The Lincoln County Range War in New Mexico began in 1877 with the murder of an English rancher called John Tunstall. By the time it ended in 1881 around 20 men had been killed, some of them by Billy the Kid, who made the oft-quoted remarks that Tunstall ‘was the only man that ever treated me like I was a free-born and white’ and ‘I’ll get every son-of-a-bitch who helped kill John if it’s the last thing I do’ (Tunstall’s colt is displayed at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds).
This ‘war’ has always attracted a lot of interest, simply because it encapsulates much of the dark side of American capitalism (with added cowboys). On one side was the firm of Murphy and Dolan, known as the ‘House’, merchants with lucrative monopoly contracts; they supplied Indian reservations with beef. On the other was Tunstall, who ran a bank and merchant store with Alexander McSween: they had the backing of the cattle baron John Chisum (played by John Wayne as the incarnation of American individualism in the eponymous 1970 movie). Both sides used hired killers. This conflict may be the only American epic – fact or fiction – in which the Irish are baddies and the English are goodies.
Lincoln County was huge, about the size of Ireland. Killings by Apaches and other Indians were becoming rare (see 1886: Geronimo surrenders to General Miles), but murderous raids by white bandits were a real problem. Law enforcement was often corrupt, with law officers in the pay of bigger crooks. Two years into the conflict between the mercantile factions, the new Governor Lew Wallace drew up a list (which survives) of 36 men who should be arrested: Billy was 15th in a ranking headed by a merciless villain called John Selman. Wallace also declared an amnesty to be implemented if the person had not been indicted. Billy wrote to Wallace (this letter also survives) stating he was willing to surrender and also testify against selected murderers (Billy had signed a peace treaty with the ‘House’ killers). He acknowledged that he was not eligible for the pardon.
Wallace wrote in reply saying that Billy could trust him: ‘Come alone. Don’t tell anybody – not a living soul – where you are coming or the object’. They then had a meeting to sort out the requisite ploys and testimonies. Said Wallace: ‘I will let you go scot-free with a pardon in your pocket’. Billy agreed to a fake arrest – on the understanding that a pardon would be forthcoming – and was, accordingly, arrested and he testified in court. Alas, no pardon came for Billy and he ended up simply walking out of jail and riding out of town. Billy’s apologists say Wallace had no intention of pardoning him; others blame the district attorney; others say he just got bored. This was his first escape from the Lincoln County jail. In the second escape in 1881 (after writing three indignant letters to Wallace reminding him about the promised pardon) he killed two deputies, an incident accurately depicted in the elegiac Peckinpah movie Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973).
What Happened Next
Wallace had been a distinguished career soldier, and later became one of the bestselling novelists of the age (see 1876: Robert Ingersoll inspires Lew Wallace). One of the last documents Wallace signed as governor was Billy’s death warrant. Billy was eventually shot by a former associate, Sheriff Pat Garrett. As Wallace’s list (see above) would indicate, Billy was not originally the worst hired gun about, and certainly not the most famous, but his daring second escape caught the imagination of the public, and in 1882 Garrett published a biography of Billy (with an incredibly long title) which depicted him as the iconic western desperado. Garrett killed Billy, but helped make him a legend. Garrett himself was murdered in obscure circumstances in 1908.