WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.480 In 1879, a group of men in the Dakota Territory 00:00:03.480 --> 00:00:07.700 opened up a coffin to move a body. But when they 00:00:07.700 --> 00:00:09.259 cleared away the dirt and they tapped the corpse 00:00:09.259 --> 00:00:12.039 with a cane, it didn't sound like organic material 00:00:12.039 --> 00:00:14.380 at all. Right. It sounded like striking a solid 00:00:14.380 --> 00:00:16.920 brick wall. Exactly. They were staring down at 00:00:16.920 --> 00:00:20.620 a 500 -pound completely petrified human statue. 00:00:21.739 --> 00:00:24.260 The wildest part about this, that living statue 00:00:24.260 --> 00:00:26.480 used to be the deadliest man in the American 00:00:26.480 --> 00:00:29.600 West. It really is one of the most bizarre, almost 00:00:29.600 --> 00:00:31.780 poetic endings in American history. You have 00:00:31.780 --> 00:00:34.979 this man who spent his entire life turning himself 00:00:34.979 --> 00:00:38.710 into this, you know... towering, inflexible monument 00:00:38.710 --> 00:00:41.009 of frontier mythology, and then he literally 00:00:41.009 --> 00:00:43.490 turns to stone in the ground. It's unbelievable. 00:00:43.829 --> 00:00:45.429 Yeah. Well, welcome to this Deep Dive. Our mission 00:00:45.429 --> 00:00:47.950 today is to unpack a massive stack of sources. 00:00:47.950 --> 00:00:50.030 Yeah. We're talking historical records, biographies, 00:00:50.090 --> 00:00:52.109 and original newspaper articles from the 1800s. 00:00:52.450 --> 00:00:56.270 We're looking at James Butler Hickok, or as you 00:00:56.270 --> 00:00:58.560 probably know him, Wild Bill. Yeah, Wild Bill 00:00:58.560 --> 00:01:01.320 Hickok. And the goal here is to separate the 00:01:01.320 --> 00:01:04.340 flesh and blood man from the towering myth. Because 00:01:04.340 --> 00:01:06.260 when you actually look at the documents, you 00:01:06.260 --> 00:01:09.299 realize the American frontier was just as much 00:01:09.299 --> 00:01:12.900 about media spin and fabricated, highly curated 00:01:12.900 --> 00:01:16.900 legends as it was about actual history. OK, let's 00:01:16.900 --> 00:01:20.040 unpack this. Where does the story of the ultimate 00:01:20.040 --> 00:01:23.819 frontiersman actually begin? Yeah, because it's 00:01:23.819 --> 00:01:26.060 not in the saloon. No, not at all. I mean, to 00:01:26.060 --> 00:01:27.799 really understand the legend, we have to start 00:01:27.799 --> 00:01:29.879 with the real man and his beginnings are deeply 00:01:29.879 --> 00:01:32.980 rooted in intense moral conflict. James Butler 00:01:32.980 --> 00:01:35.359 Hickok wasn't born in the wild frontier. He was 00:01:35.359 --> 00:01:38.480 born in Illinois in 1837. Right. And his father 00:01:38.480 --> 00:01:41.079 was a staunch abolitionist. Their family farm 00:01:41.079 --> 00:01:43.579 was reportedly a working station on the Underground 00:01:43.579 --> 00:01:46.040 Railroad. So he's growing up around these high 00:01:46.040 --> 00:01:48.459 stakes life or death situations from day one. 00:01:48.540 --> 00:01:50.959 Like he's learning early on how to keep secrets 00:01:50.959 --> 00:01:53.560 and handle immense pressure. Exactly. He's steeped 00:01:53.560 --> 00:01:55.280 in this environment. of hidden dangers, but, 00:01:55.359 --> 00:01:57.140 you know, he doesn't stick around Illinois for 00:01:57.140 --> 00:02:00.099 long. No, he doesn't. He flees at age 18, and 00:02:00.099 --> 00:02:03.280 the catalyst is almost purely accidental. He 00:02:03.280 --> 00:02:05.859 gets into this brutal fistfight with a young 00:02:05.859 --> 00:02:08.580 man named Charles Hudson along the Illinois and 00:02:08.580 --> 00:02:11.460 Michigan Canal. Oh, right, the Canal thing. Yeah. 00:02:12.139 --> 00:02:14.460 And during the brawl, they both tumble into the 00:02:14.460 --> 00:02:17.099 water. In the sheer chaos of the struggle, they 00:02:17.099 --> 00:02:19.860 get separated, and each man mistakenly believes 00:02:19.860 --> 00:02:22.800 he just drowned the other. Which is wild. So 00:02:22.800 --> 00:02:25.180 Hickok sprints off toward the Kansas territory 00:02:25.180 --> 00:02:27.740 as a fugitive from a murder that never actually 00:02:27.740 --> 00:02:30.120 happened. He literally runs away from a ghost. 