Billy The Kid: The Story Behind the Legend and the Myth

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Speaker 1: And we continue here with Our American Stories: Wild Bill Hickok. His name conjures up an image of an out-of-control gunslinger. Here to tell the real story of Wild Bill is Roger McGrath, author of Gunfighters, Lawman, and Vigilantes. He’s a U.S. Marine and former history professor at UCLA, and he’s appeared on numerous History Channel documentaries. He’s also a regular contributor for us here at Our American Stories. Take it away, McGrath.

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Speaker 2: Wild Bill Hickok was a gunfighter and lawman of legendary proportions in the Old West, who also served as a scout for the U.S. Army during the Civil War and later during the Indian Wars. Nearly everything he did in his adult life commanded attention, even the hand of cards he was holding when shot to death in a Deadwood saloon in eighteen seventies. No Western figure was better known. He’s the subject of hundreds of articles and books. A half-dozen movies have been made about his life, most notably The Plainsman, starring Gary Cooper, and recently Wild Bill, starring Jeff Bridges. There was also a television series, The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, which ran for eight seasons and starred Guy Madison. Wild Bill Hickok was born James Butler Hickok in eighteen thirty-seven in Homer, Illinois, a small town eighty miles west of Chicago. The town later changed its name to Troy Grove. James’s God-fearing Christian parents were abolitionists who risked their lives by turning their home into a station for slaves along the Underground Railroad. It was during this time that the lean and wiry young man got his first taste of hostile gunfire, when he and his father were chased by law officers who suspected them of carrying more than just hay in their wagon. The danger of freeing slaves made a lasting impression on young James, giving him a fearlessness

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Speaker 3: that began to define him as a man.

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Speaker 2: James helped the family, which also included three older brothers and two younger sisters, more by his hunting than by his laboring on the farm. From a young age, James was fond of guns, and through natural talent and regular practice, became a crack shot. He also developed the ability to shoot a handgun equally well with either hand. James was a voracious reader and consumed everything he could about America’s fiercely independent frontier heroes, especially Daniel Boone and Kit Carson. James Butler Hickok headed west himself to Kansas Territory in eighteen fifty-six. Kansas was a battleground between settlers from Illinois and other Northern states who wanted to prohibit slavery there, and Southerners, mostly from Missouri and Arkansas, who wanted to establish slavery in the new territory. Hickok, who continued his abolitionist ways, joined Jim Lane’s Free-State Army to battle with the Free Staters, called the Border Ruffians, who had crossed into Kansas from Missouri to attack antislavery settlers. Kansas became Bleeding Kansas, a prelude to the Civil War. In eighteen fifty-eight, Hickok was elected constable of the town of Monticello in the northeastern corner of Kansas. Hickok was now twenty-one years old and was described as six feet one and one hundred eighty pounds, with auburn hair and blue-gray eyes. For his size, he had small, almost delicate hands. He had great dexterity and could draw a handgun and manipulate its hammer and trigger with precision and

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Speaker 3: quickness that astonished witnesses. He served as

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Speaker 2: constable for a year and then went to work driving freight wagons and stagecoaches for the famous firm of Russell, Majors and Waddell, the founders of the Pony Express. In July, eighteen sixty-one, twenty-four-year-old Hickok was at the Rock Creek Station, a tiny stop on the Pony Express, when David McCanles came to the station to collect a

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Speaker 3: debt from the company.

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Speaker 2: McCanles called on the station manager, Horace Wellman, to come out with the money. McCanles, who nicknamed Hickok ‘Duck Bill,’ said, “If Hickok is a and Wellman, he will come inside and drag them both out.” Here are Old West historians Paul Hutton and Marshall Trimble.

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Speaker 4: The station was owned by a tough local character who had Southern sympathies by the name of David McCanles, and the Pony Express company hadn’t been paying their in. McCanles was always coming around and harassing the people at

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Speaker 5: the station, so there was animosity between David McCanles and Wild Bill Hickok, and McCanles was a bully.

