Guns of Outlaws: Weapons of the American Bad Man

414 Pages·2014·21.23 MB·English

by  Gerry Souter

GUNS OF OUTLAWS
WEAPONS OF THE AMERICAN
BAD MAN
GERRY AND JANET SOUTER
“Have you any idea of what a man must endure who leads such a life? No,
you cannot. No one can unless he lives it for himself.”
—Frank James
“… we go a’ridin’ into town, a-whompin’ and a-whumpin’ every livin’ thing
that moves within an inch of its life. Except the women folks, of course.”
—Slim Pickens, Blazing Saddles
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wish to thank the following for their assistance in writing this book:
Lynn Carson, of the Dalton Defenders Museum, Coffeyville, Kansas Dale
Chlouber of the Washington Irving Trail Museum
Dave Cooper, photographer, and Robert Rea, president, of the Franklin County
Historic Preservation Society, Benton, Illinois Jim Covell of the New Mexico
Gun Collectors Association
Shelly Crittendon and Amanda Crowley of the Texas Rangers Hall of Fame and
Museum, Waco, Texas Peter Cutelli, of the St. Louis Weapon Collectors
Zac Distel and Kelly Williams of the Frazier History Museum in Louisville,
Kentucky Thomas Haggerty of the Bridgeman Art Library
Jessica Hayes and Jessica Hougen of the US Marshals Museum in Fort Smith,
Arkansas Laura Hoff, Laraine Daly Jones, Caitlin Lampman, and Rebekah
Tabah of the Arizona Historical Society Samuel Hoffman and Tom Pellegrene of
the Journal Gazette in Fort Wayne, Indiana Marguerite House of the Buffalo
Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming Susan Jaffe and John Paul of
Guernsey’s Auctions, New York
Lisa Keys and Nikaela Zimmerman of the Kansas Historical Society, Topeka,
Kansas Loren McLane of the Fort Smith National Historic Site in Fort Smith,
Arkansas Dale Peterson of the Minnesota Weapons Collectors Association
Silka Quintero of the Granger Collection
Michael Runge of the City of Deadwood Archives, Deadwood City, South
Dakota, and also Rose Speirs and Carolyn Weber of the Adams Museum in
Deadwood Jason Schubert of the Davis Arms and Historical Museum,
Claremore, Oklahoma Hayes Scriven of the Northfield (Minnesota) History
Collaborative Elizabeth Van Bergen of Christie’s Auction House
Roy Young, editor of the Wild West History Association Journal
A special thank you to the following:
Kathie Bell of the Boot Hill Museum in Dodge City, Kansas, for the hours spent
searching through the museum’s archives and the museum staff for taking the
time to help us photograph the weapons in Boot Hill’s extensive collection.
Also, the staff of Dodge City’s Long Branch Saloon for their help, advice, and
Old West hospitality Marguerite House of the Buffalo Bill Center in Cody,
Wyoming, for her time and efforts in researching the museum’s database Hans
Wyoming, for her time and efforts in researching the museum’s database Hans
and Eva Kurth of the Cody Dug Up Guns Museum, Cody, Wyoming, for taking
the time to help us photograph their unique collection Patrick Quinn of Rock
Island Auctions for his expertise, time, and encouragement providing digital
images attributed to outlaws and lawmen
CONTENTS
Introduction
CHAPTER 1 The Outlaws Arrive: Choose Your Weapons
CHAPTER 2 Outlaws of the Natchez Trace
The Horrible Harpes
Joseph Thompson Hare
CHAPTER 3 Manifest Destiny: Never Steal Anything Small
Tiburcio Vásquez—Vaquero with a Grudge
CHAPTER 4 The Outlaw Incubator
Residue of War—The Raiders
The Reno Gang
The Northfield Raid: The Youngers, Jesse and Frank James
Coffeyville, Kansas, and the Dalton Boys
CHAPTER 5 A Pair of Legends: Hickok and Doolin
William Butler Hickok Sets the Pistolero Mold
Bill Doolin and the Long Riders
CHAPTER 6 Crossing the Line: The Johnson County War
Bill Cook—Indian Territory Crook
CHAPTER 7 Black American Cowboys
Bass Reeves—Black Man Behind a Silver Badge
Ned Huddleston, a.k.a. Isom Dart
CHAPTER 8 The Crazies: Longley, the Kid, and Hardin
William Preston (“Wild Bill”) Longley
Henry McCarty, or William Bonney, or William (“Kid”) Antrim
—a.k.a. Billy the Kid
John Wesley Hardin
CHAPTER 9 The Good (Bad) Men: Henry Plummer, Henry Newton Brown,
Tom Horn, and Wyatt Earp
A Tale of Two Henrys
Tom Horn
Wyatt Earp
CHAPTER 10 Bandits into the Twentieth Century: Butch and Sundance
CHAPTER 11 Outlaws Ride Toward a Bloody Sunset
CHAPTER 12 Al Jennings: Two-Gun Outlaw and Movie Star
CHAPTER 13 The Great War (1914–1918): Quantum Leap for Weapons Tech
CHAPTER 14 Bad Girls: Outlaw Women
Belle Star: “Lady Desperado”
Pearl Hart: From Stage Coach Robber to Vaudeville
Little Britches and Cattle Annie
Bonnie Parker: Poet and Killer
“Mommie Dearest” and the Barker Boys
Behind Every Man …
CHAPTER 15 It’s Always Been about Firepower
The Thompson Submachine Gun—An Unlikely Icon
CHAPTER 16 The Shelton and Birger Gangs: Rural Roughnecks
CHAPTER 17 Hyman Lebman: Gun Maker to the Stars
CHAPTER 18 The Great Depression and the Outlaws’ Last Hurrah