00:02:30.180 --> 00:02:33.300 Ugh. And when he gets out west, I mean, he isn't 00:02:33.300 --> 00:02:36.659 instantly this terrifying gunfighter with a cool 00:02:36.659 --> 00:02:39.180 name, right? That far from it. In fact, his early 00:02:39.180 --> 00:02:41.740 nicknames were kind of brutal. People derisively 00:02:41.740 --> 00:02:44.300 called him Duck Bill. because he had this long 00:02:44.300 --> 00:02:46.539 nose and protruding lips. Yeah, the sources mentioned 00:02:46.539 --> 00:02:48.460 he was pretty self -conscious about it. It wasn't 00:02:48.460 --> 00:02:51.460 until later that he grew out this massive sweeping 00:02:51.460 --> 00:02:54.259 mustache to hide his upper lip and basically 00:02:54.259 --> 00:02:56.979 rebranded himself as Wild Bill. It's the ultimate 00:02:56.979 --> 00:03:00.400 19th century makeover, really. But we shouldn't 00:03:00.400 --> 00:03:03.240 dismiss his physical toughness as pure PR. There 00:03:03.240 --> 00:03:06.699 were real incredibly violent incidents that forged 00:03:06.699 --> 00:03:09.280 his physical resilience long before the media 00:03:09.280 --> 00:03:12.360 ever found him. The most famous being the 18 00:03:13.340 --> 00:03:15.439 Okay, wait, I have to push back on this one. 00:03:15.479 --> 00:03:17.560 Oh, you do? Yeah, because reading through the 00:03:17.560 --> 00:03:19.659 sources, this sounds exactly like the kind of 00:03:19.659 --> 00:03:22.180 tall tale a guy who just renamed himself Wild 00:03:22.180 --> 00:03:24.580 Bill would invent. Right, it does sound exaggerated. 00:03:24.580 --> 00:03:27.219 I mean, he's driving a freight team. encounters 00:03:27.219 --> 00:03:30.280 a cinnamon bear with her pups, shoots it, the 00:03:30.280 --> 00:03:32.719 bullet supposedly bounces off its skull, the 00:03:32.719 --> 00:03:35.259 bear physically crushes him, and while his chest 00:03:35.259 --> 00:03:38.500 is literally cading in, he manages to slash its 00:03:38.500 --> 00:03:41.379 throat with a knife. Like, is this historical 00:03:41.379 --> 00:03:44.300 fact, or the beginning of his spin? I know, it 00:03:44.300 --> 00:03:46.639 sounds like pure frontier fiction, but it is 00:03:46.639 --> 00:03:49.360 historically grounded. He was genuinely severely 00:03:49.360 --> 00:03:52.500 mauled. He suffered a crushed chest, a crushed 00:03:52.500 --> 00:03:54.919 shoulder, and a mangled arm, and he was bedridden 00:03:54.919 --> 00:03:58.199 for four months. What's fascinating here is that 00:03:58.199 --> 00:04:00.939 surviving the frontier genuinely required this 00:04:00.939 --> 00:04:03.800 immense, almost superhuman physical resilience. 00:04:04.340 --> 00:04:06.479 But as he recovered, we start to see the development 00:04:06.479 --> 00:04:09.500 of a very strange, almost contradictory moral 00:04:09.500 --> 00:04:12.240 code. Oh, yeah. You see that perfectly in the 00:04:12.240 --> 00:04:15.560 McCannel shooting in 1861. Absolutely. Hickok 00:04:15.560 --> 00:04:17.699 is recovering from the bear attack. He's working 00:04:17.699 --> 00:04:20.720 as a stable hand at a stagecoach stop in Nebraska. 00:04:21.139 --> 00:04:24.459 And this guy named David McCannels shows up demanding 00:04:24.459 --> 00:04:26.839 an overdue payment for the property. Right. He 00:04:26.839 --> 00:04:29.240 was the property owner. Things get heated. And 00:04:29.240 --> 00:04:32.040 Hickok, who is literally hiding behind a curtain, 00:04:32.939 --> 00:04:34.720 shoots and kills McCannels. Yeah, from behind 00:04:34.720 --> 00:04:37.600 a curtain. And two other men are killed in the 00:04:37.600 --> 00:04:40.959 ensuing chaos by other people there. Hickok is 00:04:40.959 --> 00:04:44.000 tried and acquitted based on self -defense, but 00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:46.560 it's what he does after the acquittal that reveals 00:04:46.560 --> 00:04:49.660 how he viewed his own actions. This was the craziest 00:04:49.660 --> 00:04:51.360 detail to me when I was looking at the sources. 