Wild Bill
The True Story of the American Frontier's First Gunfighter
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4.0 • 111 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
The definitive true story of Wild Bill, the first lawman of the Wild West, by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dodge City.
In July 1865, "Wild Bill" Hickok shot and killed Davis Tutt in Springfield, MO—the first quick-draw duel on the frontier. Thus began the reputation that made him a marked man to every gunslinger in the Wild West.
James Butler Hickock was known across the frontier as a soldier, Union spy, scout, lawman, gunfighter, gambler, showman, and actor. He crossed paths with General Custer and Buffalo Bill Cody, as well as Ben Thompson and other young toughs gunning for the sheriff with the quickest draw west of the Mississippi.
Wild Bill also fell in love—multiple times—before marrying the true love of his life, Agnes Lake, the impresario of a traveling circus. He would be buried however, next to fabled frontierswoman Calamity Jane.
Even before his death, Wild Bill became a legend, with fiction sometimes supplanting fact in the stories that surfaced. Once, in a bar in Nebraska, he was confronted by four men, three of whom he killed in the ensuing gunfight. A famous Harper’s Magazine article credited Hickok with slaying 10 men that day; by the 1870s, his career-long kill count was up to 100.
The legend of Wild Bill has only grown since his death in 1876, when cowardly Jack McCall famously put a bullet through the back of his head during a card game. Bestselling author Tom Clavin has sifted through years of western lore to bring Hickock fully to life in this rip-roaring, spellbinding true story.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Clavin (Dodge City) portrays the legendary James "Wild Bill" Hickok as a sometimes trigger-happy gunman who became a 19th-century celebrity, in this rollicking but vaguely sourced biography. Hickok, born in 1837 Illinois, landed his first job in law enforcement at 20 as the town constable for Monticello, Kans. While working for a stagecoach company in Nebraska, he killed for the first time, defending his boss in a violent business dispute. Hickok served the Union during the Civil War as a scout and spy, and afterwards he shot and killed Davis Tutt, an acquaintance and romantic rival, in an argument about gambling debts; he was acquitted of murder, but gained a wide reputation as a fast draw. Press accounts turned him into a nationally known figure and made him a target for those seeking to prove their gunslinging skills. Hickok served as a marshal in Kansas, where he burnished his reputation as a gunfighter, although his habit of reflexive firing killed his own deputy, Mike Williams. Ultimately, Hickok was murdered, shot in the back of the head by someone he had not considered a threat. The absence of detailed source citations and Clavin's acknowledgment that many writings about Hickok are embellished or unverifiable suggest that this is less a sober work of history than an entertaining tale of the man and the legend.
Customer Reviews
How the west was won.
Exciting time to have lived. Can’t believe the hard and rough time it must of been. Stories well laid out and detailed.
Wild Bill
A fascinating read of wild times on the Great Plains and the men who lived in that era.