On the morning of October 26, 1881, Wyatt Earp rose from his bed around noon. Before he could even get up, Ned Boyle came to him with word that Ike Clanton had been seen near the telegraph office on Allen Street, armed and talking. Clanton had declared that as soon as the Earps appeared on the street, the fight would begin. He was looking for the sons of bitches, he said, and he meant to make a fight of it.
Wyatt lay there a short while longer, then got up and went to the Oriental Saloon. Harry Jones met him and asked what the situation was. Ike Clanton was hunting for them, Jones said, carrying a Winchester rifle and a six-shooter. Wyatt decided to confront the matter directly.
He left the saloon and at the corner of Fifth and Allen Street met his brother Virgil, the town marshal. Virgil told him the same thing: Ike Clanton was out looking for them. Wyatt went down Allen Street while Virgil took Fifth, then turned onto Fremont. Virgil found Ike Clanton on Fourth Street near Fremont, standing at the entrance of an alleyway.
Wyatt approached and said, “I hear you are hunting for some of us. ”
Ike Clanton swung his Winchester rifle toward Virgil. Virgil seized the rifle and struck Clanton with his six-shooter, knocking him to the ground. Clanton had his rifle with him, and his six-shooter was holstered in his pants.
When Wyatt arrived, Virgil and Morgan Earp took both weapons from him and carried them to the Grand Hotel. Wyatt then brought Ike Clanton before Justice Wallace for proceedings. It had all been building for more than a year, and the roots of it reached back further still. Wyatt Earp was born in Monmouth, Warren County, Illinois, and had turned thirty-two on March 19 of that year.
He had come to Tombstone, Arizona Territory, on December 1, 1879, and presently kept a saloon. Before that he had been a deputy sheriff and a detective. The trouble that would end in the deaths of William Clanton and Frank McLaury had started the previous spring, a little over a year before the shooting. Wyatt had followed Tom and Frank McLaury and two other men who had stolen six government mules from Camp Rucker.
With him went his brothers Virgil and Morgan, Marshall Williams, Captain Hurst, and four soldiers. They traced the mules to the McLaury ranch. At Charleston, Wyatt met a man named Dave Estus, who told him he had seen the mules at the ranch the day before. They were branding them, Estus said, making a DS brand out of the existing DS.
Wyatt and the party tracked the mules right up to the ranch and found the branding iron. Some of those mules were later found wearing the same brand. When they arrived at the McLaury ranch, a man named Frank Patterson appeared and made some kind of compromise with Captain Hurst. Hurst then came to Wyatt and the others and told them a deal had been struck to ensure the return of the stolen mules.
Wyatt and his party insisted on pursuing the matter further, but Hurst convinced them to return to Tombstone. Two or three weeks later, Hurst told them the mules would not be given up after all. They had only wanted to get the Earps away, Hurst said, so the cowboys could stand off the soldiers. Captain Hurst also warned Wyatt and his brothers Virgil and Morgan that the men had made threats against their lives.
About a month after the mule chase, Wyatt met Frank and Tom McLaury in Charleston. They tried to provoke a quarrel and warned of dire consequences if the Earps ever pursued them as closely again. Then came the killing of Bud Philpot, shot during an attempted robbery of the Benson stage. Wyatt was working as a detective for Wells Fargo and Company and took up the investigation.
He became convinced that three men were responsible: Billy Leonard, Harry Head, and James Crane. He knew these men were friends of the Clantons and the McLaurys, and that they visited their ranches often. Among law enforcement and those familiar with criminal circles, it was widely acknowledged that Ike Clanton held a leading role among the Cowboys. The Clanton and McLaury ranches were known as meeting points and shelters for the gang, and the families were reputed cattle thieves.
Wyatt believed they were implicated in the stage robbery as well. Wyatt had ambitions to be elected sheriff in the coming county election. He believed that capturing the men who killed Philpot would greatly enhance his standing with the public and the local businessmen. Rewards of about two hundred dollars each had been offered for the capture of the robbers, roughly thirty-six hundred dollars in total.
Wyatt hoped to use that money as bait. He approached Ike Clanton and Frank McLaury, along with Joe Hill, when they came to town. They met in the backyard of the Oriental Saloon. Wyatt explained that he wanted the credit for capturing Leonard, Head, and Crane, because it would help him in the sheriff’s race.
He proposed that if they gave him information leading to the capture of the robbers, they would receive the full reward and their involvement would be kept secret. Ike Clanton was interested. He had a dispute with Leonard over a ranch that both men claimed, and he believed that removing Leonard would settle the matter in his favor. Clanton warned that Leonard, Head, and Crane would likely resist capture, and he wanted to know whether the reward applied whether the robbers were taken dead or alive.
