Synopses & Reviews
Think gunfighter, and Wyatt Earp or Billy the Kid may come to mind, but what of Jim Moon? Joel Fowler? Zack Light? A host of other figures helped forge the gunfighter persona, but their stories have been lost to time. In a sequel to his Deadly Dozen, celebrated western historian Robert K. DeArment now offers more biographical portraits of lesser-known gunfightersandmdash;men who perhaps werenandrsquo;t glorified in legend or song, but who were rightfully notorious in their day.
DeArment has tracked down stories of gunmen from throughout the Westandmdash;characters you wonandrsquo;t find in any of todayandrsquo;s western history encyclopedias but whose careers are colorfully described here. Photos of the men and telling quotations from primary sources make these characters come alive.
In giving these men their due, DeArment takes readers back to the gunfighter culture spawned in part by the upheavals of the Civil War, to a time when deadly duels were part of the social fabric of frontier towns and the Code of the West was real. His vignettes offer telling insights into conditions on the frontier that created the gunfighters of legend.
These overlooked shooters never won national headlines but made their own contributions to the blood and thunder of the Old West: people less than legends, but all the more fascinating because they were real. Readers who enjoyed DeArmentandrsquo;s Deadly Dozen will find this book equally captivatingandmdash;as gripping as a showdown, twelve times over.
About the Author
Robert K. DeArment is a University of Toledo, Ohio, graduate whose special field of interest is nineteenth-century American history with special emphasis on outlaws and law enforcement in the frontier West. He is the author of Bat Masterson: The Man and the Legend, also published by the University of Oklahoma Press.