00:04:51.779 --> 00:04:54.160 After getting off legally, he actually goes to 00:04:54.160 --> 00:04:56.680 visit McConnell's widow. He does. He formally 00:04:56.680 --> 00:04:59.519 apologizes for shooting her husband dead from 00:04:59.519 --> 00:05:02.399 behind a curtain, and he offers her his entire 00:05:02.399 --> 00:05:05.060 life savings as restitution. Which amounted to? 00:05:05.139 --> 00:05:09.000 $35. $35. It was every single cent he had in 00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:12.189 his pocket. It's like a modern day minor car 00:05:12.189 --> 00:05:14.730 fender bender settlement. Like, hey, really sorry 00:05:14.730 --> 00:05:17.509 I totaled your sedan. and your husband hears 00:05:17.509 --> 00:05:21.089 35 bucks. It just highlights how absurdly transactional 00:05:21.089 --> 00:05:23.350 frontier violence was back then. It truly was 00:05:23.350 --> 00:05:26.290 transactional. And it shows a man who is entirely 00:05:26.290 --> 00:05:29.730 capable of sudden lethal violence, but who also 00:05:29.730 --> 00:05:32.709 feels this bizarre obligation to balance the 00:05:32.709 --> 00:05:35.129 moral ledger afterward. He's learning how to 00:05:35.129 --> 00:05:37.149 manage the fallout of his actions. Basically, 00:05:37.209 --> 00:05:39.209 he's learning how to curate his own reputation. 00:05:39.389 --> 00:05:41.250 And that reputation is about to go national. 00:05:41.389 --> 00:05:45.230 Having survived a bear and a shootout, his organic 00:05:45.230 --> 00:05:47.550 fame catches the attention of Eastern media, 00:05:47.990 --> 00:05:51.129 which completely transforms him into this sensationalized 00:05:51.129 --> 00:05:53.509 commodity. Yes, the media changes everything 00:05:53.509 --> 00:05:56.589 for him. And it all hinges on the 1865 duel with 00:05:56.589 --> 00:05:59.310 Davis Tut in Springfield, Missouri. This is really 00:05:59.310 --> 00:06:01.709 the defining moment of his life, and the origin 00:06:01.709 --> 00:06:04.529 of their dispute was incredibly petty. So petty. 00:06:04.790 --> 00:06:07.709 It involved unpaid gambling debts, a mutual affection 00:06:07.709 --> 00:06:10.250 for the same women in town, and a final insult 00:06:10.250 --> 00:06:13.310 where Tut took a gold watch from Hickok as collateral 00:06:13.310 --> 00:06:16.230 for a poker debt. And Tut wore it in public, 00:06:16.410 --> 00:06:18.610 which Hickok had specifically warned him not 00:06:18.610 --> 00:06:21.089 to do because the watch had sentimental value. 00:06:21.250 --> 00:06:22.990 OK, here's where it gets really interesting. 00:06:23.100 --> 00:06:26.720 because the actual mechanics of this duel became 00:06:26.720 --> 00:06:29.540 the blueprint for every Western movie ever made. 00:06:29.600 --> 00:06:33.060 Oh, absolutely. It is the first recorded quick 00:06:33.060 --> 00:06:36.379 draw duel of its kind. They face off in the town 00:06:36.379 --> 00:06:38.720 square, standing completely sideways to present 00:06:38.720 --> 00:06:41.100 a smaller target to each other. They're about 00:06:41.100 --> 00:06:45.000 75 yards apart. Tut draws and fires first, but 00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:48.540 he misses. Yep. Hickok draws, steadies his shot, 00:06:48.779 --> 00:06:51.110 and hits Tut. directly through the heart. We 00:06:51.110 --> 00:06:53.610 have to pause here and just appreciate the sheer 00:06:53.610 --> 00:06:55.930 mechanical impossibility of that shot. Right. 00:06:56.060 --> 00:06:59.379 75 yards. Hickok was using a cap and ball revolver. 00:06:59.600 --> 00:07:02.720 These mid -19th century sidearms used black powder, 00:07:02.800 --> 00:07:05.199 which fouls the barrel heavily, and they were 00:07:05.199 --> 00:07:07.740 notoriously imprecise at a distance. They weren't 00:07:07.740 --> 00:07:10.740 sniper rifles. Exactly. Hitting a man square 00:07:10.740 --> 00:07:13.480 in the heart at 75 yards under extreme life or 00:07:13.480 --> 00:07:16.620 death duress isn't just a mark of good aim. It 00:07:16.620 --> 00:07:18.720 essentially defies the mechanical limitations 00:07:18.720 --> 00:07:21.379 of the weapon itself. It was an astronomical 00:07:21.379 --> 00:07:24.079 statistical anomaly. It's a shot that really 00:07:24.079 --> 00:07:27.000 shouldn't have happened. So Hickok goes to trial 00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:30.459 and he gets acquitted. And the sources point 00:07:30.459 --> 00:07:32.879 out this acquittal was based on the unwritten 00:07:32.879 --> 00:07:36.220 law of the fair fight. Yes. Along with an incredibly 00:07:36.220 --> 00:07:38.759 biased jury instruction from Judge Sempronius 00:07:38.759 --> 00:07:41.680 Boyd. The judge basically