CHAPTER 19 The Tawdry Team of Bonnie and Clyde
CHAPTER 20 Sagebrush Robin Hood: Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd
CHAPTER 21 Short, Lethal Outlaw: George “Baby Face” Nelson
CHAPTER 22 The Last of John Dillinger
Endnotes
Index
INTRODUCTION
T HE DEADLY GUNS of the bandit trade tell the story of American outlaw
culture. Those same guns blazed hot in the hands of the underpaid lawmen
who doggedly pursued the American bad man’s greed-fueled determination
never to pay for what he could steal.
Six guns, rifles, shotguns, and pistols evolved into exotic weapons of
murderous destruction, leaving a trail of artifacts that reaches far back into the
violent history of the United States. Firearms’ evolution is not the tail that
wagged the dog, but is instead the residue that marks the rise and fall of the
outlaw trade from the eighteenth century to the 1940s, when the last of the
legendary outlaws, Al Capone, Chicago’s boss of bosses, left Alcatraz Prison
and later died in his bed, a disease-ravaged, babbling shell of a man whose name
had become a chilling synonym for lawlessness around the world.
Outlaws and the lawmen who pursued them came in all shapes and sizes,
colors, and genders as did their implements of aggression and protection. In
these pages we’ll examine and discuss the actual guns they carried as well as
lookalikes and trends in technology, all gathered from museums, historical
societies, and private collections. The difference between owned by and used by
is pursued as far as provenance permits. This is not a catalog. It is as much
archeology as it is history. Like the swords of ancient kings, these artifacts bear
the scuffs, rust, and scabbard-wear of use, or of the curious vanities of their
owners—engravings, inlays, plating, and hand-carved notches commemorate
survival, or the defeat of a rival who was two seconds too slow.
We’ll also explore life on the “owlhoot trail”—an imaginary twisting outlaw
path—and visit where outlaws lived, where they worked, and where they died.
The mythology of their lives and skills is a dense thicket of hearsay, facts,
fantasies, truths, delusions, and steaming heaps of once-or twice-digested lore
that makes for great stories, but can be bottomless traps for the historian. For
instance, there are many versions of the deaths of Billy the Kid, Butch Cassidy,
and Pretty Boy Floyd—all sworn to in writing. The gunfight at the O.K. Corral
is a virtual blizzard of half truths and misdirections, and at least one unique gun
is widely described in great historical detail, but never actually existed.
Wyatt Earp’s Colt Single Action Army belly gun with three-inch barrel and no ejection rod. Built to get the
drop and that first quick shot. Guernsey’s Auctions, New York
Life for many in the Old West, the New West, and the eras of Prohibition and
the Great Depression was a struggle. Most of the outlaws who packed their
pistols and left home were victims of real or imagined injustice. Some inherited
old feuds. Others fled from broken homes that were crushed by a hardscrabble
existence. A few embraced the owlhoot life to pry the rich man’s boot off their
neck and taste the rewards of a life lived hot and fast. Many famous outlaws
were semiliterate losers with entire careers based on one chance encounter.
Justice was meted out by men not far removed from the lawbreakers they
pursued and captured (when convenient) or killed (when desired). Dedication in
a lawman was rare, but highly prized when discovered. The pay was low and
many needed second jobs to buy bullets or feed their families. It was not unusual
for outlaws to put on a badge, nor for admired lawmen to stray across the line
and thus considerably raise their standard of living.
Watchdog volunteers were at hand in many communities to level the playing
field when dishonest men—and women—became annoying nuisances. Quick
judgments rendered by flinty-eyed vigilantes often ended with premature
application of a short noose dangled from a tall tree. On the other hand, too
many local deputies armed with squirrel rifles and duck guns found themselves
facing automatic drumfire in the hands of hardened killers.
From the double bang of the flintlock to the chatter of bucking submachine
guns, we’ll ride the owlhoot trail from antique to modern times and try to live as
guns, we’ll ride the owlhoot trail from antique to modern times and try to live as
close to the bone of reality as we can while squinting into the fog of legend.
Return with us now to yesteryear when the outlaws lived bold and died hard;
when courage and guts prevailed behind a scarred and dented badge, the rise and
fall of the American outlaw.
A Hyman Lebman special full automatic Baby Machine Gun built from a Model 1911 semiautomatic pistol. It
fires an eighteen-round magazine of .45-caliber bullets in about five seconds. Federal Bureau of Investigation