Oh, no! It's a Legendary Gunslinger! Quiz

Answer: Jesse James

Jesse James is often pictured on television or in the movies as a heroic, Robin Hood type of character, but the historical record tells a different story. James was a vicious, cold-blooded, merciless killer. He appears to have served in the Confederate army during the Civil War, under both William C. Quantrill and "Bloody Bill" Anderson. In this capacity, Jesse took part in the Centralia Massacre, where 23 unarmed Union soldiers on leave were shot, scalped and mutilated. After the war, Jesse became a bank robber, and leader of the notorious James-Younger gang, which robbed banks throughout the Midwest; in 1873, he began robbing trains as well. He showed little regard for human life during these robberies, often killing innocent bystanders. After a failed attempt to rob the First National Bank of Northfield, Minnesota in 1876, Jesse fled to Tennessee, but returned to Missouri in 1881. He formed a new gang, and on April 3, 1882 one of its members, Robert Ford, shot James in the head while he was standing on a chair to straighten a picture. It is thought that Ford killed James to secure a pardon from Missouri's governor.

There were rumors that James had survived the 1882 shooting, and that Ford had killed the wrong man. James' remains were exhumed in 1995, and DNA testing showed the remains in his grave were definitely his.

Answer: Billy the Kid

William Henry McCarty, Jr., alias William H. Bonney, alias Billy the Kid, was one of the Wild West's most famous outlaws. He was said to have killed 21 men - one for each year of his brief life - but most historians feel this number is greatly exaggerated.

In 1877, Billy the Kid moved to Lincoln County, New Mexico, where he became involved in what is known as the Lincoln County War, a vendetta involving local merchants and politicians. Joining a group called the Regulators, he was involved in several gunfights, and the killing of Sheriff William J. Brady. He next became involved in cattle rustling, and a reward of $500 was offered for his capture. He was arrested, but escaped from prison, killing both his guards. He was eventually tracked down and killed by a former friend of his, Sheriff Pat Garrett, in Fort Sumner, New Mexico on July 14, 1881. Several people, most notably a man called "Brushy Bill" Roberts, later claimed that Garrett had shot the wrong man, and that they were Billy the Kid. None of these claims was ever proven.

Answer: Bat Masterson

He was born Bartholomew Masterson, but later in life used the name William Barclay Masterson. While still in his teens, Bat became a buffalo hunter, along with his brothers, James and Ed. It was in this capacity that he took part in the Battle of Adobe Walls, where 28 white settlers defeated a force of several hundred Comanche and Kiowa warriors under Quanah Parker.

In 1876, Masterson became a police officer in Dodge City, Kansas along with Wyatt Earp. In 1877, he was elected sheriff of Ford County, Kansas, but failed to win reelection. He then embarked on a career which including gambler, saloon owner, and prize fight promoter. By 1891, he was living in Denver and began writing articles for a newspaper there. In 1902, he moved to New York City, and in 1904 became sports editor for the "Morning Telegraph." He also served as a U.S. Marshall from 1905 through 1909.

Like many Wild West figures, Bat Masterson's exploits were greatly exaggerated. Historians can find only six times he fired a gun in anger. Masterson may even have embellished his legend himself. It is said that he would buy old pistols at pawn shops in New York, carve notches in the handles, and sell them to the gullible as the gun he used in his days on the frontier.

Bat Masterson lived a fairly long life and died of natural causes. He died of a heart attack while sitting at his typewriter, writing his final column for the "Morning Telegraph," on October 25, 1921. He was 67 years old. The character of Sky Masterson in Damon Runyon's "Guys and Dolls" is said to have been based on Bat Masterson.

Answer: Wyatt Earp

Although he is remembered as a lawman, Wyatt Earp spent much of his life on the wrong side of the law; he was once arrested as a horse thief and escaped from jail before going to trial. On another occasion, he was arrested for running a brothel. He eventually drifted into law enforcement, working as policeman in Wichita and Dodge City, Kansas. His real fame came after he moved, along with his brothers, Morgan and Virgil, to Tombstone, Arizona.

