James Butler Hickok (May 27, 1837 – August 2, 1876), better known as Wild Bill Hickok, was a legendary figure
in the American Old West. His skills as a gunfighter and scout, along with his reputation as a lawman, provided the
basis for his fame, although some of his exploits are fictionalized. His moniker of Wild Bill
has inspired similar nicknames for men named William (even though that was not Hickok's name) who were known for their daring in
various fields.
Hickok came to the West as a stage coach driver, then became a lawman in the frontier
territories of Kansas and Nebraska. He
fought in the Union Army during the American Civil
War, and gained publicity after the war as a scout, marksman, and professional gambler. Between his law enforcement duties
and gambling, which easily overlapped, Hickok was involved in several notable shootouts, and was ultimately killed while playing
poker in a South Dakota saloon.
Life and career
Early life
James Butler Hickok was born in Troy Grove, Illinois on May 27, 1837. His birthplace is now the Wild Bill Hickok State Memorial, a
listed historic site under the supervision of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. While he was growing up, his father's farm
was one of the stops on the Underground Railroad, and he learned his shooting
skills protecting the farm with his father from anti-abolitionists. Hickok was a good shot
from a very young age. Unknown to most, he was one of the earliest champions of equal
rights for blacks during the latter days of slavery.
In 1855, he left his father's farm to become a stage coach driver on the Santa Fe and
Oregon Trails. An early record refers to him as "Duck Bill" (perhaps in reference to his
big nose), but his gunfighting skills changed his nickname to "Wild Bill". His killing of a bear with a bowie knife during a turn
as a stage driver cemented a growing reputation as a genuinely tough man who feared nothing, and who was feared for more than
carrying a fast gun. [1]
Constable
In 1857, Hickok claimed a 160 acre (65 ha) tract of land in Johnson County,
Kansas (in what is now the city of Lenexa) where he became the first constable of
Monticello Township, Kansas. In 1861, he became a town constable in Nebraska. He was involved in a deadly shoot-out with the
McCanles gang at Rock Creek Station, an event
still under much debate. On several other occasions, Hickok confronted and killed several men while fighting alone.[2]
Hickok invented the practice of "posting" men out of town. He would put a list on what was called the "dead man's tree" (so
called because men had been lynched on it) while constable of Monticello
Township. Hickok proclaimed he would shoot them on sight the following day. Few stayed around to find out if he was serious.
Civil War and scouting
When the Civil War began, Hickok joined the Union forces and served in the west, mostly in Kansas and Missouri. He earned a
reputation as a skilled scout. After the war, Hickok became a scout for the U. S. Army and later was a professional gambler. He
served for a time as a United States Marshal. In 1867, his fame increased
from an interview by Henry Morton Stanley.
During the civil war "Buffalo Bill Cody" served as a scout with Robert Denbow, David L.
Payne, and Hickok. The men formed a friendship that would last decades. After the war the four men, Payne, Cody, Hickok, and
Denbow engaged in buffalo hunting. When Payne moved to Wichita, Kansas in 1870, Denbow joined him there while Hickok served as
sheriff of Hays, Kansas. Hickok was rumored to have appeared in a stage play put on in 1873 by Bill Cody entitled "Scouts of the
plains." When Bill Cody started the Buffalo Bill shows, Denbow travelled with Cody all over Iowa with the Buffalo Bill shows.
Lawman and gunfighter
On July 21, 1865, in the town square of Springfield, Missouri, Hickok killed Davis
Tutt, Jr. in a "quick draw" duel. Fiction later typified this kind of gunfight, but Hickok's
is in fact the only one on record that fits the portrayal. [1] The incident was precipitated by a dispute over a gambling debt incurred at a local
saloon.
Hickok was working as sheriff and city marshal of Hays, Kansas when, on July 17, 1870, he was involved in a gunfight with disorderly soldiers of the
7th US Cavalry, wounding one and mortally wounding another. In
1871, Hickok became marshal of Abilene, Kansas, taking over for former marshal
Tom "Bear River" Smith, who had been killed on November
2nd, 1870.[3] Hickok's encounter in Abilene with
outlaw John Wesley Hardin resulted in the latter fleeing the town after Hickok
managed to disarm him.
