Deadly Dozen: Forgotten Gunfighters of the Old West, Vol. 3 / Edition 3

by Robert K. DeArment

Overview

For every Wild Bill Hickok or Billy the Kid, there was another western gunfighter just as deadly but not as well known. Robert K. DeArment has earned a reputation as the premier researcher of unknown gunfighters, and here he offers twelve more portraits of men who weren’t glorified in legend but were just as notorious in their day.

Those who think they already know all about Old West gunfighters will be amazed at this new collection. Here are men like Porter Stockton, the Texas terror who bragged that he had killed eighteen men, and Jim Levy, who killed a man for disparaging his Irish blood, though he was also the only known Jewish gunfighter.

These stories span eight decades, from the gold rushes of the 1850s to the 1920s. Telling of gunmen such as Jim Masterson, the brother of Bat Masterson, or the real Whispering Smith—the man behind the fictionalized persona—whose career spanned four decades, DeArment conscientiously separates fact from fiction to reconstruct lives all the more amazing for having remained unknown for so long.

The product of iron-clad research, this newest Deadly Dozen delivers the goods for gunfighter buffs in search of something different. Together the Deadly Dozen volumes constitute a Who’s Who of western outlaws and prove that there’s more to the Wild West than Jesse James.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780806140766
Publisher:	University of Oklahoma Press
Publication date:	03/15/2010
Pages:	408
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Robert K. DeArment (1925–2021) was a University of Toledo, Ohio, graduate whose research and writing focused on nineteenth-century American history, especially outlaws and law enforcement in the frontier West. He is the author of Bat Masterson: The Man and the Legend and the three-volume Deadly Dozen: Forgotten Gunfighters of the Old West.

Read an Excerpt

Deadly Dozen

Forgotten Gunfighters of the Old West, Volume 3

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By Robert K. DeArment

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS

Copyright © 2010 University of Oklahoma Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8061-8472-2

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CHAPTER 1

FARMER PEEL 1829–1867

Peel was noted as being one of the quickest men with a gun in the West. He could pull his gun and discharge with accurate aim in a fraction of a second and with the same movement, and his handiness with a six-shooter gave him the reputation of being an exceedingly dangerous man.

— Elko (Nevada) Daily Independent

Many western gunfighters honed their skill with weapons in military units, most often as participants on one side or the other in the Civil War, but few had actually been professional soldiers. Langford Peel was one of the few.

Born in Belfast, Ireland, in 1829, Peel came to America while still a small child. Little is known about his parentage, other than his mother, Rachel, gave birth to him at the age of seventeen, and his father was a soldier. Evidently the father died before Langford reached his teens, for by 1841 Rachel had married another career soldier, an armorer named John Lyons. Amazingly, Langford Peel at the tender age of twelve entered the U.S. Army that year with the approval and assistance of his mother and stepfather. On September 20 at New York City he was sworn in by First Lieutenant Darling of the Second Dragoon Regiment for a five-year enlistment. Darling, as the recruiting officer, certified that he had inspected the applicant and found him "entirely sober," "of lawful age," and "duly qualified to perform the duties of an able-bodied soldier." How a blue-eyed, light-haired, fair-complexioned boy, only four feet five inches tall and twelve years of age, as plainly described on the enlistment papers, could be expected to perform the duties of an able-bodied man was not explained.

On the enlistment form was an addendum, signed by Lyons and attested to by a justice of the peace: "I hereby certify that I give my consent for my son, Langford M. Peel, to enlist in the U.S. Dragoons to serve for five years to learn music."

It was a fairly common practice for the army at the time to accept young boys into the service to be trained as musicians. They were sent to Governor's Island, New York, for some basic training and then shipped off to Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, for education in music. Peel followed this path. The army trained him as a bugler until October 24, 1842, when, after thirteen months of service, he was discharged at Carlisle Barracks.

The army life must have appealed to the youngster, for he signed up again for a five-year enlistment. By 1845, although still only sixteen years old, he was on active duty at Fort Atkinson, Iowa, assigned as bugler for Company B, First Regiment of United States Dragoons, commanded by Captain E. V. Sumner.

