John Myers Myers - Doc Holliday

Doc Holliday

DOC HOLLIDAY

by

John Myers Myers

UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS

LINCOLN AND LONDON

Copyright 1955, by John Myers Myers

All rights reserved. No part of this book in excess of five hundred words may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 555528

International Standard Book Number 0803257813

ISBN-13: 978-0-8032-5781-8 (pbk.: alk. paper)

ISBN-13: 978-0-8032-5236-3 (electronic: e-pub)

ISBN-13: 978-0-8032-5237-0 (electronic: mobi)

Doc Holliday was first published by Little, Brown and Company in 1955. The Bison Book edition, published by arrangement with the author, is reproduced from the 1957 edition published by Jarrolds Publishers (London) Limited.

To Two Fellow Clansmen

KENT deGRAFFENRIED

and

JOHN MARTIN MYERS

this chronicle of a man as a slight token of avuncular esteem

Contents

Part I

The Western Progress of a Georgia Gentleman

Chapter I

T HE story of John Henry Holliday does not add up to stock biographical fare. He was martyr to no cause and served no nation. He was far from being the victim of social oppression or the worlds neglect. He created neither empires, business corporations nor works of art. His life was not such as to mark him a model for future generations.

He was one of the coolest killers ever to snatch gun from hiding. He was a gambler of enough parts to make two. He was a con man to match tricks with old George Peele or Simon Suggs, and equally deft at dodging the passes which the law often made in his direction. He drank enough liquor to earn a place on John Barleycorns calendar of saints.

For these and other reasons it has been freely remarked of him that he was not a good man. It is not the purpose of the ensuing chronicle either to refute or press such a charge against this Southern dentist who turned Western adventurer. It is rather the plan here to report what it is still possible to learn about an invalid whose name grew to be a byword for frontier prowess during the 1870s and 80s.

In line with this aim it is fitting to state that if he was not a good man, he was yet a man who was good at a number of things. The list includes a dukes mixture of characteristics as well as his assortment of skills. As to some of his bents, it might be conceded that they let criticism in at the front door. Others must be reckoned admirable.

He was, for instance, good at making his own way under circumstances that would have excused dependence. He was good at following his own course, unswayed by public attitudes. He was good at keeping faith with such friends as he saw fit to make. He was good both at keeping his own counsel and respecting the privacy of others. He was good at accepting facts without flinching. He was good at facing death, both as an ever-present threat to a victim of consumption and a special menace in the many gun- and knife-fights in which he engaged.

By contrast, he was not good at winning the regard of societys moral leaders, wherever found. Many not so marked for grace shared this distaste for him, generating a hatred which has filtered down through a couple of succeeding generations. Among divers other things, these said that he was not good at distinguishing between his own and anothers property. That case will be tried in subsequent chapters as well as the remaining evidence allows. Meanwhile it is enough to say that he was never at any time good at keeping out of hot water.

Some asserted that he sought it as his natural element, and this may have been so. At any rate he was up to his ears in it for most of the fifteen years he spent in Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona, South Dakota and Colorado. By the time he finally had to wait and face death with his hands down, he had achieved what many a more ambitious man had vainly attempted. Thousands of once celebrated names have all but faded from the record, but the West has not forgotten Doc Holliday.

That his life is, nevertheless, worth reporting may be doubtedbut only by people who hold that history is properly a study of social and economic forces. Contradicting them and not begging their pardon, history is also a study of men; and in the history of the Wild West Doc has the distinction of playing a unique part.

One of the shadow shapes which has delighted mankind since Robin Hood was made one and the same with the noble Earl of Huntington is the idea of the gentleman rogue. This fancy has been especially popular in the United States, where any mildly housebroken killer is apt to wind up with the subtitle, aristocrat and man of culture rare. But if specimens of the type abound in Western myth, only one is to be found on the hoof, complete with a background which can be documented. This is John Henry Holliday, who was undoubtedly the product of an organized, patrician society, so recognized by itself and so rated by those not encompassed in its circle.

Unless some fellow craftsman produces a book on the subject before this chronicle gets into print, or unless some long-buried manuscript comes to light meanwhile, this will be the first effort at a full-length presentation of Docs hectic career. Such being the case, a brief discussion of the sources on which it is based will follow.

He did not live, as did his associates Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson, to hand down any comments or to confide his recollections to a biographer. Unlike Bill Tilghman, whom he also knew, he was not survived by a widow who could give an intimate picture of his private life. He left no body of letters, or at least the one group known to have existed has not been located, and it might not be very informative if found. It is doubtful if he would have confided much about his frontier activities to a nun.

But if he did not write of himself, other men did him that sometimes dubious service. Chief among these could be cited Wyatt Earp, who was fond of him; Bat Masterson, who did not like him, although he usually found himself an ally of Docs; and William Breakenridge, who lived to become the spokesman of a highly hostile faction. He was also cited in the memoirs of Bob Wright, anecdotal historian, and Eddie Foy, the actor, who were entertained by him at Dodge City; Miguel Otero, later governor of New Mexico, who enjoyed his company at Las Vegas; John Clum, the Indian agent and editor, who disapproved of him at Tombstone; plus a few others who unquestionably had some acquaintance with him.

In addition to the above there are the statements and comments of sundry old-timers who speak with an authority to which they may or may not be entitled. That is to say, there is nothing to prove that their assertions were based on firsthand knowledge. In certain instances the odds favour it, while in as many cases these reports sound like the windjamming of old codgers who have used their imaginations to build good stories out of vaguely-remembered rumours.

Next come the contemporary newspaper accounts, in so far as it has been possible to hunt them down. Missing or sketchy in several States, these achieve respectable bulk in Arizona and Colorado. By kind they fall into several groups. In a solitary case the name of the reporter is known and a personal acquaintance asserted. In two other instances Doc was actually interviewed and quoted. In one series the objectivity at which newspapers for ever shoot and miss was attained in the reprinting of actual court records. A fourth category is composed of items mailed to papers by correspondents, one or two of whom may have known Doc, although this is not implicit in the accounts. A fifth class consists of items picked up and re-writtenin the days before press services broadcast standard reportsfor papers in towns where Doc had ceased to live or was known only by repute. A sixth is made up of obituary notices, ranging in tone from