Blog - Page 6 of 18 - Larry Auerbach

Today In Western History: Crazy Horse Surrenders

Posted on May 6, 2016April 9, 2016 by larry

May 6 —

Today is the beginning of the end for the Sioux leader, Crazy Horse. He was an Oglala Sioux Indian chief who fought against removal to a reservation in the Black Hills. Crazy Horse was an uncom-promising and fearless Lakota leader who was committed to protecting his people’s way of life. He comes into the White River Valley, with his entire band of 800 to 1200 warriors, women and children. Once he surrenders, the army will confiscate the band’s entire herd of 1,700 ponies and their entire supply of weapons – some 117 rifles and what little ammunition they have left.

Crazy Horse never allowed anyone to take his picture, because he believed it would steal his spirit, so no one knows exactly what he looked like.

Crazy Horse was an Ogala Sioux, and it is generally believed that he was born somewhere near what is now Rapid City in South Dakota, around 1840, and given the Native American name of Tashunka Witco. Even as a young boy, Crazy Horse stood out from the other boys. He was fair-skinned and had brown, curly hair, giving him an appearance that was noticeably different from other boys his age. There is no concrete proof of how he got his name Crazy Horse, but he was known as Curly for most of his youth. One story states his father, who was also named Crazy Horse, passed the name on to him after his son had demonstrated his skills as a warrior. These physical differences may have laid the groundwork for a personality that even among his own people made him a loner and a bit distant.

Historian Mike Sajna wrote that say Curly had a vision one day of a man riding up out of a lake on a horse, changing colors as he rode toward him. Although the man did not speak, Curly could still hear him talking to him. The man told Curly he was to never wear a war bonnet, never tie up his horse’s tail, and rub dust all over himself and in his hair before a battle and he would be immune to injury. He was also told to wear only war paint in the form of a lightning bolt down the side of his face, and a to put a white stone with a hole in it on a thong and wear it under his left arm. Beyond his seemingly mystical ability to avoid injury or death on the battlefield, Crazy Horse also showed himself to be uncompromising with his white foes. He refused to be photographed and never committed his signature to any document. The aim of his fight was to retake the Lakota life he’d known as a child, when his people had full run of the Great Plains. But there was little hope that would ever happen.

Crazy Horse’s birth had come during the peak of the Native American Culture, and it was a great time for the Lakota people. A division of the Sioux, the Lakota represented the largest band of the tribe. Their contact with whites was minimal, and they were the kings of their domain, which included a giant swath of land that ran from the Missouri River to the Big Horn Mountains in the west. In the 1850s, however, life for the Lakota began to change considerably, and not in a good way. As more white settlers began pushing west in search of gold and a new life out on the frontier, competition for resources between these new immigrants and the Lakota created tension. Military forts were established in parts of the Great Plains, bringing in even more white settlers and introducing diseases that took their toll on the native Indian populations.

In August 1854 everything boiled over in what became known as the Grattan Massacre. It started when a group of white men, led by Lieutenant John Grattan, entered a Sioux camp to take prisoner the men who had killed a migrant’s cow. After Chief Conquering Bear refused to give in to their demands, violence erupted. After one of the white soldiers shot and killed the chief, the camp’s warriors fought back and killed Grattan and his 30 men. The Grattan Massacre is widely considered the conflict that kicked off the First Sioux War between the United States and the Lakota. For the still young Crazy Horse, it also helped establish what would be a lifetime of distrust for whites.

As conflicts escalated between the Lakota and the U.S., Crazy Horse was at the center of many key battles. In one important victory for his people, on December 21, 1866, Crazy Horse led an attack on Captain William J. Fetterman and his brigade of 80 men. The Fetterman Massacre, as it came to be known, proved to be a huge embarrassment for the U.S. military. Even after the signing of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, which guaranteed the Lakota important land, including the coveted Black Hills territory, Crazy Horse continued his fight.

Following the discovery of gold in the Black Hills, ironically on an expedition led by Gen. George Custer, and the U.S. government’s backing of white explorers in the territory, the War Department ordered all Lakota onto reservations. Crazy Horse and Chief Sitting Bull refused. On June 17, 1876,

Sioux Chief, Sitting Bull Architect of the Little Bighorn Fight — Sioux Chief, Sitting Bull
Architect of the Little Bighorn Fight

Crazy Horse led a force of 1,200 Oglala and Cheyenne warriors against General George Crook and his brigade, successfully turning back the soldiers as they attempted to advance toward Sitting Bull’s encampment on the Little Bighorn River.

