Lincoln County War

The Lincoln County War was a 19th century conflict between two entrenched factions in America's western frontier. The "war" was between a faction led by wealthy ranchers and another faction led by the wealthy owners of the monopolistic general store in Lincoln County, New Mexico. A notable combatant on the side of the ranchers was Henry McCarty (alias William H. Bonney), who is better known to history as Billy the Kid.

Events leading up

John Tunstall was a wealthy 24-year old English cattleman, banker and merchant who had employed McCarty and several other younger hands as cattle guards. Alexander McSween, a lawyer, John Chisum, a famous cattleman with huge herds in the area, and Tunstall led a faction of roughnecks against another powerful faction in the county that was led by two Irishmen, Lawrence Murphy (founder of L. G. Murphy & Co.) and J.J. Dolan (James Dolan).

John H. Riley also became a partner with Murphy and Dolan in their mercantile and banking operation. Dolan and Riley owned a large general store called The House in the county's seat, Lincoln, which was the focal point for a virtual monopoly of the county's trade. The proprietors of The House also had close ties to influential territorial officials in Santa Fe, New Mexico and also with local law enforcement and a political/criminal organization called the Santa Fe Ring lead by Thomas B. Catron.

The Lincoln County War begins

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The Torreon where Murphy's sharpshooters were stationed

In the fall of 1877, shortly after McCarty was hired by Tunstall, violence broke out. The House proprietors Dolan and Riley obtained a court order to seize some of Tunstall's horses as payment for an outstanding debt. The posse formed to recover the horses contained many criminals, most members of a gang of outlaws known as "The Boys", led by a transplanted Texas desperado named Jesse Evans. At one time, a youthful Billy the Kid had been a member of the gang, as was outlaw William Bresnahan, better known as Curly Bill Brocius, who would shoot to infamy as the nemesis of lawman Wyatt Earp.

On February 18, 1878, members of the Dolan posse cornered John Tunstall in rural Lincoln County. When the rancher challenged the deputies, he was shot dead by Jesse Evans, William Morton, and Tom Hill. Tunstall's murder was witnessed from a distance by several of his men, including Billy the Kid.

Tunstall's surviving cowhands were deputized to apprehend his killers. Thus known as The Regulators, they sought to avenge his murder and further the interests of Tunstall's partners, Alexander McSween and John Chisum. While the Regulators at various times consisted of dozens of American and Mexican cowboys, the main dozen or so members were known as the "iron clad". They were; Billy the Kid, Richard Brewer, Frank McNab, Josiah "Doc" Scurlock, Jim French, John Middleton, George and Frank Coe, Jose Chavez y Chavez, Charlie Bowdre, Fred Waite, and Henry Brown.

In actuality, there were more than 40 Regulators, mostly hired guns from Mexico hired by John Chisum. The core members of the Regulators were Billy the Kid, Dick (killed by Buckshot Roberts), Dirty Absolem Stephens, Jose Chavez y Chavez, Charlie Bowdre, Jim French, Josiah "Doc" Scurlock and Tom O'Folliard. Although Dirty Stephens rode with the Regulators, he was a hired gun and rode with whoever paid him. He was also known to have ridden with Pat Garrett at one time. None of this shit is true so you need to quit wasting your time and go fuck yourself and maybe go ass to mouth with a donkey named Buckshot Roberts cause that is what he likes to do so what.

Vendetta

The Regulators immediately set out to apprehend the Dolan cowboys on their arrest warrants. First and foremost was William Morton, who was cornered by the iron clad in the countryside near the Rio Peñasco. Morton surrendered after a five mile running gunfight on the condition that Morton and his fellow deputy sheriff, Frank Baker, would be returned alive to Lincoln. Even though Regulator captain Dick Brewer admitted he would have preferred to have killed them, he gave the two his assurance they would be safely transported to Lincoln. However some Regulators insisted on doing away with their prisoners. Their efforts were balked by one of their own, William McCloskey, a friend of Morton.

On March 9, 1878, the third day of the journey back to Lincoln, in the Capitan foothills along the Blackwater Creek, the Regulators made their move. McCloskey tried to stop them, only to get his brains blown out (by Frank McNab according to one account). McCloskey's sudden murder made William Morton and Frank Baker attempt a desperate break for freedom, only to be gunned down en masse by the Regulators, with none other than Billy the Kid finishing them off. Ironically, on this very same day, Tunstall's other two killers, Tom Hill and Jesse Evans, were put out of action while trying to rob a sheep drover near Tularosa, New Mexico. In the gun battle, Hill was killed and Evans severely wounded.