told the jury that 00:07:41.680 --> 00:07:44.860 if Hickok felt a real and imminent threat, they 00:07:44.860 --> 00:07:47.860 could acquit him, completely ignoring the actual 00:07:47.860 --> 00:07:50.079 legal requirement of the time, which was to try 00:07:50.079 --> 00:07:52.360 and avoid the fight if possible. Right, the duty 00:07:52.360 --> 00:07:54.529 to retreat. The town essentially decided that 00:07:54.529 --> 00:07:56.870 a fair fight trumped the letter of the law. Wow. 00:07:57.149 --> 00:07:59.509 But the legal victory was nothing compared to 00:07:59.509 --> 00:08:02.209 the media victory. Several weeks later, Colonel 00:08:02.209 --> 00:08:04.810 George Ward Nichols publishes this explosive 00:08:04.810 --> 00:08:07.290 interview with Hickok in Harper's new monthly 00:08:07.290 --> 00:08:09.569 magazine. Oh, this article. Yeah. And in this 00:08:09.569 --> 00:08:11.910 article, Hickok casually claims he has personally 00:08:11.910 --> 00:08:14.970 killed hundreds of men. Hundreds. But I mean, 00:08:15.110 --> 00:08:16.870 the documented historical reality, according 00:08:16.870 --> 00:08:19.350 to the foremost experts in your sources, is that 00:08:19.350 --> 00:08:21.329 he killed maybe six or seven men in his entire 00:08:21.329 --> 00:08:24.649 life. He inflated his kill count by roughly 10 00:08:24.649 --> 00:08:27.430 ,000%. If we connect this to the bigger picture, 00:08:27.810 --> 00:08:29.629 you really have to look at the psychology of 00:08:29.629 --> 00:08:33.409 the audience in 1867. The United States had just 00:08:33.409 --> 00:08:36.450 survived the Civil War. The nation was reeling 00:08:36.450 --> 00:08:39.509 from massive industrialized slaughter and deep 00:08:39.509 --> 00:08:42.269 psychological trauma. Oh, so they wanted an escape. 00:08:42.710 --> 00:08:46.190 Exactly. Eastern readers were hungry for thrilling, 00:08:46.669 --> 00:08:49.889 clean tales of the wild frontier. They desperately 00:08:49.889 --> 00:08:53.529 wanted a superhero, a singular stoic man who 00:08:53.529 --> 00:08:56.710 could bring order to chaos. Nichols gave them 00:08:56.710 --> 00:08:59.429 exactly what they wanted. It's basically 19th 00:08:59.429 --> 00:09:01.309 century viral clickbait. That's a great way to 00:09:01.309 --> 00:09:04.029 put it. But did the locals actually buy it? I 00:09:04.029 --> 00:09:05.730 mean, the Easterners are reading this magazine, 00:09:05.769 --> 00:09:07.190 but the people living out west had to know it 00:09:07.190 --> 00:09:08.830 was nonsense, right? Oh, they absolutely knew. 00:09:09.090 --> 00:09:11.629 The Harper's article caused intense backlash 00:09:11.629 --> 00:09:14.529 locally. I bet. Frontier newspapers published 00:09:14.529 --> 00:09:17.509 scathing rebuttals calling Hickok out. They knew 00:09:17.509 --> 00:09:19.730 he wasn't this demigod who had slaughtered hundreds 00:09:19.730 --> 00:09:22.509 of people. Yet Hickok willingly participated 00:09:22.509 --> 00:09:25.870 in this myth -making. into the exaggerated persona 00:09:25.870 --> 00:09:28.710 because it gave him power. But that persona quickly 00:09:28.710 --> 00:09:32.370 becomes a very heavy, fatal crown. Because he 00:09:32.370 --> 00:09:34.730 has this massive national reputation as a lethal 00:09:34.730 --> 00:09:37.870 gunfighter, towns start hiring him as a lawman 00:09:37.870 --> 00:09:40.549 to bring order to absolute chaos. Right. They 00:09:40.549 --> 00:09:42.789 want the myth to police their streets. So he 00:09:42.789 --> 00:09:45.049 becomes Marshall and Hayes and then Abilene, 00:09:45.049 --> 00:09:47.980 Kansas, and he really dresses for the part. He 00:09:47.980 --> 00:09:51.879 carries these custom Colt 1851 Navy model revolvers 00:09:51.879 --> 00:09:55.159 with ivory grips, and he draws them in a flashy 00:09:55.159 --> 00:09:58.059 reverse or twist cavalry draw from a sash. Yeah, 00:09:58.100 --> 00:10:00.379 the twist draw. I've seen this in movies, but 00:10:00.379 --> 00:10:02.679 how does a reverse draw actually work mechanically? 