General George Crook, Civil War soldier and Indian fighter — General George Crook,
Civil War soldier and Indian fighter

A week later Crazy Horse teamed up with Sitting Bull to decimate Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and his esteemed Seventh Cavalry in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, perhaps the greatest victory ever by Native Americans over U.S. troops. Lakota were at the peak of their power.

Gen. George Armstrong Custer, hero in the Civil War and failure in the Indian Wars

Following the defeat of Custer, the U.S. Army struck back hard against the Lakota, pursuing a scorched-earth policy whose aim was to extract total surrender. While Sitting Bull led his followers into Canada to escape the wrath of the Army, Crazy Horse continued to fight. But as the winter of 1877 set in and food supplies began to shorten, Crazy Horse’s followers started to abandon him. On May 6, 1877, he rode to Fort Robinson in Nebraska and surrendered. Instructed to remain on the reservation, he defied orders that summer to put his sick wife in the care of his parents.

After his arrest, Crazy Horse was returned to Fort Robinson, where, in a struggle with the officers, he was bayoneted in the kidneys. He passed away with his father at his side on September 5, 1877. One hundred and thirty nine years after his death, Crazy Horse is still revered for being a visionary leader who fought hard to preserve his people’s traditions and way of life.

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Today In Western History: Cochise Wins At Bear Springs

Posted on May 5, 2016March 27, 2016 by larry

May 5 –

On this day in 1871, the U. S. Army is caught napping and Lt. Howard B. Cushing and 10 of his men are killed when a band of Chiricahua Apaches, surprises the 3^rd Calvary at Bear Springs, in the Arizona Whetstone Mountains. The Apaches were led by either Juh, or maybe his better known associate, Cochise.

Cochise, legendary Apache leader and eventual peace advocate

Cochise (or “Cheis”) was one of the most noted Apache leaders (along with Geronimo and Mangas Coloradas) to resist intrusions by European Americans during the 19th century. He was described as a large man (for the time), with a muscular frame, classical features, and long black hair, which he wore in traditional Apache style. He was about 6′ tall and weighed about 175 lbs. In his own language, his name Cheis meant “having the quality or strength of oak.

Following years of conflict beginning in 1861, Cochise and his men were eventually driven into the Dragoon Mountains, where they used the mountains for cover and as a base operate from in order to continue attacks against the white settlements. Cochise continually evaded capture and continued his raids against white settlements and travelers until 1872. In 1871, General Oliver O. Howard had been ordered to

Union General Oliver Otis Howard, he was surprised at Chancellorsville, but negotiated a peace with Cochise

been ordered to find and treat with Cochise and in 1872, accompanied by 1st Lt Joseph Alton Sladen, who served as his aide, Howard came to Arizona to negotiate a peace treaty, and with the help of Tom Jeffords, who was the only white man that Cochise had learned to trust, a treaty was negotiated on October 12, 1872.

After making peace, Cochise retired to his new reservation, with his friend Jeffords as agent, where he died of natural causes (most likely, it would have been diagnosed today as abdominal cancer) in 1874. He was buried in the rocks above one of his favorite camps in Arizona’s Dragoon Mountains, now called Cochise Stronghold. Only his people and Tom Jeffords knew the exact location of his rest-ing place, and they took the secret to their graves.

Geronimo, legendary Apache warrior, he was considered the most scary of all.

Geronimo was never considered to be a chief among the Apache, and seldom had any more than 50 warriors in his band of followers. On the other hand, however, he was an acknowledged exceptional leader in strategy regarding warfare or revenge raids, At any one time, only about 30 to 50 Apaches would be numbered among his personal following. However, since he was a superb leader in raiding and revenge warfare he frequently led combined bands with numbers larger than his own band. Among Geronimo’s own Chiricahua tribe, however, he wasn’t a people person. Many had mixed feelings about him—although he was respected as a skilled and effective leader of raids or warfare, his personality made him hard to get close to. The Apache people stood in awe of Geronimo’s apparent supernatural “powers” which he consistently demonstrated to them. These powers indicated to other Apaches that Geronimo had super-natural gifts that he could use for good or ill. In eye-witness accounts by other Apaches Geronimo was able to become aware of events, as they happened, though they were at a far distant place, and he was able to anticipate events that were in the future. He also demonstrated powers to heal other Apaches.

