Free The Top 5 Most Notorious Outlaws by Charles River Editors

He also pointed out that the sheriff was friendly with the Regulators. Even though he had no authority to do so, Axtell removed Copland as sheriff and hand-selected George Peppin.

    As with any war, both sides spent their last weeks trying to get in as many shots and take as many casualties as possible before the war inevitably had to end. Such was the case with the Lincoln County War, which continued with a barrage of gunfights and bloodshed into the summer of 1878. Unfortunately for Peppin, Congress had recently passed the Posse Comitatus Act, forbidding military intervention in civil disturbances unless authorized by an act of Congress or the Constitution. However, in violation of the act, Colonel Nathan Dudley intervened in Lincoln County on July 19, bringing with him a howitzer and a Gatling gun with 2,000 rounds of ammunition.

    At this point, many of the Regulators left town, while those that remained holed up in McSween’s house. When they refused to surrender, Peppin set the house on fire, and as the fire burned into the night, the Regulators and the McSweens plotted their escapes. McSween finally agreed to surrender, but as he walked toward his yard, his body was hit with several bullets and he was killed. Dolan’s posse had won. As their crowning achievement, they made two of McSween’s grief-stricken men play their fiddles as they cried, while the victorious Dolan crew danced around the dead bodies and fired their guns into the air. Others ran for Lincoln’s only street and looted Tunstall’s store. The war was over, but the corruption continued on.

    What remained of the Regulators now used Fort Sumner as their home base. The exact movements of the Kid during this time are not known, but several of the Regulators quit and he became the new leader. With the Kid in the lead, they stole horses and 150 head of cattle from the Fritz ranch, the site of Frank McNab’s murder, and moved on toward the town of Tacosa in the Texas Panhandle. The town was a popular cattle stop and trading center, as well as a good place to unload stolen cattle. Billy’s loyal friend, Tom O’Folliard, was likely with him throughout these times.

    It was here that the Kid met a young doctor named Henry Hoyt, who also became a close friend. Hoyt confirmed years later that the Kid was active in horse trading, gambling, and target shooting, but he apparently did not like whiskey. He was only in the saloons so he could gamble. Many times, Hoyt encouraged the Kid to take off for Mexico or South America, where he could blend in and start a fresh life, but the Kid refused. Tacosa suited him well as a temporary stop-off, with its weekly dances and pretty senoritas in festive dresses.

    The woman he really loved, though, was Paulita Maxwell, the younger sister of Pete Maxwell in Fort Sumner. Pete was the son of Lucien B. Maxwell, a rich land baron who bought the abandoned military fort and developed it into a town. Pete was not happy about his sister’s relationship with the Kid, and unfortunately for the Kid, he also happened to be friends with Pat Garret, who the Kid would soon come to know all too well.

    When the Regulators officially disbanded, the Kid and O’Folliard were regularly seen about town in Fort Sumner. Things had changed since they were in Texas, though. President Rutherford B. Hayes, tired of the chaos in New Mexico, fired Samuel Axtell and appointed Civil War veteran Lew Wallace as governor. Wallace had a controversial Civil War career due to the battle of Shiloh, and he later became best known for the novel Ben-Hur , but now he found himself trying to sort out a mess in the Southwest. One of Wallace’s first actions as governor was to issue a statement that he would grant amnesty to anyone involved in the Lincoln County War, assuming they were not already under criminal indictment. On December 22, 1878, the Kid and O’Folliard turned themselves in for the purpose of getting a proclamation of amnesty from Wallace, but the