Editing Lincoln County War (section)

==War==
[[File:Torreon - Lincoln Co.jpg|thumb|200px|left|The Torreon, where Murphy's sharpshooters were stationed]]
During November 1876, a wealthy Englishman named John Tunstall arrived in [[Lincoln County, New Mexico]], where he intended to develop a cattle ranch, store, and bank in partnership with the young attorney Alexander McSween and cattleman John Chisum. At the time Lincoln County was dominated both economically and politically by Lawrence Murphy and James Dolan, the proprietors of LG Murphy and Co., later James J. Dolan and Co., the only store in the county. The factions were divided along ethnic and sectarian lines, with the Murphy faction being mostly Irish Catholic, while Tunstall and his allies were mostly English Protestant.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=O'Toole |first=Fintan |author-link=Fintan O'Toole |title=The Many Stories of Billy the Kid |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1998/12/28/the-many-stories-of-billy-the-kid |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |date=December 28, 1998 |pages=86–97}}</ref> LG Murphy and Co. lent thousands of dollars to the Territorial Governor, and the Territorial Attorney General eventually held the mortgage on the company. Tunstall learned that Murphy and Dolan, who bought many of their cattle from [[cattle rustler|rustler]]s, had lucrative beef contracts from the United States government to supply forts and Indian agencies. The government contracts, along with their monopoly on merchandise and financing for farms and ranches, allowed Murphy, Dolan and their partner Riley to become wealthy.{{citation needed|date=February 2019}}

=== The Fritz insurance policy ===
The main event that resulted in the beginning of the Lincoln County War was controversy over the disbursement of Emil Fritz's insurance policy. Emil Fritz was a partner of L. G. Murphy. When he died in 1874, the executors of the estate hired Alexander McSween to collect his insurance policy. After collecting the policy, McSween refused to give the money to the executor of the estate because The House claimed that the money was owed to them as a debt and McSween suspected that the executor of the estate would give the money to them. McSween also knew how badly needy for cash The House was and as a business competitor was likely loath to have the money go to them, whether their claim was legitimate or not.{{sfn|Nolan|2009|p=107}}

During February 1878, in a court case that was eventually dismissed, they obtained a court order to seize all of McSween's assets, but mistakenly included all of Tunstall's assets with those of McSween.{{sfn|Nolan|1998|p=368}} Sheriff Brady formed a posse to attach Tunstall's remaining assets at his ranch 70 miles from Lincoln. Dolan also enlisted the [[John Kinney Gang]], [[Seven Rivers Warriors]] and the [[Jesse Evans Gang]], and their job was mainly to harass and rustle cattle from Tunstall's and Chisum's ranches, as well as being the faction's hired gunmen.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.dchieftain.com/2012/09/01/cowboys-and-cattle-rustlers |title=Cowboys and cattle rustlers |publisher=DC Chieftain |first=Paul |last=Harden |access-date=April 3, 2015 |date=September 1, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923213023/http://www.dchieftain.com/2012/09/01/cowboys-and-cattle-rustlers |archive-date=September 23, 2015 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-outlawgangslist4.html |title=Outlaw Gangs |publisher=Legends of America |access-date=April 3, 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150406042124/http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-outlawgangslist4.html |archive-date=April 6, 2015}}</ref>

===Killing of John Tunstall===
On February 18, 1878, members of the Sheriff's posse caught up to Tunstall while he and his ranch-hands, Richard "Dick" Brewer, Billy the Kid, [[John Middleton (cowboy)|John Middleton]], [[Henry Newton Brown]], Robert A. Widenmann, and [[Fred Waite]], were herding his last nine horses back to Lincoln. Frank Warner Angel, a special investigator for the [[United States Secretary of the Interior|Secretary of the Interior]], later determined that Tunstall was shot in "cold blood" by Jesse Evans, William Morton, and Tom Hill.<ref>Record Group 60, NA'' In the Matter of the Cause and Circumstances of the Death of J.H. Tunstall, A British Subject 44-4-8-3''</ref> Tunstall's murder was witnessed from a distance by several of his men, including Richard Brewer and Billy the Kid. Tunstall's murder began the Lincoln County War.

