Henry McCarty (November 23, 1858[1] – July 14, 1881), better known as Billy the Kid, but also known by the aliases William Antrim and William
Harrison Bonney, was a famous 19th century American frontier outlaw and gunman who was a participant in the Lincoln County War.
According to legend he killed 21 men, one for each year of his life.
McCarty was 5'8-5'9 with blue eyes, smooth cheeks, and prominent front teeth. He was said to be friendly and personable at
times,[2] but he could also be short-tempered and
determined. This made him a very dangerous outlaw, when combined with his shooting skills and cunning. He was also famous for
(apparently) always wearing a sugarloaf sombrero hat with a wide green decorative band. He was
little known in his own lifetime but was catapulted into legend in the year after his death when his killer, Sheriff
Patrick Garrett, published a wildly sensationalistic biography of him called The
Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid. Beginning with Garrett's account, Billy the Kid grew into a symbolic figure of the
American Old West.
Biography
Early life
Little is known about McCarty's background, but he is thought to have been born on Allen Street on the lower east side of
Manhattan Island, New York. His parents were of
Irish Catholic descent, but their names, and thus McCarty's
surname, are not known for certain. Variations for his parents' names include Catherine McCarty or Katherine McCarty Bonney for
his mother and William Bonney or Patrick Henry McCarty for his father (who probably died around the end of the American Civil War). Some genealogists say he was born William Henry Bonney and was son of William
Harrison Bonney and wife Katherine Boujean, paternal grandson of Levi Bonney and wife Rhoda Pratt and great-grandson of Obadiah
Pratt (Saybrook, Connecticut, September
14, 1742 – Canaan, New York, March 2, 1797) and wife Jemima Tolls (New
Haven, Connecticut, August 11, 1754 – Washington, New York, November 24, 1812) (who in turn were the grandparents of Mormon leader Parley P. Pratt, making him and Bonney first cousins once removed.).[3] In 1868, his mother met William Antrim, and after several years of moving around
the country with Henry and his half-brother Joseph, the couple married and settled in Silver City, New Mexico, in 1873. Antrim found sporadic work as a bartender and carpenter but
soon became more interested in prospecting for fortune than in his wife and stepsons. Despite this, young McCarty sometimes
referred to himself by the surname "Antrim."
Faced with an indigent husband, McCarty's mother took in boarders in order to provide for her sons. She was afflicted with
tuberculosis, even though she was seen by her boarders and neighbors as "a jolly Irish
lady, full of life and mischief." The following year, on September 16, 1874, she died, and was buried in the Memory Lane Cemetery in Silver City. At age 14, McCarty was taken in by a
neighboring family who operated a hotel where he worked to pay for his keep. The manager was impressed by the youth, boasting
that he was the only young man who ever worked for him that did not steal anything. His school teachers said that the young
orphan was "no more of a problem than any other boy, always quite willing to help with chores around the schoolhouse."
On September 23, 1875, McCarty was arrested for hiding a
bundle of stolen clothes for a man playing a prank on a Chinese laundryman. Two days after McCarty was thrown in jail, the scrawny teen escaped by worming his way up the jailhouse chimney. From that point on, McCarty was more or
less a fugitive. He eventually found work as an itinerant ranch hand and shepherd in southeastern Arizona. In 1877, he became a civilian teamster at Fort Grant Army Post in
Arizona with the duty of hauling logs from a timber camp to a sawmill. The civilian blacksmith at the camp, Frank "Windy" Cahill,
took pleasure in bullying young McCarty. On August 17, Cahill attacked McCarty after a verbal exchange and threw him to the
ground. McCarty retaliated by drawing his gun and shooting Cahill, who died the next day. Once again McCarty was in custody, this
time in the Camp's guardhouse awaiting the arrival of the local marshal. Before the marshal could arrive, however, McCarty
escaped. It has sometimes been reported that the encounter with Frank Cahill took place in a saloon.