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Speaker 2: Hickok’s distaste for bullies began with his participation in the Underground Railroad and continued with a chance encounter in eighteen fifty-seven with an eleven-year-old boy named Bill Cody, who history would remember as Buffalo Bill. Cody first met Hickok on a driving trip to Salt Lake City when Cody was an extra hand for Russell, Majors and Waddell, and Hickok was a teamster. During the trip, one of the other teamsters berated and bullied the young Cody until the boy retaliated by throwing a pot of hot coffee into the teamster’s face. The teamster reacted instantly. Cody described what happened next in his autobiography. “He sprang for me with the ferocity of a tiger, and would undoubtedly have torn me to pieces had it not been for the timely interference of my newfound friend, Wild Bill, who knocked the man down.” As soon as he recovered himself, he demanded, “Wild Bill, what business it was of his that he should put in his oar?” “It’s my business protect that boy or anybody else from being unmercifully abused, kicked, and cuffed. And I’ll whip any man who tries it on,”

00:06:50
Speaker 3: said Wild Bill.

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Speaker 2: “And if you ever again lay a hand on that boy, Little Billy there, I’ll give you…”

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Speaker 3: “…such a pounding that you won’t get old over it for a month of Sundays.”

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Speaker 2: From that time forward, Wild Bill was my protector and intimate friend, and the friendship thus begun continued until his death. Here’s criminal justice Professor Arnett Gaston.

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Speaker 4: Hickok’s sense of justice, greatly influenced by his parents,

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Speaker 2: caused him to get into situations where he would always stand up for right.

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Speaker 3: He was a defender of the downtrodden.

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Speaker 6: He was a defender of those who wouldn’t defend himself, and all this added to his horror.

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Speaker 2: Originally from the mountains of North Carolina, McCanles was large and powerful, and some weeks earlier had easily thrown Hickok to the ground in what was described as a friendly wrestling match. Hickok didn’t give McCanles a chance to do so again. As McCanles stepped through the station’s doorway, Hickok fired a rifle. A bullet pierced McCanles’s heart, and he was blown back courts, falling to the ground dead. Two members of the McCanles gang ran to the station. Horace Wellman shot Woods, and Woods staggered back and fell to the ground. Wellman’s wife ran outside and finished off Woods by hacking him with a hoe. Hickok shot Gordon, but he somehow ran to a nearby creek. Hickok and several station employees tracked him down

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Speaker 3: and shot him to death with a shotgun.

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Speaker 2: Six years later, a fanciful article appeared in Harper’s Magazine describing how Hickok single-handedly fought and defeated David McCanles and his ten-man gang of Border Ruffians. He became a national hero overnight. Here’s Old West historian Marcus Huff.

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Speaker 7: Harper’s Weekly was essentially the Internet of the West. I mean, everyone read it, it was everywhere, and it was the news. Not only to have a story about yourself, and there the illustrations. It was fantastic for Hickok professionally.

00:09:15
Speaker 1: And you’ve been listening to Roger McGrath and some other noted historians telling the story of Wild Bill Hickok, how he got the name ‘Bill’ from James, but most importantly, an early childhood experience with danger—the right kind of danger, the heroic kind—that may have been indeed the single thing that explains who Wild Bill was. His parents, well, they were using their home as an escape portal and part of the Underground Railroad. More of the story of Wild Bill Hickok here on Our American Stories. And we continue with Our American Stories and the story of Wild Bill Hickok. Here to continue with the tale is Roger McGrath.

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Speaker 2: Hickok left the Rock Creek Station two weeks after the shooting and traveled to Fort Leavenworth to continue the family tradition of fighting against slavery and volunteered as a scout in the Union Army. It was at this time that Hickok developed his signature cavalry-style reverse draw or twist draw

00:10:40
Speaker 3: that would make him famous.

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Speaker 2: Hickok next led a Union wagon train from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to Sedalia, Missouri. Confederate guerrillas attacked the wagon train, and Hickok barely escaped being captured. It was about this time he earned his nickname ‘Wild Bill.’ Legend says he stopped a bartender from being lynched after a saloon brawl in Independence, Missouri.

