In theory, Wild Bill Hickok (1837–1876) was one of the good guys. He fought for the Union Army during the Civil War and, for much of his adult life, carried a lawman’s badge. He was elected sheriff in several towns across the West and seldom failed to provide law and order—or at least order.
But Hickok was also one of the most notorious gunfighters in the American West, with perhaps dozens of lawless killings under his belt. He was famous as a gambler, duelist, and freewheeling gun for hire. Many legends of the Western frontier originated with Hickok, from the “quick draw” gunfight to the fateful poker hand that cost him his life.
James Butler Hickok was born in Illinois. By age twenty-five, he had already been tried and acquitted once for murder, after he killed several people in a shootout in Nebraska. (The jury accepted his self-defense argument.) He then fought for the North during the war, serving as a scout and occasionally a spy.
After the war, Hickok fought, and won, the first recorded “quick draw” duel—the type of gunfight that would be immortalized in countless Western movies. He faced off with a former Confederate soldier in Missouri, beating him on the draw when they met in a town square at dusk. Hickok was arrested for murder, but again beat the charge.
Hickok deliberately encouraged his growing national reputation, claiming in interviews that he had killed a hundred men. He also briefly appeared in a play with William “Buffalo Bill” Cody (1846–1917) about their supposed exploits in the West. Dressed in buckskin and brandishing two revolvers, Hickok embodied—and helped create—the stereotype of the Western gunslinger.
In the 1870s, he served as sheriff or marshal in several towns in Kansas. He moved to South Dakota in 1876, hoping to get rich in the gold rush in the Black Hills.
On August 2, 1876, he visited Saloon #10 in the town of Deadwood, where he joined a game of poker. He was dealt a good hand—two pairs, aces over eights—and bad luck: As he looked at his cards, he was shot and killed from behind by Jack McCall (c. 1853–1877). Hickok was thirty-nine. McCall’s motives are disputed; at his trial, he claimed that he shot Hickok to avenge the death of his brother. Another theory was that he was mad at Hickok for insulting him that morning, or that he was drunk. In any case, McCall was convicted and hanged the next year.
ADDITIONAL FACTS
- In 2008, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama (1961–) claimed he was distantly related to Hickok through the family of his Kansas-born mother, Ann Dunham (1942–1995).
- A character based on Hickok was played by Keith Carradine (1949–) in the HBO series Deadwood.
- In poker, a hand containing two aces and two eights is called the dead man’s hand and is considered bad luck by many gamblers.
