Posted on 07/19/2007 12:01:54 PM PDT by DogByte6RER
On This Day In History
July 19, 1879: Doc Holliday kills for the first time
Doc Holliday commits his first murder, killing a man for shooting up his New Mexico saloon.
Despite his formidable reputation as a deadly gunslinger, Doc Holliday only engaged in eight shootouts during his life, and it has only been verified that he killed two men. Still, the smartly dressed ex-dentist from Atlanta had a remarkably fearless attitude toward death and danger, perhaps because he was slowly dying from tuberculosis.
In 1879, Holliday settled in Las Vegas, New Mexico, where he opened a saloon with a partner. Holliday spent his evenings gambling in the saloon and he seemed determined to stress his health condition by heavy drinking. A notorious cad, Holliday also enjoyed the company of the dance hall girls that the partners hired to entertain the customers--which sometimes sparked trouble.
On this day in 1879, a former army scout named Mike Gordon tried to persuade one of Holliday's saloon girls to quit her job and run away with him. When she refused, Gordon became infuriated. He went out to the street and began to fire bullets randomly into the saloon. He didn't have a chance to do much damage--after the second shot, Holliday calmly stepped out of the saloon and dropped Gordon with a single bullet. Gordon died the next day.
The following year, Holliday abandoned the saloon business and joined his old friend Wyatt Earp in Tombstone, Arizona. There he would kill his second victim, during the famous "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" in October 1881. During the subsequent six years, Holliday assisted at several other killings and wounded a number of men in gun battles. His hard drinking and tuberculosis eventually caught up with him, and he retired to a Colorado health resort where he died in 1887. Struck by the irony of such a peaceful end to a violent life, his last words reportedly were "This is funny."
Any FReeper Old West historians have the real background on this?
More Doc Holliday links:
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/CP-DocHolliday.html
http://www.americanwest.com/pages/docholid.htm
Virgil Earp, interviewed May 30, 1882, in The Arizona Daily Star (two months after Virgil had fled Tombstone after Morgan Earp’s death), summed up Holliday:
“There was something very peculiar about Doc. He was gentlemanly, a good dentist, a friendly man and yet, outside of us boys, I don’t think he had a friend in the Territory. Tales were told that he had murdered men in different parts of the country; that he had robbed and committed all manner of crimes, and yet, when persons were asked how they knew it, they could only admit it was hearsay, and that nothing of the kind could really be traced to Doc’s account. He was a slender, sickly fellow, but whenever a stage was robbed or a row started, and help was needed, Doc was one of the first to saddle his horse and report for duty.”
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doc_Holliday
Outstanding performance in that film.
Hardly fits my definition of murder. Neither does his second killing for that matter. Hard men for hard times when one's opinion of an individual depended on what side you were on.
That outfit and hairstyle is so 80s.
From the second link you posted:
On January 2, 1875, Doc and a local saloon keeper, named Austin, had a disagreement that flared into violence. Each man went for his pistol. Several shots were fired, but not one struck its intended target. According to the Dallas Weekly Herald, both shooters were arrested. Most of the local citizens thought such a gunfight highly amusing, but changed their views a few days later when Doc put two large holes through a prominent citizen, leaving him very dead. Feelings ran high over this killing and Doc was forced to flee Dallas a short distance in front of a posse.
I do recall reading he stabbed a man who attacked him and accused him of cheating but that the victim didn't die. I'm not sure if it was this Ed Bailey person, or the Tombstone screenwriters compiled different personages into that character. Doc Holliday also got himself ventilated and nearly died early in his outlaw career.
This is an interesting book on the man:
But Jim, I'm a doctor not a terrorist.
Only killed 2? That cant be true. I saw him kill one of the Clantons and Johnny Ringo myself in Tombstone.
Atlanta? I thought Thomasville has always claimed him.
You should have seen his parachute chaps.
Nice reminder of this famous man.
1) History.com indulges in politically correct hysteria when it labels the described incident as murder.
2) Largely based on Matt Braun’s historical NOVEL, my impression is that Holliday engaged in gunfights from the beginning of his professional gambling career. And, it was at the very least possible that the other guy had first reached for his gun.
“Why Johnny Ringo...you look like someone just walked over your grave”!
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