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Wanted as a fugitive by the
Texas Rangers,
Hardin
remained visible and active. He took time out of his busy schedule
to involve himself in what came to be known as the Taylor-Sutton feud, in
1873: the year Colt introduced its soon to be famous .45 revolver, and
Winchester released the lever action that “won the West.” While it’s
understandable that
John
Wesley would lean towards the Taylors, his participation at such a
sensitive time reminds me of the old Irish joke in which a lad, coming
upon a barroom brawl, asks “Is this a private fight, or can anyone join?”
Taylor returned the favor by joining in pumping bullets into Sheriff
Charlie Webb during a
gunfight
in 1874.
Hardin
claims the officer drew on him, before he pulled his own ivory stocked
Smith & Wesson First Model Russian from underneath his vest.
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Now the hunt by the
Rangers
was on in earnest, and he found himself once again hiding outside in
the thickets and holing up in the barns of the few distant relatives
not already under active surveillance. Whether he goaded Webb
into drawing or merely fired in self defense, he now found the crucial
support of the local populous fading away. Earlier he’d received
kudos and applause for killing DeWitt County Sheriff Jack Helm, but
Jack was a hated Union loyalist known to be hard on ex-Confederates,
whereas Webb was generally liked by everyone who knew him. This
fateful and unfortunate incident, more than any before it, would prove
to be
John Wesley's undoing.
It was in large part
Wes's love for fine horses, and his passion for racing them that
allowed him to outdistance pursuing
Rangers
again and again. But their consistent inability to catch up with
him only heightened the passions of what soon became a large civilian
mob.... and when they couldn’t wreak their vengeance on
Wesley they opted instead to lynch his brother Joe instead. All
told as many as eight of his friends and family were killed after the
Webb incident, all innocent if informed scapegoats for a frustrated
and seething mob.
John Wesley, whose sense of Southern manliness decreed he must
always hide beneath a steely countenance any doubt or grief, was no
doubt haunted forever by the spectre of those who gave their lives in
his place. In one of the most melancholy passages of his
prideful book, he grieves that his otherwise self-justified acts had
“drove my father to an early grave.... almost distracted my mother....
killed my brother Joe and my cousins Tom and William.... left my
brother’s widow with two helpless babes.... to say nothing of the
grief of countless others.” But for all he and they had
suffered, he still never admitted having had any choice, or to ever
done anything but right– at least to no one but himself, in the dark
nights of existential loneliness and unsettling uncertainty.
Nor more could he depend on an environment
of indifferent officials and community assistance and support. Posses and
Rangers seemed to be everywhere this time, and after dispatching a
few of his seeming limitless pursuers
Hardin wisely decided to move with his family to Florida. There he
assumed the last name of his friend the city marshal of Brenham, and
thus became to his new friends and associates one “J. W. Swain.” Unenviably, he was the subject of the biggest manhunt
and the largest reward the state of
Texas
had ever posted for a single man: four thousand dollars, “Dead or
Alive.”
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In August of 1877 a
drunken friend Brown Bowen exposed
John
Wesley after getting pummeled in a row with William Chipley, the
butt-kicking manager of the Pensacola Railroad. Swain was actually
the notorious
outlaw
Hardin,
Bowen blustered, and would no doubt show up to exact revenge for the
beating his comrade had taken. That and the knowledge of such an
unprecedented reward was enough to inspire the piqued authorities to
promptly set a trap– minus the legal formality of an arrest warrant, but
armed with hardware appropriate to their time and task. Bill Chipley,
Florida Sheriff William Hutchinson and some twenty other deputies made the
arrest as he boarded a train on August 23rd, 1877.
Hardin
was viscously pistol whipped as he struggled to pull a hidden Colt .44
that he’d secured all too well underneath his leather suspenders.
Had he been able to draw
before being clubbed unconscious, he’d most likely have been killed. By nature a free and self reliant man, he was thoroughly terrorized by the
thought of incarceration.... and even more so by the possibility of being
seized by a mob like his brother Joe was, shackled and unable to react in
his own defense. “I had the glad consciousness, however,”
John
Wesley writes, “of knowing that I had done all that courage and
strength could do, and that I had kept my oath never to surrender at the
point of a pistol.” Extradited back to Comanche to stand trial for
the killing of Webb,
Hardin
was on his way to what would prove to be a lengthy stint in the
Texas
Penitentiary in Huntsville. He was subsequently sentenced to
twenty-five years at hard labor, at only twenty-four years and three
months of age.
Needless to say the
individualistic
Hardin
didn’t adjust very well to confinement, as evidenced by his repeated
escape attempts in spite of the severe floggings and solitary confinement
that inevitably followed. After being punished numerous times for
“attempted escape, mutinous behavior, conspiracy, insubordination” and
numerous lesser offenses,
John
Wesley settled down sufficiently to study law and actually pass his
bar examination. His letters to his wife became sporadic and often
emotionally distant, though he insisted she was never far from his mind.
“Do you think that it
would be impossible for me to forget you ,” he asks her in a letter from
prison, “one who you well know I love and adore above all others....?” He closed with “I remain your true and devoted husband. Until
death.”
Hardin
served a total of sixteen years, from 1878 until February of 1894. While he paced in the prison yard or read law books in his cell, America
witnessed the introduction of smokeless powder cartridges, Browning’s
improved Winchesters, and a general end to the Indian Wars.... plus
electric street lights and motors, the subway, the Kodak camera, cross
country skis, the pneumatic tire and bingo. Dvorak and Tchaikovsky
experienced heady competition from Gilbert & Sullivan, and Henry Ford
built his first car.
Hardin
was set loose with a new suit and a state issued check for just under
fifteen dollars. His mother that had always loved and protected him
had died during his imprisonment, in 1885, and his son in early 1893. His wife Jane, faithful and supportive throughout her impoverished
separation, died at age thirty-six.... only one year and fours months
before
John Wesley's release.
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