Wild Bill Hickok

American frontier lawman

• Born: May 27, 1837
• Birthplace: Troy Grove, Illinois
• Died: August 2, 1876
• Place of death: Deadwood, Dakota Territory (now South Dakota)

Hickok’s prowess with a pistol made him one of the deadliest gunfighters in the American West and one of the most forceful and accomplished lawmen of the Kansas cattle towns. His exploits as a soldier, scout, gunfighter, and lawman made him one of the most recognized figures from the American frontier.

Early Life

Wild Bill Hickok was born James Butler Hickok, the fourth of six children born to William Alonzo and Polly Hickok. In 1836, the family moved to Troy Grove, Illinois, where Hickok’s father opened the community’s first general store. Known as the Green Mountain House, the store doubled as a way station on the Underground Railroad. Slavery deeply troubled William, and his boys regularly assisted their father in helping runaway slaves escape. William’s business failed during the financial panic of 1837, forcing him to turn to farming.

As a young boy, James Hickok kept to himself, and many considered him a loner. Early in his life, he demonstrated a penchant for weaponry, and he acquired his first gun around the age of twelve. At every opportunity, young Hickok retreated into the woods to practice his marksmanship. When William died in 1852, his boys took over the family farm. Because of his prowess with a gun, James was given the responsibility of supplementing his family’s diet. He spent much of his time prowling through the woods and fields, hunting deer and small game. He also earned extra income by killing wolves and collecting bounties on their pelts. By his late teenage years, Hickok was known as one of the best shots in La Salle County. His skill and dexterity with firearms would later serve him well as a frontier lawman and soldier.

Throughout Hickok’s life, he had a tendency to never back down from a threat, and he regularly stood up for those who could not defend themselves. His first recorded altercation with another man occurred at the age of eighteen while he was working for the Illinois and Michigan Canal. Charles Hudson, a local camp bully, did not like Hickok and, after exchanging some heated words, a fight broke out. As the pair exchanged blows and wrestled along the bank of the canal, the edge gave way, sending them into the water. Bystanders jumped into the water and pulled Hickok off Hudson, who lay motionless in the canal. Thinking that he had killed his adversary, the youthful Hickok fled the scene and retreated to the family farm. Shortly thereafter, Hickok, along with his brother Lorenzo, left home and headed west to Kansas.

Life’s Work

Hickok arrived in Kansas in 1856 as a nineteen-year-old teenager and, except for brief trips east, spent his entire adult life in the American West. During his twenty years on the Great Plains, Hickok worked as a frontier scout, spy, soldier, teamster, showman, gunfighter, gambler, and lawman. He witnessed many of the important events associated with the development and settlement of the American West, and he personally participated in the Indian Wars, policed the cattle towns, and saw the decimation of the buffalo.

The man who would become one of the most recognized figures of the frontier era stood more than six feet tall. He had piercing gray-blue eyes that reportedly looked right through people. His long and curled auburn hair tumbled to his shoulders, and a drooping mustache hung over his lip. He sometimes dressed in the buckskin clothing of the plainsmen but later became more elegant, sporting a Prince Albert frock coat. Topping off Hickok’s appearance were his ever-present guns, two Navy Colt revolvers tucked butts-forward into a red sash wrapped around his waist.

When the Hickok brothers arrived in Kansas in 1856, the territory was on the verge of civil war. Hickok briefly labored as a plowman in Johnson County, but when hostilities erupted over the issue of slavery along the Kansas-Missouri border, Hickok joined Jim Lane’s Free-State Army of Kansas. Whether he saw battle is unknown, but legend claims that he became Lane’s personal bodyguard.

After leaving Lane’s Kansas militia in late 1857, Hickok took his first job in law enforcement as a constable for Monticello Township in Johnson County. He held this position for less than one year before he went to work for the transportation and freighting outfit of Russell, Majors, and Waddell. For two years he drove wagons and stagecoaches on the Santa Fe Trail. While on one of these trips to Santa Fe, Hickok reportedly met Kit Carson, his boyhood hero. Little did Hickok know that within a few years his own status as a Western hero would equal or surpass that of Carson.

In 1861 Hickok was working at Rock Creek Station in southeastern Nebraska. It was here, on July 12, 1861, that Hickok fought his first gun battle. The incident grew out of an ongoing feud between a local bully named Dave McCanles and the station’s manager. When McCanles, his son, James Woods, and James Gordon appeared at the station and threatened the manager and his wife, Hickok stepped in and shot the elder McCanles, Woods, and Gordon. McCanles died almost instantly. Woods and Gordon, both wounded by Hickok, attempted to escape but were hunted down and dispatched by station employees. Nebraska authorities arrested Hickok and two others, but a jury determined that they had acted in self-defense.

After his acquittal, Hickok drifted into Kansas, where he enlisted as a civilian scout in the Union Army. During the war he served as a wagon master, scout, sharpshooter, and spy. He fought at the battles of Wilson’s Creek and Pea Ridge. Hickok also spent time behind enemy lines, scouting enemy positions and intercepting Confederate orders and documents. It was during the Civil War that Hickok first gained notoriety. While in Independence, Missouri, Hickok, with his pistols in his hands, dispersed a mob that was threatening to lynch a man. It was from this incident that Hickok earned the name “Wild Bill.” After breaking up the mob, a lady from the crowd yelled out, “Good for you, Wild Bill.” The name stuck and from then on James Butler Hickok went by the name Wild Bill.