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Today In Western History: Lilly Coit Arrives In San Francisco

Posted on May 4, 2016March 27, 2016 by larry

May 4 –

On this day in 1851, future female fire fighter Lillie Hitchcock Coit (born August 23, 1843 in West Point and died July 22, 1929 in San Francisco)

Lillie Hitchcock Coit, San Francisco's First female firefighter — Lillie Hitchcock Coit, San Francisco’s First female firefighter

arrives in San Francisco via the Golden Gate. Lilly was a well-known patroness of San Francisco’s volunteer firefighters and the benefactor for the construction of the Coit Tower in San Francisco.

In 1851, she moved to California from West Point with her parents – Charles, an Army doctor, and Martha Hitchcock. ‘Firebelle Lil’ Coit was considered a true eccentric, as she was often seen smoking cigars and wearing pants long before it was socially acceptable for women to do so. She was an avid gambler and she would often dress like a man in order to gamble in the male-only establishments (a rule of the time) that dotted North Beach. As a young woman, she traveled to Europe with her mother. After her return, she married Howard Coit, the “caller” of the San Francisco Stock Exchange during an economic boom. They separated in 1880, and he died in 1885 at age 47.

Lilly was entranced by the sight of firefighters from a very young age. When she was just 15, in 1858, she is reported to have witnessed the Knickerbocker Engine Co. No. 5 respond to a fire call on Telegraph Hill when they were shorthanded, and she pitched in to help them get up the hill ahead of other competing engine companies. From this time forward, she was considered a official “mascot” of the fire-fighters, and when she returned from her travels in Europe (in October 1863) she was formally made an honorary member of the engine company. From that time on, she rode along with the firefighters whenever they went to a fire or they were in parades, and she always attended all of their annual banquets. She continued her relationship with firefighting throughout her life, and after her death her ashes were placed into a mausoleum with a variety of firefighting-related memorials.

Coit Tower, also known as the Lillian Coit Memorial Tower, is a 210-foot (64 m) tower in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, California. The tower, in the city’s Pioneer Park, was built in 1933 using Lillie Hitchcock Coit’s bequest to beautify the city of San Francisco; at her death in 1929 Coit left one-third of her estate to the city for civic beautification. The tower was proposed in 1931 as an appropriate use of Coit’s gift. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 29, 2008. The art-deco tower, built of unpainted reinforced concrete, was designed by architects Arthur Brown, Jr. and Henry Howard, with fresco murals by 27 different on-site artists and their numerous assistants, plus two additional paintings installed after creation off-site. Although an apocryphal story claims that the tower was designed to resemble a fire hose nozzle due to Coit’s affinity with the San Francisco firefighters of the day, the resemblance is coincidental.

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A Matter of Justice, A Matter of Honor and a matter of timing

Posted on May 3, 2016 by larry

I messed up. I approved the sequel and ran into a problem with the cover of the first half of the story. The first half of the story is “A Matter of Honor” and the conclusion of the story is “A Matter of Justice”. I have the story done, I need to get the cover replaced on the first half, I didn’t like the look of it after I saw it in print. I hope to have it up and done by this weekend. I am going to be able to reduce my prices by half when I get this cover completed.

I am working on an other mystery, called “Troll Bridge”, that I think will be a good one. I will keep you posted on this as it moves along. Also in the works is another story with the hero of the “Matter” story, but that is taking a little longer to do. Please be patient with me.

Today In Western History: San Francisco Burns Again

Posted on May 3, 2016March 27, 2016 by larry

May 3 —

On this day in 1851, San Francisco suffers a fire that wipes out 75% of the town, while killing 30 people, at a cost of $3.5 million dollars (or $100,621,542.24 in 2015 dollars).

The fire began around 11pm in a paint and upholstery store above a hotel on the south side of Ports-mouth Square in San Francisco on the night of May 3, 1851. At the time, many believed it to be arson, but this was never proven and motive never established. Helped along and supported by high winds, the fire had initially burned down Kearny St. but as the winds shifted, in part due to the heat of the fire itself, it veered into the downtown area, where the fire fed on the elevated wood-plank sidewalks, The fire was so big, it could easily be seen for miles out to sea, and it continued to burn for about 10 hours, eventually consuming at least 18 blocks of the main business district, an area three-quarters of a mile long by a third of a mile wide. By the time the fire ran out of space to move, by reaching the waterfront, it burned down over 2000 buildings, and in the opinion of many residents, this was nearly three-quarters of the city. One 19th century account of the destruction observes: “Nothing remained of the city but the sparsely settled outskirts. The total damage has been estimated at around $10–12 million, a good deal of it uninsured as no insurance companies had yet been established in the city.

