Wild Bill Hickok – Davis Tutt shootout

Wild Bill Hickok – Davis Tutt shootout

Wild Bill Hickok threatens the friend of Davis Tutt after defeating Tutt in a duel. Harper's New Monthly Magazine, February 1867
Date	July 21, 1865
Location	Springfield, Missouri, United States
Participants	Wild Bill Hickok Davis Tutt
Deaths	1

The Wild Bill Hickok – Davis Tutt shootout was a gunfight that occurred on July 21, 1865 in the town square of Springfield, Missouri between Wild Bill Hickok and cowboy Davis Tutt. It is one of the few recorded instances in the Old West of a one-on-one pistol quick-draw duel in a public place, in the manner later made iconic by countless dime novels, radio dramas, and Western films such as High Noon. The first story of the shootout was detailed in an article in Harper's Magazine in 1867, making Hickok a household name and folk hero.

Tutt and Hickok, both gamblers, had at one point been friends, despite the fact that Tutt was a Confederate Army veteran, and Hickok had been a scout for the Union Army. Davis Tutt originally came from Marion County, Arkansas, where his family had been involved in the Tutt–Everett War, during which several of his family members had been killed. He had come north to Missouri following the civil war. Hickok had been born in Illinois, coming west after mistakenly thinking he had killed a man in a drunken brawl.

The eventual falling out between Hickok and Tutt reportedly occurred over women. There were reports that Hickok had fathered an illegitimate child with Tutt's sister, while Tutt had been observed paying a great deal of attention to Wild Bill's paramour, Susanna Moore. When Hickok started to refuse to play in any card game that included Tutt, the cowboy retaliated by openly supporting other local card-players with advice and money in a dedicated attempt to bankrupt Hickok.