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After the
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in October, 1881, and
Morgan Earp's murder on March 18, 1882, in a
Tombstone,
Arizona pool hall,
Wyatt and
Warren Earp, along with
Doc Holliday,
"Turkey Creek"
Jack Johnson and Sherman McMasters escorted the
Earp family out of
Tombstone to Tucson,
Arizona on March 20th.
There,
Wyatt spied
Frank Stillwell, who he suspected of having been involved in the killing of Morgan and
heard, was now seeking revenge on Virgil. The next morning a very dead,
bullet-ridden
Frank Stillwell was found on the tracks next to the depot. This
was the first death in what would become known as the Earp Vendetta Ride. |
Tombstone,
Arizona in 1882.
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Wyatt would later tell his biographers that he had spied
Frank Stillwell and Ike
Clanton lying prone on a
flatcar with shotguns and that he had killed
Stillwell but that Ike had
escaped.
The
Earp group quickly returned
to
Tombstone
but by March 21st, a warrant had been issued for the arrest of Wyatt Earp,
Warren Earp,
Doc Holiday,
"Turkey Creek"
Jack Johnson and Sherman McMasters as suspects in the murder of
Stillwell.
Pima County justice of the
peace, Charles Meyer sent a telegram
Johnny Behan indicating that the men should
be arrested. However, the manager of the telegraph office was a friend of the
Earps and showed the message to
Wyatt before delivering it to
Behan. He agreed
to hold on to it for a little while, allowing the
Earp group some time to get
out of
Tombstone. However, just as they were leaving,
Behan approached Wyatt,
saying that he wanted to see him. To this, Wyatt replied, "Johnny if you're not
careful you'll see me once too often" and the group left. Later, it would be
said that
Earp's group had resisted arrest and pulled their guns on
Behan.
For the next three weeks,
Wyatt and
Warren Earp, along with several of their friends, namely
Doc Holiday,
Sherman McMasters,
"Turkey Creek"
Jack Johnson, and "Texas Jack" Vermillion would
form a "posse” and go after those they felt responsible for Morgan’s death, as
well as others that supported the
Clanton faction. More men were also thought to
have supported the
Earps in their revenge including Dan Tipton. Charlie Smith,
Fred Dodge, Johnny Green, and Lou Cooley.
Sometimes called the Arizona
War or Cochise County War,
Earp had been deputized as a
U.S. Deputy Marshal
and led his force under federal jurisdiction with a warrant for
William "Curly Bill" Brocious. This, however; did not stop
Earps "posse” being pursued by a Cochise County sheriff’s posse
consisting of Sheriff
Johnny Behan, deputies Fin Clanton
and
Johnny Ringo, along with some 20 other
Clanton "Cowboys”, in an effort to
arrest the
Earps for the killing of
Frank Stillwell. The
Behan posse
deliberately failed to include Pima County Sheriff Bob Paul, who actually had
jurisdiction for the Tucson killing of
Stillwell.
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 However,
Behan's group, though
much larger, never caught up with the
Earp faction. In the meantime, the
Earp
posse killed at least four men, including
Frank Stillwell.
The first man to be killed by
the
Earp faction was Florentino Cruz, also known as Indian Charlie. Cruz, along
with Pete Spence,
Frank Stillwell,
Curly Bill, and others, had been prime
suspects in
Morgan's killing.
Pete Spence had earlier turned himself in so that
he could be protected in
Behan's jail, but the
Earp faction was unaware of this.
On March 22nd, the
Earps rode into Pete Spence's ranch at South Pass in the
Dragoon Mountains, looking for Spence. There, they found instead, "Indian
Charlie,” who, according to a later account by Wyatt, confessed to acting as a
lookout while the others killed
Morgan.
Wyatt shot him.
Two days later, the
Earp
faction caught up with several of the "cowboys” at Iron Springs,
Arizona. Led
by
Curly Bill Brocius,
others of the "cowboy” faction included Pony Deal, Johnny Barnes, Frank
Patterson, Milt Hicks, Bill Hicks, Bill Johnson, Ed Lyle, Johnny Lyle, and by
some accounts,
"Dirty Dave" Rudabaugh. Inevitably, a
shoot-out ensued, but the
Earps were heavily outnumbered and began to retreat.
However, before they did so, Wyatt
allegedly killed both
Curly Bill and Johnny Barnes.
Though some said that
Curly Bill survived, he was never seen again.
This account is often questioned as accurate as it came from Wyatt
Earp himself, who was known to exaggerate his exploits.
In the meantime, the trial for
Morgan
Earp's murder was beginning back in
Tombstone, but
Pete Spence was soon released,
without anyone to testify against him. Spence would later serve time in prison
on a charge of murder. After his release he married Fin Clanton’s widow in 1910.
Four years later he died and is buried in Globe,
Arizona, in the plot next to
Fin.
By the middle of April, 1882,
the
Earp posse had been riding for nearly three weeks when they rested at Henry
Hooker's Sierra Bonita Ranch in shadow of the Graham Mountains.
Behan's posse
found out their location, but the rest of his posse abandoned him. Afterwards,
the
Earp faction drove Ike
Clanton, Pony Deal, Hank Swilling and others out of
the territory.
Knowing that they could not get
a fair trial in Tucson for killing
Stillwell, the
Earp posse finally gave up and
headed to Colorado around April 15th.
Though the "ride” appeared to
be over,
Johnny Ringo was found dead on July 18th, 1882, some say at the hands of
Wyatt and Doc Holliday who had returned to kill him. Other "cowboys” also began
to die, including Billy Grounds, killed by Billy Breakenridge;
Billy William "Billy the Kid" Claiborne by "Buckskin Frank” Leslie; and Pony Deal was killed in a
gunfight.
©
Kathy Weiser/Legends
of America, updated March, 2009.
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