00:10:02.799 --> 00:10:04.519 Like, why would you carry guns backward? Well, 00:10:04.519 --> 00:10:06.159 it's a technique originally designed for men 00:10:06.159 --> 00:10:08.659 on horseback. You tuck the pistols into a sash 00:10:08.659 --> 00:10:10.679 around your waist, but the butts of the grips 00:10:10.679 --> 00:10:12.740 face forward toward your belly button. Okay, 00:10:12.779 --> 00:10:15.409 that seems awkward. It does. To draw, you have 00:10:15.409 --> 00:10:17.450 to twist your wrists outward, grab the grips, 00:10:17.590 --> 00:10:20.049 pull them up, and physically spin the heavy barrels 00:10:20.049 --> 00:10:23.070 forward into a firing position. Wow. For a seated 00:10:23.070 --> 00:10:25.470 cavalryman, it prevents the guns from snagging 00:10:25.470 --> 00:10:28.370 on their gear. But for a lawman walking down 00:10:28.370 --> 00:10:31.090 the street, it is highly theatrical and requires 00:10:31.090 --> 00:10:33.570 immense practice speed. So it's all about the 00:10:33.570 --> 00:10:35.669 visual spectacle. Very much so. But being the 00:10:35.669 --> 00:10:38.309 most famous gunfighter in America means every 00:10:38.309 --> 00:10:41.269 drunk, ambitious cowboy in town wants the bragging 00:10:41.269 --> 00:10:43.860 rights of taking you down. I mean, his fame put 00:10:43.860 --> 00:10:46.740 a massive target on his back. So how does he 00:10:46.740 --> 00:10:49.500 survive without just shooting everyone he meets? 00:10:49.940 --> 00:10:52.960 He survives by using his reputation as a psychological 00:10:52.960 --> 00:10:56.100 weapon. Take the incident with Bill Mulvey in 00:10:56.100 --> 00:11:00.059 Haze. Oh, the bluff. Yes. Mulvey is drunk, heavily 00:11:00.059 --> 00:11:02.360 armed, and shooting up the town, specifically 00:11:02.360 --> 00:11:05.279 yelling that he came to kill Wild Bill. Hickok 00:11:05.279 --> 00:11:08.110 steps out. completely unarmed in his hands. Which 00:11:08.110 --> 00:11:10.450 is insane. He looks past Mulvey to the crowd 00:11:10.450 --> 00:11:12.149 behind him and yells, don't shoot him in the 00:11:12.149 --> 00:11:14.649 back, he is drunk. Which is a total bluff, there's 00:11:14.649 --> 00:11:16.700 nobody there to shoot him. A brilliant bluff. 00:11:17.500 --> 00:11:20.600 Mulvey panics, wheels his horse around to face 00:11:20.600 --> 00:11:22.480 this imaginary threat behind him, and the moment 00:11:22.480 --> 00:11:24.860 he turns, Hickok draws and shoots him through 00:11:24.860 --> 00:11:27.340 the temple. He defeated Mulvey with a psychological 00:11:27.340 --> 00:11:29.000 deflection before he ever pulled the trigger. 00:11:29.240 --> 00:11:31.840 Exactly. He also has this tense encounter with 00:11:31.840 --> 00:11:35.360 John Wesley Harden, a notorious outlaw who legitimately 00:11:35.360 --> 00:11:39.879 had over 27 confirmed kills. Yes, a very dangerous 00:11:39.879 --> 00:11:42.600 man. And Harden later claimed he disarmed Hickok 00:11:42.600 --> 00:11:45.519 using a road agent spin. Which is another one 00:11:45.519 --> 00:11:47.100 of those terms that gets thrown around in the 00:11:47.100 --> 00:11:50.639 sources. What exactly is a road agent spin? It's 00:11:50.639 --> 00:11:53.240 a trick used when you are forced to surrender 00:11:53.240 --> 00:11:56.460 your weapon. You hand the gun over butt first, 00:11:56.779 --> 00:11:59.299 as if surrendering it, but you keep your index 00:11:59.299 --> 00:12:02.139 finger hooked inside the trigger guard. Oh, I 00:12:02.139 --> 00:12:04.000 see where this is going. Right. As the other 00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:06.299 person reaches for it, you use the weight of 00:12:06.299 --> 00:12:08.399 the barrel to spin the gun backward into your 00:12:08.399 --> 00:12:10.919 palm. instantly putting it into a firing grip. 00:12:11.379 --> 00:12:14.019 That's sneaky. Now, Harden was known to severely 00:12:14.019 --> 00:12:16.480 exaggerate his own exploits, and most historians 00:12:16.480 --> 00:12:19.340 doubt he actually pulled this on Hickok. But 00:12:19.340 --> 00:12:21.860 the fact that they crossed paths and Hickok managed 00:12:21.860 --> 00:12:24.000 to keep an incredibly violent man like Harden 00:12:24.000 --> 00:12:27.039 in check without a shootout speaks volumes about 00:12:27.039 --> 00:12:29.840 the fear Hickok commanded. But living with that 00:12:29.840 --> 00:12:31.860 constant threat eventually snaps your nerves. 