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Speaker 3: A woman in the crowd…

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Speaker 2: applauded his action and yelled, “Good for you, Wild Bill!”

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Speaker 3: Here’s Old West historian Chris Enss.

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Speaker 8: Bill Hickok was so pretty it hurt. He was a very compassionate man. He was a decent man. His eyes would reflect that compassion. But if you ever challenged him, he could stare down a rattlesnake.

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Speaker 2: Hickok carried dispatches through enemy fire for the Union forces during the Battle of Pea Ridge in Arkansas in eighteen sixty-two. The Union victory there ensured Missouri would remain in the Union. In April, eighteen sixty-five, after four years, with over six hundred and twenty thousand killed and nearly a million more wounded, captured, or missing, Hickok tried his luck as a gambler in Springfield, Missouri. Hickok found himself losing heavily in a poker game to Davis Tutt, a former Confederate soldier turned professional gambler who was commonly known as Dave. Hickok gave Tutt a valuable watch as collateral

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Speaker 3: for his gambling debts. Here’s Andrew Nelson.

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Speaker 6: He warned Tutt he did not want to see him walking around with that watch.

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Speaker 3: So what did Tutt do

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Speaker 6: the next day?

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Speaker 3: He walked around with the watch.

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Speaker 6: What happened next has been the basis for countless legends about Old West gunfights.

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Speaker 2: Tutt appeared on one side of Springfield’s town square, Hickok on the other. What followed would later be made iconic by countless dime novels, radio and television dramas such as Gunsmoke, and Western films such as High Noon. At a distance of about seventy-five yards, Hickok stopped and called out, “Dave, here I am!” They drew their guns and fired simultaneously. Hickok’s round drilled Tutt in the heart.

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Speaker 3: Tutt called out, “Boys, I’m killed!” and dropped to the ground dead.

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Speaker 2: When newspapers published reports of the shootout, it was the first

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Speaker 3: time the name ‘Wild Bill’ was used in print.

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Speaker 2: Hickok’s legend as a gunfighter skyrocketed. After a coroner’s jury declared that Dave Tutt had died at the hands of James Butler Hickok, Wild Bill was arrested on a charge of manslaughter. He posted bail and pleaded not guilty at an initial court hearing. In the trial, Hickok’s attorney argued self-defense. The prosecutor argued Hickok could have avoided the fight. The jury was out only ten minutes, and here was a verdict of not guilty. In eighteen sixty-six, Hickok was summoned to Fort Riley, Kansas, by a Civil

00:14:08
Speaker 3: War friend, Captain R.B.

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Speaker 2: Owen, who recommended Hickok for an appointment as a U.S. Deputy Marshal.

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Speaker 3: Hickok became a Deputy Marshal and spent a year hunting

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Speaker 2: horse thieves, counterfeiters, deserters, and other such miscreants. He also did some duty as an army scout, as while Hickok was at Fort Riley that he reconnected with William Cody, soon to be known as Buffalo Bill. Cody was serving as a government detective and army scout. On January 1, eighteen sixty-seven, Hickok began scouting on the frontier for one of the finest cavalry commanders of the Civil War, the Boy General of the Michigan Volunteers, George Custer. Custer was now a lieutenant colonel in the Regulars and commander of the famous Seventh Cavalry. Custer called Hickok his best scout and said he was the consummate plainsman. Custer’s wife, the fetching Libby Custer, later said of Hickok, “Physically, he was a delight to look upon, tall, lithe, and free in every motion.” He rode and walked as if every muscle was perfection, and the careless swing of his body as he moved seemed perfectly in keeping with the man, the country, and the

00:15:25
Speaker 3: time in which he lived.