Hickok’s Civil War service as a scout and an 1865 gunfight in which he killed Dave Tutt in Springfield, Missouri, enhanced the name of Wild Bill around Missouri and Kansas. In 1867, an article about Wild Bill in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine made Hickok a household name and a national hero. The story, written by George Ward Nichols, greatly exaggerated Hickok’s Civil War exploits and claimed that he killed ten men at the Rock Creek gunfight. Nichols’s portrayal of Hickok influenced later writers who further embellished Hickok’s law enforcement career by claiming that he had killed one hundred men in the line of duty. Hickok did not like his image as a “man-killer,” but this portrait of him as a deadly gunman earned him respect, which made policing the rowdy cattle towns easier.

Although Hickok’s career in law enforcement lasted only a few years, he gained notoriety as one of the best Western lawmen. From 1867 to 1870 he served as a deputy U.S. marshal, chasing army deserters and stock thieves. In 1869 Ellis County, Kansas, elected Hickok sheriff. Hays City, the county seat, was an end-of-the-line railroad town full of gamblers, brawlers, soldiers, buffalo hunters, prostitutes, and gunmen. In three months of service, he killed two men in gunfights and was largely credited with establishing law and order. After losing his reelection bid to his deputy sheriff, Hickok drifted around from place to place. On July 17, 1870, while back in Hays City, Hickok became involved in a drunken altercation with five soldiers from Fort Hays. In the fracas that ensued, Hickok shot two soldiers, killing one and seriously wounding the other.

Because of Hickok’s reputation as a lawman and gunfighter, the Kansas cattle town of Abilene hired him as city marshal in 1871. Hickok largely succeeded in quelling disturbances by prohibiting cowboys from carrying guns and keeping a close eye on the drinking and gambling establishments that they frequented. Hickok was involved in only one shooting during his stint in Abilene. On October 5, 1871, Hickok confronted Phil Coe and a number of Texans who had shot their revolvers at stray dogs. Sensing danger from the gun in Coe’s hand, Hickok pulled out his revolvers. The two exchanged shots, but only Hickok’s found their mark. In the heat of the conflict, Mike Williams, a friend of Hickok who was a special police officer for the Novelty Theater, came running to Hickok’s assistance. Catching a glimpse of the fast-approaching Williams out of the corner of his eye and believing him to be a friend of the wounded Coe, Hickok fired two shots, killing Williams.

The death of Williams had a tremendous impact on Hickok. Shortly thereafter he retired from law enforcement and supposedly never again fired his pistols at anyone. After 1871 Hickok tried his hand at acting. He performed with several Wild West shows, including that of William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody. Realizing that acting was not for him, Hickok returned to the Great Plains, where, in March, 1876, he married Agnes Lake Thatcher, a former circus performer. Legend holds that Hickok also had a relationship with Martha “Calamity Jane” Cannary, but there is no basis for such a claim. In July, 1876, Hickok joined the gold rush to the Black Hills in the Dakota Territory hoping to strike it rich and return to his new wife. Hickok, however, seems to have known that his days were numbered. He regularly told his friends that Deadwood in the Dakota Territory might be his last camp. On August 2, 1876, Hickok’s premonitions came true when Jack McCall shot him in the back of the head while he played poker in a local saloon. The cards held by Hickok—aces and eights—have come to be known as the “dead man’s hand.”

Significance

The historical life of James Butler Hickok is quite interesting but of little significance. He served his country bravely during the Civil War, scouted during the Plains Indian Wars, killed up to ten men in gunfights, and policed some of the rowdiest cattle towns in the West. Perhaps his role as a lawman made those wild and rollicking towns a safer place to live, but on a larger scale, his contributions to history and his impact on American society were minimal.

The legendary Wild Bill Hickok, however, is a much different story. He has had a tremendous impact on American culture. Hickok’s life and his exploits—whether fact or fiction—have received attention in films, in dime novels, on television shows, and from serious historians. Places such as Deadwood, South Dakota; Abilene, Kansas; and Hays City, Kansas, consider Wild Bill as one of their own and continue to promote his name and his image as a colorful frontier figure. Hickok’s life has captured the imagination of thousands of people, and he has gone down as one of the true heroes of the American frontier.

Bibliography

Dykstra, Robert S. The Cattle Towns. New York: Antheum, 1970. Analyzes the origins and development of the Kansas cattle towns of Abilene, Ellsworth, Wichita, Dodge City, and Caldwell. Although Hickok is not a central figure, this work is important to understanding the social world in which he worked as a lawman.

Miller, Nyle H., and Joseph W. Snell. Great Gunfighters of the Kansas Cowtowns, 1867-1886. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1967. Formerly published under the title Why the West Was Wild, this book provides a documentary history of the violence associated with the Kansas cattle towns. Using excerpts from newspapers, diaries, letters, and public documents, this work examines the gun battles and exploits of twenty-one Western gunfighters, including Hickok.

Rosa, Joseph G. They Called Him Wild Bill: The Life and Adventures of James Butler Hickok. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964. The definitive Hickok biography. Probably the best work on any Western gunfighter and lawman.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The West of Wild Bill Hickok. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1982. A pictorial biography of Hickok and the people and places associated with his career. Almost every known photograph, drawing, and painting of him appears in this volume.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Wild Bill Hickok, Gunfighter: An Account of Hickok’s Gunfights. College Station, Tex.: Creative, 2001. Chronicles Hickok’s gunfights, providing detailed descriptions of the guns he used, his legendary abilities as a marksman, and the “dead man’s hand” Hickok held in the poker game when he was shot to death.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗.Wild Bill Hickok: The Man and His Myth. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1996. An examination of the many myths and legends surrounding Hickok’s exploits in the American West. Addresses his reputation as a “man-killer” among other topics.