Wyatt went to Marshall Williams, Wells Fargo’s local agent, who telegraphed the company’s superintendent in San Francisco in June 1881. The response came back: the reward would be paid whether the robbers were captured dead or alive. The next day Wyatt met Ike Clanton and Joe Hill on Allen Street in front of a small cigar store next to the Alhambra. He told them the dispatch had arrived.
Williams could not locate the original, but he obtained a copy from the telegraph office and handed it to Wyatt, who showed it to Clanton and Hill before returning it. He also shared the information with Frank McLaury. The agreement was that Clanton, McLaury, and Hill would receive the entire thirty-six hundred dollars, minus only the necessary expenses for hiring horses during the pursuit. Joe Hill was to travel to the area near Eaque, New Mexico, where Leonard, Head, and Crane were hiding.
His task was to lure them toward Frank and Tom McLaury’s ranch near Soldiers Hole, thirty miles from Tombstone. Wyatt would be waiting with a posse to capture them. Wyatt asked them what story they would use to bring the men in. They had already settled on a plan, they said.
They would tell Leonard, Head, and Crane that a paymaster would be traveling from Tombstone to Bisbee to pay off the miners, and they wanted them to come in and rob him. Ike Clanton entrusted Joe Hill with the mission. Before departing, Hill handed his watch chain and between two and three hundred dollars to Virgil Earp for safekeeping until his return. About ten days later, Hill came back with bad news.
He had arrived a day too late. Leonard and Harry Head had been killed by horse thieves the day before he reached their location. Later, Wyatt learned that the horse thieves had themselves been slain by members of the Clanton and McLaury gang. After that, Ike Clanton and Frank McLaury announced that Wyatt had turned them over to Marshall Williams and Doc Holliday.
When they came into town, they avoided Wyatt and the others. Morgan, Virgil, Doc Holliday, and Wyatt began hearing threats against their lives. Wyatt’s connection to Doc Holliday went back to his time as city marshal of Dodge City, Kansas, where Holliday had come to his aid and saved his life when Wyatt was surrounded by outlaws. In October 1881, about a month or more before the shooting, Morgan and Wyatt had assisted in the arrest of Stillwell and Spence for robbing the Bisbee stage.
The McLaurys and Clantons were close friends of Spence and Stillwell, and they laid the blame for the arrest squarely on the Earps, even though the arrests had been made as a sheriff’s posse. When Spence and Stillwell were brought into town, Ike Clanton and Frank McLaury arrived. Frank confronted Morgan Earp in front of the Alhambra, where John Ringo, Ike Clanton, and the two Hicks boys were present. Frank berated Morgan for pursuing Spence and Stillwell, saying he disliked the arrest.
Then he said, “If you ever come after me, you will never take me. ” Morgan replied that if the need arose, he would indeed make an arrest. Frank McLaury answered, “I have threatened you boys’ lives, and a few days later I had taken it back. But since this arrest, it now goes.
” Morgan remained silent and walked away. Before and after these events, Marshall Williams, Farmer Daly, Ed Barnes, old man Ides, Charlie Smith, and several others informed Wyatt and his brothers at various times of threats made against them by Ike Clanton, Frank McLaury, Tom McLaury, Joe Hill, and John Ringo. Wyatt knew these men were dangerous and desperate, connected to outlawry, cattle theft, robbery, and murder. He knew the McLaurys had stolen the six government mules and cattle.
When a rightful owner pursued his stock to the McLaury ranch, he was driven off and threatened with death if he spoke of it, and he kept silent until recently out of fear for his life. Wyatt had also heard accounts of John Ringo cold-bloodedly shooting a man near Camp Thomas. He was convinced that Frank and Tom McLaury had committed robbery and murder in Skeleton Canyon against Mexicans three or four months earlier. He remained vigilant, determined not to let any of the gang catch him off guard if he could help it.
About five or six weeks before the shooting, Ike Clanton confronted Wyatt at the Alhambra. Clanton accused Wyatt of having divulged information about the plot to capture Leonard, Head, and Crane to Doc Holliday. Wyatt denied it and promised to prove the accusation false when Holliday returned from Tucson. Clanton insisted that Holliday had told him otherwise.
When Holliday returned, Wyatt asked him whether he had said any such thing. On the night of October 25, Holliday met Ike Clanton in the Alhambra and asked him about it. Clanton denied it. A quarrel broke out, lasting three or four minutes, with Holliday calling Clanton a liar in a heated exchange.