Among the properties destroyed that day were the Niantic whaling vessel, which had been grounded on the shore with the intention to turn it into a store (this was commonly done at the time to get new businesses up and running fast, and when the space was more valuable than the ship itself.) and would subsequently be rebuilt as a hotel; a general store founded by Domenico G hirardelli , who would go on to found

Domenico Ghirardelli, Founder of the Ghiradelli Chocolate Company

the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company; and all half dozen of the city’s newspapers apart from Alta Californian.

At least nine lives were lost in the fire, some of them in new, supposedly fireproof iron buildings whose doors and shutters expanded with the heat, trapping people inside.

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Today In Western History: Chancellorsville – A Confederate Victory And Loss

Posted on May 2, 2016March 23, 2016 by larry

May 3 –

Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson administers a devastating defeat to the Army of the Potomac, command by General Joseph Hooker, at the Battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia.

Gen. Thomas J. Jackson, CSA — CSA Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, hero of the Shenandoah Valley Campaign

In one of the most stunning upsets of the war, a vastly outnumbered Army of Northern Virginia sent the Army of the Potomac, commanded by General Joseph Hooker, back to Washington, D.C., in defeat.

USA General Joseph D. "Fighting Joe" Hooker — USA General Joseph D. “Fighting Joe” Hooker

Hooker, who was headed for Robert E. Lee’s Confederate army, was both confident and numerically superior. He had sent part of his force to meet Lee’s troops at Fredericksburg, Virginia, the day before, while the rest swung west to approach Lee from the rear. Meanwhile, Lee

Robert E. Lee, General CSA, Hero of the Confederacy

had left part of his army at Fredericksburg and had taken the rest of his troops to confront Hooker near Chancellorsville. When the armies collided on May 1, Hooker withdrew into a defensive posture. Sensing Hooker’s trepidation, Lee sent Jackson along with 28,000 troops on a swift, 14-mile march around the Union right flank. Splitting his army into three parts in the face of the mighty Army of the Potomac was a bold move, but it paid huge dividends for the Confederates. Although Union scouts detected the movement as Jackson swung southward, Hooker misinterpreted the maneuver as a retreat. When Jackson’s troops swung back north and into the thick woods west of Hooker’s army, Union pickets reported a possible buildup; but their warnings fell on deaf ears.

Union General Oliver Otis Howard, he was surprised at Chancellorsville

On the evening of May 2, Union soldiers from General Oliver Otis Howard’s 11th Corps were cooking their supper and playing cards when waves of animals charged from the woods. Behind them were Jackson’s attacking troops. The Federal flank crumbled as Howard’s men were driven back some two miles before stopping the Rebel advance. Despite the Confederate victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville, Union forces soon gained the upper hand in the war in the eastern theater.

But the victory was soon soured for the Confederacy. Anxious to push his advantage and wipe the Union Army from the field, Jackson was unwilling to let the matter rest. Always a tiger when he was on the field, Jackson took a few of his officers on a scout forward of his own the lines to find a path behind the remainder of the Union so he could attack them from both sides. Scouting in front of the lines as they returned in the dark, Jackson and his aides were fired upon by their own troops. When told of Jackson’s wounding, Lee is reported to have said “He may have lost his left arm, but I have lost my right.”

Jackson’s left arm was amputated the next morning, and he never recovered. He died from complica-tions from pneumonia a week later, leaving Lee without his most able lieutenant. Jackson was the one man Lee could depend upon to make the most of any victory and minimize any loss. His loss was a significant one for the Confederacy, and it was no more apparent than next month in a little town in Pennsylvania, when the tide went out for the Confederacy.

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Today In Western History: Martha Jane Cannary Is Born

Posted on May 1, 2016March 22, 2016 by larry

May 1 —

On this day in 1852, Martha Jane Canary is born near Princeton, Missouri. She wasn’t a pretty girl, and she was raised in very hard times. When she was 13, her family migrated all the way up to Montana. Four years later in 1869, at the age of 17, she moved to Wyoming, where it is believed she went to work for the railroad doing manual labor. She worked as a dishwasher, cook, waitress, dance-hall girl, nurse, and ox team driver, and she delivered mail for the pony express. Finally, in 1874, she found work as a scout at Fort Russell. During that time, Jane also began her on-and-off employment as a prostitute at the Fort Laramie Three-Mile Hog Ranch. In 1875, dressed as a man, she joined a geological expedition into the Black Hills. A year later, she claimed she was scouting for General George Crook.

