James Butler Hickok had been made semi-legendary as Wild Bill in the penny press and dime novels. As a genuine celebrity his death was breathlessly covered by the popular press. |
On August 2, 1876 James
Butler Hickok a.k.a. Wild Bill, was shot in the back of the head by a drifter, Jack McCall while playing poker in a Deadwood saloon. At the time of his death he was losing for the day, but held a promising hand with two pairs—black aces,
black eights. The fifth card was a Diamond but its value has
never been agreed on. After Hickok’s death aces and
eights became commonalty
referred to as the Dead Man’s Hand, although that designation had previously been given
to other poker hands involved in fatal
altercations.
Hickok was born in Homer,
Illinois in 1837. His father was an abolitionist and
ran a station of the Underground
Railroad out of the family’s
barn. Young James was given his first pistols by his father to defend
the station in case of raids by
slave catchers. Although the raids never came, the boy became an
expert marksman and something of a local celebrity for his shooting skills.
He high tailed it to Bloody Kansas in
1855 after he mistakenly thought he
had killed a companion in a fist fight
in which both boys ended up in a canal. Likely
he was drawn to Kansas in support of his father’s views. He quickly enlisted in a Jayhawker militia fighting pro-slavery Bushwhackers. He met
young William Fredrick Cody, then 12 years old and serving as
a scout/spy for the
Jayhawkers.
By 1859 both he and
Cody had signed on with the Russell, Waddell & Majors freight company, a contractor for the Pony Express. After being
injured by a bear, he was recuperating on light duty as a stable man at Rock Creek
Station in Nebraska when he was involved in a gunfight with the former owner of the property David McCanles and
members of his family who demanded a due
payment on the land. In a wild exchange of fire McCanles was killed. Hickok, the station manager, his wife, and another employee were all charged
with murder but acquitted on the
ground of “defending company property.” Whether
Hickok himself made the fatal shot
is still a matter of dispute.
At the outset
of the Civil War Hickok enlisted as an Army Teamster and
within six months was promoted to wagon
master. He served in the bloody
civil war with in a Civil War in Missouri. He was
discharged in September 1862 and disappears
from history until late the following year when he was appointed a detective for the Provost Marshal of South-West
Missouri working out of Springfield. There is indirect evidence, and much speculation that Hickok was serving as a spy during those missing
months. He mustered out
of the service at war’s end but stayed in Springfield as a gambler.
On July 21, 1865 he was involved in a shoot out in the Springfield streets
that is usually considered first
recorded “quick draw” duel in history—the kind of gunfight that though extremely
rare in actuality became a staple of
Western movies. He shot
and killed Davis Tutt, a drinking
and gambling companion, over an alleged
poker debt and Davis’s wearing of the
watch he took from Hickok as collateral. Several
witnesses attest that both men drew and fired at a distance of 75
yards—ordinarily far out of range
for accurate pistol fire. Tutt, at least, may have believed that both men could fire, preserve their honor, and survive the confrontation. Tutt’s shot
was wild and wide. Hickok sent
a ball completely through Tutt’s torso, although he was standing in a sideways dueling posture
to reduce his exposure. The
shot impressed everyone and cemented Hickok’s later reputation. Again,
he was acquitted on a murder charge because the judge instructed the jury to
consider the incident a “fair fight.”
Shortly after the trial Hickok, who had acquired the nickname Wild Bill during
the war, was interviewed by Colonel George Ward Nichols for an article that appeared with a woodcut of a ferocious looking Wild
Bill in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. Either
Hickok hornswoggled the writer, or more likely given his personal reputation for not being a braggart, Nichols simply
spun a wild but entertaining yarn, but the article portrayed Hickok as a dead shot who had killed dozens of men.
In reality Wild Bill is known to have killed five men in gunfights over his
entire life or six if credited with McCanles. He was involved in other, non-fatal scrapes and fights,
but his fearsome reputation discouraged
many would-be assailants. In addition in his Civil War service and later service as
an Army Scout he undoubtedly killed others.
After losing an
election for city marshal of Springfield that November, Hickok accepted appointment as a Deputy
U. S. Marshal at Fort Riley, Kansas. During his
tenure there he also served as a scout
for Col. George Armstrong Custer’s 7th Cavalry. Custer burnished Hickok’s reputation by extolling his “sure shot” ability with a
pistol, bravery, and honor in press interviews. Hickok was involved a number of skirmishes and led small parties seeking out Indian
raiders during Red Cloud’s War.