Tunstall's cowhands and other local citizens formed a group known as the [[Lincoln County Regulators|Regulators]] to avenge his murder, since the territorial criminal justice system was controlled by allies of Murphy and Dolan. While the Regulators at various times consisted of dozens of American and Mexican cowboys, the main dozen or so members were known as the "iron clad", including McCarty, Richard "Dick" Brewer, [[Frank McNab]], [[Doc Scurlock]], [[Jim French (cowboy)|Jim French]], John Middleton, [[George Coe (Lincoln County War)|George Coe]], [[Frank Coe (Lincoln County War)|Frank Coe]], [[Jose Chavez y Chavez]], [[Charlie Bowdre]], [[Tom O'Folliard]], Fred Waite (a [[Chickasaw]]), and Henry Newton Brown.{{sfn|Nolan|2009|pp=219, 510}}

The Regulators set out to apprehend the sheriff's [[posse comitatus (common law)|posse]] members who had murdered Tunstall. After the Regulators were deputized by the Lincoln County [[justice of the peace]], together with Constable Martinez, they attempted to serve the legally issued warrants to Tunstall's murderers.  Sheriff Brady arrested and jailed Martinez and his deputies in defiance of their deputized status.  They gained release and searched for Tunstall's murderers. They found Buck Morton, Dick Lloyd, and Frank Baker near the [[Rio Peñasco]].{{Clarify|date=February 2016}} Morton surrendered after a five-mile (8&nbsp;km) running gunfight on the condition that he and his fellow deputy sheriff, Frank Baker – who had no part in the Tunstall murder but was riding with Morton and Lloyd – would be returned alive to Lincoln.{{sfn|Utley|1989|p=56}} The Regulators' captain Dick Brewer assured them they would be taken to Lincoln, but other Regulators insisted on killing the prisoners. One Regulator, William McCloskey, who was a friend of Morton's, resisted such action.{{citation needed|date=February 2018}}

===Blackwater massacre===
On March 9, 1878, the third day of the journey back to Lincoln, the Regulators killed McCloskey, Morton, and Baker in the Capitan foothills along the Blackwater Creek. They claimed that Morton murdered McCloskey and tried to escape with Baker, forcing them to kill the two prisoners. Few believed the story, as they thought it unlikely that Morton would have killed his only friend in the group. As the bodies of Morton and Baker each bore eleven bullet holes, one for each Regulator, Utley believes that the Regulators murdered them and killed McCloskey for opposing them.{{sfn|Utley|1989|pp=59–60}} Nolan writes that Morton took ten bullets, and Baker was shot five times.{{sfn|Nolan|1998|p=114}} That same day, Tunstall's other two killers, Tom Hill and Jesse Evans, were shot while trying to rob a sheep drover near [[Tularosa, New Mexico]]. Hill died and Evans was severely wounded. While Evans was at Fort Stanton for medical treatment, he was arrested on an old federal warrant for stealing stock from an Indian reservation.<ref name="Fuller2015">{{cite book|last=Fuller|first=Mark S.|title=Never a Dull Moment: The Life of John Liggett Meigs|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_vmjCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA224|access-date=February 17, 2018 |year=2015|publisher=Sunstone Press|isbn=9781632930736|page=224}}</ref>

===Killing of William Brady===
Sheriff Brady asked for assistance from the Territorial Attorney General, Thomas Benton Catron, to end this "anarchy". Catron referred the topic to the Territorial [[Samuel Beach Axtell|Governor Samuel B. Axtell]].  The governor decreed that John Wilson, the Justice of the Peace, had been appointed illegally by the Lincoln County Commissioners. Wilson had deputized the Regulators and issued the warrants for Tunstall's murderers. Axtell's decree meant that the Regulators' actions, formerly considered legal, were now illegal. Axtell also was able to revoke Widenmann's status as a Deputy US marshal, making Sheriff Brady and his men the only law officers of Lincoln County.{{sfn|Nolan|1998|p=115}}

On April 1, 1878, the Regulators French, McNab, Middleton, Waite, Brown and McCarty (Billy the Kid) made ready in the corral behind Tunstall's store before attacking Brady and his deputies on the main street of Lincoln. Brady died of at least a dozen gunshot wounds; [[Deputy sheriff|Deputy]] [[George W. Hindman]] was also wounded fatally. McCarty and French broke cover and dashed to Brady's body, possibly to get his arrest warrant for McSween or to recover McCarty's rifle, which Brady had kept from a prior arrest. A surviving deputy, Billy Matthews, wounded both men with one bullet that passed through both of them. French's wound was so severe that he had to be temporarily harbored by Sam Corbet in a crawlspace in Corbet's house. Widenmann was also in the corral, but whether he participated was never ascertained: he claimed he was feeding Tunstall's dog.{{sfn|Nolan|2009|p=249}}

===Battle of Blazer's Mill===
[[File:Geo W. Coe.jpg|thumb|200px|[[George W. Coe]], survivor of the Blazer's Mill fight, in 1934]]
{{Main|Gunfight at Blazer's Mill}}

