE AGENCY

  SIX-SHOOTER

  Most lawmen, gunfighters, cowboys, desperadoes, etc., carried what in the 20th and 21st centuries were commonly called six-shooters, revolvers, pistols, handguns. In the old Wild West, "pistols" seems to have been the favorite descriptive name. Of course, there was also a salon, muff, parlor, or saloon pistol, a reference to any light, small-caliber weapon frequently carried by a lady.

  A difference between these six-shooters is that some were single-action and some were doubleaction. A single-action revolver, or six-shooter pistol, required only that the trigger be pulled. A double-action required that the weapon be cockedin other words, that the hammer be pulled back before the weapon could be fired. Those who carried double-action weapons generally cocked the weapon with the thumb as they pulled it from the holster, belt, or pocket, and thus had it ready to fire practically as soon as it cleared the leather. As a general rule also, while the weapons were known as sixshooters, meaning a bullet in all six chambers of the cylinder, the hammer usually rode on an empty chamber, in order to prevent misfires, such as shooting oneself in the leg.

  Some lawmen were known for the caliber of weapon they carried. Wild Bill Hickok, for instance, favored the .36 Navy Colt. Other individuals used the .44 Army. Billy the Kid liked the .44-40. Dallas Stoudenmire preferred the Smith & Wesson .44.

  Pinkerton agents and policemen generally favored small, easily concealed revolvers, such as a Smith & Wesson .38 Fifth Model, hammerless revolver. Heck Thomas liked the Colt New Navy Model 1892 .38caliber revolver. In short, the weapons preferred by outlaws, lawmen, and gunfighters were as varied as their own personalities.

  SLADE, Joseph Alfred (a.k.a. Jack Slade) (1824-1864)

  Jack Slade, as he preferred to be called, was born in Carlyle, Illinois, but left home in the 1840s. He saw action during the Mexican War, in 1858 working as a Colorado line foreman for the Central Overland California and Pike's Peak Express Company. Slade was a drinking fool, a working fool, and a fighting fool, and he could do any of the three with equal vigor and joy. However, he also had romance in his blood, and during this period the short, roly-poly, sometimes schizophrenic Slade married a pretty young lass known only as Virginia.

  No sooner had Slade taken on the Overland Mail job, however, than word came down that over in Colorado a French Canadian named Jules Reni had been stealing company horses. Reni might have even worked for the company; the facts are not clear. But whether the theft was in-house or not, Slade rode over to investigate.

  The two men met in the street, and Slade realized quickly that perhaps he should have stayed in the main office. Reni started shooting, his first two bullets knocking Slade down. Three more bullets struck the writhing man. Reni then emptied a shotgun into his victim, altogether firing roughly 13 slugs into Slade. After Reni turned and left, several bystanders, including company employees, carried the bloodsoaked Slade off to a bunkhouse.

  Reni expected Slade to die, and when he didn't, Reni apparently hung around the area for an opportunity to do a more thorough and workmanlike job of killing him. Instead, the advantages now fell to Slade. In 1859, several cowboys caught Reni watching the Slade ranch near Cold Springs, Colorado. Slade ordered them to bind Reni to a fence post. Then, swigging deeply from a whiskey flask, Slade methodically pulled his six-shooter and commenced shooting Reni in the arms and legs. After tiring of the game, he jammed his six-shooter into Reni's mouth and fired. Then pulling out his knife, he cut off both of Reni's ears. For the remainder of his life he used one of them as a watch fob.

  Slade now left (or was forced out of) his Overland Mail position. He and Virginia drifted to Fort Halleck, Wyoming, where Jack in 1862 nearly killed an unnamed civilian. Now, with an arrest warrant dogging him, he and his wife moved on to Montana, ranching and farming near Virginia City-which was not named for his wife, as has been claimed. Jack killed no one there, but his drunken, rowdy behavior caused uproars wherever he went. The vigilantes at first warned him, then banned him from even entering the town, but all that was a waste of good air.

  One evening as the drunken Slade shot and swaggered his way through the community, vigilantes grabbed him by the arms and dragged him toward the cross-bar of a corral gate. At this point, Jack Slade began pleading for his life, begging in such a pathetic matter that a few of the vigilantes forced a brief reconsideration-giving Jack sufficient time to send someone for his wife.

  But it was too late. As they put the rope around his neck on March 10, 1864, he cried, "My God! My God! Oh, my poor wife! Must I die like this?" And he died
like that.

  His wife, Virginia, arrived an hour later, found his body lying in the street, and decided she would take it back to Illinois for burial. From somewhere she acquired a casket largely made of tin and filled it with alcohol, the fluid her husband loved so well. Four months later, the body reached Salt Lake City, where it had become so odorous that it went no farther. On July 20, 1864, Jack Slade was interred in the local Mormon cemetery. As for his wife, Virginia, she sold the ranch, moved, remarried, and divorced. Then she vanished.

  As an aside, the author and humorist Mark Twain claimed to have met Jack Slade somewhere out West in a saloon during 1861. Twain described the gunman as "so friendly and so gentle spoken that I warmed to him in spite of his awful history."

  SLAUGHTER, John Horton (1841-1922)

  One of Arizona's most famous sheriffs and cattlemen, John Slaughter was born in Sabine Parrish, Louisiana, served in the Confederate army, joined the Texas Rangers, and by the 1870s had his own cattle ranch in Frio County, Texas. He was short, about five foot six inches, stocky, and always wore expen sive clothes, including a vest. He married in 1871. He and the wife moved to Arizona, where she died a few years later. Meanwhile, John drove cattle back and forth across the Mexican border, and although he got away with it-and always claimed to have done it legally-disturbing questions arose.

  John H. Slaughter (Robert G. McCubbin Collection)

  Although Slaughter had likely killed Apache and perhaps Mexicans in defense of his herds, he shot his first recorded man, Barney Gallagher, near Fort Sumner, New Mexico, in the fall of 1876. Barney was supposed to have been, and probably was, a rustler.

  On March 11, 1879, New Mexico governor Lew Wallace had Slaughter arrested on cattle-theft charges. After being released, the 37-year-old Slaughter married the 18-year-old Viola Howell in May and moved to Charleston, 10 miles southwest of Tombstone, Arizona. There he had a brief encounter with the Clanton family, called them thieves, and ordered them off his land. They left. Then in 1886, John Slaughter ran for sheriff of Cochise County and won, serving from 1877 to 1890. His motto: Shoot firstthen yell, "Throw up your hands!"