The Earp Vendetta Ride or HELLWITH THE LID OFF
[Typos abound. Coarse language is present. These tales abound with debatable issues. I post this for what it is worth. You guys have indulged me insomuch as letting me promote my website on your forum. I post this as a payment of debt, figuring might enjoy the read and be spurred to further study. It is not epoch making nor is it new. Mostly just a rehash for fellow travelers down old, well worn trails. I posted this on one other sight as a thanks, as well.b Enjoy. And God bless. Adios.]
March 20/21, 1882-April 15, 1882.
Stay tuned.
The straw that forever broke the camel's back, we'll start here:
Morgan Earp:
The Tombstone Epitaph [pro-Earp newspaper], THE DEADLY BULLET, March 20, 1882 The Assassin at Last Successful in His Devilish Mission
"Morgan Earp Shot Down and Killed While Playing Billiards At 10:00 Saturday night while engaged in playing a game of billiards in Campbell & Hatch's Billiard parlor, on Allen between Fourth and Fifth, Morgan Earp was shot through the body by an unknown assassin. At the time the shot was fired he was playing a game with Bob Hatch, one of the proprietors of the house and was standing with his back to the glass door in the rear of the room that opens out upon the alley that leads straight through the block along the west side of A.D. Otis & Co.'s store to Fremont Street. This door is the ordinary glass door with four panes in the top in place of panels. The two lower panes are painted, the upper ones being clear. Anyone standing outside can look over the painted glass and see anything going on in the room just as well as though standing in the open door. At the time the shot was fired the deceased must have been standing within ten feet of the door, and the assassin standing near enough to see his position, took aim for about the middle of his person, shooting through the upper portion of the whitened glass. The bullet entered the right side of the abdomen, passing through the spinal column, completely shattering it, emerging on the left side, passing the length of the room and lodging in the thigh of Geo. A.B. Berry, who was standing by the stove, inflicting a painful flesh wound. Instantly after the first shot a second was fired through the top of the upper glass which passed across the room and lodged in the wall near the ceiling over the head of Wyatt Earp, who was sitting as a spectator of the game. Morgan fell instantly upon the first fire and lived only about one hour. His brother Wyatt, Tipton, and McMasters rushed to the side of the wounded man and tenderly picked him up and moved him some ten feet away near the door of the card room, where Drs. Matthews, Goodfellow and Millar, who were called, examined him and, after a brief consultation, pronounced the wound mortal. He was then moved into the card room and placed on the lounge where in a few brief moments he breathed his last, surrounded by his brothers, Wyatt, Virgil, James and Warren with the wives of Virgil and James and a few of his most intimate friends. Notwithstanding the intensity of his mortal agony, not a word of complaint escaped his lips, and all that were heard, except those whispered into the ear of his brother and known only to him were, "Don't, I can't stand it. This is the last game of pool I'll ever play." The first part of the sentence being wrung from him by an attempt to place him upon his feet.
The funeral cortege started away from the Cosmopolitan hotel about 12:30 yesterday with the fire bell tolling its solemn peals of "Earth to earth, dust to dust."
Wyatt Earp:
Warren Earp:
Wyatt and Warren Earp, along with Doc Holliday, "Turkey Creek" Jack Johnson and Sherman McMasters escorted the Earp family out of Tombstone and to Tucson, Arizona on March 20th.
Wyatt had managed to get himself granted authority some months earlier following an attempt to kill his brother Virgil. He had very carefully assembled a posse.
"To Crawley P. Dake, the U.S. marshal for Arizona Territory:
Tombstone, Arizona Territory, December 29, 1881
Virgil Earp was shot by concealed assassins last night. His wounds are fatal. Telegraph me appointment with power to appoint deputies. Local authorities are doing nothing. The lives of other citizens are threatened.
-Wyatt Earp
Marshal Dake readily agreed, and Wyatt Earp, now with federal authority, assembled a posse of gunmen to protect his family and to hunt for the men who had shot his brother. One of the prime suspects was Ike Clanton, who wanted revenge after an inquest had cleared the Earp brothers of any wrongdoing in the O.K. Corral fight. "
Now Morgan was dead. Wyatt had his own death list of men he blamed for Morgan's death both directly and indirectly.
It was time for blood. Frank Stilwell is first. Massacred! "one observer describing Stilwell as having been "the worst shot-up man that I ever saw...Stilwell shot Morg Earp and they were bound to get him..."'
The newly turned 34 year old Wyatt Earp, along with Doc Holliday, Turkey Creek Johnson, Warren Earp, and McMasters escort a still weak and injured Virgil Earp and his Allie Allie the hell out of Tombstone, Arizona. [virgil having just barely survived an attempt on his life back in December.]
It was a just turning evening as the passenger liner stoked into the newly revamped modern city city of Tucson, Arizona. The city's newfangled gas lighting lighting system has just cranked up for the evening shedding light on beautiful Tucson dusk. Wyatt and the boys swing down from the train ahead of the two they are escorting. Holliday is holding TWO SCATTERGUNS as he disembarks. These were grim men who were ready to fight and die at the drop of a hat.
Across the way in front of the "Porter Hotel" stand Frank Stilwell and Ike Clanton, watching.
Doc deposits his two shotguns at the depot and the party meanders across the street to the Porter Hotel to dine. Stilwell and Clanton duck away. . .
Earp and Holliday in Tucson:
The Earp party eases back across to the train depot to grab the scatterguns and bid their two companions adieu, as they have purchased a ticket to Colton, California, home of the Earp parents. They do both. However, an event stops them. two scenarios present themselves here. One, Wyatt is told by a passenger that Stilwell is about and was seen across the street at the "Porter", and that rumors were about that he intended to finish the job started in December on Virgil, by shooting him through the train window. Or, two, that Wyatt and Doc, with instincts borne of such men smelled trouble. Whatever. . .
This we know, those rough men were armed to the teeth and were last seen sprinting down the tracks toward Stilwell who saw them coming from his perch at the southeast corner of the "Porter Hotel" and ran for his life. Wyatt was in the lead and he claimed to have gone at least a hundred yards but saloonkeeper George Hand, a witness, claimed it was "a few hundred yards".
So, Wyatt Earp shotgunned Frank Stilwell stone dead in Tucson that evening. Evidently both barrels did some real damage! my theory is Holliday cruised up and dropped a couple of barrels into a corpse, and apparently the one or all of the other members of Wyatt's group/posse also shot Stilwell, as the coroner's report stated, at least five separate gunshots. One down. the Earp Vendetta Ride has begun.
