When
I think of gunslingers, an image of a cool, sexy, bad boy Clint comes to mind.
Indeed, these gunfighters, both men and women, offer intriguing stories of colorful
antics.
During
the civil war many men grew used to
violence. Having lost their lands and fortunes, they turned to the wrong side
of the law when the war ended. The west was filled with men who killed without
remorse and with little provocation.
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| James Younger Gang |
James (Jim)
Anderson, who rode with Quantrill’s Raiders during the war, is one example. At
the end of the Civil War, he joined the James-Younger Gang. Fellow
James-Younger Gang member, George Shepherd, killed Jim in revenge for Anderson
and Jesse James robbing and killing his nephew. Shepherd slit Anderson’s throat
on the lawn of the Texas state capital in Austin.
John
Peters Ringo, aka Johnny Ringo, fought so many gun battles he was given the
nickname, King of the Cowboys. And, John Wesley Hardin, a Texas gunslinger, was
credited with killing more than 40 men.
Perhaps the most
famous gunslinger of all was William Henry McCarty, aka William H. Bonney,
alias Billy the Kid. When he was sixteen, a bully jumped on top of him. Billy was
able to get hold of the revolver in his holster and fired it into the guy’s
gut. That act branded Billy as an outlaw.
James Dolan had
a feud with John Tunstall, an Englishman entrepreneur. This bloody feud became
the Lincoln County War. When The Boys stole Tunstall’s livestock, Billy was
arrested. Tunstall noticed he was just a boy who’d had a rough childhood, so he
hired him. The feud between Dolan and Tunstall escalated and after John
Tunstall was brutally murdered, Billy and Tunstall’s other ranch hands formed a
vigilante group called The Regulators.
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| Billy the Kid |
When Dolan's forces won the Lincoln
County War, Billy got away, but was arrested for killing Sheriff Brady during
the Lincoln County War. Billy escaped, killing his two guards. Sheriff Pat Garrett
hunted him down and shot him dead in 1881, in New Mexico. You’ll find this is a
common ending to a gunslinger’s life.
Many
gunslingers joined gangs, such as the Red Jack Gang, and the most famous of all,
the James Younger Gang. Jesse James, famous for holding up banks and trains,
led the James Younger Gang with his brothers and the Younger brothers: Thomas
Coleman, John, James, and Robert.
Jack
Almer aka Red Jack or Jack Averill led the Red Jack Gang. Jack’s gang held up a
stagecoach carrying only one passenger, a woman who wore a hat with a dark veil. When the Wells Fargo guard said they weren’t carrying
any gold, the
passenger called him a liar. It wasn’t a woman at all. It was Jack disguised in
women’s clothing.
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| Red Jack Gang |
The guard went for his gun, but Red Jack was faster and gunned him down. The gang took off with nearly $3,000 in gold and cash. Soon afterward, a posse tracked them down and killed Red Jack.
Gunfighters
were a breed of their own—often both outlaw and lawman during their lifetime.
Charles Allison, a deputy sheriff, led a band of outlaws who robbed stagecoaches
from Colorado to New Mexico.
Then
there was David L. Anderson, most commonly known as Billy Wilson. He was a
member of Billy the Kid’s Gang of rustlers, but later he was appointed sheriff
of Terrell County, New Mexico.
Gunslingers
weren’t just men, it was an equal opportunity profession. Sarah Jane Newman,
later known as Sally Skull, was a gun-slinging, horse-trading woman, who
dressed like a man. Twice a year Sally came back from Mexico with horses she
most likely stole. It was also rumored that she murdered two of her five
husbands.
Belle
Starr, born Myra Maybelle Shirley, received a classical education and learned
piano at Missouri's Carthage Female Academy. That didn’t keep her from her
favorite childhood pastime of shooting guns with her brother, Bud. She was also
friends with the James and Younger boys in Missouri. After the horse thief she
married was killed, Belle wed Samuel Starr and joined the Starr Clan, a
Cherokee Indian family notorious for whiskey, cattle, and horse thieving in
Indian Country (now Oklahoma). Belle was quite a sight, riding sidesaddle in a
plumed hat and a black velvet riding habit with a cartridge belt hung across
her hips. She earned a reputation as a crack shot. In fact, Belle was the
mastermind of the gang.
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| Belle Starr |
Pearl
Hart was born in Lindsay, Canada in 1871. Though she attended an exclusive
school she was more interested in adventure than education. Pearl eloped with a
gambler, but left him by the time she was 22, riding to Arizona. There she fell
in love with Joe Boot, but he couldn’t make enough money mining, so the pair
turned to robbery.
In
1899, Pearl came up with the plan to hold up a stagecoach. She cut her hair and
dressed like a man, and as Boot held a gun on the driver, Pearl stole over $400
from the passengers. The two rode off with the money but the posse caught up to
them in the desert. Pearl’s famous for telling the judge, “I shall not consent
to be tried under a law in which my sex had no voice in making." She was convicted
anyway, but was pardoned after only serving 18 months in jail. For a short time, Pearl performed in Buffalo
Bill’s Wild West Show.
The
teenage girls, Little Britches (Jennie Stevenson) and Cattle Annie (Anna
Emmaline McDoulet) were sure-fire markswomen. The pair, who dressed in men's
clothing, were among the most infamous outlaws in Oklahoma, selling whisky to
the Osage and Pawnee and stealing horses.
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| Cattle Annie & Little Britches |
In mid-August 1895, Little Britches
was captured, but escaped by stealing a deputy marshal’s horse. U.S. Marshal
Bill Tilghman and his deputy Steve Burke tracked Annie and Little Britches down.
Burke caught 13-year-old Cattle Annie as she was climbing from a window, but
Tilghman had a harder time capturing Little Britches. Tilghman finally took her
into custody after he shot her horse and it collapsed to the ground.
The
era of the Wild West lasted for 30 years. But more than a century after their
deaths, the tales of gunfighters live on.
Thank
you for reading the post. Comment on this post below!
Nate’s
Destiny, book six in the MacLarens of Boundary Mountain historical western
romance series is now available for preorder!
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