howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas!
Today I'm continuing the story of Doc's life. When we left off two
days ago the gunfight at the OK Corral had just ended with Virgil
and Morgan Earp wounded but alive. Doc had killed two of Ike
Clanton's gang and one of Ike's sons were killed.
here's Doc Holliday, Wyatt, Morgan and Virgil Earp
Now, much of the rest of Doc's actions were tied to Wyatt Earp and
Wyatt's crusade against the Clanton gang but that's the choice that
Doc made, to be totally aligned with Wyatt, so Wyatt's story kind of
becomes Doc's story at this point in their lives.
It seems that the feud which had been building between the Earps
and the Clanton gang had died down after the OK Corral but things
are often not what they seem and on a night in 1882 while Morgan
Earp was playing pool, someone shot him in the back from a dark
alley outside the saloon and he died from that wound.
I think that's the way it was showed in the movie Tombstone also,
it's been a few years since I've seen it though. So here you have the
Earp brothers plus Doc Holliday and you go and kill one of the
brothers! Gee, I wonder what could possibly happen next??
Of course Wyatt and his brothers swore to kill all of the Clanton
gang and that's what they set out to do, with Doc at their side.
The first encounter happened just 2 days after Morgan was shot.
Wyatt and Doc ran into Ike Clanton and one of his associates,
Frank Stilwell, at the train station. Ike slipped away but Stilwell
ran down the railroad tracks with Wyatt chasing him and filling
him full of holes. Here's Ike Clanton:
But Wyatt's Posse was just getting started. They got word that some
of Clanton's gang was at a camp outside of town, namely Pete Spencer,
but when they got there another gang member was there instead, his
name was Cruz. This was on March 21st, 1882.
The frightened Cruz named all the men who had murdered Morgan,
himself included. Earp and his men filled Cruz with bullet holes.
The Earp “posse” rode out once again and on March 24, 1882, they ran
into Curly Bill Brocius and eight of his men near Iron Springs. All
were part of the Clanton gang. A gunfight ensued where Curly Bill and
Johnny Barnes were killed.
Later when Doc was in Colorado the Denver Republican ran this
quote of Doc describing that gunfight:
"Eight rustlers rose up from behind the bank and poured from thirty-
five to forty shots at us. Our escape was miraculous.
The shots cut our clothes and saddles and killed one horse, but did
not hit us. I think we would have been killed if God Almighty wasn’t
on our side. Wyatt Earp turned loose with a shotgun and killed Curly
Bill. The eight men in the gang which attacked us were all outlaws,
for each of whom a big reward has been offered."
And the hunt continued. By the time a year had passed Doc Holliday
and the Earps had killed Frank Stilwell, Indian Charlie, Dixie Gray,
Florentino Cruz, Johnny Barnes, Jim Crane, Harry Head, Bill Leonard,
Joe Hill, Luther King, Charley Snow, Billy Lang, Zwing Hunt, Billy
Grounds and Hank Swilling.
Pete Spence turned himself in to the authorities where he could
“hide” in the penitentiary. lol. Here's a photo of Pete's mugshot:
handsome devil ain't he? haha! That's fifteen men! No one got into
trouble. These were outlaws they were killing. Plus I suppose that
there was no one on earth who could have stopped the Earps any-
way.
There were a few who fled the state, one of them was John Ringo
and if I remember right, he was the one that Doc took care of in the
movie where he uttered the famous line.."I'm your huckleberry."
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong about that.
I think that part of the movie was probably "creative license" but
there's a book by Wyatt that I'm gonna read, he wrote a biography
that I want to get. By the way he just died in 1929 so we have good
photos and information about his life. A lot of documentation.
In May of that year Wyatt and Doc left Tombstone vowing to never
return again and headed to Colorado.
Tomorrow I'll wrap up Doc's story, thanks so much for reading.
-jonboy Texas
the gentleman redneck
ps- ya know...you might just be a redneck if;
Your mother has "ammo" on her Christmas list!
lol. God bless you all!