Wyatt was seated at the lunch counter, and Morgan stood at the Alhambra bar talking with the bartender, watching the altercation. Wyatt called Morgan over, knowing Morgan was an officer, and told him to intervene and stop the quarrel. Morgan climbed over the lunchroom counter and escorted Holliday outside, with Clanton following seconds later. After finishing his meal, Wyatt walked out and saw the dispute still going on outside.
Virgil arrived, likely from the nearby establishment, and warned Holliday and Clanton that he would arrest them if they did not stop. They dispersed. Morgan headed down the street to the Oriental Saloon. Ike crossed the street to the Grand Hotel.
Wyatt entered the Eagle Brewery, where he had an open faro game running, and stayed for a short time. When he returned to the street, he met Ike Clanton, who asked if Wyatt would walk with him, saying he wanted to talk. Wyatt agreed, with the condition that Clanton not take him too far, because he needed to close his game and handle the money. They walked halfway down the brewery building on Fifth Street and stopped.
Clanton told Wyatt that when Holliday approached him in the Alhambra, he had not been “fixed just right. ” He declared he was ready for a one-on-one confrontation the next morning. There had been too much talk over too long a time, he said, and it was time to put an end to it. Wyatt said he had no wish to fight, that there was no money in it.
Clanton walked away, leaving him with the words: “I will be ready for you in the morning. ”
Wyatt strolled over to the Oriental, and Clanton followed, entering and having a drink with his six-shooter in clear view. “You must not think I won’t be after you all in the morning,” Clanton said. He wanted to fight Holliday right then.
Wyatt told him Holliday had no intention of fighting, only of clearing up the misunderstanding about the alleged talk. At that moment the dealer closed Wyatt’s game and brought the money, which Wyatt secured in the safe before heading home. Walking between the Oriental and the Alhambra, he met Holliday on the street. They walked down Allen Street together, Holliday to his room and Wyatt home, where he retired for the night.
Now it was the morning of October 26, and Ike Clanton had been disarmed and brought before Justice Wallace. During the proceedings, Morgan Earp took charge of Ike Clanton because Virgil was absent. Wyatt sat down on a bench. Ike Clanton looked at him and said, “I will get even with all of you for this.
If I had a six-shooter now, I would make a fight with all of you. ”
Morgan Earp answered, “If you want to make a fight right bad, I will give you this one. ” He offered Clanton his own six-shooter. Clanton began to rise to accept it, but Campbell, the deputy sheriff, intervened, pushing him back into his seat and forbidding the fight.
Contrary to what Ike Clanton would later claim, Wyatt never handled Clanton’s weapons. In the courtroom, Ike sat on a bench facing the north wall. Wyatt sat on a bench along the same wall facing Ike. Morgan stood with his back against the wall, to Wyatt’s right and a few feet away.
Morgan held Ike’s Winchester with one end on the floor, and Clanton’s six-shooter in his right hand. Virgil was not in the courtroom. He arrived later, after Wyatt had already left, and told Wyatt he had been outside looking for Judge Wallace. Wyatt had grown fed up with the constant threats from Ike Clanton and his gang, and he perceived their intention to assassinate him.
He decided that if he had to defend his life, it would be on his own terms, in an open fight. Standing about eight feet from Ike Clanton, he addressed him directly. “You damn dirty cow thief,” Wyatt said, “you have been threatening our lives, and I know it. I think I would be justified in shooting you down any place I should meet you.
But if you are anxious to make a fight, I will go anywhere on Earth to make a fight with you, even over to the sand hills among your crowd. ”
Clanton answered, “I will see you after I get through here. I only want four feet of ground to fight on. ”
Wyatt exited the courtroom.
Just outside, near the justice’s office, he encountered Tom McLaury. McLaury approached him and said, “If you want to make a fight, I will make a fight with you anywhere. ” It seemed he had heard the exchange with Ike Clanton, and Wyatt knew of his previous threats. Facing a man who had threatened his life, and having a fair chance to defend himself, Wyatt agreed.
“All right, make a fight right here,” he said, and simultaneously slapped Tom McLaury in the face with his left hand and drew his pistol with his right. McLaury had a pistol visible on his right hip, but he made no move to draw it. Wyatt said, “Jerk your gun and use it. ” There was no reply.
Wyatt struck him on the head with his six-shooter and walked away. Wyatt went to Halford’s Corner. Inside Halford’s he bought a cigar and stood by the door. Shortly after, he saw Tom McLaury, Frank McLaury, and William Clanton pass by, heading down Fourth Street toward the gunsmith shop.
