Wild Bill Hickok: His Legend BeginssteemCreated with Sketch.

in #history6 years ago

Howdy there folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas!

Yesterday I started on a new Old West series, this one covers the life of
Wild Bill Hickok who was an Army scout, gunfighter, sheriff, gambler
and basically one of the good guys which helped settle the Western
territories.

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source

His real name is James Butler Hickok so I will refer to him as James
in most of my writing. The story left off yesterday with James living
in Illinois with his family but he had read of the adventures of Kit
Carson and Daniel Boone as a kid and he was too bored with farming
and wanted to go West.

I don't blame him either. Farming the land back then was brutal,
slow, exhausting, back-breaking work. Can you imagine walking
behind an ox or horse all day in the scorching sun plowing the soil
and stopping every few minutes to clear rocks or stumps?

Anyway he decided that Kansas held the best chances for getting
good farmland as the state was just opening up so that's where he
headed and ended up in Lawrence which is between Topeka and
Kansas City.

He got a piece of land and started farming it but also made friends
easily and hung out with them much of the time. Later accounts
by associates of his stated that he would astonish them by setting
up a tin oyster can at a distance of 100 yards and with a heavy
dragoon pistol send every bullet through it with unreal precision.

here's what that pistol looked like:
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source

James was exhibiting amazing skills at this point, anyone who has
shot a pistol knows that you don't generally set your target at a
hundred yards! That's crazy good. You can't hardly see a tin can at
a hundred yards, let alone hit one! At least I couldn't. Well okay I
might have been able to hit it once out of ten but not 6 shots in a
row.

Kansas was deciding whether to be a free slave state or a pro
slavery state, this was 1856 and there were people in both groups
sadly. We already established the fact that he had a very strong
and deep sense of justice and hated slavery, his family being
involved with the Underground Railroad back in Illinois.

It was no surprise that James approached the free staters in the
area and gained his position by winning a marksmanship contest.
It was from this Free State Army that he was hired as a body guard
for a U.S. Senator and worked in that position for a couple of years.

From there he went to work for a stage coach company and it was
with them that he first got into deadly conflict and his legend began.

The Incident At Rock Creek

James was sent to a stage coach station in Rock Creek to help them
out in whatever capacity was needed and it was there that the man
who owned the station, McGanles got on Jame's bad side because
McGanles was a large man, very strong and blustery, full of loud talk
but also action and liked to make fun of and bully people, including
James.

Well, James was quiet and polite but strong willed and didn't like
bullies or injustice. It was more than that though. There was a lady
living in a cabin across the road from the station that McGanles was
seeing, even though he was already married and had kids.

You can imagine what happened next. James was always popular with
the ladies and by all accounts was very charming. He started seeing
the lady across the road late at night. Mcganles was furious and
consistently warned James to stay away from her but James just
ignored him.

Like I said, McGanles was a bully and a violent one. One time when
one of his employees had gotten drunk the night before and ended
up sleeping on the job McGanles poured gun powder on his beard
and lit it on fire, the poor guy jumped up in a panic and his friends
threw him head-first into a horse trough to put out the flames.

But that wasn't enough for McGanles, he then tied the man belly-
down on an unbroken bronco and set the horse loose. That gives
you an idea of what this ruffian was like. I think you could say he was
the total opposite of James in character so they didn't see eye to eye
on anything... and then there was the woman that they both liked.
DQmaGiJ5Exn5zL4cJEFVahrn96ozJ8bVTWeXhqznp28SYy2_1680x8400.png

One day McGanles was after a man who he claimed owed him money
and he was furious about not being paid. The man was in a house
near the station so he rode out with two of his men to confront the
man. McGanles was carrying a shotgun and I think he was going to
use it.

He approached the man's house and yelled for him to come out but
instead James came out, much to McGanles' surprise. McGanles told
him he didn't have any fight with James and James basically told him
maybe he did. James went back in the house.

McGanles yelled for the man who owed him money and told him to
come out or he was coming in after him. No one answered. McGanles
entered the doorway and was immediately shot through the heart by
James and fell back outside still holding his shotgun. The other two
men came running up to the door and James shot the first one. The
second came into the doorway and James shot him too.
DQmaGiJ5Exn5zL4cJEFVahrn96ozJ8bVTWeXhqznp28SYy2_1680x8400.png

It sounds a little extreme, the actions of James, but that's the way it
went down. The shooting of McGanles is justified I believe but those
other two were fools to run into that house.