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Speaker 2: Hickok could ride, trail, and track, and he was not only a crack shot, but also extraordinary with handguns. He practiced with his guns whenever possible, and he disassembled and cleaned them daily. He could hit several objects thrown in the air at the same time, firing with a gun in each hand. But it was one thing to shoot at targets. It was another thing to shoot at a man who was trying to kill you. In the face of fire, Hickok was not only one of the fastest, but one of the most deadly accurate shootests who had ever lived. In July, eighteen sixty-seven, appeared the first dime novel about Hickok, Wild Bill, the Indian Slayer. There was some truth in this, because as a scout he fought and killed Indians and would continue to do so through eighteen sixty-eight and into eighteen sixty-nine. He had several close calls. In one fight, a Cheyenne warrior drove a lance into Hickok’s thigh. But fame often has a lot of sharp edges and has to be handled carefully. There’s always the threat of some lowlife trying to earn his spurs. In August, eighteen sixty-nine, Hickok was elected sheriff of Ellis County, Kansas. The county’s largest town was Hays City, a wild and woolly railroad stop full of buffalo hunters and teamsters and soldiers from nearby Fort Hays.

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Speaker 3: One writer referred to it…

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Speaker 2: as the Sodom of the Plains. Here are Marcus Huff and historian David Eisenbach, hay.

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Speaker 7: City was a hotbed of youthful indiscretion. It was a cattle town railhead, yet a lot of guys came there to spend their money. It was fairly lawless until Hickok came around.

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Speaker 9: Once you acquire this international fame, which he did, of being the cricket shock, you know, in the West, you’re going to get some jerk who wants to make a name for himself by taking you down.

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Speaker 2: He was sheriff only a few days when he confronted hell-raiser Bill Mulvey, who was drunk, weaving his gun about and challenging others to fight. Hickok shot him to death.

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Speaker 3: A month later, Hickok…

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Speaker 2: put two bullets into the head of Sam Strawn under similar circumstances. Hickok’s quick-to-shoot policy lost him his reelection bid. In November, eighteen sixty-nine, Hickok remained in Hays City, again trying his luck as a gambler. He was drinking in one of the saloons when two troopers of Custer’s Seventh Cavalry suddenly accosted the legendary gunslinger. In the ensuing struggle, one of the troopers pressed a gun to Hickok’s ear and pulled the trigger, but the Remington .44 failed to fire. Hickok’s Colt Navy .38 did fire, and the soldier was mortally wounded. Hickok wounded the second soldier with a shot to the knee. Hickok then sprang to his feet and smashed through a window and into the night, never again to appear in Hays City.

00:18:48
Speaker 1: And you’ve been listening to Roger McGrath tell the story of Wild Bill Hickok. And just as Hickok would do, he ended up in Bloody Kansas. And of course, this was where the struggle and the fight over slavery reached its apex. And this was just years before the Civil War, where Hickok ably served. And then of course, what to do after the war. And there he was back as a constable, and he earned this reputation as one of the fastest and most accurate guns in the West. But a lot of punks, McGrath noted, wanted to challenge him. When we come back, more of the story of Wild Bill Hickok here on Our American Stories. And we continue here with Our American Stories and the story of Wild Bill Hickok. Let’s pick up where we last left off with Roger McGrath.

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Speaker 2: In April, eighteen seventy-one, Hickok became City Marshal of Abilene, Kansas. Abilene was the first of the famous Kansas cattle towns. Here are Paul Hutton and Andrew Nelson.

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Speaker 4: Abilene had a reputation as being the roughest of all the cattle towns. It was the end of the trail for the herds coming north from Texas.

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Speaker 3: Everyone was fueled on alcohol, of course.

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Speaker 4: And somebody had to keep the peace, and that was Wild Bill Hickok.

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Speaker 6: So this was an interesting moment in American history where a burgeoning society recognized that it needed to remove the unsavory elements. But how did you do that? Well, you needed to find someone who had one foot in both worlds, who could travel in both circles.

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Speaker 2: Most of the cowboys, who drove the herds from Texas to the Abilene railhead, were Confederate veterans or the sons of Confederate veterans. After months on the trail and with a payoff in their pockets,

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Speaker 3: they intended to have fun.

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Speaker 2: Union veteran Hickok was at odds with them. It was a highly volatile situation with great potential for violence. Confederate veteran and Texan Phil Coe was a giant of a man

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Speaker 3: for his era: six feet four and two hundred twenty-five pounds.