While working in Abilene, Hickok and Phil Coe, a saloon owner, had an ongoing dispute that
later resulted in a shootout. Coe had been the business partner of known gunman Ben
Thompson, with whom he co-owned the Bulls Head Saloon. On October 5, 1871, Hickok was standing off a crowd during a street brawl, during which time Coe fired two shots at Hickok.
Hickok returned fire and killed Coe. Hickok, whose eyesight was poor by that time in his life from early stages of
glaucoma, caught the glimpse of movement of someone running toward him. He quickly fired one
shot in reaction, accidentally shooting and killing Abilene Special Deputy Marshal Mike Williams, who was coming to his aid, an
event that haunted Hickock for the remainder of his life.[4]
Hickok's retort to Coe, who supposedly stated he could "kill a crow on the wing", is one of the West's most famous sayings
(though possibly apocryphal): "Did the crow have a pistol? Was he shooting back? I will be." However, due to his having
accidentally killed deputy Mike Williams, Hickock was relieved of his duties as marshal less than two months later.
Death
On August 2, 1876, while playing poker at Nuttal & Mann's Saloon No. 10 in Deadwood, in the Black Hills, Dakota Territory, Hickok could not find an empty seat in the corner, where he always sat in order to
protect himself against sneak attacks from behind, and instead sat with his back to one door and facing another. His paranoia was
prescient: he was shot in the back of the head with a .45-caliber revolver by Jack McCall. Legend has it that Hickok, playing poker when he
was shot, was holding a pair of aces and a pair of eights. The fifth card is either unknown, or, as some say, had not yet been
dealt. "Aces and eights" thus is known as the "Dead Man's Hand".
The motive for the killing is still debated. McCall may have been paid for the deed, or it may have been the result of a
recent dispute between the two. Most likely McCall became enraged over what he perceived as a condescending offer from Hickok to
let him have enough money for breakfast after he had lost all his money playing poker the previous day. McCall claimed at the
resulting two-hour trial, by a miners jury, an ad hoc local group of assembled miners and
businessmen, that he was avenging Hickok's earlier slaying of his brother which was later found untrue. McCall was acquitted of
the murder, resulting in the Black Hills Pioneer editorializing:
- "Should it ever be our misfortune to kill a man ... we would simply ask that our trial may take place in some of the mining
camps of these hills"
McCall was subsequently rearrested after bragging about his deed, and a new trial was held. The authorities did not consider
this to be double jeopardy because at the time Deadwood was not recognized by the U.S.
as a legitimately incorporated town because it was in Indian Country and the jury was
irregular. The new trial was held in Yankton, capital of the territory. Hickok's
brother, Lorenzo Butler Hickok, traveled from Illinois to attend the retrial. This time McCall was found guilty and hanged. After
his execution it was determined that McCall had never had a brother.
Charlie Utter, Hickok's friend and companion, claimed Hickok's body and placed a notice
in the local newspaper, the Black Hills Pioneer, which read:
- "Died in Deadwood, Black Hills, August 2, 1876, from the
effects of a pistol shot, J. B. Hickok (Wild Bill) formerly of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Funeral services will be held at Charlie Utter's Camp, on Thursday afternoon,
August 3, 1876, at 3 o'clock P. M. All are respectfully invited
to attend."
Almost the entire town attended the funeral, and Utter had Hickok buried with a wooden grave marker reading:
- "Wild Bill, J. B. Hickok killed by the assassin Jack McCall in Deadwood,
Black Hills, August 2d, 1876.
Pard, we will meet again in the happy hunting ground to part no more. Good bye, Colorado Charlie, C. H. Utter."
In 1879, at the urging of Calamity Jane, Utter had Hickok
reinterred in a ten-foot (3 m) square plot at the Mount Moriah
Cemetery, surrounded by a cast-iron fence with a U.S. flag flying nearby. A monument has since been built there. In
accordance with her dying wish, Calamity Jane was buried next to him.