Again on the run, McCarty, who had begun to refer to himself as "Willam H. Bonney," next turned up in the house of Heiskell
Jones in Pecos Valley, New Mexico. Apaches had stolen McCarty's horse, which forced him to walk
many miles to the nearest settlement, which was Jones's home. She nursed the young man, who was near death, back to health. The
Jones family developed a strong attachment to McCarty and gave him one of their horses.
Lincoln County Cattle War
In the autumn of 1877, Bonney (McCarty) moved to Lincoln County, New
Mexico, and was hired as a cattle guard by John Tunstall, an English cattle
rancher, banker and merchant, and his partner, Alexander McSween, a prominent lawyer. A conflict, known later as the
Lincoln County Cattle War, had begun between the established town merchants and the
ranchers. Events turned bloody on February 18, 1878, when
Tunstall, unarmed, was caught on an open range while herding cattle. Tunstall's murder enraged Bonney and the other ranch
hands.
They formed their own group called the Regulators, led by ranch hand
Richard "Dick" Brewer, and proceeded to hunt down two of the members of the posse that
had killed Tunstall. They captured Bill Morton and Frank Baker on March 6 and killed them on March 9 near Agua Negra. While
returning to Lincoln they also killed one of their own members, a man named McCloskey, whom they suspected of being a
traitor.[4]
On April 1, Regulators Jim French, Frank
McNab, John Middleton, Fred Waite,
Henry Brown and Bonney ambushed Sheriff William J.
Brady[5] and his deputy,[6] killing them both in the high street of Lincoln itself. McCarty was wounded while
trying to retrieve a rifle belonging to him, which Brady had taken in an earlier arrest.[4]
On April 4, they tracked down and killed an old buffalo hunter known as Buckshot
Roberts, whom they suspected of involvement in the Tunstall murder, but not before Roberts shot and killed Dick Brewer,
who had been the Regulators' leader up until that point. Two other Regulators were wounded during the gun battle, which took
place at Blazer's Mill.[4] McCarty took over as
leader of the Regulators following Brewer's death. Under indictment for the Brady killing, McCarty and his gang spent the next
several months in hiding and were trapped, along with McSween, in McSween's home in Lincoln on July
15, 1878, by members of "The House" and some of Brady's men. After a five day siege, McSween's house was set on fire.
McCarty and the other Regulators fled, Henry McCarty killing a "House" member named Bob Beckwith in the process and maybe more.
McSween was shot down while fleeing the blaze, and his death essentially marked the end of the Lincoln County Cattle War.
Lew Wallace and amnesty
In the autumn of 1878, former Union Army General Lew
Wallace became Governor of the New Mexico Territory. In order to restore peace to Lincoln County, Wallace proclaimed an
amnesty for any man involved in the Lincoln County War who was not already under indictment. Bonney, who had fled to Texas after
escaping from McSween's house, was under indictment, but Wallace was intrigued by rumors that the young man was willing to
surrender himself and testify against other combatants if amnesty could be extended to him. In March 1879 Wallace and McCarty met in Lincoln County to discuss the possibility of a deal. True to form, McCarty greeted
the governor with a revolver in one hand and a Winchester rifle in the other. After
taking several days to consider Wallace's offer, Bonney agreed to testify in return for amnesty.
The arrangement called for Bonney to submit to a token arrest and a short stay in jail until the conclusion of his courtroom
testimony. Although Bonny's testimony helped to indict John Dolan, the district attorney, one of the powerful "House" faction
leaders, disregarded Wallace's order to set Bonney free after testifying. He was returned to jail in June 1879, but slipped out
of his handcuffs and fled.
For the next year and a half, Bonney survived by rustling, gambling and killing. In January 1880, during a well-documented
altercation, he killed a man named Joe Grant in a Fort Sumner saloon. Grant was boasting
that he would kill the "Kid" if he saw him, not realizing the man he was playing poker with was "Billy the Kid." In those days
people only loaded their revolvers with five bullets, since there were no safeties and a lot of accidents. The "Kid" asked Grant
if he could see his ivory handled revolver and, while looking at the weapon, cycled the cylinder so the hammer would fall on the
empty chamber. He then let Grant know who he was. When Grant fired, nothing happened, and Bonney then shot him. When asked about
the incident later, he remarked, "It was a game for two, and I got there first".
