Customer Reviews

Wild Bill Hickok, Gunfighter: An Account of Hickok's Gunfights

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While U. S. writers sat around like geese trying to hatch a porcelain doorknob, and academics made faces over Western heroes, it took an enterprising Englishman to look up Wild Bill's family down in our neck of the woods at Troy Grove. They added the smidgen of new information and the personal touch that Rosa used to make his reputation as the world's foremost Hickok authority, which he incontestably is.

However, readers should be wary of claims of sensational new information uncovered in this sort of book, where the writer has obviously spun off a new version of the same old thing, with perhaps a kernel or two of new stuff, which indeed makes the new book worthwhile if you want a comprehensive Western Library, but hardly justifies kleig lights. We all knew 95% of what Rosa chews and re-chews from the Chicago Tribune Sunday supplements, but he winnowed the chaff of sensationalism out of it, and identified the pure grain, much to his credit.

Hickok comes across as what he was - a good, brave lawman who faced some bad characters that tried to kill him for his peace keeping efforts on behalf of various communities and finally for his reputation. Don't believe anything else. My great grandfather was parish minister for the Church of God at Troy Grove, and I have his 1871 license yet. My family knew Wild Bill as Jim when he came home on visits. He frolicked in the creek with the farm boys, helped get in hay, and generally was an all around good fellow. Naturally people tried to pry blood and thunder tales out of him, but didn't have much luck. If he'd ever told one, it would have come down to us in his home territory. They could always get a pistol shooting display out of him, though, and when I was a kid, we didn't talk about Wyatt Earp, of whom few had heard, but of Wild Bill.

Generally a derned good book to have, and certainly has the first believable verification of the fact from public records that Jim Hickok really was a very very good pistol shot and cool under fire. He was 75 yards away from Dave Tutt when he shot him dead center, and was under fire when he did it. None of us back home doubted the stories of Hickok cutting a card edgewise at 25 yards or so, or hitting dimes thrown in the air, but nobody made a sworn statement about it.

Another thing about what we heard that should be remembered is that we heard it only fifty years after he was gone, from people that remembered how he looked, the sound of his voice and laugh, and what they saw with their own eyes. (Fifty years ago today is 1953 and the world is full of people who were already adults at that time and thus capable of mature judgments.)

Go it, Joe! Another good job.

Having loved Rosa's earlier works on this subject, it was with great excitement that I learned of the release of this latest in his biographical series. I was anticipating some new facts being brought to light through Rosa's extensive and on-going reserach.

But I was dissapointed in this book. Simply because there is no new information that wasn't already uncovered in his earlier Hickok bios. I was left with the impression that Rosa has exhausted his research on this subject and was motivated to write this book by his obvious monumental passion regarding this western legend.

The breakdown of events leading up to, during, and after each of these gunfights, has already been covered in his earlier works. Even his interesting theories such as the possibility that it was NOT Hickok who did all the killing in the Rock Creek incident have already been discussed in detail in his earlier works.

Rosa got me hooked on this subject years ago with the first edition of "They Called Him Wild Bill." And since then I have read and loved all of his subsequent follow-up works on Hickok. I would have been happy even if he had uncovered just one shred of new information in this book, but it wasn't the case.

This being said, I do reccomend this book as a starting point (even though it is the latest in his series) for anybody who wants a quick and well researched read on Hickok's gunfights. But for a more detailed history of Hickok, the man, along with his gunfights, any of his earlier biographies will serve for better reading.

There IS a chapter in this book that covers in typical Rosa detail, the fire-arms Hickok used or may have used in each gunfight. But as for new information on Hickok himself, or his gunfights, it won't be found here if you have already read his earlier works.----But hey, if this guy writes another bio on Hickok, I'll still rush out to buy it for if any new information does come to light, I'm sure he'll be the one who uncovers it.

If you're looking for one book on Wild Bill's life, this is not it. Instead, read Rosa's They Called Him Wild Bill: The Life and Adventures of James Butler Hickok. This book has nothing on Hickok's Civil War experience, no evaluation of the tales of his shooting prowess, no account of his days on the plains or on the stage.

It is a detailed look at the five documented gunfights -- and death -- of Hickok. Rosa reconstructs each with contemporary records, presents diagrams and timelines, and looks at the weapons each party used. He also looks at how Hickok wore his guns and the provenance of several guns claimed to have been carried by Wild Bill.

For hardcore Wild Bill devotees, there is some new information uncovered by Rosa since _They Called Him Wild Bill_.

The illustrations are both plentiful and useful.

If you are interested in light reading strictly for entertainment this is not the book. If you are looking for accurate information on the guns "Wild Bill" used and documented information on his exploits, this one is hard to beat. You should probably read "They Called Him Wild Bill", same author, before reading this.

As the title suggests, this is a book about Wild Bill's gunfights. As it turns out, there are not so many of them, despite his reputation as a gunfight. It also includes chapters on period guns, Hickok's own guns, his burial and reburial sites, among other such matters. The most valuable parts to me were photographs of reenactors showing how contemporaries drew guns.

Rosa likes to stay close to his sources, warts and all. Rather than put together what he thinks is the correct narrative of a gunfight, he'll give one version of the story, and then another, and then evaluate their relative accuracy. That would be helpful, I suppose, if I wanted to write my own book on the gunfights. I don't. I'd rather just have the best story he can give us in good conscience.

