In July 1865, "Wild Bill" Hickok shot and killed Davis Tutt in Springfield, MO—the first quick-draw duel on the frontier. Thus began the reputation that made him a marked man to every gunslinger in the Wild West.
James Butler Hickock was known across the frontier as a soldier, Union spy, scout, lawman, gunfighter, gambler, showman, and actor. He crossed paths with General Custer and Buffalo Bill Cody, as well as Ben Thompson and other young toughs gunning for the sheriff with the quickest draw west of the Mississippi.
Wild Bill also fell in love—multiple times—before marrying the true love of his life, Agnes Lake, the impresario of a traveling circus. He would be buried however, next to fabled frontierswoman Calamity Jane.
Even before his death, Wild Bill became a legend, with fiction sometimes supplanting fact in the stories that surfaced. Once, in a bar in Nebraska, he was confronted by four men, three of whom he killed in the ensuing gunfight. A famous Harper’s Magazine article credited Hickok with slaying 10 men that day; by the 1870s, his career-long kill count was up to 100.
The legend of Wild Bill has only grown since his death in 1876, when cowardly Jack McCall famously put a bullet through the back of his head during a card game. Bestselling author Tom Clavin has sifted through years of western lore to bring Hickock fully to life in this rip-roaring, spellbinding true story.
PAT'S REVIEW
| The author you can tell once you start reading this book had spent long hours on research. By the time you get to the middle of the book some of the stories about this were not true. Finding out that he was going blind and the need for wearing glasses, walking with a cane, falling for a woman that ran a circus and would marry her many years later. He did not want anything to do with Calamity Jane, and most of the stories about were started by her after his death. The author also debunked the person who killed him for I had read many years ago that it was the son from the famous fight he had protecting a woman. Also that his life really started going downhill after he killed his friend one night which is explained in the book. Overall I found this to be a good and entertaining read and like I said I did not know that he married a woman who ran a circus but it was said they were in love. A good book. I received this book from Netgally.com I gave it 4 stars. Follow us at www.1rad-readerreviews.com |
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