John Wesley Hardin--From Hell Part 1. By Goliath Edited by K. Staton
I have always been a fan of the Wild West. It likely comes from my boyhood coinciding with the era in television and cinema when Westerns reigned supreme. I got steeped in the lore and legends. TV shows like Bonanza, The Rifleman, Rawhide, and Gunsmoke made a big impression, and as a consequence, surely, their impact on my young imagination kicked off what became an enduring interest in the gunfighters of the Old West. What I read furthered my interest too; I recall that Time-Life Magazine around that time published a great series on the Old West. And I came into possession of a book entitled The Gunfighters, which I think was the first Old West history book I collected.
I became a big fan of Billy the Kid, was entertained by Wild Bill Hickock, and I read about many of the more notorious gunmen of the period. Once you dig in and pursue this history, it doesn't take long to sort out just how fictional the Hollywood versions of these stories tend to be. But Clint Eastwood did a good job of flipping the myth in his film Unforgiven, in which he portrays a retired gunfighter who confirms that all the big stories really emerged from men having been "drunk all the time" and "lucky in killing".
Folks still debate whether Billy the Kid was honorable or just a psychopathic killer. I think Billy's elevated place in the gunslinger mythos comes from how many times he escaped after
Other figures truly do come across as bizarre psychopaths…serial killers who found themselves in a place and time when they could give unbridled expression to their sadistic and brutal natures. The accident-prone Clay Allison comes immediately to mind. Allison gravitated to any and all conflicts that might yield violence regardless of the depth of his own personal stake in the matter. After wielding a gun so viciously for so long against so many, it's darkly amusing that he met his end like a fool: got drunk, fell off a wagon and broke his damn neck.
I was in a rural courthouse one day about 20 years ago, and the judge was calling out the docket. To my surprise he called for John W. Hardin. I couldn't resist a little bit of snooping and soon learned that, yes indeed, this fellow was – or claimed to be, at least – the great-great-grandson of the original Texas legend. (I admit it made me wonder about parents who decide to name their newborn after a cold-blooded killer – ancestor or not. No such thing as bad press, I suppose. In our own time, are there people surnamed Manson who’ve named their kid Charlie?) And this man actually bore some resemblance to the original as best I could tell – average height, similar facial features, pale and even skin, and a mop of dark straight hair. But, considering the name, his alleged crime was quite mild as I recall. Some kind of traffic violation. He told me his parents had moved up to Indiana from Texas before he was born, so it tracked. And he was nice enough about my curiosity. However, the fact of his incarceration unfortunately left us little time for a deeper dive into his family history.
By that time, I had somewhat singled out the original John Wesley Hardin as a figure of interest because, of all the gunfighters I knew of, he was the only one that later became, like me, an attorney. (It was due to this fact that some years later when Goliath started this blog, I used the device of using John Wesley's ghost from hell to comment on all things concerning the legal world, i.e., courts, courtrooms, cases, judges etc. It was fun for me, and my readers seemed to enjoy it. Here's an example: JW on the Yalanda Parish case.) The first man Hardin killed was a black former slave named Maje, which follows, as Hardin was a racist of the highest order, having been brought up in a family that was squarely on the side of the rebellious, racist South. As the story goes, by age 9 John Wesley wanted to run away and fight for the Rebs.
I have enjoyed very few opportunities to read the actual writings of these famed gunfighters. In one, I recall being surprised by the rather exquisite penmanship and elevated writing style of a letter Billy the Kid wrote to the governor of New Mexico from a Santa Fe jail asking for the governor to live up to what Billy believed was their "deal". And here now – written by JW himself – is a whole book penned by one of the most notorious legends of the Wild Wild West. It has been a fascinating read. This article is, among other things, an attempt to relay my impressions of the man and his world.
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