00:12:31.860 --> 00:12:34.299 It does. And it all comes to a tragic head in 00:12:34.299 --> 00:12:37.899 1871 in Abilene with a saloon owner named Phil 00:12:37.899 --> 00:12:40.980 Coe. This is the turning point. The dispute starts 00:12:40.980 --> 00:12:44.559 over a painted bull on Coe's saloon wall that 00:12:44.559 --> 00:12:48.019 featured a, let's just call it a very large anatomically 00:12:48.019 --> 00:12:50.779 correct erect feature. Right, the town was scandalized. 00:12:50.879 --> 00:12:53.419 The town complains, Hickok forces them to alter 00:12:53.419 --> 00:12:56.399 the painting, and Coe is furious. Fast forward 00:12:56.399 --> 00:12:59.419 to October, Coe fires a shot in the street. When 00:12:59.419 --> 00:13:01.779 Hickok runs out to confront him, Coe claims he 00:13:01.779 --> 00:13:04.159 was just shooting a stray dog for a 50 cent city 00:13:04.159 --> 00:13:07.279 bounty. Which, incredibly, was a legal excuse 00:13:07.279 --> 00:13:10.299 at the time. But Coe then turns his gun on Hickok. 00:13:10.519 --> 00:13:12.659 Hickok fires first, hitting Coe in the stomach. 00:13:13.120 --> 00:13:15.899 But the real tragedy unfolds in the immediate 00:13:15.899 --> 00:13:18.720 chaotic aftermath of those shots. Right. Through 00:13:18.720 --> 00:13:21.340 the thick black powder smoke, Hickok sees a figure 00:13:21.340 --> 00:13:23.899 sprinting toward him. He fires twice in a split 00:13:23.899 --> 00:13:26.159 second reaction. Yeah. And as the smoke clears, 00:13:26.460 --> 00:13:28.659 he realizes he has just killed his own special 00:13:28.659 --> 00:13:31.039 deputy, a man named Mike Williams, who was running 00:13:31.039 --> 00:13:32.919 into the street to help him. It's devastating. 00:13:33.320 --> 00:13:35.679 I have to ask, how does a guy who is supposedly 00:13:35.679 --> 00:13:38.879 this ice cold precision killer accidentally shoot 00:13:38.879 --> 00:13:41.580 his own friend? Because the myth of the stoic, 00:13:41.740 --> 00:13:44.919 ice -cold cowboy completely ignores human physiology. 00:13:45.519 --> 00:13:47.820 The reality of a gunfight is extreme stress, 00:13:48.259 --> 00:13:50.440 adrenaline, and tunnel vision. Yeah, that makes 00:13:50.440 --> 00:13:53.360 sense. Hickok lived in a constant state of hypervigilance. 00:13:53.720 --> 00:13:56.320 every single day someone wanted to kill him. 00:13:57.120 --> 00:13:59.200 When you are operating on that level of fight 00:13:59.200 --> 00:14:02.100 or flight arousal, you experience an amygdala 00:14:02.100 --> 00:14:05.700 hijack. The prefrontal cortex, the logical reasoning 00:14:05.700 --> 00:14:08.220 part of your brain just shuts down entirely. 00:14:08.440 --> 00:14:10.039 So your brain is basically screaming movement 00:14:10.039 --> 00:14:12.830 equals death. Precisely. He suffered from severe 00:14:12.830 --> 00:14:15.870 target fixation. The moment he saw a rapid silhouette 00:14:15.870 --> 00:14:18.529 in his peripheral vision, his trained reflex 00:14:18.529 --> 00:14:20.509 took over before his eyes could even process 00:14:20.509 --> 00:14:22.909 the identity of the target. And the psychological 00:14:22.909 --> 00:14:25.470 toll of that mistake absolutely broke him. It 00:14:25.470 --> 00:14:27.809 completely shattered him. Hickok was let go from 00:14:27.809 --> 00:14:30.490 his job shortly after. That was the last gunfight 00:14:30.490 --> 00:14:33.049 he was ever involved in. The event haunted him 00:14:33.049 --> 00:14:36.009 for the rest of his life. You are literally watching 00:14:36.009 --> 00:14:38.710 the flesh and blood human being break under the 00:14:38.710 --> 00:14:41.009 immense crushing weight of the Wild Bill persona. 00:14:41.149 --> 00:14:43.629 He was traumatized. And to make matters worse, 00:14:43.870 --> 00:14:45.889 his physical body was starting to fail him too. 00:14:46.190 --> 00:14:48.730 So he tries to pivot. He tries to cash in on 00:14:48.730 --> 00:14:50.669 his famous name by going into show business, 00:14:51.110 --> 00:14:53.289 which directly leads him to the poker table in 00:14:53.289 --> 00:14:55.129 Deadwood. Yes. And his time in show business 00:14:55.129 --> 00:14:59.409 is a spectacular disaster. Yes. In 1872, he puts 00:14:59.409 --> 00:15:02.289 on this outdoor show in Niagara Falls called 00:15:02.289 --> 00:15:05.250 The Daring Buffalo Chase of the Plains. He brings 00:15:05.250 --> 00:15:08.750 six buffalo, a bear, and a monkey. A recipe for 00:15:08.750 --> 00:15:11.909 disaster. Totally. It ends in total chaos. When 00:15:11.909 --> 00:15:14.629 a buffalo refuses to act, Hickok fires a blank 00:15:14.629 --> 00:15:17.250 into the air. The animals panic, smash through 00:15:17.250 --> 00:15:19.870 a wire fence, and literally trample the audience. 