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. H...