In November 1880, a posse pursued and trapped Bonney's gang inside a ranch-house (owned by friend James Greathouse at Anton
Chico in the White Oaks area). A posse member named James Carlysle[7] ventured into the house under white flag in an attempt to
negotiate the group's surrender, with Greathouse being sent out as a hostage for the posse. At some point in the night it became
apparent to Carlysle that the outlaws were stalling, when suddenly a shot was accidentally fired from outside. Carlysle, assuming
the posse members had shot Greathouse, decided to run for his life, crashing through a window into the snow outside. As he did
so, the posse, mistaking Carlysle for one of the gang, fired and killed him. Realizing what they had done and now demoralized,
the posse scattered, allowing Bonney and his gang to slip away. Bonney later wrote to Governor Wallace claiming innocence in the
killing of Carlysle and of involvement in cattle rustling in general.
Pat Garrett
A photograph of Sheriff Pat Garrett
During this time, the Kid also developed a friendship with an ambitious local bartender and former buffalo hunter named
Pat Garrett. Running on a pledge to rid the area of rustlers, Garrett was elected as sheriff
of Lincoln County in November 1880, and in early December he put together a posse and set out to arrest Bonney, now known almost
exclusively as Billy the Kid, and carrying a $500 bounty on his head.
The posse led by Garrett fared much better, and his men closed in quickly. On December 19, Bonney barely escaped the posse's
midnight ambush in Fort Sumner, during which one of the gang, Tom O'Folliard, was shot
and killed. On December 23, he was tracked to an abandoned stone building located in a remote location called Stinking Springs.
While Bonney and his gang were asleep inside, Garrett's posse surrounded the building and waited for sunrise. The next morning, a
cattle rustler named Charlie Bowdre stepped outside to feed his horse. Mistaken for Bonney, he was killed by the posse. Soon
afterward somebody from within the building reached for the horse's halter rope, but Garrett shot and killed the horse, the body
of which then blocked the only exit. As the lawmen began to cook breakfast over an open fire, Garrett and Bonney engaged in a
friendly exchange, with Garrett inviting Bonney outside to eat, and Bonney inviting Garrett to "go to hell." Realizing that they
had no hope of escape, the besieged and hungry outlaws finally surrendered later that day and were allowed to join in the
meal.
Escape from Lincoln
Courthouse and jail, Lincoln, New Mexico
Bonney was jailed in the town of Mesilla while waiting for his April 1881 trial
and spent his time giving newspaper interviews and also peppering Governor Wallace with letters seeking clemency. Wallace,
however, refused to intervene. Bonney's trial took one day and resulted in his conviction for killing Sheriff Brady; the only
conviction ever secured against any of the combatants in the Lincoln County Cattle War. On April 13, he was sentenced by Judge
Warren Bristol to hang. The execution was scheduled for May 13, and he was sent to Lincoln to
await this date, held under guard by two of Garrett's deputies, James Bell and Robert Ollinger, on the top floor of the town's
courthouse. On April 28, while Garrett was out of town, Bonney stunned the territory by killing both of his guards and
escaping.