Curious about their intentions, he followed them. When he arrived, he found Frank McLaury’s horse on the sidewalk. Acting in his capacity as deputy city marshal, Wyatt began to back the horse off. Tom, Frank, and Billy Clanton emerged from the shop, with Billy putting his hand on his six-shooter.
Frank took hold of the horse’s bridle, and Wyatt insisted, “You will have to get this horse off the sidewalk. ” Frank backed the horse into the street. Ike Clanton joined them, and all of them entered the gunsmith shop. Wyatt watched them inside, loading cartridges into their belts.
They left the shop and proceeded along Fourth Street toward the corner of Allen Street. Wyatt followed to the intersection, where they continued down Allen and headed to Dunbar’s Corral, with Dunbar and Bayon present. Virgil Earp, the city marshal, and Morgan Earp, serving as a special policeman, were joined by Doc Holliday and Wyatt at the corner of Fourth and Allen Streets. Virgil had returned from Tucson several days earlier, but Wyatt was still acting as deputy marshal, having been sworn in during Virgil’s absence for the Spence and Stillwell trial.
Wyatt knew it was Virgil’s duty to disarm these men, and knowing their threats, he anticipated trouble. He followed to provide assistance. About ten minutes later, while the four stood at the corner of Fourth and Allen, several people came with reports of impending trouble. A man named Coleman advised Virgil: “They mean trouble.
They have just moved from Dunbar’s Corral into the O. K. Corral, all armed, and I think you had better go and disarm them. ”
Virgil turned to Doc Holliday, Morgan, and Wyatt and told them to join him in disarming the men.
Morgan suggested they get horses, in case the men made a running fight. Wyatt answered no. “If they try to make a running fight, we can kill their horses, and then capture them. ”
The four of them went through Fourth Street to Fremont.
As they turned the corner of Fourth and Fremont, they saw the men in the vacant space between Fly’s Photograph Gallery and the building to the west. Wyatt first noticed Frank McLaury, Tom McLaury, Billy Clanton, and Sheriff Behan standing in that vicinity. They advanced along the left side of Fremont Street. When they had come within about a hundred and fifty feet, Wyatt identified Ike Clanton, Billy Clanton, and another man.
Behan left the group and came toward them, frequently glancing back as if expecting trouble. He cautioned Virgil: “For God’s sake, don’t go down there. You will get murdered. ”
Virgil, leading the group, replied, “I am going to disarm them.
”
When Morgan and Wyatt reached Behan, he told them, “I have disarmed them. ”
Hearing this, Wyatt discreetly placed his pistol, which he had been holding beneath his coat, into his overcoat pocket. Behan then went up the street. They continued down and closed on the men.
Frank McLaury, Tom McLaury, and Billy Clanton stood in a line along the east side of the building, opposite the vacant space west of Fly’s gallery. Ike Clanton, Billy Claiborne, and an unidentified man stood in the vacant space itself, midway between the gallery and the building to the west. Wyatt saw that Frank and Billy openly carried their six-shooters. Virgil commanded, “Throw up your hands.
I have come to disarm you. ”
Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury put their hands on their six-shooters. Virgil clarified: “Hold. I don’t mean that.
I have come to disarm you. ”
Despite the order, Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury began to draw their pistols at the same time. Tom McLaury moved his hand to his right hip, threw open his coat to show his weapon, and jumped behind his horse, which was in fact Billy Clanton’s. Wyatt’s pistol was in his overcoat pocket, where he had placed it when Behan said the men were disarmed.
Seeing Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury draw, he drew his own. Billy Clanton aimed his pistol at Wyatt. Wyatt did not return his aim. He knew Frank McLaury’s reputation as a skilled and dangerous shooter, so Wyatt aimed at him instead.
The first shots were exchanged between Billy Clanton and Wyatt, both firing almost simultaneously. A general exchange of gunfire followed. About four shots into the fight, Ike Clanton came up and grabbed Wyatt’s left arm. Wyatt saw no weapon in his hand and told him to join the fight or get out of the way.
He pushed Ike away with his left hand. Ike ran down the side of the building and disappeared between the lodging house and the photograph gallery. Wyatt’s first shot struck Frank McLaury in the abdomen. Frank staggered onto the sidewalk, but not before firing one shot in Wyatt’s direction.
When the order was given to raise their hands, Claiborne raised his left hand and fled. Wyatt did not see him again until the afternoon after the battle. Wyatt did not draw his pistol or make any threatening gesture until after Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury drew their weapons. If Tom McLaury was unarmed, Wyatt was not aware of it.
