Wild West Photo Friday: Wild Bill Hickok

 

You don't get much more Wild West than Wild Bill Hickok. A scout, Indian fighter, lawman, gunfighter, gold prospector, and during the Civil War a Union spy, Hickok lived a life of adventure. I'll be talking about his Civil War record next week, but let's just admire this photo today.

Here he is clad in buckskins, as he would have been when scouting for the U.S. Cavalry on the Plains or fighting Indians. He preferred to dress this way, which is probably one of the reasons he became a legend in his own lifetime. The fact that he kept getting in gunfights and winning also helped. After his famous 1865 gunfight in Springfield, Missouri, the first real stand-up, face-to-face gunfight in the Old West, he launched into national fame.

As you can see here, he's carrying his famous pair of ivory-handled Colt .36-caliber Navy pistols in his belt as well as a large knife. Several people who knew him said he carried a pair of .41-caliber Williamson derringers as holdout weapons. These tiny pistols that were nevertheless deadly at short ranges, such as across a poker table.

My book on Tombstone is out now!

I've just received the author's copies for my latest book, Tombstone - Wyatt Earp, the O.K. Corral, and the Vendetta Ride 1881-82. This is published by Osprey Publishing and as usual they did a bang up job on the layout and artwork.

This book looks at the famous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral as well as the lead up to the confrontation between the Earp brothers and the Cowboys and the vendetta that lasted for some months afterwards.

As the back cover blurb states:

The Gunfight at the OK Corral on 26 October 1881 is one of the most enduring stories of the Old West. It led to a series of violent incidents that culminated in the Vendetta Ride, in which Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and several other gunslingers went after their rivals the Cowboys.
Like most tales of the Wild West, the facts are buried under layers of myth, and the line between good guys and bad guys is blurry. Wyatt Earp, leader of the so-called “good guys”, was charged with stealing horses in the Indian Territory in 1870 and jumped bail. Becoming a buffalo hunter and gambler, he got into several scrapes and earned a reputation as a gunfighter.
Several times he helped lawmen arrest outlaws, but usually his assistance came more because of a personal grudge against the criminal than any real respect for law and order. He even got fired from a police job in Wichita for beating up a political rival.

This is my sixth book for Osprey and my fourteenth overall. I'm currently talking with the editors about more projects. Stay tuned!

Military History Photo Friday: Medieval Handgonnes in Slovenia

When I started researching my book Medieval Handgonnes: The First Black Powder Infantry Weapons, I discovered the Balkans were early adopters of the earliest handheld firearm technology. Many of the photos for the book, for example, come from Croatia.

Just north of Croatia is Slovenia, the subject of my current travel series for Gadling. While in the National History Museum in the capital Ljubljana I came across two examples of early firearms.

This top one of from the early 15th century. It's of the earliest of the three main types I outlined in my book. It's only a little more than a foot long with a touch hole at one end. The hook at the bottom was for hooking over a wall or shield in order to steady it. The handgonne may have been fixed to a wooden shaft but I couldn't see any evidence for that.

This is from the late 15th century and as you can see it's a much more advanced model. Well, hopefully you can see. It's really hard to take good photos through glass! Anyway, it's about three feet long and has the familiar hook. It also has a pair of gunsights and a pan for the gunpowder that was originally fitted with a swiveling top in order to secure the loose powder.

Here's a closeup of the back end, showing the pan, maker's mark, and rear sight.

As you can see, there's no trigger on either of these pieces. Triggers of the matchlock type only came into use slowly near the end of the 15th century.

You might also want to check out a guest post I did about the accuracy of medieval handgonnes.

Military History Photo Friday: The Killer Vespa

What? No Civil War Photo Friday? No Wild West Photo Friday? Nope, today I'm leaving the 19th century to delve into the 20th. The excellent Warfare History blog posted yesterday about the Algerian War of Independence 1956-1961 so I've decided to post about an odd weapon that came out of that war.

Introducing the Vespa 150 T.A.P., a girly Euroscooter painted a less-than-girly olive drab and equipped with a manly M20 75mm recoiless rifle!

I discovered this gem while blogging about tank museums, and was impressed by the clever mix of an inexpensive scooter and dangerous firepower.

