Kirjahaku

Eulogised and ostracised, James Butler Hickok was alternately labelled courageous, affable, and self-confident; cowardly, cold-blooded, and drunken; a fine specimen of manhood; an overdressed dandy with perfumed hair; an unequaled marksman; and a poor shot. Born in Illinois in 1837, he was shot dead in Deadwood only 39 years later. By then both famous and infamous, he was widely known as ""Wild Bill"". Excavating the reality behind the myth, this text delves into the exploits and ego that defined Hickok, and shows how the man was overtaken by his own legend. Rosa exposes a controversial and charismatic man - army and Indian scout, wagon master, courier, frontiersman, gunfighter, lawman, prospector, addicted gambler, and actor - who was elevated from regional fame to national notoriety by inadvertently being in the right place at the right time. Aggrandized in an 1867 ""Harper's New Monthly Magazine"" article, Hickok reluctantly embraced his exaggerated role in a far-fetched story that has inspired writers, folklorists and movie moguls. Dime novelists sensationalised him. Biographers praised and criticised. Gary Cooper portrayed him sensitively, Douglas Kennedy villainously, and Charles Bronson laconically. Howard Keel played him romantically (albeit historically incorrectly) against Doris Day's Calamity Jane. Culminating four decades of research on Wild West legends, this work aims to provide an accurate account of the larger-than-life character whose reported accomplishments - both real and imaginary - in Kansas, Missouri, and the surrounding territory frequently brought him unwanted publicity. Setting the record straight, Rosa exposes some of the deliberate lies that vested Hickok with a ""man-killer"" reputation he didn't deserve. The book shows that the number of men he killed is probably a lot closer to ten than to the more than 100 he is often credited with. Establishing the role an overzealous press and fortune-seeking dime novelists played in immortalising Wild Bill, Rosa reveals how myths were initiated and perpetuated to glorify the 19th-century frontier. He also illuminates why imaginative accounts of unorthodox heroes continue to skew our understanding of this era of American history.

His contemporaries called him Wild Bill, and newspapermen and others made him a legend in his own time. Among western characters only General George Armstrong Custer and Buffalo Bill Cody are as readily recognized by the general public. In writing this biography, Joseph G. Rosa has expressed the hope that "Hickok emerges as a man and not a legend." For this comprehensive revision of his earlier biography of Wild Bill the author was allowed to work from newly available materials in the possession of the Hickok family. He also discovered new material pertaining to Wild Bill's Civil War exploits and his service as a marshal and found the pardon file of his murderer, John McCall. Additional, rare photographs of Wild Bill are published here for the first time. The results of Rosa's additional research make this second edition the best biography of Wild Bill likely to be written for years to come.

The gunfighter was a man bred in a lawless and violent era of civil war, range wars, and greed for land and gold. He played a real and deadly part in a period when men were conditioned to settle differences with gunplay. He shot and fought and killed throughout Texas in its struggle with Mexico, along the Kansas-Missouri border, and up and down the cattle trails. Black powder smoke from his guns darkened the Kansas cow towns and the Far West mining camps. What part of the gunfighter legend is true, and what part a novelist's or screenwriter's fantasy? What has been the gunfighter's influence on American society-and. for that matter, on world society? For there is no doubt that the shoot-'em-up gun-totin' hero of the early West is a figure of interest and sympathy to people all over the world.Well documented and rich with illustrations of gunfights and gunmen, this book is a real find for gunfighter buffs, as well as for all readers interested in knowing what the wild West was really like.

Of all the Old West figures whose images eventually found their way into our popular culture, none was better known than Wild Bill Hickok. This book, a companion volume to Joseph Rosa's exhaustive biography, They Called Him Wild Bill, reproduces in one volume nearly all the known portraits of Wild Bill, together with photographs of his family, his friends, his foes, and the places that knew him.

"James Butler Hickok, generally called 'Wild Bill, ' epitomized the archetypal gunfighter, that half-man, half-myth that became the heir to the mystique of the duelist when that method of resolving differences waned. . . . Easy access to a gun and whiskey coupled with gambling was the cause of most gunfights--few of which bore any resemblance to the gentlemanly duel of earlier times. . . . Hickok's gunfights were unusual in that most of them were 'fair' fights, not just killings resulting from rage, jealousy over a woman, or drunkenness. And, the majority of his encounters were in his role as lawman or as an individual upholding the law."--from Wild Bill Hickok, GunfighterWild Bill Hickok (1837-1876) was a Civil War spy and scout, Indian fighter, gambler, and peace officer. He was also one of the greatest gunfighters in the West. His peers referred to his reflexes as "phenomenal" and to his skill with a pistol as "miraculous." In Wild Bill Hickok, Gunfighter, Joseph G. Rosa, the world's foremost authority on Hickok, provides an informative examination of Hickok's many gunfights.Rosa describes the types of guns used by Hickok and illustrates his use of the plains' style of "quick draw," as well as examining other elements of the Hickok legend. He even reconsiders the infamous "dead man's hand" allegedly held by Hickok when he was shot to death at age thirty-nine while playing poker. Numerous photographs and drawings accompany Rosa's down-to-earth text.

