Wyatt Earp’s Cow-boy Campaign

What can be learned from another retelling of the Tombstone saga? Recent revelations challenge the traditional view of Wyatt Earp’s campaign against the Cow-boy confederation as a bloody personal feud à la western fiction. It was a seek and destroy mission sanctioned by the United States attorney general, the U.S. marshal and the Arizona Territory governor, following a year of corrupt law enforcement in league with the Cow-boys’ livestock raids, stagecoach holdups and other atrocities. Presented in three sections, this book establishes the major players involved in the convergence on Tombstone, provides an account of Earp’s activities during the 18 months prior to the final action and discusses the provenance and credibility of the “Otero Letter.” Discovered in 2001, the letter—believed to be written by New Mexico Territory Governor Miguel Otero—offers evidence that Earp’s party was given government aid. The author examines the details of the letter, including the shotgun dual between Earp and Curly Bill, the split between Earp and Doc Holliday, sanctuary for the Earp posse in Colorado and Holliday’s extradition fight, Earp’s covert assault resulting in Johnny Ringo’s death, and the controversial courtship and marriage of Earp and Josephine Marcus.

Chuck Hornung was a member of the founding board of directors and vice president of the Wild West History Association. He is a member of the Historical Society of New Mexico, the English Westerners Society, the Western Writers of America, past president of the Western Outlaw-Lawman History Association and president of the New Mexico Mounted Police Historical Society.

Chuck Hornung

Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 316
Bibliographic Info: 29 photos, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2016
pISBN: 978-1-4766-6344-9
eISBN: 978-1-4766-2465-5
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1

Part One: Frontier Paladins and Some Jokers
1. Wyatt Earp: The Man, the Legend, the Myth 6
2. John Henry Holliday, DDS 14
3. A Man Called Bat 19
4. Some ­First-Class Paladins 22
5. Some ­First-Class Jokers 26

Part Two: “The Lion of Tombstone”
6. The Earp Brothers, Tombstone Businessmen 32
7. The Earp Brothers, Law Enforcement Officers 38
8. The Cochise County ­Cow-boy War 41
9. One for Morg … Another for Morg … and Another … 113
10. Good-Bye, Tombstone 138

Part Three: The “Otero Letter”
11. New Mexico’s Campaign Against the ­Cow-Boys 156
12. Ockham’s Razor: The “Otero Letter,” Fact or Fiction? 163
13. The Otero Family of New Mexico 178
14. Ten Days in New Albuquerque 181
15. Destination: Colorado 218
16. The Legal Fight to Save Doc Holliday 226
17. Wyatt Earp vs. Johnny Ringo 233
18. Wyatt Earp and Josephine Marcus 251
19. Final Observations 269

Epilogue by Jeffrey Wheat 275
Chapter Notes 277
Bibliography 287
Index 299

“All Earp publication collectors will want this book…. It is a book that is hard to lay down; one that researchers will return to once and again”—Wild West History Association Journal.