Believe it or not this was the event that sky-rocketed James' fame and
the beginning of his legend because the story was written up in a
newspaper but in that story it was a wild, crazy tale of James fending
off a gang of 10 men single handedly! lol.

From that point on, no matter how many times he denied it or how
many stories were printed with the correct version, people all
believed the first story and that's the one that stuck. James didn't
like that at all but he couldn't do anything about it.

In the next post James goes to fight in the Civil War and that's when
he earns the nick name Wild Bill.
DQmaGiJ5Exn5zL4cJEFVahrn96ozJ8bVTWeXhqznp28SYy2_1680x8400.png

thanks for reading folks, God bless you all!
-jonboy Texas
the gentleman redneck

ps- ya know...you might just be a redneck if:

The biggest fashion risk you take is which plaid shirt you'll wear to the
4-H Fair!

texas-facts.jpg

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Very interesting! I’ve never learned anything about Wild Bill Hickok

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well howdy there violetmed! so good to see you. well if you like these kinds of stories then it should be very interesting, at least I hope so, I'll try to keep it from being boring.
thanks so much for reading and commenting!

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I like this guy. No bull shit! Was he even American? 😉

Irish immigrant?

There's Hickoks down the road from me. Polite but dangerous as well.

haha! I thought the European snowflakes wouldn't be able to handle this guy's story without crying. Afterall, he didn't give those two guys much of a chance, it wasn't very fair! lol.

Actually the book I'm using is so freaking detailed and exhaustively researched that it gives his entire lineage back to something like the year 1600 or something and his family was from England. But I think the name back then was Hiccox. The coat of arms was described and everything.

Shooting at a hundred yards would of been difficult. The bullet drop on a 44 like that, plus the thickness of the blade would nearly hide a oyster tin.

He also shot Colt 1851's. Those were a smaller caliber, but had more steel in the side walls of the chambers. A little extra powder behind a lighter bullet has it shoot a little flatter and has a higher muzzle velocity.

I have seen the .36 penetrate sheet steel that the .44 couldn't.

The old Colts had a increasing rifling twist as it neared the muzzle. Replicas don't have that particular feature, so it is difficult to achieve 'old time' accuracy with constant rifling.

Excellent write up!

haha! howdy there joesal! yes I know the blade would cover up the target but I didn't get into the details because most people would be lost.
But I had no idea about the original's rifling! how'd you know that? lol.

Yes he carried the pair of Navy .36's later and I'll talk a little about them but not in detail.
I haven't seen you before, wherebouts in Texas are you?
I really like that you're covering the Nicaragua situation. do you know of
cecicastor?
thanks so much for your comment and excellent imput! expert imput it sounds like! I'll go to you for gun info. lol.

I'm just south west of Sandia, out in the brush lands. Pistol work is a newer venture, i was always more a rifle guy until the last few years.

I started with the .44 as it was close to a .45 ACP. It wasn't long before i tested the .36 to see what the differences were.

The .36 is a amazing gun, even in the replica form. Depending on the powder charge it could be loaded light as a 380 or heavy to just under 38 special.

I wasn't able to get the replicas to hit a six inch target at 50 yards. (If they did hit it was more by accident than skill)

That's when i really researched the rifling specs on the original Colts and found the increased twist rates that would have spun up the bullet to higher revolutions.

This may be one of the reasons a 75 yard shot seems impossible with modern day replicas.

I don't cover Nicaragua much, just what i can find. Mainstream is really attempting to downplay it. I hope lady castor and all our friends to the south have a better future.

howdy back sir joesal! wow I had to look up Sandia, down by Corpus Christi, when you said brush lands I thought you were talking about more desert in the West but I'm not familiar with what type of geography brush land is, I thought it would be mostly woods down there but I've never been to Corpus Christi.

Anyway so I thought you were talking book knowledge but you actually bought these old black powder guns and shoot them! wow. hey that could be some interesting posts!

yeah Nicarargua...why would the mainstream media want to downplay it?