00:15:20.250 --> 00:15:22.429 It was an absolute fiasco. And when he joined 00:15:22.429 --> 00:15:25.289 up with Buffalo Bill Cody a year later, it became 00:15:25.289 --> 00:15:28.029 clear how much he despised the persona he had 00:15:28.029 --> 00:15:30.309 helped build. He hated it, right? He hated acting. 00:15:30.549 --> 00:15:33.210 He would purposefully hide behind the stage scenery. 00:15:33.210 --> 00:15:35.669 And when the spotlight operators tried to focus 00:15:35.669 --> 00:15:37.950 on him, he would actually draw his guns and shoot 00:15:37.950 --> 00:15:40.710 the stage lights out. deeply resented the fame. 00:15:41.090 --> 00:15:43.350 Not to mention by the time he's 39 his legendary 00:15:43.350 --> 00:15:45.970 marksmanship is fading due to severe eye trouble. 00:15:46.309 --> 00:15:48.769 Yeah historians debate if it was trachoma glaucoma 00:15:48.769 --> 00:15:51.029 or secondary syphilis but whatever it was he's 00:15:51.029 --> 00:15:53.429 losing his vision. He's even arrested a few times 00:15:53.429 --> 00:15:56.950 for vagrancy. He has a brief moment of stability 00:15:56.950 --> 00:15:59.460 when he marries Agnes Thatcher Lake. who was 00:15:59.460 --> 00:16:02.480 a 45 -year -old circus proprietor, but he leaves 00:16:02.480 --> 00:16:05.120 her just months later to seek his fortune in 00:16:05.120 --> 00:16:07.460 the Black Hills Gold Rush. Which brings him to 00:16:07.460 --> 00:16:11.259 Deadwood. And in August 1876, the towering legend 00:16:11.259 --> 00:16:15.679 comes to a very unceremonious, mundane end. It 00:16:15.679 --> 00:16:18.639 all started over a perceived slight. Hickok was 00:16:18.639 --> 00:16:21.820 playing poker, and a drunk man named Jack McCall 00:16:21.820 --> 00:16:24.399 lost heavily. Right. Hickok basically told him 00:16:24.399 --> 00:16:26.759 to quit until he could cover his losses and tossed 00:16:26.759 --> 00:16:29.240 him some money to go buy breakfast. McCall took 00:16:29.240 --> 00:16:31.860 the money, but felt deeply publicly insulted. 00:16:32.019 --> 00:16:34.919 It bruised his ego. The very next day, Hickok 00:16:34.919 --> 00:16:37.799 is back at the poker table. Now, he was samously 00:16:37.799 --> 00:16:39.919 paranoid. He always sat with his back to a solid 00:16:39.919 --> 00:16:42.000 wall so you could watch the door. A survivor's 00:16:42.000 --> 00:16:44.240 habit. But a player named Charles Rich refused 00:16:44.240 --> 00:16:46.159 to switch seats with him, leaving Hickok with 00:16:46.159 --> 00:16:49.139 his back exposed to the room. McCall walks in, 00:16:49.220 --> 00:16:51.539 stands right behind Hickok, shouts, take that, 00:16:52.279 --> 00:16:54.340 and shoots him point blank in the back of the 00:16:54.340 --> 00:16:57.340 head. You never saw it coming. Hickok dies instantly, 00:16:57.580 --> 00:17:00.820 dropping his cards to the floor, the now infamous 00:17:00.820 --> 00:17:04.779 dead man's hand. Two pairs, black aces and black 00:17:04.779 --> 00:17:07.980 eights. So what does this all mean? Look at that 00:17:07.980 --> 00:17:10.940 incredible irony of his death. A man who survived 00:17:10.940 --> 00:17:13.960 a bear mauling, a canal drowning, and legendary 00:17:13.960 --> 00:17:17.259 75 -yard duels in the street. is assassinated 00:17:17.259 --> 00:17:19.839 from behind over a bruised ego and breakfast 00:17:19.839 --> 00:17:22.000 money. The banality of it is striping, isn't 00:17:22.000 --> 00:17:24.200 it? And the aftermath of the murder highlights 00:17:24.200 --> 00:17:27.480 just how legally chaotic the frontier was. Jack 00:17:27.480 --> 00:17:29.720 McCall actually went through two entirely separate 00:17:29.720 --> 00:17:32.650 trials. Wait, really? Two tries. Yeah. Initially, 00:17:32.970 --> 00:17:35.390 an informal miners jury in Deadwood acquitted 00:17:35.390 --> 00:17:38.089 him. What? McCall lied and claimed Hickok had 00:17:38.089 --> 00:17:39.769 previously killed his brother, and the miners 00:17:39.769 --> 00:17:41.829 just bought it and let him go. They just let 00:17:41.829 --> 00:17:44.250 a cold -blooded killer walk out of town. How 00:17:44.250 --> 00:17:46.269 is that even possible? This raises an important 00:17:46.269 --> 00:17:48.349 question about the legal loopholes of the American 00:17:48.349 --> 00:17:51.309 West. Deadwood was an illegal mining camp. It 00:17:51.309 --> 00:17:53.329 was technically located within the Great Sioux 00:17:53.329 --> 00:17:56.109 Reservation, which was unorganized Indian country. 