France developed these in the late 1950s, when it was strapped for cash and mired in a bitter war with their colony Algeria. Vespas were fast, cost only 500 bucks, and light enough that they could be airdropped on parachutes, making them good rapid infantry transport. The shaped charge warhead on the M20 could penetrate 100mm of armor, capable of punching through pillboxes, buildings, and lightly armored vehicles. Since there was no recoil, they could be fired from the Vespa, although ideally they were dismounted and set up on a tripod. About 800 saw use in the war. Despite this, the French lost and Algeria became a nation.

Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons. For more pictures, check out this site.

"It was the hat killed him!"

While researching Wild West gunfighters for my next book, I've come across some great stories. One was told by Captain Bill McDonald, a Texas Ranger active from 1891 to 1907. He was famous for his tenacity at hunting down criminals and for his cool head in a gunfight. Once, though, an opponent got the drop on him. He was south of the border and facing a bandido just as experienced as he was.

McDonald related in the book Triggernometry: "I was all ready to grab a pitchfork. He had that split-second advantage because he seen me before I seen him. I had an idee, and it was my only chance. I caught hold of my John B. with my left hand. I flipped it off and across the three yards between us. I was going for my gun all time, of course. And he flinched! He drove a bullet into the ceilin' a d had to take aim ag'in. Me, I was in no such fix. It was the hat killed him!"

Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

The three traits you need to win a gunfight

In my last post I reviewed Famous Gunfighters of the Western Frontier by Bat Masterson, who was a gunfighter himself. While I found the book flawed on a couple of levels, it did have some useful information about life (and death) in those days. One interesting passage is about how to survive a Western-style gunfight.

Masterson says every gunfighter needs three traits. The first is courage, which should be obvious. You should also have skill, which is also obvious. But both of these traits are useless without an all-important third trait--a cool head.

Masterson states, "I have known men in the West whose courage could not be questioned and whose expertness with the pistol was simply marvelous, who fell easy victims before men who added deliberation to the other two qualities."

He goes on to give a few examples. Here's one:

"Thirty-five years ago Charlie Harrison was one of the best-known sporting men west of the Missouri River. His home was in St. Louis but he traveled extensively throughout the West and was well-known through the Rocky Mountain region. He was of an impetuous temperament, quick of action, of unquestioned courage and the most expert man I ever saw with a pistol. He could shoot faster and straighter when shooting at a target than any man I ever knew; then add to that the fact that no man possessed more courage than he did, the natural conclusion would be that he would be a most formidable foe to encounter in a pistol duel.

Book Review: Famous Gunfighters of the Western Frontier

Famous Gunfighters of the Western Frontier: Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Luke Short and Others by W.B. Masterson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Bat Masterson led the life that movies are made of. He was a buffalo hunter, a gunfighter, and a lawman in the Wild West. Unusually, he ended his days as a writer in New York. One of his most enduring works is a series of articles about his fellow gunslingers, assembled into this volume by Dover Books.

It's a cracking read with lots of insights into life in those wild years on the frontier. Masterson describes gunfights, Indian fights, cattle drives, and Wild West towns with a flair and detail that doesn't come off as too dated even a hundred years later.

The problem is that it's not terribly accurate. More sober studies of some of the characters, such as later biographies of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, show that Masterson highly exaggerated the level of violence these people engaged in. Holliday comes off especially bad, being ascribed several murders for which there is no evidence. Masterson was obviously writing to an audience brought up on dime novels and hungry for rip-roaring tales of the frontier.

In that, Masterson certainly delivers. He and other figures of the Old West played a great part in creating its mystique. If you want to read a partially true Western, pick this up. If you want accurate history, look elsewhere.



View all my reviews

D is for Derringer

Here's a cute little gun that's fun for all ages. It's called a Derringer, a small pistol used for personal protection. They were mostly one-shot models, although a double-barreled Derringer was also produced. Being so small they didn't have room for a magazine or cylinder.

These guns were so small they could be hidden in pockets or even ladies' stockings and were favored by gamblers, prostitutes, and other citizens who sometimes had need to protect themselves. A newsboy even fired one at Jesse James and his gang when they held up the Missouri Pacific Express in 1876. The newsboy objected to one of the gang members stealing his assortment of pies and tried to plug him. The gang took it in stride and laughed, "Listen to that son of a bitch bark!"

Below is the most infamous Derringer of all, the one that was used by John Wilkes Booth to assassinate Abraham Lincoln.

Photos courtesy Wikimedia Commons.