John Wesley Hardin Gunfighter and Lawyer Part 2

 In part 1 of this series,  I explained how I came to be interested in John Wesley Hardin (JW )  and how I had used his unique status as both a lawyer and a gunfighter , now dead and presumably in Hell,  as a device to use on this blog to discuss legal cases and issues in the public eye. 

I took a deeper dive recently and re-read his autobiography and explored some of the desperados and lawmen he mentioned encountering in his short pre-prison life. (He was sent to prison about age 25).  I had always read there was controversy over how many men Hardin had killed in his career. He was said to be one of the most prolific killers of the old west. I went through the autobiography and, best I can tell, by the time he was finally captured and sent to prison, he claims to have killed (or in a couple of cases been involved in killing)  40 men. To understand how this can happen,  it helps to take a good long look at the era and place Hardin was in.  He was born in 1853,  thus, just a boy when the Civil War started. His family were die hard Southern sympathizers.  Hardin operated in the region in Texas pretty much midway between Dallas and Houston.  Go on Google Earth and take a look at the landscape there....Endless grass plains.  Pretty soul crushing landscape...but good to farm or raise beef cattle.  Life must have been generally day to day dull.  Hardin himself was too young to join the Rebel army  but apparently wanted to at age 9.   Then, imagine, after the war,  the Federal government came into Texas and turned life upside down.  Slaves were freed.  Government was run by carpetbaggers.  The Federal army occupied the territory and treated former Reb sympathizers harshly.  

Another thing that happened was that the 'new rules' meant old family feuds got flipped as those family and kinfolk aligned with the Feds got power...typically appointments as Sheriffs or Deputies or Federal Marshalls. This exacerbated the old ill feelings and the feuding life was ignited.  A famous feud in this region was the "Taylor-Sutton Feud".    Generally, after the war, the Taylors got the short end of the stick as the Suttons got federal rewards of power and authority. The Taylors were allied with Hardin's extended family and it was, in large part, this feud that fueled the violence Hardin was involved in. 

Hardin was not, (apparently) a criminal.  Unlike other gunmen of the old west, he did not rob banks or trains. His occupation generally appears to have been legal and legit.  He taught school (for a short bit as a teen).  He was a cowboy/cattleman.  He traded goods.   I'd say the closest he got to "crime" is my speculation that in those days he may have done some cattle rustlin'.   It was open range days and when it came time to gather a herd to drive up to Kansas,  I doubt JW was too meticulous about being sure the cattle he gathered all had his brand.   No. The only crime JW was active in was...murder. 

The Killer started at age 15. He killed a former slave named "Maje".  This killing evolved out of some roughhousing between Maje,  (JW says he is a grown man) and JW and a friend. The two youngsters get the best of Mage and he vows revenge. JW tells it as if he, saintly fellow, did all he could the next day to avoid violence but Mage persisted and was trying to hit JW with a stick and swearing to "kill" him.  Although JW was mounted and Maje was not,  it was not the "Texas way" for JW to simply have ridden on by and away from the outraged Maje.  No.  JW pulled a pistol and shot him.  Maje died shortly thereafter.  Chalk up JW's first kill.  Age 15. 

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Now,  dear reader,  It is not my intention to recount all the lethal encounters JW describes in his book.  But I mention it here, the first killing, because it is a great illustration of the themes JW presents in every single other killing he confesses to.  First,  in JW's telling,  he was always at some disadvantage. (Boy vs. Man in this one).  He was always innocent of ill will.  (He'd just been goofing around).  His victim is, in every case,  a villain with a black temper and openly threatening JW expressing his intent to kill JW.  (So there is no question that JW's use of deadly force to kill is 'justified'.)   Also,  due to the time, place and circumstances of the killing,  JW is put further afield the right side of the law.  Because Maje was an ex-slave,  JW claims his father and other family members supposedly told JW he had to go 'on the run' because the local Federals would not give him a fair trial.  They would execute him and commit injustice upon him.  We later find that JW ambushs  a detachment of 3 federal soldiers sent to capture him.  He kills them in cold blood when he finds their camp.  But, of course it is justified because "they were intent on doing him bodily harm".   

And so it goes.  What you find with JW is characteristic of every sociopath I ever encountered.  JW gives us the accounts in greater and lesser detail of having killed 40 men. 40!  All by the age of 25. For you statistics freaks...that averages out to 1 killing every 3 months for 10 years. In the actual events,  there were episodes of killing 2 or 3 men in a single encounter but, still...that's a lot of killing.  Of course, since this is John Wesley's story he is telling,  it turns out he was "Justified" and really, if you think about it, had no other choice but to kill each and every one of the men he killed. (Sure...sarcasm).   

Just think about it, Poor old JW has to experience the trauma of killing a man at age 15 and this sets him on a course of killing for ten years because...you know...life is SO unfair! He was totally misunderstood! He was a peace loving man who just could not escape his past and the dreadful Federals who were so oppressive and denied him the opportunity to own a slave.  Bastards!!!

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South Central East Texas was a land where, really, nobody was in charge for real.  We had sheriffs and marshals and their deputies,  but the truth is they all were not one lick better than the men they sought to oppress. In accord with JW's account,  lawmen led lynching mobs as often as resisted them.  But, when a lawman led a mob, it was called "a posse".  How convenient!  

