Her story touched off renewed interest in Earp in movies and books in the s. Writing about Wyatt Earp and not knowing about this controversy is a little like writing about Howard Hughes and not knowing about Clifford Irving. But Clavin seems not to know of it.
It would have been discreet indeed because no one in Tombstone ever mentioned seeing them together. Boessenecker cuts through years of debate about who the good guys were in the Tombstone wars with fact. By the time they came to Arizona, the Earp boys had all left their rowdy pasts and brushes with the law behind. No one could stop them. Hamstrung by the Posse Comitatus Act that forbade the federal government from using the military to enforce civilian law, and without a federal police force patrolling the borders, Virgil Earp, the Deputy US marshal for the southeast area of Arizona Territory, had no resources besides his brothers and a few trusted deputies to help him contain the rampant lawlessness.
President Rutherford B. Hayes was passing through Tucson on the way back to Washington when a message arrived that Cowboys were threatening to stop his train; a detachment of cavalry was brought in to guard the president. Town marshal Virgil and his brothers administered gun control. The big clash came on October 26, , when the Earps and Doc Holliday, fed up with Cowboy threats, went to disarm them at an empty lot near the O. The ensuing fight left all the participants except Wyatt wounded and three of the Cowboys dead.
As a way to repay his debt, Johnson joined the posse. Johnson was also said to have previously associated with the Cowboys and therefore, like McMaster, was able to pass on important inside information. Smith, a year-old native of Connecticut, had a close and long connection to the Earp family. Charlie was fluent in Spanish, having spent several years in Texas working in saloons. In Fort Worth he had been associated with barman James Earp, the oldest of the Earp boys, as well as saloon owner and future Earp business partner Robert J.
Smith took a hand in at least two Fort Worth gunfights and sustained a serious chest wound in The following year, Smith came to Tombstone with Winders and immediately became associated with all the Earps. Tipton, also 37, arrived in Tombstone in March with a shady reputation earned during the early days of the mining boom in Virginia City, Nev. Tipton, who sported several tattoos on his hands and forearms, was a former Civil War Union seaman who took up mining and gambling after the war.
Tipton was said to have traveled to Tombstone in the company of another Earp ally, Bat Masterson. By the time of the serious trouble with the Cowboys in October , Masterson had left Tombstone, but Tipton was still there supporting the Earp faction.
Tombstone was a powder keg, and Wyatt knew there was safety in numbers. The men faced off with their hands on their revolvers, but a town deputy prevented them from taking matters any further. On the same day, gambler and Earp ally Lou Rickabaugh came to blows with Ben Maynard, a Cowboy associate, but they were separated before weapons could be used. After spending the first half of January watching out for Cowboys and watching over his injured brother, who had lost the use of his left arm but would survive, Wyatt Earp decided it was time for action.
On the ride, they arrested the fiery Maynard and forced him to lead the way as they descended on the nearby Cowboy hangout of Charleston. The posse went door to door in Charleston but failed to find the Clantons or Diehl. After riding out of town, the men scouted through the countryside, eventually setting up a camp near Tombstone at a place known as Pick-em-up.
Unbeknown to Wyatt, the Clanton brothers had surrendered themselves and were already back in Tombstone. No resistance was offered, and the entire Earp posse returned to Tombstone, where McMaster was bailed, and he and Charlie Smith booked into the Cosmopolitan Hotel. Courtroom dramas dominated the Tombstone newspapers throughout February , as both factions sought justice through the legal system.
Corral shootout, but these charges were later dismissed. Tipton was left with a bloody eye, and both men were fined. Two days later, the Earp posse was riding again. Heavily armed, they left Tombstone with warrants for the arrest of Pony Diehl, who was now wanted for a January stage robbery. That expedition proved fruitless, and Wyatt and his men eventually returned empty-handed to town. As March progressed, an uneasy quiet fell over Tombstone. Wyatt and his men had heard that the Cowboys were plotting more revenge attacks, but no one knew for sure when, or where, the attacks would take place.
There seemed to be an air of inevitability about further violence occurring. Tipton would later state that members of the Earp faction had been repeatedly warned to be on the lookout for a Cowboy ambush, and on March 18, it finally came. At about 11 p. As Morgan turned his back to a rear door to play a shot, gunshots tore through the door widows and struck him in the back.
Morgan collapsed at the scene and died within the hour. The cowardly assassination of his brother was a turning point for Earp and his posse.
