Harry Morse - gunfighter, manhunter, and sleuth - was among the West’s most famous lawmen. Elected sheriff of Alameda County, California, in 1864, he went on to become San Francisco’s foremost...
One of the great lawmen of the Old West, Bob Paul (1830–1901) cast a giant shadow across the frontiers of California and Arizona Territory for nearly fifty years. Today he is remembered mainly for his friendship with Wyatt Earp and his involvement in the stirring events surrounding the famous 1881 gunfight near the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. This long-overdue biography fills crucial gaps in Paul’s story and recounts a life of almost constant adventure.
DeArment discusses constant threats to the man-hunters’ survival, the federal government’s undependable presence, and extralegal violence as major themes in western law enforcement. In recounting these eight men’s adventures, this volume reveals the forces that made brutality seem commonplace.
Settlers in the frontier West were often easy prey for criminals. Policing efforts were scattered at best and often amounted to vigilante retaliation. To create a semblance of order, freelance enforcers of the law known as man-hunters undertook the search for fugitives. These pursuers have often been portrayed as ruthless bounty hunters, no better than the felons they pursued. Robert K. DeArment’s detailed account of their careers redeems their reputations and reveals the truth behind their fascinating legends.
“James Butler Hickok, generally called ‘Wild Bill,’ epitomized the archetypal gunfighter, that half-man, half-myth that became the heir to the mystique of the duelist when that method...
Rangers and Regulars on the Lower Rio Grande, 1846–1861
by Michael L. Collins
The Texas Rangers have been the source of tall tales and the stuff of legend as well as a growing darker reputation. But the story of the Rangers along the Mexican border between Texas statehood and the onset of the Civil War has been largely overlooked—until now. This engaging history pulls readers back to a chaotic time along the lower Rio Grande in the mid-nineteenth century. Texas Devils challenges the time-honored image of “good guys in white hats” to reveal the more complicated and sobering reality behind the Ranger Myth.
The Texas Sheriff takes a fresh, colorful, and insightful look at Texas law enforcement during the decades before 1960. In the first half of the twentieth century, rural Texas was a...
A Biography of Harry Love, Leader of the California Rangers who tracked down Joaquin Murrieta
by William B. Secrest
Like some mysterious Paladin, Harry Love seemed to suddenly appear on the California landscape at a time when he was particularly needed. As captain of the California Rangers, Love pursued Joaquin...
“James Butler Hickok, generally called ‘Wild Bill,’ epitomized the archetypal gunfighter, that half-man, half-myth that became the heir to the mystique of the duelist when that method...
The historical Isaac C. Parker (1838–1898) has been overshadowed by his legend--the notorious “hanging judge” of the Wild West. In his time as district court judge, he did sentence over...
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