In 1885, she married Charles Burke and had a daughter. In 1893 she joined Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show, and she finally died in 1903 in Terry, South Dakota, which is close to Deadwood. She was rough, hard, and fearless. And she has been played by many leading ladies in the movies, none so realistic as by Robin Weigert, in the HBO tv series Deadwood. During her lifetime, she was a scout, a teamster, a bullwhacker, and nurse to an entire mining camp (Deadwood), Wild West performer and prostitute. According to her own biography, which is highly suspect, on 1869 she met the love of her life, James Butler Hickok,

James Butler "WIld Bill" Hickok, legendary lawman, shootist and gambler — James Butler “WIld Bill” Hickok, legendary lawman, shootist and gambler

known forever as Wild Bill, where she claimed she married him and has his child. There is no proof of any of this claim, other than she met him, and he never mentioned it to anyone.

Who is this frontier woman and legend? None other than the famous (or, infamous) Calamity Jane.

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Today In Western History: The Louisiana Purchase Is FInalized

Posted on April 30, 2016March 22, 2016 by larry

On April 30, 1803, representatives of the United States and Napoleonic France conclude negotiations for the Louisiana Purchase, a massive land sale that doubles the size of the young American republic. What was known as Louisiana Territory comprised most of modern-day United States between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, with the exceptions of Texas, parts of New Mexico, and other pockets of land already controlled by the United States. A formal treaty for the Louisiana Purchase, antedated to April 30, was signed two days later.

Beginning in the 17th century, France explored the Mississippi River valley and established scattered settlements in the region. By the middle of the 18th century, France controlled more of the modern United States than any other European power: from New Orleans northeast to the Great Lakes and northwest to modern-day Montana. In 1762, during the French and Indian War, France ceded its America territory west of the Mississippi River to Spain and in 1763 transferred nearly all of its remaining North American holdings to Great Britain. Spain, no longer a dominant European power, did little to develop Louisiana Territory during the next three decades. In 1796, Spain allied itself with France, leading Britain to use its powerful navy to cut off Spain from America.

In 1801, Spain signed a secret treaty with France to return Louisiana Territory to France. Reports of the retrocession caused considerable uneasiness in the United States. Since the late 1780s, Americans had been moving westward into the Ohio and Tennessee River valleys, and these settlers were highly dependent on free access to the Mississippi River and the strategic port of New Orleans. U.S. officials feared that France, resurgent under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte, would soon seek to dominate the Mississippi River and access to the Gulf

Gulf of Mexico. In a letter to Robert Livingston, the U.S. minister to France, President Thomas Jefferson stated, “The day that France takes

possession of New Orleans…we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation.” Livingston was ordered to negotiate with French minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand for the purchase of New Orleans.

Robert R. Livingston, lawyer, politician, diplomat from New York, and a Founding Father of the United States

France was slow in taking control of Louisiana, but in 1802 Spanish authorities, apparently acting under French orders, revoked a U.S.-Spanish treaty that granted Americans the right to store goods in New Orleans. In response to this, President Jefferson sent future president

James Monroe, 5th US President and the last Founding Father to be President

James Monroe to Paris to aid Livingston in the New Orleans purchase talks. On April 11, 1803, the day before Monroe’s arrival, Talleyrand asked a surprised Livingston what the United States would give for all of Louisiana Territory. It is believed that the failure of France to put down a slave revolution in Haiti, the impending war with Great Britain and probable Royal Navy blockade of France, and financial difficulties may all have prompted Napoleon to offer Louisiana for sale to the United States.

Negotiations moved swiftly, and at the end of April the U.S. envoys had agreed on the cost of the purchase. The new United States agreed to pay $11,250,000 (or $179,195, 378.35 in 2015 dollars) and assumed all claims of its citizens against France in the amount of $3,750,000 (or $ 59,731,792.78 in 2015 dollars). In exchange, the United States acquired the vast domain of Louisiana Territory, some 828,000 square miles of land (at a cost of $288.56 in 2015 dollars per square mile).

In October, Congress ratified the purchase, and in December 1803 France formally transferred authority over the region to the United States. The acquisition of the Louisiana Territory for the bargain price of less than three cents an acre was Thomas Jefferson’s most notable achievement as president. American expansion westward into the new lands began immediately, and in 1804 a territorial government was established. On April 30, 1812, exactly nine years after the Louisiana Purchase agreement was made, the first of 13 states to be carved from the territory–Louisiana–was admitted into the Union as the 18th U.S. state.

