Conditions were close to chaos, with growing enmity between emigrant train scouts and discontented soldiers. marshal at Fort Riley, Kans., Wild Bill was told to establish order. Shortly afterward an inflated story about Hickok was published in Harper's Magazine, and from this grew the legend of "Wild Bill, " the western hero.Įarly in 1866, as deputy U.S. Tried for murder, he was again acquitted. Just after the war, while gambling, Hickok killed David Tutt, a former Confederate, in the prototype setting for later stories and movies-an iron-nerved shoot-out in the public square of Springfield, Mo. Tried for murder, Hickok and the express company workers pleaded self-defense and were acquitted.ĭuring the Civil War, Hickok served the Union forces creditably as wagon master, scout, and spy. There Hickok and fellow employees killed David McCanles and his two companions, who had come-unarmed-to collect the delinquent payments on the Rock Creek station land. Early in 1861 the firm stationed him at their Rock Creek, Nebr., station as assistant stock tender. He filed land claims in Johnson County and apparently wanted to become a farmer.īy 1858, after serving briefly as constable, Hickok was working for the famous express company Russell, Majors and Waddell. The Hickok family was abolitionist and evidently schooled him in the "genteel tradition." In 1855 he left home for Kansas. James Hickok was born on May 27, 1837, in Troy Grove, III. In his lifetime he became the symbolic western hero. James Butler Hickok (1837-1876), American gun-fighter, scout, and spy, brought law to the untamed West.
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