He believed Tom was armed and that Tom fired two shots at the party before Holliday, armed with a shotgun, fired and fatally wounded him. Wyatt did not shoot at Ike Clanton during the gunfight because he believed Ike was unarmed. Based on the actions, threats, and conspiratorial intentions conveyed through the acts of Tom McLaury, Frank McLaury, and Ike Clanton, and the additional threats communicated by others, Wyatt firmly believed these men had conspired to murder his brothers Morgan and Virgil, Doc Holliday, and himself. He believed he had legal and moral justification to shoot any of them on sight, but he did not take such action.
When he assumed the role of deputy marshal to assist in disarming and arresting them, he did so as part of his duty and under the guidance of his brother, the marshal. His intention was not to engage in a fight unless it became necessary for self-defense and the fulfillment of his official duties. Once Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury drew their pistols, he recognized it as a fight for their lives and drew his weapon in defense of himself, his brothers, and Doc Holliday. Wyatt Earp had lived in Tombstone since December 1, 1879, arriving directly from Dodge City, Kansas, where he had resigned the position of city marshal, a post he had held since 1876, against the objections of the businessmen and officials.
He had served on the police force in Wichita from 1874 before moving on to Dodge City. Ike Clanton’s testimony alleging that Wyatt admitted involvement in any stage robbery, or that he provided information to Morgan about an impending stage event, or that he engaged in improper dealings with criminal enterprises, was, in Wyatt’s words, a fabrication from start to finish. Sheriff Behan had made an offer to Wyatt in his office on Allen Street, in the back room of a cigar store where he conducted his affairs. Behan proposed that if Wyatt withdrew from seeking the appointment as sheriff of Cochise County, Behan would hire a clerk and they would share the profits.
Wyatt agreed to the arrangement, but Behan never honored it, later giving false reasons for not complying. Doc Holliday and Wyatt had happened to visit Charleston one night when Behan went down there to summon Ike Clanton. Their purpose was to reclaim a horse that had been stolen from Wyatt. Shortly after arriving in Tombstone, rumors circulated that the Clantons had the horse, but Wyatt did not know where Ike’s ranch was.
Later, while in the Huachucas identifying water rights and returning home, Wyatt met a man named McMasters, who told him the horse could be found in Charleston if he hurried. When Wyatt reached Charleston, he saw his horse on the street heading toward the corral. He lodged for the night in another corral and went to Brett’s office the next day to obtain recovery papers. Bernette was away, traveling to Sonora for gold field exploration.
Wyatt telegraphed Tombstone to James Earp, instructing him to prepare the necessary papers. James consulted with Judge Wallace and Mr. Street, who crafted the documents and sent them to Charleston by Wyatt’s youngest brother, Warren. That same night, while waiting for the papers, Billy Clanton learned of Wyatt’s presence and tried to take the horse from the corral.
Wyatt asserted that it was his horse and prevented him from taking it. When the papers arrived, Billy handed over the horse without giving the papers. He asked Wyatt if he had any more horses to lose. Wyatt told him he would keep them in the stable after this and give him no chance to steal them.
As part of his sworn statement, Wyatt presented a document received from Dodge City following his arrest on the charge, which he requested be appended and labeled Exhibit A. In the course of the discussions with Ike Clanton, Frank McLaury, and Joe Hill, there had been four or five distinct occasions, all held in the backyard of the Oriental Saloon. During one of these conversations, Wyatt conveyed to Ike Clanton that certain people in town were casting suspicion on Doc Holliday, alleging his involvement in the attempted robbery and killing of Bud Philpot. Wyatt assured Clanton that if he could apprehend Leonard, Head, and Crane, it would substantiate Holliday’s innocence to the community.
The pursuit of Leonard, Head, and Crane had been relentless, an unbroken trail with scarcely a missed footprint, from Drew’s Ranch on the San Pedro to Helm’s Ranch in the Dragoons. The trail extended roughly eighty miles down the San Pedro River. They captured a man named King, believed to be associated with them. They traversed the Catalina Mountains about fifteen miles from Tucson, followed the trail around the mountain’s base to Tres Alamos on the San Pedro River, and onward to the Dragoons at Helm’s Ranch.
From there they resumed tracking, discovering that the men had stolen fifteen or twenty head of livestock to elude them. Wyatt, Virgil, Morgan, Robert H. Paul, Deputy Sheriff Breakenridge, Sheriff Johnny Behan, and a couple of others diligently pursued the trail into New Mexico, contradicting Ike Clanton’s assertion that the trail led south from Helm’s Ranch. They exerted every effort over ten days, with Virgil and Morgan extending their pursuit to sixteen days.
Wyatt stated with confidence that without the concerted efforts of himself and Morgan, King would not have been apprehended, as King attempted to flee toward a large brush patch along the river. They intercepted him and prevented his escape.