The details of the escape are unclear. Some historians believe that a friend or Regulator sympathizer left a pistol in a
nearby privy that Bonney was allowed to use, under escort, each day. Bonney then retrieved this gun and after Bell had led him
back to the courthouse, turned it on his guard as the two of them reached the top of a flight of stairs inside. Another theory
holds that Bonney slipped his manacles at the top of the stairs, struck Bell[8] over the head with them and then grabbed Bell's own gun and shot him.[4]
However it happened, Bell staggered out into the street and collapsed, mortally wounded. Meanwhile, Bonney scooped up
Ollinger's[9] ten-gauge double barrel shotgun and waited at the upstairs window for Ollinger, who had been across the street with some other
prisoners, to come to Bell's aid. As Ollinger came running into view, Bonney leveled the shotgun at him, called out "Hello Bob!"
and shot him dead. The townsfolk supposedly gave him an hour that he used to remove his leg iron. The hour was granted in thanks
for his work as part of "The Regulators." After cutting his leg irons with an axe, the young outlaw borrowed (or stole) a horse
and rode leisurely out of town, reportedly singing. The horse was returned two days later.[4]
Death
Billy the Kid's grave, Fort Sumner, New Mexico.
Responding to rumours that Bonney was still lurking in the vicinity of Fort Sumner almost three months after his escape,
Sheriff Garrett and two deputies set out on July 14, 1881, to
question one of the town's residents, a friend of Bonney's named Pedro Maxwell. Near midnight, as Garrett and Maxwell sat talking
in Maxwell's darkened bedroom, Bonney unexpectedly entered the room. There are at least two versions of what happened next.
One version says that as the Kid entered, he could not recognize Garrett in the poor light. Bonney drew his pistol and backed
away, asking "¿Quién es? ¿Quién es?" (Spanish for "Who is it? Who is it?"). Recognizing
Bonney's voice, Garrett drew his own pistol and fired twice, the first bullet hitting McCarty just above his heart and killing
him instantly. In a second version, Bonney entered carrying a knife, evidently headed to a kitchen area. He noticed someone in
the darkness, and uttered the words "¿Quién es? ¿Quién es?", at which point he was shot and killed in ambush style.
Although the popularity of the first story persists, and portrays Garrett in a better light, many historians contend that the
second version is probably the accurate one.[10][11] A markedly different theory, in which Garrett and his posse
set a trap for Bonney, has also been suggested, most recently being investigated in the Discovery Channel documentary "Billy the Kid: Unmasked". The theory contends that Garrett went to the
bedroom of Pedro Maxwell's sister, Paulita, and tied her up in her bed. Paulita was an acquaintance of Billy the Kid, and the two
had possibly considered getting married. When Bonney arrived, Garrett was waiting behind Paulita's bed and shot the Kid.
Henry McCarty, alias Henry Antrim, alias William H. Bonney, alias Billy the Kid, was buried the next day in Fort Sumner's old
military cemetery, between his fallen companions Tom O'Folliard and Charlie Bowdre. A single tombstone was later erected over the
graves, giving the three outlaws' names and with the word "Pals" also carved into it. The tombstone has been stolen and recovered
three times since being placed in the 1940s, and the entire gravesite is now enclosed by a steel cage.[1]
Notoriety, fact vs reputation
As with many men of the old west dubbed gunfighters, Billy the Kid's reputation exaggerated the actual facts of gunfights in
which he was involved. Despite being credited with the killing of 21 men in his lifetime, he is believed to have participated in
the killing of only nine men. Five of them died during shootouts in which several of the "Regulators" took part (including the
revenge killing of Sheriff Brady, who had murdered Billy's employer, Englishman John Tunstall); of the other four, two were in
self-defense gunfights and the other two were the killings of Deputies Bell and Olinger during the Kid's jail escape. Still,
Billy the Kid, with the Winchester rifle given him by John Tunstall (and taken from him by Sheriff Brady), was the best shot to
emerge from the Lincoln County War. After killing Brady, Billy walked coolly over to the body and recovered his rifle.[12]
Left-handed or right-handed?
For most of the 20th century, it was widely assumed that Billy the Kid was left-handed.