In 1867 Hickok went
east for the first time to cash in
on his reputation by performing in a
western melodrama in Buffalo, New York. He was a terrible actor and returned west within
a month with a bitter taste in his mouth.
He ran for election as sheriff in Ellsworth County, Kansas but was
defeated. Resuming duties as a Federal Marshal he arrived at wild and woolly Hays City where
he arrested a gang of Army deserters and was re-united with Cody who served as
scout for an army detachment sent to help escort
the 11 men to trial in Topeka.
Hickok in his days as a Cavalry Scout around 1869. |
After an 1869 stint as a scout with the Buffalo
Soldier 10th Cavalry during which time he was wounded in the foot while rescuing
a party of ranchers near Bijou Creek in Colorado who
had been surrounded by hostiles.
Back in Hays City in July 1869 Hickok finally won an election—two in fact—to serve as both city
marshal and Ellis County sheriff. Hays City was then a rail head destination for the great Texas cattle drives and the town and county
were beset by wild cowboys fueled on
lots of liquor at the end of a long trek. It’s clear the Hickok
was expected by the town’s “better elements” to clean things up.
In his first month on the job he was involved in two fatal gunfights. Legal questions about his first election and
his defeat at the hands of his deputy
for Sheriff in November was overturned
on account of election fraud, Hickok remained in “effective control” of law
enforcement in the area through most of 1870.
In July of that year he got into a fracas with two drunk and disorderly 7th Cavalry troopers who
somehow got the best of him. The
two held him on the floor of a saloon
while one trooper, John Kile, tried
to shoot him in through the ear. When Kile’s pistol misfired, Hickok wrestled the gun from his companion, Jeremiah
Lonergan, shot him in the knee
and put two balls in Kile, who died the
next day. Hickok held up in
the town’s Boot Hill for a few days where the commanding view and clear field of fire would give him a chance in case fellow
Troopers rode after him in revenge.
That fall, after the town father’s decided to get out of the business of running a trail
head for the cattle drives, Hickok was defeated
for re-election and replaced by a
much less expensive officer.
In 1870 he became town marshal at Abilene, Kansas which had picked up most of Hays City’s former business as a cow town. On October 5, 1871
Hickok was involved in his last known
fatal gun fight, the outcome of which would haunt him the rest of his life.
After an earlier run-in with a drunken saloon keeper—Phil
Coe who was also a business rival to Hickok’s second profession as a gambler—he tried
to arrest the man for discharging a gun on the street. Coe
pretended to hand over the gun, but spun it and took aim at the marshal who
fired, killing him. Another man
rushing to the scene caught Hickok’s
attention and thinking that he was under attack by Coe’s friend, killed the second man. That man
turned out to be his own friend and deputy, Mike Williams. Hickok
was inconsolable. He is
known to have written an anguished
letter to Williams’ widow and raised money for the support of her and her children. Some
historians believe that the incident happened because Hickok was beginning to lose his fabled eye-sight,
probably from trachoma. He now occasionally wore spectacles, but did not have them on the night of the shooting.
Hickok’s career as a
lawman and a gunfighter was over
within two months. He turned to full
time gambling and heavy drinking. In 1873 Cody convinced him to
join with another showman, Texas
Jack Omohundro in a new western
stage play. Although this was better received than his first theatrical attempt, he left the show
after a few months with a substantial
purse from the show’s success
and two new Smith and Weston revolvers from his old
friend. Those revolvers soon disappeared,
probably pawned, as Hickok fell on hard times back out West.
He returned to his old favorite twin bone handled Colt
1851 .36 Navy Model pistols—by then obsolete cap-and-ball revolvers. He carried them,
usually without holsters, stuck in his belt butt forward in the fashion of the cavalry and drew
them with equal skill with
either a reverse spin or a cross draw.
Frequently a loser at cards, Hickok was arrested for vagrancy several times
before winding up in Cheyenne, Wyoming, another wide open town. He had better luck there. In March of
1876 he married Agnes Thatcher
Lake, the operator of a small time
circus who was 14 years his senior. Her
money may have been a factor, although
surviving letters indicate an admiring and loving relationship.