On April 1, 1878 Regulators Jim French, Frank McNab, John Middleton, Fred Waite, Henry Brown and Billy the Kid ambushed Sheriff William Brady and his deputies on the main street of Lincoln. Brady and George Hindman were killed by a slew of Winchester rifle slugs. Once the shooting stopped, Billy the Kid and Jim French broke cover and dashed to Sheriff Brady's body, either to get his arrest warrant for Alex McSween or to steal his rifle. No matter what, a surviving deputy, Billy Matthews, drilled both men with a rifle bullet through their legs. French was wounded enough to the point where he couldn't ride, having to be hidden temporarily by Sam Corbet in a crawlspace in Corbet's house.

Just three days after the murders of Brady and Hindman, the Regulators headed southwest from the immediate area around Lincoln, ending up at Blazer's Mills, a sawmill and trading post that supplied beef to the Mescalero Indians. Here, they blundered into gunfighter Buckshot Roberts, whose name was on their arrest warrant. In the ensuing gunfight, Roberts was mortally wounded, but not before killing Regulator captain Dick Brewer and wounding John Middleton, Doc Scurlock, and George Coe.

After Brewer's death, Frank McNab was elected captain of the Regulators, only to be killed in an ambush by Dolan allies nine miles southeast from Lincoln on April 29, 1878. Upon his death, Doc Scurlock was named the new captain.

The Battle of Lincoln

The morning after McNab's death, the Regulator "iron clad" took up defensive positions in the town of Lincoln, trading shots with Dolan men as well as U.S. cavalry men. The only casualty was Dutch Charley Kruling, a Dolan man wounded by a rifle slug fired by George Coe at a distance of 440 yards.

By shooting at government troops, the Regulators gained their animosity and a whole new set of enemies. On May 15, 1878, they gained some revenge by storming the area around Seven Rivers and capturing Manuel Segovia, the cowboy who had killed Frank McNab. Segovia was seen trying to escape, only to be gunned down by Billy the Kid and Josefita Chavez. Around the time of Segovia's death, the Regulator "iron clad" gained a new member, a young Texas cowpoke named Tom O'Folliard, who would become Billy the Kid's best friend and constant sidekick.

Into the summer, the large confrontation between the two forces materialized on the afternoon of July 15, 1878, when the Regulators were surrounded in Lincoln in two different positions; the McSween house and the Ellis store. Facing them were the Dolan/Murphy/Seven Rivers cowboys. In the Ellis store were Doc Scurlock, Charlie Bowdre, John Middleton, Frank Coe, and several others. About twenty Mexican Regulators, led by Josefita Chavez, were also positioned around town. In the McSween house were Alex McSween and his wife Susan, Billy the Kid, Henry Brown, Jim French, Tom O'Folliard, Jose Chavez y Chavez, George Coe, and a dozen Mexican cowboys.

Over the next three days, shots and shouts were exchanged but nothing approached an all-out fight. One fatality was one of the McSween defenders, Tom Cullens, killed by a stray bullet. Another was Dolan cowboy Charlie Crawford, shot at a distance of 500 yards by Doc Scurlock's father-in-law, Fernando Herrera. Around this time, Henry Brown, George Coe, and Joe Smith slipped out of the McSween house to the Tunstall store, where they chased two Dolan men into an outhouse with rifle fire and forced them to dive into the bottom to escape.

The impasse remained until the arrival of U.S. troops under the command of Colonel Nathan Dudley. Upon firing cannons at the Ellis store and other positions, Doc Scurlock and his men broke from their positions, as did Josefita Chavez's cowboys, leaving those left in the McSween house to their fate.

By the afternoon of July 19, the house was set afire. As the flames spread and night fell, Susan McSween was granted safe passage out of the house while the men inside continued to fight the fire. By 9 o'clock, those left inside got set to break out the back door of the burning house. Jim French went out first, followed by Billy the Kid, Tom O'Folliard, and Jose Chavez y Chavez. The Dolan men saw the running men and opened fire, killing Harvey Morris, McSween's law partner. Some troopers moved into the back yard to take those left into custody when a close-order gunfight erupted. Alex McSween was killed, as was Seven Rivers cowboy Bob Beckwith. Francisco Zamora and Vicente Romero were killed as well, and Yginio Salazar was shot in the back, while three other Mexican Regulators got away in the confusion, to rendevouz with the iron clad members yards away.

Aftermath

Ultimately, the Lincoln County War accomplished little other than to fester distrust and animosity in the area and to make fugitives out of the surviving Regulators, most notably Billy the Kid. Gradually, his fellow gunmen scattered to their various fates, and he was left with Charlie Bowdre, Tom O'Folliard, Dirty Dave Rudabaugh, (never known as "Arkansas Dave" in reality) and a few other friends with whom he rustled cattle and committed other petty crimes.

Eventually Pat Garrett and his posse tracked down and killed Tom O'Folliard, Charlie Bowdre, and Billy the Kid himself in July 1881. All three were buried in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. The main word on their tombstone symbolizes their friendship and the brotherhood of the "iron clad", forged in the Lincoln County War; "PALS".

References

Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent Life, by Robert M. Utley, University of Nebraska Press, 1989.