Such Men as Billy the Kid: The Lincoln County War Reconsidered [Paperback]

Joel Jacobsen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 28, 1997

During the 1870s a group of merchants and their allies, known as "The House," gained control over the economy of Lincoln County, New Mexico. In 1877 this control was challenged by an English entrepreneur, John Tunstall. The House violently resisted the interloper, eventually killing him; Tunstall's employees and supporters, known as the Regulators, sought to take vengeance on the House by killing those responsible for Tunstall's death. Among the Regulators was a young man known as Billy the Kid.

This story of greed, violence, and death has entered American folklore through the mythologizing of the career of Billy the Kid and also through a tendency to see the Lincoln County War as an archetype of Western history. As are Dodge City, Boot Hill, and the OK Corral, the Lincoln County War is emblematic of frontier lawlessness.

The story has been often retold, and central to many of the accounts is the question of right and wrong, even of good and evil; was Billy the Kid merely a thug, a gun-for-hire, in an amoral turf battle between rival gangs? Or was the Kid actually a participant in a brave but doomed attempt to wrest control of a defenseless town from a corrupt and vicious band?

Basing his account on a careful reexamination of the evidence, particularly on expressions of public sentiment, court records, and the actions of Tunstall and the House, Jacobsen subjects traditional attitudes—both the "Billy as martyr" and the "war among thieves" explanations—to a searching reexamination, and finds that—as with most things in life—the truth lies somewhat between.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This new examination of Billy the Kid and the Lincoln County wars reflects renewed interest of a more serious sort in these legendary tales immortalized in movie Westerns and popular histories. Jacobsen, an assistant attorney general in New Mexico, crafts a compelling account, although his claims that the conflict was atypical are often belied by the light shed on race, capitalism, law, and the relationship between violence and order in the Old West. One will overlook the occasional misstep in discovering how a feud between competing business interests escalated into a series of clashes settled by force; the capture and death of Bill Bonney, alias "Billy the Kid," appears more colorful than central to the course of events. Dispassionate yet lively, this book sets Billy's career and the conflicts in Lincoln County in context. The engaging narrative will please and provoke scholar, well-versed buff, and newcomer alike.
Brooks D. Simpson, Arizona State Univ., Tempe
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

The Lincoln County War was a tawdry little conflict between competing economic and political factions in New Mexico during the 1870s. The war entered American mythology primarily due to the exploits (real or imagined) of Henry McCarty, also known as William Antrim or Billy Bonney--or, of course, Billy the Kid. Jacobsen, an assistant attorney general in New Mexico, lays out his case much like a legal brief. Evidence is examined in a meticulous manner, and he builds from specific events to general conclusions. While his analysis of the key players and their actions is rational and often interesting, those seeking a romantic perspective or higher truths will be sorely disappointed. Still, some of the lesser-known characters emerge as rather striking figures, particularly Alexander McSween, an attorney and a key leader of the faction opposing the entrenched political interests in Lincoln County. Despite the title, Billy the Kid is given short shrift here, since Jacobsen feels he was actually a rather minor player in the events, despite the efforts of dime novelists. Jacobsen's work doesn't enthrall or inspire, but he has provided a solid work of historical research and an interesting perspective on a piece of Americana. Jay Freeman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 322 pages
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press (July 28, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803276060
• ISBN-13: 978-0803276062
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,423,227 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

As an undergraduate I was lucky enough to study intensively with Marvin Mudrick, author of "Books Are Not Life, but Then What Is?" (I've yet to hear a convincing answer to that question.)

I was just 16 when I began at the College of Creative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, which Dr. Mudrick founded. When I once confessed to him how self-conscious I felt about my age, he demanded: "Why? It's not like you have two heads." He didn't mean it metaphorically. But as a metaphor it exactly captured what it felt like to be a high school junior living the life of a college freshman.

UCSB was a big state university but the College, housed in a converted WW II-era Marine Corps barracks, was a tiny island in the middle of it. It had just 130 or so students in my day. Among them were Jervey Tervalon, Lydia Bird, Kia Penso and Steven Voien, all of whose books you can find here on Amazon. There was a lot of talent in a very small space.

But most of the thousands of other UCSB students weren't future authors. An impressive percentage lived up to the stereotype of a tanned, swimsuited, surfing student body. I was a member of that body, but then again I wasn't, for in the privacy of my own pale body I was scared of the ocean. We didn't have such noisy, heaving things where I came from.

It was a bit difficult to say where exactly I came from, except that it was inland. I was born in a city from which my family moved before my first birthday. That cross-country move provided a neat geographical dividing line between my infancy and childhood. We spent the next 10 years in a green, prosperous suburb of Cleveland.

And then the family moved to brown, impoverished New Mexico, drawing another geographic dividing line, this one between my childhood and adolescence. I think it's not actually possible to find two places in the contiguous 48 states less alike than Shaker Heights and Albuquerque (though an Amish farmer driving his buggy down the Las Vegas strip might disagree). Everything my childhood home was, my adolescent home wasn't.