This belief came from the fact that the only known photograph of McCarty, an undated ferrotype, shows him with a Model 1873
Winchester rifle in his right hand and a gun belt with a holster on his left side, where a left handed person would typically
wear a pistol. The belief became so entrenched that in 1958, a biographical film was made about Billy the Kid called The Left
Handed Gun starring Paul Newman. Late in the 20th century, it was discovered that the
familiar ferrotype was actually a reverse image. This version shows his Model 1873 Winchester with the loading port on the left
side. All Model 1873s had the loading port on the right side, proving the image was reversed, and that he was, in fact, wearing
his pistol on his right hip. Even though the image has been proven to be reversed, the idea of a left handed Billy the Kid
continues to widely circulate. Perhaps because many people heard both of these arguments and confused them, it is widely believed
that Billy the Kid was ambidextrous. Many Billy the Kid sites describe him as such, and
the fact is still widely disputed.[2][3] [4][5]
Imposters
Brushy Bill
In 1950, a paralegal named William Morrison located a man in West Texas named Ollie P.
Roberts, nicknamed Brushy Bill, who claimed to be the actual Billy the Kid, and that he indeed had not been shot and
killed by Pat Garrett in 1881. Almost all historians reject the Brushy Bill claim. Among other problems, the real Billy the Kid
was believed to have spoke Spanish fluently and could read and write, whereas Brushy Bill apparently could not speak Spanish at
all and was in fact, illiterate; however Morrison has claimed that Brushy Bill did speak fluent Spanish and was very literate.
Despite this and discrepancies in birth dates and physical appearance, the town of Hico,
Texas (Brushy Bill's residence) has capitalized on the Kid's infamy by opening the Billy The Kid Museum.
John Miller
Another claimant to the title of Billy the Kid was John Miller,
whose family claimed him posthumously to be Billy the Kid in 1938. Miller was buried at the state-owned Pioneers' Home Cemetery
in Prescott, Arizona. Tom Sullivan, former sheriff of Lincoln County, and Steve
Sederwall, former mayor of Capitan, disinterred the bones of John Miller in May 2005.[13] DNA samples from the remains were sent to a lab in Dallas, Texas, to be compared against traces of blood taken from a bench that was believed to be the one
McCarty's body was placed on after he was shot to death. The pair had been searching for the physical remains of McCarty since
2003, beginning in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, and
eventually ending up in Arizona. To date, no results of the DNA tests have been made public.
Popular culture
Billy the Kid has been the subject or inspiration for many works of art, including:
Books
Film
- Billy the Kid, 1930 film directed by King Vidor, starring Johnny Mack Brown as Billy and
Wallace Beery as Pat Garrett
- Billy the Kid Returns, 1938: Roy Rogers plays a dual role, Billy the Kid and his
dead-ringer lookalike who shows up after the Kid has been shot by Pat Garrett.
- Billy the Kid, 1941 remake of the 1930 film, starring
Robert Taylor and Brian Donlevy
- The Outlaw, Howard Hughes' 1943 motion picture
- The Kid from Texas (1950, Universal International) film starring Audie Murphy--location of title character's place of origin changed to appeal to Texans and capitalize on
Murphy association with that state
- The Left Handed Gun, Arthur Penn's
1958 motion picture starring Paul Newman
- The Tall Man, 1960 TV series featuring
Barry Sullivan as Pat Garrett, the "Tall Man," and Clu
Gulager as Billy.
- Billy the Kid vs Dracula, William Beaudine's 1966 motion picture with John Carradine
- Chisum, 1970 movie starring John Wayne as
John Chisum, dealing with Billy the Kid's involvement in the Lincoln County War, portrayed
by Geoffrey Deuel
- Dirty Little Billy[6],
Stan Dragoti's 1972 film starring Michael J. Pollard.
- Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Sam Peckinpah's 1973 motion picture with a soundtrack by
Bob Dylan
- Billy The Kid[7], Gore
Vidal's 1989 film starring Val Kilmer
- Young Guns, Christopher Cain's 1988 motion
picture starring Emilio Estevez
- Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure, 1989 film starring Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, with Dan Shor as Billy the Kid
- Young Guns II, Geoff Murphy's
1990 motion picture starring Emilio Estevez
- Requiem for Billy the Kid, Anne Feinsilber's
2006 motion picture starring Kris Kristofferson
Games
- Billy the Kid Returns, a PC game based on the life of Billy the Kid published by Alive
Software in 1993
- The Legend of Billy the Kid, a game published by Ocean Software in 1991 for PC and Amiga.