First sergeant of Company B during the early years of Peel's enlistment was Ben Bishop, and it was under Bishop that the young man experienced his first combat on the plains of Kansas in the spring of 1846. When Indians drove off a herd of four hundred oxen in presentday Pawnee County, Sergeant Bishop led a detachment of twenty dragoons, including Peel, in pursuit. A vicious firefight erupted at the mouth of Coon Creek on the Arkansas River. Twelve soldiers were killed or wounded before the Indians retreated. An arrow pierced Bishop's body, but he survived. Bugler Peel captured the attention of his older comrades and earned their respect when he personally accounted for three of the Indian dead.

Bishop left the army in 1849, and Percival G. Lowe succeeded him as first sergeant of Company B. Lowe became quite friendly with Peel over the course of the next few years as the two shared the hardships and perils of frontier army duty together and fought side by side in several Indian battles. On Lowe's unreserved recommendation, Peel was later promoted to sergeant. Lowe described Peel as "the best specimen of 160 pounds, five feet, nine inches, naturally bright, clear headed, cheerful and helpful always; as keen as an Indian on the trail, well up in every branch of prairie craft, a perfect horseman, possessing unlimited courage and endurance, he was a man to be relied on and trusted in every emergency. A full set of such noncommissioned officers under a good commander would make a troop invincible against any reasonable odds."

Lowe recorded several skirmishes with Indians in which Peel accredited himself well.

In September 1849 a Pawnee war party attacked a wagon train on the Little Blue River near Fort Kearny, Nebraska. They killed one man and wounded a dozen others. Peel was a member of a patrol from the fort that pursued the band and in a sharp clash slew two of the Pawnees.

A month later, on October 29, scouts advised Captain and Brevet Major R. H. Chilton, in command at Fort Kearny, that a Pawnee war party was camped on an island in the Platte River only two miles from the post. Chilton led a force of twenty men, including Peel, in a raid on the camp. Anxious to take prisoners for use in negotiations with the tribal chiefs, Chilton instructed his men to capture the Indians alive and shoot only if necessary, an order with which Peel strongly disagreed. When Peel and three noncommissioned officers, Sergeant Martin and Corporals Cook and Haff, cornered four braves, the soldiers attempted to follow Chilton's order and motioned the Indians to throw down their arms and surrender. The Indians, however, had no such ideas and bolted.

Lowe said Haff followed one Indian and dispatched him, and Cook shot and killed another as the warrior "gave his final war-whoop" and fired his rifle, missing the corporal.

Meanwhile, Sergeant Martin and Bugler Peel were confronting the other two braves. "One Indian escaped in the brush," wrote Lowe, "while Martin was trying to carry out the Major's orders, and Peel, seeing that the other Indian was about to fire, shot him near the heart and he fell on his face, immediately raised himself on one elbow, fired, and shot Martin through the heart, and fell dead. Martin fell from his horse and was borne back to the post to a soldier's grave, a victim of obedience to orders. If he had taken Peel's advice, all four of the Indians would have been killed, and Martin would have lived."

Martin, a veteran who had fought with Chilton in the Mexican War, was the oldest man in the troop. He was very popular with the dragoons, who lamented his death, which they considered unnecessary.

In July 1850 Peel, now twenty-one years of age, was enumerated in the U.S. Census, taken at the U.S. Arsenal at St. Louis, under the name Langford P. Lyon. His mother, listed as Rachel C. Lyon, was also present, working at the military base as a laundress.

When his five-year enlistment was up in 1853, Peel signed up for a third tour of duty with the dragoons. He took another important step that year; at St. Louis on March 18 he entered into marriage with German-born Josephine Lay, a "lady of very good family." Soon thereafter Josephine took up residence in Leavenworth, Kansas, to be close to the fort where her husband was stationed. In 1854 she gave birth to a son, named Langford after his father. A second son born in 1856 was named Percival in honor of Peel's close friend and associate, Percival Lowe.