That upbringing was training for my college experience of having two heads, of being simultaneously a part of and apart from my environment. A year in Dublin at Trinity College gave me the perspective to understand just how thoroughly American I was in my attitudes and assumptions. Living abroad at a young age is the only reliable way to learn what things you take for granted.

But then I decided to go to law school. For the Sake of Argument begins: "My decision to apply to law school was shrouded in such ignorance about the legal profession that I find it hard to reconstruct what was going through my mind." I had very little idea of what I was getting into.

I was soon to discover that the pall of half-knowingness wouldn't soon lift. Law schools withhold information from their students with the passive-aggressiveness of a lover your friends would advise you to dump.

I started at a public law school, transferred to a private one, and even spent a year studying law in Germany on a Fulbright scholarship. I can report that the German system of legal education is rational.

Once you have the law degree in hand, you quickly discover you know almost nothing about the practice of law. I don't mean only that you don't know how to practice the profession, but that law schools don't consider it part of their job to ready their students to make decisions about their careers.

I interviewed with many law firms and found it impossible to detect any difference between them, even though law firm are as distinct as families. Not one of the firms provided an honest preview of the worklife on offer. No one lied to me, so far as I know. I just wasn't told the important things. I didn't know enough to ask.

Over the course of my career I've worked at a large firm, a small startup firm, and for the government. I've done criminal and civil law, big cases and small, in trial courts and on appeal. I've written law review articles and taught Paralegal Studies courses. I once tried to become a professor. Like a collector of vintage postcards, I've acquired a lot of perspectives.

I wrote the book with the ambition of including everything I know now that I wish I'd known then, with the "then" being each time I made a lifecourse-altering decision about law school and my legal career. The decisions were made with such lack of knowledge that it's hardly an exaggeration to describe my 27-year involvement in the legal world as a succession of random events.

After reading the book, you won't have the excuse of such ignorance. But then, you won't need it.

I'm a great fan of Scott Turow's One L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School, but no one will ever confuse the two books. Not only does For the Sake of Argument start the story before application to law school and continue it well into the subsequent career, but the earnestness of the first year law student has long since been beaten out of me, as I'm sure it has out of Turow.

The most important professional skill a young lawyer can develop is an appreciation for absurdity. It's the best protection against disillusionment.

My ideal review of For the Sake of Argument would describe it as "the funniest serious book about the law ever written." Lawyer friends who read the manuscript worried that I went too far in places. But, as Dr. Mudrick (who was hilarious) liked to say, humor excuses everything.

If the book makes you laugh, I'll know I went too far enough.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This book is pretty good, April 19, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Such Men as Billy the Kid: The Lincoln County War Reconsidered (Paperback)

I can smell revisionist history and political correctness a mile away, but I must say, I didn't find any in this book. I'm a bit surprised that another reviewer felt that way. The probability that a shifty, shadowy 21 year old "kid" was not the mover and shaker in this sordid little war should surprise no one. I don't know Mr. Jacobsen's political leanings, but his writing is crisp, clear and a pleasure to read. This in spite of the fact that the Lincoln County War's causes were the rather mundane ones of protection of business and political interests that escalated out of control. Jacobsen has his opinions no question, but he still makes a good case and he is a very lucid writer. He doesn't preach an agenda. I found the book interesting and informative.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The first "must buy" since Utley's books for Billy buffs., November 3, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Such Men as Billy the Kid: The Lincoln County War Reconsidered (Hardcover)

The most revealing, entertaining and well-written factual account of the Lincoln County (NM) wars since Utley's last book. No less a newspaper than The Washington Post calls this a "lively, lucid, compelling account of complex and confusing events about which scholars are still puzzling." The Post is correct (Kirkus is wrong). If you're a Billy the Kid junkie, first read Utley's "Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent Life." THEN, read this book by Jacobsen. From Utley, you'll get to know Billy. From Jacobsen, you'll discover that Bill Bonney was mostly a hanger-on who became an overnight celebrity and was killed shortly thereafter. The REAL players in this story are Tunstall and Murphy and Dolan and McSween and Catron and Brady -- so much so, that not until the final third of the book does the Kid REALLY come into play. If you like your history unvarnished, the sources impeccably reproduced, the background thorough -- this is the book for you. Whoever wrote the Kirkus review is wrong. This is not only entertaining, it is fascinating in its human portrayals of people out to make a buck and control county politics in the new territory of New Mexico. Trust the Chicago Tribune, which describes Jacobsen's book as "...a tonic to the hysterical and sensational accounts of the past."

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Billy the Kid was one of the good guys, December 27, 2003

By 

Don G. Schley "doktor don" (Colorado Springs, Colorado USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Such Men as Billy the Kid: The Lincoln County War Reconsidered (Paperback)

Jacobsen's account of the Lincoln County War amounts to a long overdue exposé of the political corruption of New Mexico's territorial Republican establishment, and that establishment's willingness to kill all manner of innocent persons to maintain the capital stakes of its respective players. I write this statement as a modern Republican activist. The viewpoint is necessary, however, to understand modern New Mexico politics, right down to the Anglo-Hispanic division that all too often still exists in that state.

