Billy the kid brief biography of mark

Here, Pat F. Garrett, the Sheriff of Lincoln County, does his best to tell us the incredible story of the kid who became a cold-blooded outlaw. The so-called war, a fight for control of the mercantile economy of southeastern New Mexico, is one of the most documented conflicts in the history of the American West, but it is an event that up to now has been interpreted through the eyes of men.

This is the first book to place her in a larger context. Clearly, the Lincoln County War was not her finest hour, just her best known. For decades afterward, she ran a successful cattle ranch. She watched New Mexico modernize and become a state. And she lived to tell the tales of the anarchistic territorial period many times. In a notorious outlaw and a childhood friend of Billy the Kid was released from prison where he had been serving time for killing a Texas Ranger.

His freedom finally secured, the outlaw disappeared and was never heard from again. It was the last time the two saw each other. After leaving Antrim, McCarty traveled to southeastern Arizona Territory , where he worked as a ranch hand and gambled his wages in nearby gaming houses. Mackie, a Scottish -born criminal and former U. Cavalry private who, following his discharge, remained near the U.

Army post at Camp Grant in Arizona. The two men soon began stealing horses from local soldiers. At some point in , McCarty began to refer to himself by the name "William H. Bonney in turn called Cahill a " son of a bitch ", whereupon Cahill threw Bonney to the floor and the two struggled for Bonney's revolver. Bonney shot and mortally wounded Cahill.

A witness said, "[Billy] had no choice; he had to use his equalizer. He was detained and held in the Camp Grant guardhouse but escaped before law enforcement could arrive. Bonney stole a horse and fled Arizona Territory for New Mexico Territory, [ 28 ] but Apaches took the horse from him, leaving him to walk many miles to the nearest settlement. At Fort Stanton , [ 29 ] starving and near death, he went to the home of friend and Seven Rivers Warriors gang member John Jones, whose mother Barbara nursed him back to health.

After he was spotted in Silver City, his involvement with the gang was mentioned in a local newspaper. The three men had wielded an economic and political hold over Lincoln County since the early s, due in part to their ownership of a beef contract with nearby Fort Stanton and a well-patronized dry goods store in the town of Lincoln. Tunstall put Bonney in charge of nine prime horses and told him to relocate them to his ranch for safekeeping.

Meanwhile, Sheriff Brady assembled a large posse to seize Tunstall's cattle. On February 18, , Tunstall learned of the posse's presence on his land and rode out to intervene. During the encounter, one member of the posse shot Tunstall in the chest, knocking him off his horse. Another posse member took Tunstall's gun and killed him with a shot to the back of his head.

After Tunstall was killed, Bonney and Dick Brewer swore affidavits against Brady and those in his posse, and obtained murder warrants from Lincoln County justice of the peace John B. Marshal Robert Widenmann , a friend of Bonney, and a detachment of soldiers captured Sheriff Brady's jail guards, put them behind bars, and released Bonney and Brewer.

Baker and Morton were killed while allegedly trying to escape. On April 1, the Regulators ambushed Sheriff Brady and his deputies; Bonney was wounded in the thigh during the battle. Brady and Deputy Sheriff George W. Hindman were killed. On the night of Sunday, July 14, McSween and the Regulators—now a group of fifty or sixty men—went to Lincoln and stationed themselves in the town among several buildings.

Another group led by Marin Chavez and Doc Scurlock positioned themselves on the roof of a saloon. On Tuesday, July 16, newly appointed sheriff George Peppin sent sharpshooters to kill the McSween defenders at the saloon. Peppin's men retreated when one of the snipers, Charles Crawford, was killed by Fernando Herrera. Peppin then sent a request for assistance to Colonel Nathan Dudley , commandant of nearby Fort Stanton.

In a reply to Peppin, Dudley refused to intervene but later arrived in Lincoln with troops, turning the battle in favor of the Murphy-Dolan faction. A gunfight broke out on Friday, July McSween's supporters gathered inside his house; when Buck Powell and Deputy Sheriff Jack Long set fire to the building, the occupants began shooting.

Bonney and the other men fled the building when all rooms but one were burning. During the confusion, McSween was shot and killed by Robert W. Beckwith, who was then shot and killed by Bonney. Bonney and three other survivors of the Battle of Lincoln were near the Mescalero Indian Agency when the agency bookkeeper, Morris Bernstein, was murdered on August 5, All four were indicted for the murder, despite conflicting evidence that Bernstein had been killed by Constable Atanacio Martinez.