Three days after the murders of Brady and Hindman, the Regulators headed southwest from the area around Lincoln, reaching Blazer's Mill, a sawmill and trading post that supplied beef to the [[Mescalero]] [[Apache]]s.  They came upon the rancher [[Buckshot Roberts]], listed on their arrest warrant as one of Tunstall's murderers. In the ensuing shootout the Regulators mortally wounded Roberts, but he killed Brewer and wounded Middleton, Scurlock, Coe, and McCarty.{{sfn|Caldwell|2010|pp=131–142}}

===Gunfight at Fritz Ranch===
After Brewer's death, the Regulators elected McNab as their captain. On April 29, 1878, Sheriff Peppin was directing a posse that included the Jesse Evans Gang and the [[Seven Rivers Warriors]].  They engaged in a shootout with the Regulators McNab, Saunders, and Frank Coe at the Fritz Ranch. McNab died in the gunfire, Saunders was badly wounded, and Frank Coe was captured.{{sfn|Caldwell|2010|pp=143–146}}

The next day, the Seven Rivers members Tom Green, Charles Marshall, Jim Patterson and John Galvin were killed in Lincoln, and although the Regulators were blamed, this was never proven. Frank Coe escaped custody some time after his capture, allegedly with the assistance of Deputy Sheriff [[Wallace Olinger]], who gave him a pistol.{{sfn|Caldwell|2010|pp=143–146}}

The day after McNab's death the Regulators known as the "iron clad" assumed defensive positions in the town of Lincoln, trading shots with Dolan men and, allegedly, members of the US Army cavalry. "Dutch Charley" Kruling, a Dolan man, was wounded by rifle fire by George Coe. By allegedly shooting at government troops, the Regulators gained a new set of enemies. On May 15, the Regulators tracked down and captured the [[Jesse Evans]] gang member Manuel Segovia, who is believed to have shot McNab. They shot him during an alleged escape.  Around the time of Segovia's death, the Regulator "iron clad" gained a new member, a young Texas cowboy named [[Tom O'Folliard]], who soon became McCarty's best friend.{{sfn|Wallis|2007|p=210}}

===Battle of Lincoln===
[[File:Map of Lincoln NM 1872-1881.jpg|200px|thumb|A map of Lincoln, New Mexico, as it appeared between 1872 and 1881]]
{{Main|Battle of Lincoln (1878)}}

A large confrontation between the two forces occurred on the afternoon of July 15, 1878, when the Regulators were surrounded in Lincoln in two different positions; the McSween house and the Ellis store. Opposing them were the Dolan/Murphy/Seven Rivers cowboys. In the Ellis store were Scurlock, Bowdre, Middleton, Frank Coe, and several others. About 20 Mexican Regulators, commanded by Josefita Chavez, were also positioned around town. In the McSween house were Alex McSween and his wife Susan, Billy the Kid, Henry Brown, Jim French, Tom O'Folliard, Jose Chavez y Chavez, George Coe, and a dozen Mexican vaqueros.{{sfn|Nolan|2009|pp=304–322}}

During the next three days, the men exchanged shots and shouts. Tom Cullens, one of the McSween house defenders, was killed by a stray bullet. Around this time, Henry Brown, George Coe, and Joe Smith left the McSween house and went to the Tunstall store, where they chased two Dolan men into an outhouse with rifle fire and forced them to dive into the bottom to escape. The impasse continued until the arrival of US Army troops commanded by [[Colonel (United States)|Colonel]] [[Nathan Dudley]]. When these troops pointed cannons at the Ellis store and other positions, Billy the Kid, Doc Scurlock and his men fled from their positions, as did Chavez's cowboys, leaving those remaining in the McSween house to their fate.{{sfn|Nolan|2009|pp=304–322}}

On the afternoon of July 19, the Murphy-Dolan faction set the house afire. As the flames spread and night began, Susan McSween and the other woman and five children were granted safe passage out of the house, while the men inside continued to fight the fire.{{sfn|Nolan|1998|p=162}} By 9&nbsp;pm, those left inside got set to flee out the back door of the burning house. Billy the Kid and Jim French assessed their situation, and figured out a way to escape by using pistol fire as cover and escaping. Jim French went out first, followed by Billy the Kid, O'Folliard, and Jose Chavez y Chavez. The Dolan men saw them running and began shooting, killing Harvey Morris, McSween's law partner. Some troopers moved into the back yard to take those left into custody when a close-quarters gunfight erupted. Alexander McSween and the Seven Rivers cowboy Bob Beckwith both died. Three other Mexican Regulators got away in the confusion, to rendezvous with the "iron clad" members yards away.{{sfn|Nolan|2009|pp=304–322}}