During the summer of 1853 Peel had a narrow escape from death at the hands of hostile Indians. While his company was camped on the Pawnee Fork of the Arkansas River, he and another soldier went out on a buffalo hunt. They had dropped a buffalo apiece when suddenly fifty or more warriors appeared over a rise. As Lowe related the story, Peel was half a mile west of his comrade and almost a mile and a half from the Indians when he spotted the warriors. He could have escaped by fleeing to the camp, but with scarcely one chance in ten of saving his companion, he took that chance at the risk of his own life. "One iota of weakness would have induced Peel to abandon his friend and save himself," said Lowe, but he stayed with his pal, and the two men hid in a thicket behind a little bluff. The warriors passed without seeing them, and then Peel and his friend raced to a point on the river where Cook, now a sergeant, had earlier arranged to meet them with a wagon and two other soldiers. The Indians attacked, but the five men fought them off, killing two horses and wounding several of the braves, until a strong force from the main camp arrived and the Indians retreated.

Soon after this engagement the men of Company B went on a long march to Fort Union, New Mexico. They were camped near Raton Pass, when Peel, out on a lone hunting expedition, took the opportunity to display his remarkable shooting ability. Shortly after he left camp, a sudden thunderstorm came up, and he sought shelter in a copse of pines. There he was joined by a flock of turkeys also seeking haven from the rain, hail, and strong winds. While the gale raged, Peel sat quietly and picked off the turkeys, one by one, shooting all of them in the head to avoid damaging the meat. He killed seventeen before the few remaining realized their danger and flew off. "Peel came into camp about dark," said Lowe, "with all that his mule could stagger under."

After Company B returned east to its station at Fort Leavenworth, Peel became involved in a search for a deserter. The incident had humorous aspects, but it led to serious trouble with the civil authorities and ultimately the end of Peel's army career.

When Lieutenant David H. Hastings received information that the deserter was hiding with his wife at a house outside Weston, a small town across the river from the fort, he and Sergeant Peel took a squad of dragoons to the town. As he approached the house, Peel spotted a man he recognized as the deserter run inside. He followed and searched the house without finding his quarry. Several people, including the deserter's wife, were sitting at a table preparing to eat. The wife wore one of those big hoop skirts, which were the fashion of the day, and Peel eyed her suspiciously. The man he sought was small, and Peel became convinced that he was hiding under those skirts. He told the woman he was determined to find her husband "if he had to go under her skirts." But before he carried out his threat, Lieutenant Hastings arrived and berated Peel, saying he had no authority to invade a civilian's house without a search warrant. On the lieutenant's order, the dragoons retreated across the river without their quarry. Although Peel did gain some measure of satisfaction when a month or so later the deserter gave himself up and confessed that he was indeed hiding under his wife's skirts when Peel was after him, the incident led to problems with the civil authorities at Weston, who brought an indictment against Peel for invasion of a private civilian's dwelling without a warrant. By avoiding Weston, Peel managed to avoid arrest and prosecution, but the army brass at Fort Leavenworth were so embarrassed by the affair that on March 22, 1855, they discharged Peel from the service.

During his three enlistments and fourteen years of military service Peel had grown to robust manhood and developed a high degree of proficiency in the use of arms. He had also become expert in gambling, the major pastime for soldiers during the long periods of inactivity at army posts, and in civilian life he turned to the gambling table for his livelihood.

The fortunes of the professional gambler, he discovered, ebbed and waned as certainly as the tides, but without their predictability. For a time he did quite well at Leavenworth, near his old military post, where he was accounted "a prosperous citizen," but following the extremely hard winter of 1856 money dried up in many of the pioneer towns of Kansas, including Leavenworth. Peel was generous with his monetary contributions for the relief of many financial sufferers, including a pair of gamblers named Dave Conley and Oliver Rucker, who were in "a state of complete destitution." He welcomed them into his house and provided for their needs throughout that awful winter.

Nathaniel P. Langford (1832–1911), pioneer and early historian of the frontier, in his book Vigilante Days and Ways devoted a full chapter to Peel, in whom he may have developed a particular interest because Peel's first name was the same as Nathaniel's last. Peel, he said,

was regarded as one of those strange compounds who unite in one character the extremes of recklessness and kindness. In his general conduct there was more to approve than condemn, though his fearless manner, his habits of life, and his occupation as a gambler, gave him a doubtful reputation. Among people of his own class he was especially attractive, because of his great physical strength, manly proportions, undoubted bravery, and overflowing kindness. To these qualities he added a repose of manner that gave him unbounding influence in his sphere. No man was more prompt to make the cause of a friend his own, to resent an injury, or punish an insult. His dexterity with the revolver was as marvelous as the ready use he made of it when provoked. His qualifications as a rough and ready borderer bespoke a foreground in his life of much exposure and practice.