All of the indictments, except Bonney's, were later quashed. On October 5, , U. Antrim, alias Kid, alias Bonny [ sic ]" but was unable to execute them "owing to the disturbed condition of affairs in that county, resulting from the acts of a desperate class of men". It specifically excluded persons who had been convicted of or indicted for a crime, and therefore excluded Bonney.

According to eyewitnesses, the pair were innocent bystanders forced at gunpoint by Jesse Evans to witness the murder. On March 15, Governor Wallace replied, agreeing to a secret meeting to discuss the situation. He met with Wallace in Lincoln on March 17, During the meeting and in subsequent correspondence, Wallace promised Bonney protection from his enemies and clemency if he would offer his testimony to a grand jury.

On March 20, Wallace wrote to Bonney, "to remove all suspicion of understanding, I think it better to put the arresting party in charge of Sheriff Kimbrell [sic] who shall be instructed to see that no violence is used. As agreed, Bonney provided a statement about Chapman's murder and testified in court. He escaped from the Lincoln County jail on June 17, The origin of the difficulty was not learned.

He walked up to Grant, told him he admired his revolver, and asked to examine it. Grant handed it over. Before returning the pistol, which he noticed contained only three cartridges, Bonney positioned the cylinder so the next hammer fall would land on an empty chamber. Grant suddenly pointed his pistol at Bonney's face and pulled the trigger.

When it failed to fire, he drew his own weapon and shot Grant in the head. A reporter for the Las Vegas Optic quoted Bonney as saying the encounter "was a game of two and I got there first". In , Bonney formed a friendship with a rancher named Jim Greathouse, who later introduced him to Dave Rudabaugh. Cornered at Greathouse's ranch, he told the posse they were holding Greathouse as a hostage.

Carlysle offered to exchange places with Greathouse, and Bonney accepted the offer. Carlysle later attempted to escape by jumping through a window but he was shot three times and killed. Unbeknownst to Bonney and his companions, a posse led by Pat Garrett was waiting for them. The posse opened fire, killing O'Folliard; the rest of the outlaws escaped unharmed.

When they arrived on December 26, they were met by crowds of curious onlookers. The following day, an armed mob gathered at the train depot before the prisoners, who were already on board the train with Garrett, departed for Santa Fe. The laugh's on me this time. After arriving in Santa Fe, Bonney, seeking clemency, sent Governor Wallace four letters over the next three months.

Wallace refused to intervene, [ 82 ] and he went to trial in April in Mesilla, New Mexico. On April 13, Judge Warren Bristol sentenced him to hang , with his execution scheduled for May 13, Following his sentencing, Bonney was moved to Lincoln, where he was held under guard on the top floor of the town courthouse. On the evening of April 28, , while Garrett was in White Oaks collecting taxes, Deputy Bob Olinger took five other prisoners across the street for a meal, leaving James Bell , [ 86 ] another deputy, alone with Bonney at the jail.

He asked to be taken outside to use the outhouse behind the courthouse; on their return to the jail, Bonney—who was walking ahead of Bell up the stairs to his cell—hid around a blind corner, slipped out of his handcuffs, and beat Bell with the loose end of the cuffs. During the ensuing scuffle, Bonney grabbed Bell's revolver and fatally shot him in the back as Bell tried to get away.

Bonney, with his legs still shackled, broke into Garrett's office and took a loaded shotgun left behind by Olinger. He waited at the upstairs window for Olinger to respond to the gunshot that killed Bell and called out to him, "Look up, old boy, and see what you get. Around midnight, the pair were sitting in Maxwell's darkened bedroom when Bonney unexpectedly entered.

Accounts vary as to the course of events. According to the canonical version, as he entered the room, Bonney failed to recognize Garrett due to the poor lighting. Who is it? Garrett's account leaves it unclear whether Bonney was killed instantly or took some time to die. A few hours after the shooting, a local justice of the peace assembled a coroner's jury of six people.

The jury members interviewed Maxwell and Garrett, and Bonney's body and the location of the shooting were examined. The jury certified the body as Bonney's and, according to a local newspaper, the jury foreman said, "It was the Kid's body that we examined. William G. Ritch , the acting New Mexico governor, refused to pay the reward.

Because people had begun to claim Garrett unfairly ambushed Bonney, Garrett felt the need to tell his side of the story and called upon his friend, journalist Marshall Upson , to ghostwrite a book for him. Over time, legends grew claiming that Bonney was not killed, and that Garrett staged the incident and death out of friendship so that Bonney could evade the law.