The wives of James and Wyatt, Bessie and Mattie, would follow five days later. Wyatt and his men then escorted Virgil and his wife, Allie, to the train station at Contention. The original plan was to see them safely as far as Benson, but reports came in that Ike Clanton and Frank Stilwell had been seen in Tucson. A passenger later commented that the men carried pistols, rifles and shotguns and that McMaster wore two belts of cartridges. At the end of the meal, the rest of the group helped Virgil and Allie back onto the westbound train.
At that point, two men thought to be Ike Clanton and Frank Stilwell were seen lying on nearby flatcars with guns pointed at the train. Wyatt quickly alighted from the train and moved quietly between the cars. He would later claim that both men saw him and ran. Wyatt chased hard after the men, who separated among the rail cars.
McMaster, Holliday and Johnson also gave chase. A railroad fireman testified that he saw one man running along the tracks followed by four armed pursuers. Wyatt claimed that he caught up with one would-be assassin and fired both barrels of his shotgun when the man made a grab for it.
The remaining posse members then arrived at the bloody scene and proceeded to fire more shots into the corpse. The dead man was Frank Stilwell. A witness would later say that he heard six to 10 shots and at the same time heard men cheering. They had wanted to send a clear message to Ike Clanton and the other Cowboys: There would be no more attempted arrests from now on; Wyatt and his men would dispense their own law.
Having no luck, they then walked in the darkness to the Papago station, where they hopped a freight train and rode back to Benson. The posse then rode back to Tombstone and immediately went to the Cosmopolitan Hotel. Later that day, Charlie Smith and Dan Tipton joined them, and plans were made to again leave town. A telegram sent to Sheriff John Behan in Tombstone advised him that his deputy had been murdered and asked him to detain the men responsible.
When Behan arrived at the Cosmopolitan Hotel, he found Earp and his posse walking through the lobby to the street, armed to the teeth and in no mood to chat. Behan approached the group and said he wanted to see Wyatt, but all the men brushed past him. He and his men strode on to a nearby corral, where they mounted their horses and rode defiantly out of Tombstone. After spending that night in a camp outside of town, the Earp posse rode hard in the direction of the Dragoon Mountains.
Spence had judiciously surrendered in Tombstone, and an Indian known as Hank had already been arrested. Two Earp posse members, probably McMaster and Smith, questioned a worker in Spanish at the camp, and then the group rode up a hill in the direction of a half blood known as Florentino. The eight-man posse must have been convinced they had their man, because they opened fire. Florentino ran but was quickly brought down in a hail of bullets. Wyatt Earp would later say that Florentino was one of the men who had stood watch for the murderers on the night Morgan was killed.
The Arizona Weekly Citizen later published a letter, stating that he was also known as Philomeno Sais, and he was wanted in connection with the robbery and murder of two U. The Arizona Weekly Star added weight to this argument, as it had previously identified the murderer as Florentino Saiz. Whatever his correct name, he was guilty as far as the Earp posse was concerned. After the killing, the posse rode out of the area, and on March 23, Smith and Tipton separated from the others to obtain information in Tombstone.
The two men immediately ran into trouble. Wyatt and his men were to meet Smith later in the Whetstone Mountains, at a watering hole known as Iron Springs. Sheriff Behan then organized his own posse and set out after the wanted men.
A second posse, made up of Charleston Cowboys, also took to the field. On March 24, that bunch rode into Contention, and a witness reported that the Charleston contingent was well mounted, well armed and hunting for the Earp posse.
The afternoon of the 24th was warm, and Wyatt loosened his cartridge belt as he led his men toward Iron Springs. To his surprise he did not find Charlie Smith but a gang of Cowboys, who opened fire without warning. Earp jumped from his horse with a shotgun in his hands, while McMaster, Johnson and Doc Holliday wheeled their horses and sought cover.
In , Earp was living in Peoria, Illinois, working as an enforcer in a brothel. He went on to spend time as a buffalo hunter before moving to Wichita, Kansas, in Wichita was a cattle-shipping center and in Earp got hired as a policeman there. Holliday, a Georgia native born in , had studied dentistry in Philadelphia.
In , he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and doctors recommended he move to a drier climate. He went to Dallas in and established a partnership with another dentist; however, Holliday soon turned his attention from fixing teeth to drinking and gambling. Earp and Holliday became friends on the Texas gambling circuit in the late s, and Doc participated in the gunfight at the OK Corral in Six years later, Holliday died of tuberculosis at age 36 in Glenwood Springs, Colorado.
Earp arrived in the silver-mining boom town of Tombstone, Arizona, in , and eventually found periodic work as a law officer. The shootout, thought to have lasted less than a minute, left three people dead: Frank and Tom McLaury and Billy Clanton.
Afterward, the Earps and Holliday were arrested for murder. In late November , they were exonerated in court.
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