Lincoln Lincoln New Mexico United States

The murder of John Tunstall, a wealthy Englishman, catalyzes the Lincoln County War.

Tunstall had arrived in November 1876 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.

They had discovered that Lincoln County is controlled both economically and politically by Lawrence Murphy and James Dolan, the proprietors of LG Murphy and Co., the only store in the county.

The factions are ethnically at odds, with the Murphy faction mostly Irish Catholic, while Tunstall and his allies are mostly Scots-Irish Protestants.

LG Murphy and Co. have loaned thousands of dollars to the Territorial Governor, and the Territorial Attorney General had eventually held the mortgage on the firm.

Tunstall had learned that Murphy and Dolan, who buy much of their cattle from rustlers, have 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, have allowed Murphy, Dolan and their partner Riley to run Lincoln County as a personal fiefdom.

Murphy and Dolan refuse to give up their monopoly.

In February 1878, in a court case that is eventually dismissed, they obtain a court order to seize all of McSween's assets, but mistakenly include all of Tunstall's assets with those of McSween.

Sheriff Brady forms a posse to attach Tunstall's remaining assets at his ranch from seventy miles from Lincoln.

Few local citizens join Brady's posse, which enlists a gang of outlaws known as the Jesse Evans Gang.

On February 18, 1878, members of the Sheriff's posse catch up to Tunstall, who is herding his last nine horses back to Lincoln.

Frank Warner Angel, a special investigator for the Secretary of the Interior, later determines that Tunstall was shot in "cold blood" by Jesse Evans, William Morton, and Tom Hill.

Tunstall's murder is witnessed from a distance by several of his men, including Richard Brewer and Billy the Kid.

Tunstall's cowhands and other local citizens form a group known as the Regulators to avenge his murder, since the territorial criminal justice system is controlled by allies of Murphy, Dolan & Co.

While the Regulators at various times consist of dozens of American and Mexican cowboys, the main dozen or so members are known as the "iron clad", including McCarty, Richard "Dick" Brewer, Frank McNab, Doc Scurlock, Jim French, John Middleton, George Coe, Frank Coe, Jose Chavez y Chavez, Charlie Bowdre, Tom O'Folliard, Fred Waite (a Chickasaw), and Henry Newton Brown.

The Regulators set out to apprehend the sheriff's posse members who had murdered Tunstall.

After the Regulators are deputized by the Lincoln County justice of the peace, together with Constable Martinez, they attempt to serve the legally issued warrants on Tunstall's murderers.

Sheriff Brady arrests and jails Martinez and his deputies in defiance of their deputized status.

They gain release and search for Tunstall's murderers.

They find Buck Morton, Dick Lloyd, and Frank Baker near the Rio Peñasco.

Morton surrenders after a five-mile (eight kilometer) running gunfight on the condition that he and his fellow deputy sheriff, Frank Baker, will be returned alive to Lincoln.

The Regulator captain Dick Brewer assures them they will be taken to Lincoln, but other Regulators insist on killing the prisoners.

William McCloskey, also a friend of Morton, resists such action.

On March 9, 1878, the third day of the journey back to Lincoln, the Regulators kill McCloskey, Morton, and Baker in the Capitan foothills along the Blackwater Creek.

They claim that Morton had murdered McCloskey and tried to escape with Baker, forcing them to kill the two prisoners.

Few believe the story, as they think it unlikely that Morton would have killed his only friend in the group.

As the bodies of Morton and Baker each bear eleven bullet holes, one for each Regulator, Utley believes that the Regulators murdered them and killed McCloskey for opposing them. (Utley, Robert M. (1989) Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent Life, University of Nebraska Press.)

Frederick Nolan writes that Morton took ten bullets, and Baker was shot five times. (Nolan, Frederick (1998). "The West of Billy the Kid". Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.)

Sheriff Brady had asked for assistance from the Territorial Attorney General, Thomas Benton Catron, to put down this "anarchy".

Catron had turned to the Territorial Governor Samuel B. Axtell, who had decreed that John Wilson, the Justice of the Peace, had been illegally appointed by the Lincoln County Commissioners.

Wilson had deputized the Regulators and issued the warrants for Tunstall's murderers.

Axtell's decree means that the Regulators' actions, formerly considered legal, are now beyond the law.

