Lincoln County War
| Lincoln County War | |||
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Billy the Kid is the most remembered gunfighter of the Lincoln County War.
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| Date | February 18 – July 20, 1878 or July 14, 1881 (when Billy the Kid was killed) | ||
| Location | Lincoln County, New Mexico Territory, United States | ||
| Causes | Revenge killings | ||
| Result | Regulators were suppressed and both factions collapsed | ||
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Murphy-Dolan-Riley Faction
Tunstall-McSween-Chisum Faction
The Lincoln County War was an Old West conflict between rival factions in 1878 in New Mexico Territory. The feud became famous because of the participation of Billy the Kid. Other notable figures included Sheriff William Brady, cattle rancher John Chisum, lawyer and businessman Alexander McSween, and James Dolan, and Lawrence Murphy.
The conflict arose between two factions over the control of dry goods and cattle interests in the county. The older, established faction was led by James Dolan, who operated a dry goods monopoly through a general store locally referred to as "The House." Young newcomers to the county, English-born John Tunstall and his business partner Alexander McSween, with backing from established cattleman John Chisum, opened a competing store in 1876. The two sides gathered lawmen, businessmen, Tunstall's ranch hands, and criminal gangs to their support. The Dolan faction were allied with Lincoln County Sheriff Brady, and supported by the Jesse Evans Gang. The Tunstall-McSween faction organized their own posse of armed men, known as the Regulators, to defend their position, and had their own lawmen, town constable Richard M. Brewer and Deputy US Marshal Robert A. Widenmann.
The conflict was marked by back-and-forth revenge killings, starting with the murder of Tunstall by members of the Evans Gang. In revenge for this, the Regulators killed Sheriff Brady and others in a series of incidents. Further killings continued unabated for several months, climaxing in the Battle of Lincoln, a five-day gunfight and siege that resulted in the death of McSween and the scattering of the Regulators. After Pat Garrett was named County Sheriff in 1880, he hunted down Billy the Kid, killing two other former Regulators in the process. The war was fictionalized in several Hollywood films, including Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, The Left Handed Gun in 1958, John Wayne's Chisum in 1970 and Young Guns in 1988.
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