Despite his new wife,
however, Hickok signed on as a teamster and guard for a wagon train taking
supplies to the Black Hills gold rush town of Deadwood, a lawless, illegal settlement
on Indian land in what is now South
Dakota. His aim was to re-make
his fortune in the gold fields, not as a miner, but by separating miners from their gold—and possibly even from their claims. He may also have had
the notion that the new wild town might
use his somewhat rusty services as a law man.
Mary Jane Canary, better known as Calamity Jane, joined
the wagon train near Ft. Laramie. This was likely the first time the two met, although she
would later claim to have previously had a child with Hickok and graciously given him up to Agnes
Lake. Calamity was an alcoholic
sometime prostitute, teamster, and a fairly
shrewd business woman who was better
looking than the most frequently seen picture of her in her teamster’s buckskins. They
were both in Deadwood for some weeks, although they were not known to have a relationship.
Hickok was drinking
heavily and gambling, mostly unsuccessfully. On August 1, he had a minor run in with Jack McCall that ended with Hickok buying the younger man a drink. Perhaps because he had
been humiliated, perhaps looking for revenge for a brother he said
he believed Hickok had killed as marshal in Abilene, perhaps to just to gain a reputation as the man who killed
Wild Bill, and perhaps at the urging of
local interests that may have been worried
about Hickok resuming his lawman career, McCall entered Nuttal
& Mann’s Saloon No. 10 where Hickok was sitting uncharacteristically with his back to the door and shot him once in the back of the head crying
out “Take this!”
Hickok's assassin Jack McCall miraculously was acquitted by an illegal Deadwood jury. He would not be so lucky when real law got a hold of him. |
After boasting around town of the killing, he
was captured and put on trial for murder but somehow acquitted. The
trial, however, in unorganized
Deadwood, had no effect in law. The
next year Federal Marshals re-arrested
McCall and he was tried in Dakota Territory capital Yankton. This
time he was convicted and hanged.
Hickok’s friends
arranged for a Deadwood funeral and
burial. The grave was
later relocated to the new Mount
Moriah Cemetery high on a hill
overlooking the town. Various monuments
were destroyed by souvenir hunters as the grave became a tourist attraction until the current bronze bust and marker were
erected. When Calamity Jane died in 1903, old timers buried her next to Hickok, some said as a joke because “Bill couldn’t stand to be around her” but
probably to further interest tourists.
Hickok was one of the western figures who almost lived up to his reputation—if
you discount the wild exaggerations
of the dime novels and barbershop rags like the Police
Gazette. But in death
he became iconic. He has been portrayed in dozen of films, the best known of which include Wild
Bill Hickok staring William S. Hart in 1923; The
Plainsman, C.B.
DeMille’s fanciful 1936
epic staring Gary Cooper; the musical Calamity Jane with Howard
Keel opposite Doris Day in the title role in 1953; Little
Big Man with Jeff Corey as Dustin Hoffman’s mentor in 1970; and the gritty Wild Bill starring Jeff
Bridges in 1995. Wild Bill Elliot and Roy Rogers
both played him in B movie
oaters.
Baby Boomers undoubtedly best remember the long
running TV show (1951-’58) The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok starring
heart throb Guy Madison with Andy
Divine as his comic sidekick Jingles. Other
than the name the TV character had
nothing in common with the historical figure.
Much better was David
Milch’s riveting cable mini-series
Deadwood which ran from 2004-2006 with Keith Carradine as Wild Bill.
Hickok has also
frequently appeared in print in
innumerable cheap popular paperback
novels, and in comic books, but
also in serious fiction, most
significantly in Thomas Burger’s Little Big Man, Buffalo
Gals by Larry McMurtry, and Darlin’
Bill: A Love Story of the Wild West by Jerome
Charyn.
Great piece about Hickok - he is Americana write large! Thanks for the mention of my partner Jerome Charyn's wonderful award-winning novel, Darlin' Bill. And especially for recommending Deadwood, possibly the best and most Shakespearean TV series ever made - everyone please binge watch it soon.
ReplyDeleteWell, which was it: 75 feet or 75 yards? I have tried shooting a revolver at a paper target 75 yards away and managed to hit the paper (8 1/2 x 11 inches) a couple of times, but it does not seem credible that anyone would even try a pistol shot against a man at that distance.
ReplyDeleteThe picture caption shoulf have said 75 yards. I find that equally astonishing, but that was the claim made by winesses and depicted in the illustration.
Delete