The Regulators French, McNab, Middleton, Waite, Brown and Billy the Kid attack Brady and his deputies on the main street of Lincoln on April 1, 1878.

Brady dies of at least a dozen gunshot wounds, and Deputy George W. Hindman is also fatally wounded.

McCarty and French break cover and dash 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, wounds both men with one bullet that passes through each of them.

French's wound is so severe that he has to be temporarily harbored by Sam Corbet in a crawlspace in Corbet's house.

The Regulators head southwest from the area around Lincoln three days after the murders of Brady and Hindman, reaching Blazer's Mill, a sawmill and trading post that supplies beef to the Mescalero Apaches.

They come upon the rancher Buckshot Roberts, listed on their arrest warrant as one of Tunstall's murderers.

In the ensuing conflict, the Regulators mortally wound Roberts, but he manages to kill Brewer and wound a few others.

Sheriff Peppin is directing a posse that includes the Jesse Evans Gang and the Seven Rivers Warriors.

On April 29, 1878, they engage in a shootout with the Regulators McNab, Saunders, and Frank Coe at the Fritz Ranch.

McNab dies in the gunfire, Saunders is badly wounded, and Frank Coe is captured.

The Seven Rivers members Tom Green, Charles Marshall, Jim Patterson and John Galvin are killed in Lincoln the next day, and although the Regulators are blamed, this is never proven.

Frank Coe escapes custody some time after his capture, allegedly with the assistance of Deputy Sheriff Wallace Olinger, who had given him a pistol.

The day after McNab's death, the Regulators known as the "iron clad" take up defensive positions in the town of Lincoln, trading shots with Dolan men as well as U.S. Army cavalry.

"Dutch Charley" Kruling, a Dolan man, is wounded by rifle fire by George Coe.

By shooting at government troops, the Regulators have gained a new set of enemies.

The Regulators track down and capture the Seven Rivers gang member Manuel Segovia, who is believed to have shot McNab.

They shoot him during an alleged escape on May 15.

Around the time of Segovia's death, the Regulator "iron clad" gains a new member, a young Texas cowpoke named Tom O'Folliard.

A large confrontation between the two forces takes place on the afternoon of July 15, 1878, when the Regulators are surrounded in Lincoln in two different positions; the McSween house and the Ellis store.

Facing them are the Dolan/Murphy/Seven Rivers cowboys.

In the Ellis store are Scurlock, Bowdre, Middleton, Frank Coe, and several others.

About twenty Mexican Regulators, led by Josefita Chavez, are also positioned around town.

In the McSween house are 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.

Over the next three days, the men exchange shots and shouts.

Tom Cullens, one of the McSween house defenders, is killed by a stray bullet.

The Dolan cowboy Charlie Crawford is shot at a distance of five hundred yards (four hundred and sixty meters) by Doc Scurlock's father-in-law, Fernando Herrera.

Around this time, Henry Brown, George Coe, and Joe Smith slip out of the McSween house to the Tunstall store, where they chase two Dolan men into an outhouse with rifle fire and force them to dive into the bottom to escape.

The impasse continues until the arrival of U.S. Army troops under the command of Colonel Nathan Dudley.

When these troops point cannons at the Ellis store and other positions, Doc Scurlock and his men break from their positions, as do Chavez's cowboys, leaving those left in the McSween house to their fate.

On the afternoon of July 19, the soldiers set the house afire.

As the flames spread and night falls, Susan McSween and the other woman and five children are granted safe passage out of the house, while the men inside continue to fight the fire.

By 9 p.m., those left inside get set to break out the back door of the burning house.

Jim French goes out first, followed by Billy the Kid, O'Folliard, and Jose Chavez y Chavez.

The Dolan men see them running and open fire, killing Harvey Morris, McSween's law partner.

Some troopers move into the back yard to take those left into custody when a close-order gunfight erupts.

Alexander McSween and the Seven Rivers cowboy Bob Beckwith both die.

Three other Mexican Regulators get away in the confusion, to rendezvous with the "iron clad" members yards away.

The Lincoln County War has accomplished little other than to foster distrust and animosity in the area.

The surviving Regulators, most notably Billy the Kid, continue as fugitives.

Gradually, his fellow gunmen will scatter to their various fates, and he will ride with Bowdre, O'Folliard, Dave Rudabaugh, and a few other friends, with whom he rustles cattle and commits other crimes.