A view into the smoke-filled saloons, brothels, and gambling ""hells"" of the frontier WestJoseph Lowe attracted trouble the way a magnet draws iron. Eventually this strange talent cost him his life, but not before he had made his mark in a good many towns of the frontier West. ""Rowdy Joe,"" folks called him. He was every bit of that and more.The life that earned him his nickname began after the Civil War, when he mustered out of the Union Army and went West. He apparently worked as a mule skinner and at other jobs before getting into the entertainment business - saloons, dance halls, gambling parlors, brothels - at Ellsworth, Kansas.In this book the authors explain how taxation was used to control and manipulate what some called ""this evil in our midst."" In telling the story of Joe Lowe and his place in frontier history, they also focus on the measures taken by city councils to extract cash from the ""locusts of lechery"" in an effort to curtail their activities.Communities that employed police to enforce local ordinances and state laws found that enforced taxation was not only less deadly than the six-shooter, but more productive. Harsh fines could be imposed for ""soliciting"" or running a saloon or ""house"" without a license, and in this manner the city benefited from revenue paid for the privilege of remaining in business. Some like Lowe refused to pay, but invariably they met defeat.When things got hot in Kansas, Joe tried Texas, and then Colorado. It was in Denver that Joe got drunk once too often, repeatedly antagonized a former policeman, and was shot and killed.Rowdy Joe Lowe is a view into the smoke-filled saloons, brothels, and gambling ""hells"" of those who prospered or perished amongst the pasteboard pirates, pimps, or other characters of the frontier West.

In the 1870s, Deadwood was a thriving - and largely lawless - boomtown. And as any fan of western history and films knows, stagecoach robberies were a regular feature of life in this fabled region of Dakota Territory. Now, for the first time, Robert K. DeArment tells the story of the ""good guys and bad guys"" behind these violent crimes: the road agents who wreaked havoc on Deadwood's roadways and the shotgun messengers who battled to protect stagecoach passengers and their valuable cargo.DeArment shows in dramatic detail how for two years gangs of robbers ruled the road, perpetrating holdups and killings, until lawmen and stage-company and railroad agents finally brought an end to the mayhem. The characters populating this violent tale include such legendary figures as Wild Bill Hickok and the famous railroad detective James L. ""Whispering"" Smith, a formidable opponent of bandits. We also get to know the men who operated the stages, the lawmen and company men who ran and defended the coaches, and the outlaws who fought against them. DeArment tells where these men came from and what became of them after the outlawry ended. He ends his account in the 1880s with Buffalo Bill's Wild West show and its spectacular rendition of a shotgun robbery, featuring an actual Deadwood stagecoach. After nearly a century and a half, the Deadwood stage continues to command our attention.

In the 1870s, Deadwood was a thriving - and largely lawless - boomtown. And as any fan of western history and films knows, stagecoach robberies were a regular feature of life in this fabled region of Dakota Territory. Now, for the first time, Robert K. DeArment tells the story of the " good guys and bad guys" behind these violent crimes: the road agents who wreaked havoc on Deadwood's roadways and the shotgun messengers who battled to protect stagecoach passengers and their valuable cargo.DeArment shows in dramatic detail how for two years gangs of robbers ruled the road, perpetrating holdups and killings, until lawmen and stage-company and railroad agents finally brought an end to the mayhem. The characters populating this violent tale include such legendary figures as Wild Bill Hickok and the famous railroad detective James L. " Whispering" Smith, a formidable opponent of bandits. We also get to know the men who operated the stages, the lawmen and company men who ran and defended the coaches, and the outlaws who fought against them. DeArment tells where these men came from and what became of them after the outlawry ended. He ends his account in the 1880s with Buffalo Bill's Wild West show and its spectacular rendition of a shotgun robbery, featuring an actual Deadwood stagecoach. After nearly a century and a half, the Deadwood stage continues to command our attention.