Wild Bill
The True Story of the American Frontier's First Gunfighter
ISBN10: 1250178169
ISBN13: 9781250178169
Trade Paperback
368 Pages
$20.00
CA$27.00
In July 1865, "Wild Bill" Hickok shot and killed Davis Tutt in Springfield, MO—the first quick-draw duel on the frontier. Thus began the reputation that made him a marked man to every gunslinger in the Wild West.
James Butler Hickock was known across the frontier as a soldier, Union spy, scout, lawman, gunfighter, gambler, showman, and actor. He crossed paths with General Custer and Buffalo Bill Cody, as well as Ben Thompson and other young toughs gunning for the sheriff with the quickest draw west of the Mississippi.
Wild Bill also fell in love—multiple times—before marrying the true love of his life, Agnes Lake, the impresario of a traveling circus. He would be buried however, next to fabled frontierswoman Calamity Jane.
Even before his death, Wild Bill became a legend, with fiction sometimes supplanting fact in the stories that surfaced. Once, in a bar in Nebraska, he was confronted by four men, three of whom he killed in the ensuing gunfight. A famous Harper’s Magazine article credited Hickok with slaying 10 men that day; by the 1870s, his career-long kill count was up to 100.
The legend of Wild Bill has only grown since his death in 1876, when cowardly Jack McCall famously put a bullet through the back of his head during a card game. Bestselling author Tom Clavin has sifted through years of western lore to bring Hickock fully to life in this rip-roaring, spellbinding true story.
Reviews
Praise for Wild Bill
"Clavin, a wily veteran of the writing trade, tacks up the truth like wanted posters in every chapter, while simultaneously savoring a few of the more fanciful falsehoods along the way, a neat trick in which he displays some ambidexterity of his own."—The New York Times Book Review
"A well-written and well-researched tale of a most interesting American frontiersmen, lawman and shootist. Those interested in the true story of the life and times of Wild Bill Hickok will enjoy this book.”—The Washington Times
Reviews from Goodreads
BOOK EXCERPTS
Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
A NEW ENGLAND CLAN
Wild Bill Hickok, who would forever be a firm fixture in the annals of the American West as a plainsman, gunfighter, and lawman, was born into a family that identified themselves as New Englanders.
Some...