Music
- Jon Bon Jovi's album "Blaze of Glory", used as
part of the soundtrack for Young Guns II
- Running Wild's song, "Billy the Kid"
- Charlie Daniels's song, "Billy the Kid"
- Billy Dean's song, "Billy the Kid"
- Diablo Royale's song, "Dead at 21"
- Bob Dylan's album Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid,
soundtrack of the 1973 film by Sam Peckinpah
- Joe Ely's song, "Me and Billy The Kid"
- Ricky Fitzpatrick's song, "Ballad of Billy the Kid", [8]
- Jerry Granelli's album from 2005 "Sand Hills Reunion" featuring words and music about Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett. [9]
- Pat Green's "Me and Billy the Kid"
- Billy Joel's song, "The Ballad of Billy the
Kid"
- Chris LeDoux's song, "Billy the Kid"
- Will Oldham has related his moniker "Bonnie Prince Billy" to Billy the Kid's alias
"William Bonney"
- Tom Pacheco's song "Nobody ever killed Billy the Kid" on his disc "Woodstock
Winter"
- Tom Petty's song, "Billy the Kid"
- Marty Robbins' song "Billy the Kid" from the album Gunfighter Ballads & Trail
Songs Volume 3
- The outlaw named Texas Red in Marty Robbins' song "Big Iron" is based on Billy The Kid.
This song is also covered by Mike Ness on his album Under the Influences.
- German Heavy Metal veterans Running Wild's song, "Billy the Kid"
- Western performer Dave Stamey's "The Skies of Lincoln County", which features the deceased
McCarty as narrator, answering historical distortions put forth by Pat Garrett
- Two Gallants' song "Las Cruces
Jail"
- Rapper Fabolous has the alter-ego William H. Bonney
for his love of being a babyface outlaw who has his way with women
- Marty Stuart's song titled "Me and Billy The Kid" told the story as the singer being a
friend of Billy
Stage
Television and radio
- Purgatory, a 1999 made-for-TV movie on
TNT, played by Donnie Wahlberg
- Billy the Kid, a New Mexico PBS documentary
- The radio program Gunsmoke titled Billy, in which Billy is a 12 year old boy who
killed a rancher with a knife and escaped at the end of the episode
- The 2003 Discovery Channel Quest, "Billy the Kid: Unmasked" investigated the life
and death of Billy the Kid through forensic science.
- The Histeria! episode "The Wild West" featured Billy the Kid as the guest host,
portraying him as an actual kid pretending to host a kids' show (ala Howdy Doody) while on
the run from the law.
- TV series The Tall Men ran from 1960 to 1962, starring Clu Gulager as Billy and Barry Sullivan as Pat Garrett
- TV series The Simpsons featured an episode where William Bonney (Billy the Kid)
comes back to life and takes control of Springfield.
- TV series The Time Tunnel eponymous episode Billy the Kid: Doug and
Tony encounter Billy, portrayed by Robert Walker, Jr..
Notes
References
- Jon Tuska's 1983 biography Billy the Kid, A Handbook
- The Old West: The Gunfighters, Paul Trachtman, Time Life Books, 1974.
- The Saga of Billy the Kid, Walter Noble Burns.
- Trailing Billy the Kid, By Philip J Rasch.
- Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent Life, by Robert M. Utley, University of Nebraska Press, 1989.
- DesertUSA: "The Desert's
Baddest Boy"
- The Last Escape
of Billy the Kid
- Michael Wallis, Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride ,ISBN 0393060683, publisher:
W. W. Norton, New York, NY, 19 March 2007.
- Joel Jacobsen, Such men as Billy the Kid: The Lincoln County War Reconsidered. 1997.
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