Shortly before Hickok's death, he wrote a letter to his new wife, Agnes Lake Thatcher, which reads in part: "Agnes Darling, if
such should be we never meet again, while firing my last shot, I will gently breathe the name of my wife—-Agnes-—and with wishes
even for my enemies I will make the plunge and try to swim to the other shore" and "My dearly beloved if I am to die today and
never see the sweet face of you I want you to know that I am no great man and am lucky to have such a woman as you".
Buffalo Bill
Some accounts report that Hickok took part in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. However, that production was not in existence prior to 1882,
well after Hickok's death. Nonetheless, Hickok was reported by some to have appeared with Buffalo Bill in 1873 in a stage play titled "Scouts of the plains".[5]
"Dime novel" fame
It is difficult to separate the truth from fiction about Hickok, the first "dime novel" hero of the western era, in many ways
one of the first comic book heroes, keeping company with another who achieved part of his
fame in such a way, frontiersman Davey Crockett. In the dimestore novels, exploits of
Hickok were presented in heroic form, making him seem larger than life. In truth, most of the stories were greatly exaggerated or
fabricated.
Hickok told the writers that he had killed over 100 men. This number is doubtful, and it is more likely that his total
killings were about 20 or a few more. Hickok was a fearless and deadly fighting man, versatile with a rifle, revolver, or knife.
His story of fighting a grizzly bear, which he claims mistook him for food because of his greasy buckskins, personified a man who
feared nothing. According to Wild Bill, he killed the bear with a Bowie knife after emptying
his pistols into the bear. That story is also thought to be an exaggeration.
Media
Television
Movies
Novels
Songs
- Wild Bill Hickok is featured with Calamity Jane in the song "Deadwood Mountain" by the country duo "Big & Rich".
- Wild Bill is sung about in Bluegrass band Blue Highway's song "Wild Bill" from the
album Marbletown
Trivia
- Hickok's death chair is now in a glass case above the saloon entrance, though the saloon was moved after the original Nuttall
& Mann's #10 saloon burned down; the original site is down the street to the north, about a block away.
- He preferred his own cap and ball Colt 1851 .36 Navy Model handguns. They had ivory handles and were engraved with his name,
"J.B. Hickok." He acquired them shortly after or at the very close of the Civil War, for which he was a scout and spy. They had
no triggers; Wild Bill would pull them up holding their hammers, and release to fire, giving him a slight speed advantage.
- He wore his revolvers in reverse at his hips, sometimes in a red sash, and drew them from the inside, from the right hip with
left hand and the left hip with right hand, claiming it was faster that way.
- Hickok was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 1979.
- He also would tell tourists various exaggerated exploits of his, usually leaving himself unarmed with no manner of escape,
and then stop talking. When someone would inevitably ask what he did then, he claimed "I was surrounded. What could I do? They
killed me."
See also
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Notes
References
General References
- Matheson, Richard (1996). The Memoirs of Wild Bill Hickok. Jove. ISBN
0-515-11780-3.
- Rosa, Joseph G. (1979). They Called Him Wild Bill. University of Oklahoma
Press. ISBN 0-8061-1538-6.
- Rosa, Joseph G. (1994). The West of Wild Bill Hickok. University of
Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-2680-9.
- Rosa, Joseph G. (1996). Wild Bill Hickok: The Man and His Myth.
University Press of Kansas. ISBN 0-7006-0773-0.
- Rosa, Joseph G. (2003). Wild Bill Hickok Gunfighter: An Account of Hickok's
Gunfights. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-3535-2.
- Turner, Thadd M. (2001). Wild Bill Hickok: Deadwood City - End of Trail.
Universal Publishers. ISBN 1-58112-689-1.
- Wilstach, Frank Jenners (1926). Wild Bill Hickok: The Prince of
Pistoleers. Doubleday, Page & company. ASIN B00085PJ58.
External links
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