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Today In Western History: The Union Captures New Orleans

Posted on April 29, 2016March 16, 2016 by larry

Union troops officially take possession of New Orleans, today in 1862, completing the occupation that had begun four days earlier.

The capture of this vital southern city was a huge blow to the Confederacy. Southern military strategists planned for a Union attack down the Mississippi, not from the Gulf of Mexico. In early 1862, the Confederates concentrated their forces in northern Mississippi and western Tennessee to stave off the Yankee invasion. Many of these troops fought at Shiloh in Tennessee on April 6 and 7. Eight Rebel gunboats were dispatched up the great river to stop a Union flotilla above Memphis, leaving only 3,000 militia, two uncompleted ironclads, and a few steamboats to defend New Orleans. The most imposing obstacles for the Union were two forts, Jackson and St. Phillip. In the middle of the night of April 24, Admiral David Farragut led a fleet of 24 gunboats, 19 mortar boats, and 15,000 soldiers in a daring run past the forts.

Union Admiral, David G. Farragut, hero of New Orleans

Now, the river was open to New Orleans except for the ragtag Confederate fleet. The mighty Union armada plowed right through, sinking eight ships. At New Orleans, Confederate General Mansfield Lovell surveyed his tiny force and realized that resistance was futile.

If he resisted, Lovell told Mayor John Monroe, Farragut would bombard the city and inflict severe damage and casualties. Lovell pulled his troops out of New Orleans and the Yankees began arriving on April 25. The troops could not land until Forts Jackson and St. Phillip were secured. They surrendered on April 29, and now New Orleans had no protection. Crowds cursed the Yankees as all Confederate flags in the city were lowered and stars and stripes were raised in their place.

The Confederacy lost a major city, and the lower Mississippi soon became a Union highway for 400 miles to Vicksburg, Mississippi.

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Today In Western History: A Very Busy Day

Posted on April 28, 2016March 15, 2016 by larry

April 28 —

This is a busy day in frontier history, as it is marked by eight different events of varied significance between the years 1869 and 1897.

Today in 1869, the beginning of the final track in the first great transcontinental railroad is laid in a most dramatic fashion by the Central Pacific Railroad. Beginning 14 miles outside of Promontory Point, Utah at 7:00am, a crew of Chinese workers backed by eight husky rail carriers attempts to lay ten miles of track in one day, an fantastic feat. Before the sun sets on this day, they have laid 10 miles and fifty-six feet of track, a total of 3,520 rails. Each rail handler has carried 25,800 ties, weighing a quarter of a million pounds.

Just nine years later, today in 1878 the Seven Rivers Warriors pulls together under Marion Turner and John Jones for the purpose of fighting legendary rancher, John Chisum.

John SImpson Chisum, legendary New Mexico rancher and lawman

On their ride to Lincoln, the gang kills Frank McNab and shoots Ab Sanders, while capturing Frank Coe. This is happening during what will become known as the Lincoln County War. One of the West’s most enduring legends will grow out of this war, on the shirttails of a 19 year old youngster named Henry Antrim.

Henry H. Antrim. also known as William H. Bonney, or even more well known as Billy the Kid

Three years later, on this very day in 1881, this same Henry Antrim is being held in jail for the murder of several men. The sheriff of the county is out of town. Shopping for wood for a gallows, when Henry, or Billy The Kid, as he is now known, breaks jail with the help of an unknown accomplice who has hidden a gun in the outhouse. Billy talked Deputy J. W. Bell into taking him to the privy so he could do his business, and when he came out, he had the gun. On the steps back upstairs to where he was being kept, Billy broke free and killed Deputy Bell with one shot.

Lincoln County Deputy, Robert Ollinger — Lincoln County Deputy, Robert Olinger

Running up the rest of the stairs, he picked up Deputy Bob Olinger’s shotgun, the very same shotgun loaded with the dimes Deputy Olinger had threatened to fill Billy with. He then opened up a window and after taunting Olinger with it, he shot Olinger with his own loads, killing him too. He then makes his getaway in a very leisurely fashion after stealing a horse, which he returns later. The sheriff is very determined to catch him and redeem his credibility after this.

Patrick Floyd Garrett - he shot Billy The Kid -- or did he? — Patrick Floyd Garrett – he shot Billy The Kid — or did he?

When Sheriff Patrick Floyd Garrett does catch up with his former friend, he inadvertently helps create the legend when he shoots him in the dark while Billy is unarmed.

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