From the murder of English entrepreneur John Henry Tunstall by a "posse" of outlaws sent with the blessing of Lincoln County Sheriff John Brady, one of the primary villains in the affair, to the cold-blooded murder of Tunstall's lawyer and surviving partner, Alexander McSween, with the help of another "posse" led by famed murderer and rapist John Kinney and his own army of bandits, the reader is shocked to see the misapplication of law to protect the guilty.

In this entire affair, William Henry Bonney, later known as "Billy the Kid", was simply a Tunstall hand and loyalist, and one of many Tunstall and McSween partisans to carry the fight to the perpetrators when the corrupt Sheriff Brady refused to have the murderers rounded up and tried. The Tunstall and McSween partisans, commissioned by the local justice of the peace to bring in the killers Brady would not, formed themselves into a semi-formalized group calling themselves "the Regulators". Here, Billy Bonney was one of the Regulators' crack shots, but the leaders were Dick Brewer and Frank McNab, both killed in the course of the war.

Against the regulators, the corrupt establishment brought to bear the weight of the established military outpost at Ft. Stanton, west of Lincoln. The commander, Col. Dudley, actively breached the posse comitatus act of 1878 to side with the forces of J.J. Dolan, Murphy, US attorneys Rynerson and Catron, and Governor Axtell. Thus, Dudley committed his men to the final siege of the regulators in Lincoln, which culminated in the shocking murder of Alexander McSween and two partisans as they attempted to surrender to Deputy Beckwith.

The story vindicates Billy Bonney to some extent. While the murders of Tunstall and McSween were never punished (the establishment never attempted to punish them), Bonney was the only one singled out for execution. The appearance, in fact, is that the territorial government of Lew Wallace chose him as the scapegoat for the general breakdown in public order.

Indeed, the author successfully demonstrates that the "Lincoln County War" resulted from the partisanship of successive territorial governors, and the federal officers in Santa Fe, in a matter having to do with two competing enterprises in Lincoln. In this sense, the Lincoln County War was a case of Republican monopolists bringing in armed paramilitary forces to get rid of their upstart English competitor, who was thriving on the patronage of the ancestral Hispanic community. The "Ludlow Massacre", which took place just across the New Mexico line in Colorado sometime later, represents a similar case, where the state powers intervened on behalf of established economic interests (there, the mining firms) against disgruntled miners and their families. In both instances, the "good guys" lost.

Jacobsen brings to his work a successful prosecuting attorney's clear eye for evidence and testimony, and a singular degree of industry in working through the vast amount of material available to him. He relies notably on the heretofore largely ignored investigative records of the US justice department's special agent Angel, sent to investigate the misdoings of US Attorney Catron (the boss of the Santa Fe Ring) and Gov. Axtell. He does not set out to vindicate Billy Bonney, but his narrative leads in that direction. Along the way, he writes real history, where what we have gotten up until now has basically been establishment history.

My own take from the books is that Billy Bonney was one of the good guys, an Anglo cowhand and crack shot who threw in his hand with the Englishman John Tunstall, and who remained loyal to his mentor after Tunstall's murder. An interesting note is that Bonney was a ladies' man, and that he had wide popular support, especially in Lincoln proper, and among the Hispanic cowhands of the region, who rode with him. He was fluent in Spanish (uncommon among Anglos at the time) and his last words were spoken in that tongue.

Several striking facts highlight the miscarriage of justice in Bonney's case: the subsequent success of the villains, including Catron, appointed as the first US Senator to the new state of New Mexico, the acquittal of Col. Dudley on his own testimony in the face of the sworn testimony of 21 witnesses so that he could retire with pay of a full general, the escape of the murderer Jesse Evans (one of Tunstall's shooters), and the failure of Gov. Lew Wallace (author of the novel Ben Hur) to grant Bonney a promised full pardon in return for Bonney's testimony against the killers of Sue McSween's lawyer, Chapman.

Too often, the forces of law in the western territories were forces of corruption and crime. Wyatt Earp and his brothers faced a similar situation in Tombstone, Arizona, where Sheriff Johnny Behan held power, but Earp was able to command better and more effective guns than "the Regulators". As a result, he was able to hunt down and kill those who had shot his two brothers, Virgil and Morgan. Consequently, the Earps, along with their partisan Doc Holladay, avoided Billy Bonney's fate and went down in history as upholders of law and order, and not as outlaws.

Jacobsen's book is so factually based and at the same time so well-narrated that it makes for a gripping read. I chopped through it in three days of sporadic concentration. The only other account of the Old West that can compare is the late Paul Wellman's A Dynasty of Western Outlaws, which details the rise and fall of the James-Younger Gang and its successors.