On October 26, 1881 the Earp brothers and their friend, Doc Holliday, were involved in a gunfight a few blocks from the O.K. Corral in Tombstone. Facing them were Ike and Billy Clanton, Tom and Frank McLaury, and Billy Claiborne. There had been bad blood between the groups for some time, and the day before the fight, Ike Clanton had been heard making threatening comments about the Earps. There are conflicting reports about the events leading up to the confrontation and the fight itself, but after it was over Virgil, Morgan and Doc Holliday were wounded, and Tom Clanton, Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury were dead. The "Gunfight At the O.K. Corral" is one of the most famous events in the history of the Wild West.

Things didn't end there. Friends of the Clantons and McLaurys vowed revenge. Virgil Earp was ambushed and shot on December 28, 1881. He survived. But on March 18, 1882, Morgan Earp was shot and killed while playing billiards. Wyatt Earp formed a posse and tracked down and killed at least three men he suspected of being involved in his brother's death.

Forced to leave the Arizona Territory after these events, Wyatt Earp led a migratory life, speculating in real estate, mining, and even served as a consultant to early producers of cowboy movies. He died in Los Angeles, California in 1929 at the age of 80.

Answer: John Wesley Hardin

John Wesley Hardin was not a nice guy. By his own admission, he had already killed four men at the age of 15. At 17, he was arrested for the murder of a City Marshall in Waco, Texas, but on the way to his trial he killed one of his guards and escaped. He eventually became a cowboy and participated in several cattle drives. He wound up in Abilene, Kansas, where he fired several shots through the wall of his hotel room in order to stop the man in the next room from snoring, killing him (Hardin claimed he had not meant to kill the man). After a string of other killings, Hardin was captured by the Texas Rangers, and convicted of the murder of Brown County Deputy Sheriff Charles Webb. He served 17 years of a 25 year sentence, and was released from prison in 1894.

On August 19, 1895 Hardin got into an argument with Constable John Selman in El Paso, Texas. Later that night, Selman walked into a saloon where Hardin was playing dice, and shot him in the back of the head. Hardin was 42 years old.

Bob Dylan wrote a song about Hardin, and named a 1967 album after him, although for some reason he spelled the last name "Harding." Johnny Cash also wrote a song about him called "Hardin Wouldn't Run."

Answer: Sam Bass

"Sam Bass was born in Indiana, it was his native home/About the age of seventeen, young Sam began to roam/He went out west to Texas, a cowboy for to be/A kinder-hearted fellow you would seldom ever see." Of all the famous outlaws of the Wild West, Sam Bass seems to best fit the movie image; he was young, handsome, not bloodthirsty, and genuinely liked by most people who knew him. He just enjoyed armed robbery.

Orphaned at an early age, Bass seems to have moved to Denton, Texas around 1871 (when he would have been around 20, not 17), where he worked as a farm hand. Bass saved his money, and bought a race horse called the "Denton Mare," who won several races and earned him enough money to enable him to quit his job and concentrate on horse racing and gambling.

In 1875, Bass and a friend of his named Joel Collins decided to run a herd of cattle from Texas to Nebraska. Once they had sold the cattle, however, instead of returning to Texas, they used the proceeds to go prospecting in the Black Hills gold rush. Soon they were broke, so they formed a gang known as the "Black Hills Bandits," and began robbing stagecoaches. Then, on September 18, 1877, they robbed a Union-Pacific train near Big Spring Station, Nebraska. This netted them $60,000 in in $20 gold pieces. Of the six bandits involved in this robbery, two were tracked down and killed, and two more were captured. Bass, however, made it safely back to Texas.

Bass formed a new gang, and continued robbing trains and stagecoaches. Although there was a price on his head and he was being trailed by both the Texas Rangers and detectives from the Pinkerton Detective Agency, Bass remained at large until he and his gang decided to rob the Williamson County Bank in Round Rock, Texas on July 19, 1878. Unknown to Bass, a member of his gang named Jim Murphy had informed the Texas Rangers of the planned robbery. A gunfight ensued, and one member of the gang was killed, and Bass severely wounded. He was saved from capture by his friend and fellow gang member, Frank Jackson, but he later insisted that Jackson leave him by a tree a few miles outside of town. He was found the next day, and taken into custody. While he was dying, he swore that he had never killed anyone, unless it was a deputy who was killed in the gunfight in which he was wounded. Sam Bass died on his 27th birthday, on July 21, 1878.

