John Wesley Hardin spread terror in much of Texas in the years following the Civil War as the most wanted fugitive. Hardin left an autobiography in which he detailed many of the troubles of his life. In A Lawless Breed, Parsons and Brown have meticulously examined his claims against available records to determine how much of his life story is true, and how much was only a half truth, or a complete lie.

Courtesy special collections Albert B. Alkek Library, Southwest Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas.

John Wesley Hardin, the most famous and violent gunfighter ever to ride across the sweeping Texas landscape, comes to life again in this gripping true story that spans over forty years in the tumultuous history of nineteenth century Texas. Hero and villain, Hardin rode across post-Civil War Texas, reputedly having killed twenty-three men, including Carpetbaggers, Federal soldiers, and Indians. His legend continues to grow in our own times - from the famous song by Bob Dylan, to the fierce legal battles between two Texas towns over Hardin's body!

" ... the only authentic autobiography of a gunfighter ... reveals [what] made him the most dreaded killer in Texas, admitting to at least 40 fatal shootings ..."--Cover.

Thus spoke one lawman about John Wesley Hardin, easily the most feared and fearless of all the gunfighters in the West. Nobody knows the exact number of his victims-perhaps as few as twenty or as many as fifty. In his way of thinking, Hardin never shot a man who did not deserve it. Seeking to gain insight into Hardin’s homicidal mind, Leon Metz describes how Hardin’s bloody career began in post-Civil War Central Texas, when lawlessness and killings were commonplace, and traces his life of violence until his capture and imprisonment in 1878. After numerous unsuccessful escape attempts, Hardin settled down and received a pardon years later in 1895. He wrote an autobiography but did not live to see it published. Within a few months of his release, John Selman gunned him down in an El Paso saloon.

The award-winning author’s “fearless” debut novel chronicles the life of a legendary Texas outlaw with “a ruthless sensibility . . . spare and tough” (Publishers Weekly). Some called him a Texas hero. Some called him the Devil himself. But on one point they all agreed. While he was alive, John Wesley Hardin was the deadliest man in Texas. A killer at fifteen, in the next few years he became skilled enough with his pistols to back down Wild Bill Hickok in the street. The law finally caught up with him when he was twenty-five. By then, he had killed as many as forty men and been shot so many times that, it was said, he carried a pound of lead in his flesh. In jail he became a scholar, studying law books until he won himself freedom, and afterwards he tried to lead an upright life. It was not to be. By the time he was killed in 1895, Hardin was an anachronism—the last true gunfighter of the Old West. With each chapter told from a different character’s perspective, The Pistoleer is “a genuine tour-de-force” of Western historical fiction from the Los Angeles Times Book Prize–winning author of In the Rogue Blood (Rocky Mountain News). “Astonishing.” —Kirkus Reviews “Detailed and cinematic.” —Publishers Weekly “An achievement by any standards, but as a first novel is simply astounding.” —Roundup Magazine

Marauding outlaws, or violent rebels still bent on fighting the Civil War? For decades, the so-called “Taylor-Sutton feud” has been seen as a bloody vendetta between two opposing gangs of Texas gunfighters. However, historian James M. Smallwood here shows that what seemed to be random lawlessness can be interpreted as a pattern of rebellion by a loose confederation of desperadoes who found common cause in their hatred of the Reconstruction government in Texas. Between the 1850s and 1880, almost 200 men rode at one time or another with Creed Taylor and his family through a forty-five-county area of Texas, stealing and killing almost at will, despite heated and often violent opposition from pro-Union law enforcement officials, often led by William Sutton. From 1871 until his eventual arrest, notorious outlaw John Wesley Hardin served as enforcer for the Taylors. In 1874 in the streets of Comanche, Texas, on his twenty-first birthday, Hardin and two other members of the Taylor ring gunned down Brown County Deputy Charlie Webb. This cold-blooded killing—one among many—marked the beginning of the end for the Taylor ring, and Hardin eventually went to the penitentiary as a result. The Feud That Wasn’t reinforces the interpretation that Reconstruction was actually just a continuation of the Civil War in another guise, a thesis Smallwood has advanced in other books and articles. He chronicles in vivid detail the cattle rustling, horse thieving, killing sprees, and attacks on law officials perpetrated by the loosely knit Taylor ring, drawing a composite picture of a group of anti-Reconstruction hoodlums who at various times banded together for criminal purposes. Western historians and those interested in gunfighters and lawmen will heartily enjoy this colorful and meticulously researched narrative.

*Includes pictures. *Includes quotes from Hardin's autobiography about his life and notorious events. *Includes a bibliography for further reading. "I never killed anyone who didn't need killing." - John Wesley Hardin Space may be the final frontier, but no frontier has ever captured the American imagination like the "Wild West," which still evokes images of dusty cowboys, outlaws, gunfights, gamblers, and barroom brawls over 100 years after the West was settled. A constant fixture in American pop culture, the 19th century American West continues to be vividly and colorful portrayed not just as a place but as a state of mind. In Charles River Editors' Legends of the West series, readers can get caught up to speed on the lives of America's most famous frontier figures in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known. America has always preferred heroes who weren't clean cut, an informal ode to the rugged individualism and pioneering spirit that defined the nation in previous centuries. After the early 19th century saw the glorification of frontier folk heroes like Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone, a new breed of folk icons inhabited the Wild West, and one of the most notorious and controversial of them all is John Wesley Hardin, still regarded today as Texas' most deadly gunfighter and most famous outlaw. Outlaws like Jesse James and Billy the Kid robbed and fought their way into dime novels, but Hardin managed to write his own way in, all while his encounters with the law in the South during Reconstruction made him a hero of sorts among Southerners. Hardin managed a stint in prison, claimed to have killed dozens of men, had an encounter with Wild Bill Hickok, and was even alleged to have killed a man because he was snoring. Despite all that activity, Hardin also managed to write an autobiography of his life, a unique feat among most outlaws of the era, who were too busy merely trying to avoid justice and/or death. Of course, Hardin's claims in the autobiography have also been subjected to much scrutiny by historians, even as his reputation and legacy were hardened by his life and notorious death. While he had several documented and well-known brushes with the law and other famous Westerners, historians still attempt to sort out the facts from the legends. Legends of the West: The Life and Legacy of John Wesley Hardin chronicles the outlaw's life and examines the myths and legends surrounding his story. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Hardin like you never have before, in no time at all.

History, Rangers, Quarrels, Trials.