In , a central Texas man, Ollie P. Mabry seeking a pardon. Mabry dismissed Roberts' claims, and Roberts died shortly afterward. John Miller, an Arizona man, also claimed he was Bonney. This was unsupported by his family until , some time after his death. Miller's body was buried in the state-owned Arizona Pioneers' Home Cemetery in Prescott, Arizona ; in May , Miller's teeth and bones [ ] were exhumed and examined, [ ] without permission from the state.

In , researchers sought to exhume the remains of Catherine Antrim, Bonney's mother, whose DNA would be tested and compared with that of the body buried in William Bonney's grave. In , [ ] author and amateur historian Gale Cooper filed a lawsuit against the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office under the state Inspection of Public Records Act to produce records of the results of the DNA tests and other forensic evidence collected in the Billy the Kid investigations.

In February , historian Robert Stahl petitioned a district court in Fort Sumner asking the state of New Mexico to issue a death certificate for Bonney. The suit asked the court to order the state's Office of the Medical Investigator to officially certify Bonney's death under New Mexico state law. As of [update] , only one authenticated photograph showing Billy exists; others thought to depict him are disputed.

One of the few remaining artifacts of Bonney's life is a 2-byinch 5. The image shows Bonney wearing a vest under a sweater, a slouch hat and a bandana, while holding an Winchester rifle with its butt resting on the floor. For years, this was the only photograph of Bonney accepted by scholars and historians. It was passed down through Dedrick's family, and was copied several times, appearing in numerous publications during the 20th century.

The image shows Bonney wearing his holstered Colt revolver on his left side. This led to the belief that he was left-handed, without taking into account that the ferrotype process produces reversed images. Horan and Paul Sann wrote that Bonney was right-handed and carried his pistol on his right hip. Homoerotic and fantasticated use is made of this iconographic Billy in Billy the Kid coll of linked poems by Jack Spicer , where Billy engages in various archetypal rituals.

Some echoes of this retrofitted chthonic adolescent may be detectable in Samuel R Delany 's The Einstein Intersection , where he appears as Kid Death a further version, with the same soubriquet, features in Simon R Green 's Deathstalker sequence of space operas. He seems not yet to have been conflated with Pan. David Thomson 's Silver Light , which combines fiction and nonfiction, attempts to cope with the intractable "negotiations" between the Kid's story and Bonney's real life by revealing only shadows in the tale itself, which may be treated as a rumination upon the thesis that Billy the Kid created Hollywood see Cinema rather than vice versa.

The colonel came with troops along with a Howitzer and Gatling gun. On the fifth day of the siege the Dolan side was getting impatient, so they set the house on fire. By nightfall, the house was completely ablaze and heat from the flames were overwhelming. The Regulators began to panic, so the cool-headed Billy the Kid, only about seventeen years old, took over leadership of the men.

Billy the kid brief biography of mark

When the men began to run out of the burning house the Dolan side opened fire and all hell broke loose. McSween and three men were killed, but Billy the Kid and the others escaped into the darkness. The war was over; the Regulators disbanded and the Kid was now a fugitive. Billy the Kid was unable to settle down, so he made his living by gambling and rustling cattle.

The Kid heard about Governor Axtell being replaced by Lew Wallace, who was now trying to bring law and order to Lincoln. The Kid wrote to the governor that he was tired of running and would surrender to authorities and testify against the Dolan side to have his murder charges dropped. The governor agreed and promised the Kid a full pardon. The Kid surrendered and testified in court, but the Santa Fe Ring had influence over the court system, so members of the Dolan side, including James Dolan, were acquitted.

Wallace simply lost interest and left the Kid to his fate. On the run again and an outlaw, the Kid went back to making a living the only way he knew how —rustling. While in Fort Sumner, he would kill a drunk at a saloon 6 , but the killing was shrugged off and got almost no attention, but unfortunately, the Kid got into more serious trouble that did get plenty of attention.

It happened when a posse from White Oaks surrounded the Kid and his gang at a station house, during the standoff the posse accidentally killed their own deputy, James Carlyle. Of course the death was credited to the Kid and destroyed any ounce of sympathy the public had for him, not to mention, any chance for him to get things squared up with the governor to get his pardon.

Footnote 6: Before the shooting, Billy the Kid sensed trouble from a man named Joe Grant and he casually went up to him and asked to see his gun. As he pretended to admire it, he spun the cylinder so the hammer would fall on an empty chamber. This wise precautionary move saved the Kid's life, because Grant then pulled his gun on him and fired.

Finally on December 23, Garrett trapped the Kid and three other gang members at a cabin in Stinking Springs. After a short standoff, Billy the Kid came out and surrendered.