The section on Wild Bill's guns is similar. It turns out that most of the guns supposed to have been his are poorly provenanced, and a alleged items are clearly not his because of conflicts of dates. It seems odd to me to write a chapter on a bunch of guns that mostly aren't Hickok's.

If you're a Hickok fanatic, this book is probably essential. For the general reader, most of the material has been presented in a frustrating way, in a way that would likely interest the fanatic but not us. Alas, the fanatic probably knows all this material already from Rosa's other books, so it's not clear who the audience is for this book.

I've always been interested in Wild Bill Hickok and many of the other gunfighters who were immortalized by the western novels, newspapers and the motion picture/ television media when I was a boy. Late in life I learned that William F. (Buffalo Bill) Cody was my fifth cousin and that my grandmother had actually spent time with him when she was a child. That information caused me to start researching Buffalo Bill. James Butler Hickok was young "Buffalo Bill's" mentor and guardian when the preteen Cody was beginning his career working on wagon freight trains and as a Pony Express rider. Hickok and the Cody family remained lifelong friends. I mention this fact only to tip off the reader to this reviewer's favorable bias toward Hickok.

The part of Joseph G. Rosa's account of Hickok's gunfights that most interested me was the killing of Davis Tutt in the public square of my hometown of Springfield, Missouri. Rosa does an excellent job of telling the story of that infamous gunfight, which was "one of the few stand-up, face-to-face, duel-type gunfights of the gun fighting era."(1851-1900) "It was a fair fight where both participants retained their honor." Rosa goes into great detail quoting all the eyewitness accounts of the time. He describes the long-time friendship of the two men that began when both were scouts during the Civil War--Hickok for the Union and Tutt for the Confederacy. He describes the gambling quarrel the two men had the day before the gunfight when Tutt left with Wild Bill's watch to hold until an old disputed debt was settled. Hickok was attempting to avoid a gunfight with his long-time friend. Numerous people witnessed the fight and the details of the trial were described. Hickok was found to have fought in self-defense and went on to become a legend of the old west including many appearances in his friend Buffalo Bill's world famous "Wild West Show." Cody coined that term.

Hickok loved to drink, gamble, brawl with his fists as well as weapons and wasn't tame enough to be suited for show business or the big city so he returned to the Wild West frontier. He was involved in several famous gunfights and Rosa does his usual thorough job of trying to separate the fact from the myth. Each of his most famous gunfights is described in great detail with charts showing, mapping, the various locations and the action that took place. The book talks about the various weapons used by Hickok in great detail along with a series of pictures of experts showing how Hickok drew his guns from their unusual butt facing frontward hostlers. The author makes the discussions of the various weapons interesting even for the non-gun enthusiast. As Buffalo Bill reported in his own autobiography, Hickok didn't speak often, but when he did, people listened and obeyed. The sections about Hickok's murder in Deadwood, S.D. and the acquittal of his killer Jack McCall are the most famous incidents in the gunfighter's life. How he was later retried and hanged is also an interesting story reported in detail in this volume. Hickok's burials (his gravesite was moved) and his march into legend is also a fascinating story. Hickok is buried in section 1, lot 71 of Mount Moriah Cemetery. Calamity Jane (Martha Jane Cannary) is buried in lot 70. This is an excellent, easy to read book about one of America's most famous and colorful characters of the Wild West. The book's author makes the various scenes almost come to life for the reader. He has written several other hard-to-put-down books about Hickok.

Rosa is unquestionably the leading expert on Hickok. This book details Wild Bill's various "gunfights," in all their sad or sordid detail. As usual, the truth is much less spectacular than the fiction. For those unfamiliar with how the old six-shooters worked (or didn't work), this book is an excellent primer. Included is Bill's last "gunfight," his pathetic murder in a sad little saloon in the notorious town of Deadwood.

Rosa has written a great popular historical survey of Hickok's various gunfights starting with the Rock Creek incident and ending with his assassination in Deadwood. Rosa even provides photos of reenactors demonstrating Hickok's various modes of carry for his pistols and how he variously drew them from the holster. There is a lengthy discussion concerning the weapons Hickok carried, and Rosa discusses various contraversies surrounding some of the gunfights. Rosa is to be thanked for writing about Hickok because prior to his first work on Hickok there was a paucity of serious scholarship on the man. "Gunfighter history" historically has suffered from sloppy writing and sloppy scholarship. Rosa's writing is the polar opposite. And his judgements and conclusions are well-reasoned and judicious. He has methodically researched most aspects of Hickok's life,and this book is the result of his inquiry into the martial aspect of that life. Although,Rosa should have discussed how Hickok acquired his interest in firearms, and pistols in particular,in his formative years if at all possible. And how did Hickok attain such tremendous skill with his pistols? Did he shoot much in his youth? These questions are not addressed, but it does not detract much from the overall quality of this work. On the contrary,the only reason the scholarship on Hickok is reliable and good is because of Rosa,and he should be heartily commended. If anyone has a serious interest in Hickok they will want to read this book. Although,if one has not read Rosa's biography of Hickok-"They Called Him Wild Bill"-they should read that in addition to this fine work.

This book does little to inform the reader of Hickock. If you are interested in the guns of the era then probably it is. Book arrived in a timely manner and was in good shape.