John Wesley Hardin Gunfighter and Lawyer Part 2 Written by Goliath Edited by K. Staton
In part 1 of this series, I explained how I had come 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 by which to discuss legal cases and issues in the public eye. I took a deeper dive recently, reading in his autobiography stories of some of the desperados and lawmen encountered in his short pre-prison life. (He was sent to prison at about age 25). He is said to be one of the most prolific killers of the Old West, and I had always read there was controversy over how many men he had actually killed in his career of lethality. Best I can tell, by the time he was finally captured and imprisoned, he claims to have killed or assisted in killing some 40 men. To understand how this can happen, it helps to take a good long look at the places where and period wherein Harden operated. Southcentral Texas, leaning toward the east,...