I always say dont f..k with the king and obviously he was the king in those times. I wish we had more of those people today. There is too much talking and negotiating and it is all a load of nonsense.

haha! yes sir well you never hear about the lawyers and politicians getting in the way like they do these days, they were back East mostly while the real work of setting the Western territories was being done.
It IS pretty refreshing the way they handled bad guys.
it was like..you bad..you die.

Interesting Man; facing a shotgun with a pistol is risky. Letting him close, just makes that risk worse!

BTW; what plaid shirt did you pick?

:D

haha! I always were my green one to the fair why what do you wear to the fair?

Quit going to the fair with her in a wheelchair. Just too much work. The Tulsa fair covers about 80 acres, so it is hard to cover on foot, especially pushing a wheelchair!

:'(

whoa smithlabs! that's huge. I don't even know if they have county fairs down here, I'm sure they do but I haven't seen any advertised.

Well Tulsa is a half a Million people. It is winding up again, late September, or Early October. It is a half mile by a mile, so If you come, plan to do some walking.

But like I said, we seldom go to the fairgrounds, and then usually for gun shows or gem shows.

:D

good grief smithlabs! that thing is giganic. they have gem shows? I bet the security is good there.

Most of the gems are NOT worth stealing, ROFLOL! But, if you know what you are looking for, there are some deals. The cultured pearl that need stringing are priced well.

I found some Chrome Diopsides that the guy had placed in with simulants; which made them VERY cheap. Got them home, and tested them, and they are good quality natural stones!

I bought a Blue Sapphire ring in a platinum setting for $9 at a goodwill store! I am scared to get that one appraised.

:)

haha! you're kidding me smithlabs, $9 ? oh man go get it appraised and do a post about the story, that would be great!

You should put these in a book. That's some clean writing there.

howdy sir themadgoat! thank you for your kind words, I didn't think it was very good because I was short on time so I just tried to proof read and post it without making improvements but I'll sure take the compliment!

Howdi dear janton from the beautiful Texas. You know what I wish o could travel time! This could be a movie I loved it. And the man is a legend.

howdy again brittandjosie! well what about the way the women dressed, would you like to do that with the big dresses and hats and everything? It sounds like alot of work to me and not very practical but some of the outfits were truly grand!
thank you so much for commenting!

howdy again brittandjosie! hey you said something about how the women dressed and I have two posts with vintage photos of Painted Ladies of the Old West cowtowns like Dodge City and the photos are amazing, it is very interesting to see their clothes so I thought you might like to see them from about 1875.

https://steemit.com/history/@janton/the-painted-ladies-of-the-old-west-cow-towns

https://steemit.com/history/@janton/the-other-painted-ladies-of-the-old-west

Haha you picked the Working girls but indeed I can See the corsets and the lace layers its great needlework ! So Nice off you to dig the two blogs up for me. Thanks

Another very interesting and colorful character from the old west. Can't wait to hear about his antics in the Civil war...

yeah me too, I don't know much about that yet because it was so early in his life, early twenties, but they said it was why they started calling him Wild Bill so I'm looking forward to it!

Well, I guess he got the girl then.

He defended the other guy from severe harm. Justified.

I agree. But the girl took off right after that, got on a stage and no one knows where she went, back East I think. She didn't want to be in the middle of it and probably thought the entire thing was because of her.

Oh no! Really? I hope he wasn't in love with her.

well she was kind of a mystery woman and we don't know if he was or not because he wrote alot of letters but didn't mention her.

I do enjoy reading your stories in the evening
@janton.
Looking fwd to learning how James earns the nick name Wild Bill.
I know it's going to good...!!
(:

I so appreciate it annephilbrick! I don't even know myself because it was so early in his life, he was in his twenties but I'll find out tomorrow. thank you so much.

He is off to a facinating start in his 20's

howdy back annephilbrick...yes Ma'am so many of these guys back then were doing substantial things at a very young age but then most people didn't live very long so I guess they wanted to get started right away.

Sorry I don't have the next part of his story ready today, I'm just too far behind but I should have one tomorrow.

I was a bit wild and crazy in my 20's plus...lol
But I cant top these characters.
I was arrested once..

oohhhh..arrested! for what? streaking? lol. remember that craze in the 70s?

Not tellin...lol.
Was not streaking...!!!!
My grandmother would have killed me...
Thus I would not be alive to be on Steemit it right now.

(:

not telling! what the?? lol.
ok well I understand, this would be telling the whole world in a sense!

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