Sam Bass was buried in Round Rock, Texas. Because his original tombstone had been chipped away by souvenir hunters, a new one was erected in 1978. It says: "A brave man reposes in death here. Why was he not true?"

Answer: Ben Thompson

Photographs show Ben Thompson as a dapper little man with a bushy moustache. What they don't show is that he was quick to anger, and even quicker on the draw. Many of the most famous Wild West figures attest to the fact that Thompson was the fastest on the draw that they had ever seen.

Unlike many Wild West figures, Thompson does not seem to have ever been involved in theft or larceny. His reputation was based solely on his aptitude for homicide.

Thompson supposedly killed his first man, a Frenchman, in a knife fight in New Orleans when he was 17. Shortly after that he joined the Confederate army when the Civil War broke out. He shot two of fellows soldiers while serving in the army, although neither man was killed. At the conclusion of the war, he went to Mexico, where he served in the army of Emperor Maximilian.

In 1868 he returned to Texas, and shot his brother-in-law who had been abusing his sister, For this crime, he was sentenced to four years in prison, but was pardoned after serving only two. Upon his release, Thompson pursued various occupations: gambler, saloon owner, hired gunman for the railroads, and Town Marshall of Austin, Texas. He was involved in several more killings, but was never convicted of murder. He said, "I always make it a rule to let the other fellow fire first. If a man wants to fight, I argue the question with him and try to show him how foolish it would be. If he can't be dissuaded, why then the fun begins, but I always let him have first crack. Then when I fire, you see, I have the verdict of self-defense on my side. I know that he is pretty certain in his hurry, to miss. I never do."

In 1882, Thompson had shot and killed a man named Jack Harris in San Antonio, Texas. He was tried for murder, but acquitted. On March 11, 1884 Thompson was back in San Antonio and met a friend of his, fellow gunman King Fisher. The two went to see a show at the Vaudeville Variety Theater. While watching the show, the men were ambushed by friends of Harris and shot to death.

Answer: "Wild Bill" Hickok

James Butler Hickok was born on May 27, 1837 near Troy Grove, Illinois. Like many figures of the Wild West, it is often difficult to separate fact from fiction when recounting the legends that have grown up around the man. For example, it is said that his nickname was originally "Duck Bill," because he had a protruding upper lip, which he grew a long, flowing moustache to conceal. What is beyond question, however, is his quickness on the draw, and his outstanding marksmanship. During his lifetime, Hickok is credited with killing at least 27 men, and perhaps many more.

When he was 18, Hickok moved to Kansas, where he worked briefly as a stagecoach driver. Around 1859 he seems to have found employment with the Russell, Waddell, & Majors freight company, as a driver and stockman. In 1861, he was involved in his first known gunfight at Rock Creek, Nebraska, where he killed David McCanles and two of his ranch hands.

Hickok served briefly in the Union army during the Civil War, as a wagon driver and scout. By 1863 he was employed as a member of the Springfield, Missouri police force. It was in Springfield in 1865 that Hickok engaged in one of the very few face-to-face "quick draw" duels on record. Hickok shot and killed a man named Davis Tutt in the town square. Although found innocent of murder, Hickok had to leave town.

He eventually ended up in Abilene, Kansas where he was appointed City Marshall. He was forced to leave town after killing saloon owner Phil Coe in a gunfight; during the fight, Hickok had accidentally shot and killed his own deputy, Mike Williams.

Hickok next tried his hand as an actor, in a show called "Scouts of the Plains," but left after a few years to return to the frontier, where he supported himself as a gambler. On August 2, 1876 Hickok was playing poker at Nuttal & Mann's Saloon in Deadwood, South Dakota, when he was shot through the head from behind by a man named Jack McCall. The hand he was holding when he was killed - two black aces and two black eights - has been called the "Dead Man's Hand" ever since.