In search of greener pastures (or greener gambling victims), Peel moved west in 1857. The fall of the following year found him in Great Salt Lake City, Utah, financially strapped after a long losing streak at the tables. Badly in need of a stake, on September 9, 1858, he looked around town for other, more prosperous members of the gambling fraternity and found Dave Conley, the gambler he had aided during that hard winter in Leavenworth two years earlier. Conley was acting as lookout at a faro table when Peel approached him and asked for the loan of $25. Conley refused the request.

Infuriated by this inexplicable display of ingratitude, Peel's face grew hard, and he snapped, "Great God! Is it possible that there is not a man in the country who will lend me twenty-five dollars?"

The faro dealer, a man named Robinson who had never before met Peel but knew him by reputation, saw the mounting fury in Peel's eyes and quickly offered to lend him $25 or any amount he wanted. Never taking his gaze from Conley, Peel said, "This is all I want," and took five half-eagles from the dealer's bank and pocketed them. Then, with a swift move, he grabbed the case-keeper from the table and hurled it at Conley's head. Conley ducked, and the apparatus crashed against the wall. Conley fled the building as Peel pulled out a pistol and seemed bent on pursuit when Robinson grabbed his arm and pleaded: "Stay your hand, Peel. For God's sake, don't make any disturbance."

Calming down a little, Peel explained to Robinson why he had been so angered by Conley's ungratefulness. He thanked Robinson for his trust and promised to repay the loan as soon as his luck turned.

Leaving the building, he headed straight for a gambling house on Commercial Street, where he had been informed Oliver Rucker, the other man he had aided in Leavenworth, was dealing a game. Sitting down at Rucker's table, Peel placed some of his borrowed coins on a card on the faro layout. Rucker contemptuously pushed the money away, saying, "I don't want your game."

Again Peel flew into a rage. Grabbing a chair, he flung it across the table. Just as his friend Conley had done, Rucker ran out of the room, exited the building through a rear door, and entered the adjoining store of A. B. Miller. Peel stalked after him and found Rucker, pistol in hand, crouching in a dimly lit room.

The guns in the hands of the two gamblers exploded almost simultaneously. Both men were wounded, but as they tumbled to the floor they continued to cock and fire their weapons until they were empty. Peel was hit in the cheek, the thigh, and the shoulder; Rucker had been struck by every one of Peel's bullets.

According to an account of the battle in an 1881 history, Peel, bleeding from three bullet wounds and his pistol empty, put an end to the fight by crawling to Rucker's side and driving a bowie knife into his heart.

Another version was related some years later by W. D. Weir, who said he was in the store when Rucker, holding a pistol and a fistful of money, ran in, closely followed by Peel, also armed with a revolver, and the shooting erupted. Weir thought as many as a dozen shots were fired as he ran from the room. When the shooting stopped, he returned to the smoke-filled room to find the two combatants, both conscious, stretched out on the blood-soaked floor. A doctor was called and, after examining the fallen men, gave them only a few minutes to live and advised them to make their wills.

Rucker, still grasping the money from his faro game in his bloody left hand, mumbled: "I've got $5,000 here. Send it to my old mother down in Tennessee. Tell her I'm dead but for God's sake don't break her heart telling her I went like this."

Peel was still full of anger and unashamed that he was dying in battle. "Damn you!" he blurted at Rucker. Then, looking at the doctor, he said, "I've got a wife in Leavenworth City. Write and tell her I fit till the last minute; aye, and I fit till the last minute."

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Deadly Dozen by Robert K. DeArment. Copyright © 2010 University of Oklahoma Press. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents

Contents

List of Illustrations,
Foreword, by Roger D. McGrath,
Acknowledgments,
Introduction,
1. Farmer Peel,
2. Charlie Harrison,
3. Whispering Smith,
4. Jim Levy,
5. Dave Neagle,
6. Billy Brooks,
7. Port Stockton,
8. Ike Stockton,
9. Jim Mcintire,
10. Jim Masterson,
11. Ed Short,
12. Hill Loftis,
Afterword,
Notes,
Bibliography,
Index,