What all this was about is, frankly, too boring to try and figure out and get to the bottom of. Whatever the origins of the feuding,  it clearly evolved into simple revenge.  A guy or two on one side would kill a guy or two on the other side. That led to the friends of the slain to get revenge on the guys that did the killing which led to THEIR friends getting revenge on the revengers, and so on.  It's actually quite tedious.  BUT one can imagine that it was a lot more interesting in those days to be involved in these high adventure but meaningless escapades than sitting around watching the cattle graze and fighting off ticks.

(JW makes quite a to do about how his family sold...practically gave away a farm place because of the infestation of the house and grounds of with ticks.) Ticks were a regional problem and according to the Texas History site,  led to a sort of agricultural crisis in Texas in the latter part of the 19th century in the form of "Texas Fever" transmitted from Texas cows to cattle from other regions. The disease was fatal to non immunized cattle.  The summers in this region are oppressive and hot. It's muggy. It's too hot to be comfortable.   All in all,  I put down the violence to originating in boredom and discomfort which leads to a lot of drinking which leads to a lot of arguing over stupid stuff which leads to throwdowns and killings because it was way to easy just to pull out your pistol and start firing off shots. 

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Still,  JW does manage to give a breakdown of some notable encounters. Some are deadly and some are not.  He recounts his time in Abilene Kansas when Wild Bill Hickok is the town marshall.  He has a precarious relationship with Bill... but was smart enough to avoid an outright lethal conflict.  He prefers instead to drink with Bill and play cards.  They behave as friendly aquaintances and JW no where makes claims that he is superior as a gunman to Wild Bill.  He even describes him personally and physically in a positive light. Bill, in his turn, takes to calling JW  "Li'l Arkansaw)  It's all good fun until JW shoots a man in his hotel.  The legend is that JW couldn't abide the man's snoring.  According to JW it was just another case of self defense as the man was trying to rob him using a knife while he believed JW was asleep.  Whatever!  After that JW beat it out of town fearing,  he says, that Wild Bill would now kill him.

In another short but notable encounter,  JW is the would be victim of "the Badger" game.  JW meets a prostitute (he refers to her as a sweetheart in his book) he is walking with to her home (her crib no doubt).  He is intercepted by a man claiming to be her boyfriend...but actually her pimp and who demands JW hand over his money.   JW gets his money out and drops it on the ground before the pimp. When the Pimp bends over to retrieve the cash,  JW lets him have it right between the eyes.  Another case of JW killing a man who deserved killing in JW's eyes. 

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As the account moves towards its end,  we see JW married and living on the lam.

 He leaves Texas and goes East. Ultimately settling for a while in Florida where he establishes a commercial store buying and selling goods and livestock.  He adopts the name "Swain" but just can't seem to avoid trouble.   He ultimately is captured on a train. It takes near on to thirty men to take him. What a tough guy. 

JW gives a brief account of his time in captivity.  He catalogues various escape plots and various punishments he receives at the hand of the law including flogging. Even when he details his slow conversion into a better behaved prisoner studying the law and religion in his cell,  there is never a hint of remorse or reflection on his own conduct that led him into the life of a killer.  There is certainly no resolve expressed to 'live a better life' even though he now has a wife and family to think about.  

No, for JW the story is always going to be how he was a victim of circumstances and his implacable character to live and die (or kill) with honor if that's what the situation required.  

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Hardin was released from prison in February of 1894.  He was, by now, almost 41 years old.  His wife who had been faithfully waiting while he served his time died shortly before he was released.  Hardin receives a pardon from the Governor of Texas for his crimes and good wishes come his way as he begins to practice law.  It looks like he plunked around in a small town where his family was but after a few months he goes to El Paso Texas.  One is left to assume that his children a son and a daughter were passed of to be raised by other family members but JW does not think it important to tell us about them.

Thus ends the book.  JW doesn't tell us about his post prison life.  But we know it didn't last long.  He was drawn to El Paso to represent a cousin,  "Killin' Jim" Miller.  AKA "Deacon Jim"

 Miller was a hired assassin. He's about as nasty a killer as you might find.   Killin' Jim must have been pleased with JW's lawyering for he rewarded JW with the gift of a pearl handled revolver (which still exists in a collection as part of the ephemera of the JW Hardin legend.)  

THE END OF JW

Hardin's career was rather short.  by August of 1895 he has a shingle hanging at the corner of El Paso and San Antonio Streets in El Paso. His second story office is right across El Paso street from "The Gem" saloon. It's a Monday night.  Hardin has strolled across the street to while away some hours drinking and tossing dice on the bar.   He'd been in a dispute with El Paso deputy, John Selman Jr. over the arrest of a woman JW fancied.  John Selman Sr.,  also a lawman in the town,  kept it simple. He just walked into the Gem,  and without saying a word shot JW in the back of the head.  Put a few more slugs in him while he was down just to 'make sure'.  Selman Sr. was later acquitted by a perhaps grateful El Paso Jury for having rid them of a man born to killing and trouble.  It's worth noting that, so far as I know,  old JW did not actually kill anybody after he was released from prison and occupied as a lawyering man.