Answer: Doc Holliday

John Henry Holliday was born in Griffin, Georgia in 1851, to a respectable family. His main claim to fame rests with his association with the Earp brothers, and his participation in the "Gunfight At the O.K. Corral." He may not have been the cold-blooded killer that legend makes him out to be, but there is no doubt that he was a good man in a fight, and not someone you wanted to cross.

Holliday graduated from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery. In 1872, and returned to Georgia, where he was in practice for a short time. It was about this time that Holliday contracted tuberculosis, the same disease that had killed his mother a few years before. He decided to move out west for his health, first to Texas, and eventually to the Arizona Territory, where he met and became friends with Wyatt Earp and his brothers. He had difficulty establishing a practice as a dentist because of his persistent tubercular cough, and gradually abandoned that trade to support himself as a gambler. In 1877 he was shot and badly wounded in a gunfight with another gambler, and about this time he met a woman, Mary Katherine Horony, popularly known as "Big Nose Kate," who would be his companion for the rest of his life.

Doc arrived in Tombstone, Arizona in 1880. He knew the Earp brothers from their days in Dodge City, Kansas and they regarded Holliday as a valuable ally in their feud with the local cowboy faction. During the famous O.K. Corral incident, Holliday was armed with a shotgun, and is credited with many historians as killing both Tom and Frank McLaury. Holliday himself was wounded slightly in the hip. He later accompanied Wyatt Earp when he tracked down and killed the assassins of Morgan Earp. Finding himself under indictment for murder, Doc fled the Arizona Territory in 1882, and settled in Colorado. He died in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, on November 8, 1887 of tuberculosis. His last words were said to be, "This is funny."

Aside from the affair at the O.K. Corral, there are only two fairly well documented incidents of Holliday killing a man, and both could be construed as self-defense. Most of the other deaths attributed to him are not documented in the historical record. Some may be true, but it is more likely that they are just hearsay. There is some evidence that Holliday himself encouraged belief in these legends, knowing that a reputation as a dangerous man would serve him in good stead at the poker table. In any event, his actions at the O.K. Corral have earned Doc Holliday a place in history.

Answer: Charles "Black Bart" Bolles

Charles Earl Boles was born in Norfolk, England in 1829. When he was two years old, his family moved to upstate New York. Boles went to California during the 1849 gold rush, and stayed there for several years. In 1854, he left California for Illinois, where he was married and fathered four children. He enlisted in the Union army during the Civil War, and was severely wounded at the Battle of Dallas, Georgia. After the war, he again returned to mining, and was forced off his claim in Montana by men working for Wells Fargo. Boles vowed revenge - and got it.

On July 26, 1874 a Wells Fargo stagecoach was stopped by a man wearing a long coat, and a bag with eye-holes cut into it over his head. He brandished a shotgun and demanded the driver throw down the strong box. One of the passengers, a woman, panicked and threw her purse out the window. The bandit picked it up and handed it back to her, saying, "Madam, I do not wish your money." Boles' first robbery netted him $348.

Over the next eight years Boles robbed 28 more Wells Fargo stagecoaches. At the scene of his fourth robbery, he left a poem:

"I've labored long and hard for bread,
For honor and for riches
But on my corns too long you've tread,
You fine-haired sons-of-b____s.
Black Bart, the P o 8"

In case you haven't figured it out, "P o 8" stands for poet.

Another poem was left at the scene of his fifth robbery, and then Boles seems to have tired of the practice. But the legend of "Black Bart" was born.

Ironically, Black Bart's final robbery occurred almost at the same place as his first, near Copperopolis, California. On November 3, 1883, Boles was wounded and left behind several personal items at the scene of the crime, including a handkerchief which was used to identify him through a laundry mark. Boles was convicted of a single count of armed robbery, and he served four years of a six year sentence in San Quentin Prison. He was released on January 21, 1888. Although Wells Fargo detectives were assigned to keep track of him, the last verified sighting of Boles was on February 28, 1888.

Black Bart was certainly a unique type of outlaw. Although he carried a shotgun, he never fired a shot during any of his robberies, was usually polite and courteous, and never robbed the passengers aboard the stagecoaches he targeted.