00:17:56.730 --> 00:17:58.910 The federal government did not recognize the 00:17:58.910 --> 00:18:01.210 jurisdiction of the local miners court. Oh, I 00:18:01.210 --> 00:18:03.670 see. So legally that first trial never actually 00:18:03.670 --> 00:18:06.650 happened. Exactly. Which is why when McCall made 00:18:06.650 --> 00:18:08.990 the foolish mistake of bragging about the murder 00:18:08.990 --> 00:18:11.539 later in Wyoming. He was rearrested by federal 00:18:11.539 --> 00:18:13.759 authorities and taken to Yankton in the Dakota 00:18:13.759 --> 00:18:16.579 Territory. Because the first trial was invalid, 00:18:16.859 --> 00:18:18.619 there was no double jeopardy protecting him. 00:18:18.960 --> 00:18:21.380 He was tried in a legitimate federal court, found 00:18:21.380 --> 00:18:25.579 guilty, and hanged. Wow. So Hickok's life ends 00:18:25.579 --> 00:18:29.329 at the poker table. The man is gone. But the 00:18:29.329 --> 00:18:31.950 strange, exaggerated mythology surrounding him 00:18:31.950 --> 00:18:35.130 didn't stop. In fact, what happened to his physical 00:18:35.130 --> 00:18:37.809 body after he was put in the ground is arguably 00:18:37.809 --> 00:18:39.970 the strangest part of all the sources we looked 00:18:39.970 --> 00:18:43.369 at today. It is incredibly macabre. He was originally 00:18:43.369 --> 00:18:45.710 buried by his friend Charlie Utter in Deadwood. 00:18:46.170 --> 00:18:48.190 But three years later, the town was expanding 00:18:48.190 --> 00:18:50.609 rapidly, and Utter paid to have Hickok's remains 00:18:50.609 --> 00:18:53.150 moved further up the hill to Mount Moriah Cemetery. 00:18:53.369 --> 00:18:54.990 And when they opened the grave to move him... 00:18:55.019 --> 00:18:57.640 They discovered that Hickok had been imperfectly 00:18:57.640 --> 00:19:00.039 embalmed and water had seeped into the wooden 00:19:00.039 --> 00:19:03.319 coffin. Through a chemical process over those 00:19:03.319 --> 00:19:06.640 three years, calcium carbonate from the surrounding 00:19:06.640 --> 00:19:10.240 mineral -rich soil had slowly replaced his organic 00:19:10.240 --> 00:19:14.660 tissue cell by cell. literal calcification. Yes, 00:19:14.900 --> 00:19:18.180 he was completely petrified. The witnesses who 00:19:18.180 --> 00:19:20.140 moved him estimated the body weighed between 00:19:20.140 --> 00:19:23.559 400 and 500 pounds. That is just staggering. 00:19:23.880 --> 00:19:26.119 The earth literally turned him into a stone monument. 00:19:26.180 --> 00:19:29.099 It really did. But even after all that, his friends 00:19:29.099 --> 00:19:31.849 weren't done messing with him. What happens years 00:19:31.849 --> 00:19:34.630 later with Calamity Jane? Calamity Jane was a 00:19:34.630 --> 00:19:37.450 famous frontier figure who had long claimed without 00:19:37.450 --> 00:19:39.970 any historical evidence that she had been romantically 00:19:39.970 --> 00:19:42.750 involved with or even married to Hickok. Right. 00:19:42.809 --> 00:19:44.990 When she died years later, she requested to be 00:19:44.990 --> 00:19:47.970 buried next to him. The burial committee in Deadwood 00:19:47.970 --> 00:19:50.150 consisted of the men who had actually known Hickok. 00:19:50.470 --> 00:19:52.750 They knew that in life, Hickok found her incredibly 00:19:52.750 --> 00:19:55.849 annoying and had absolutely no use for her. But 00:19:55.849 --> 00:19:58.109 they decided to bury her right next to him anyway, 00:19:58.430 --> 00:20:00.930 specifically as a posthumous joke. They trolled 00:20:00.930 --> 00:20:03.309 him for eternity. I mean, you literally couldn't 00:20:03.309 --> 00:20:05.150 write a more bizarre ending for a historical 00:20:05.150 --> 00:20:07.460 figure. But it's fitting, you know? The myth 00:20:07.460 --> 00:20:10.339 completely consumed the flush, both metaphorically 00:20:10.339 --> 00:20:12.859 during his life and chemically after his death. 00:20:12.960 --> 00:20:15.700 It really did. So pulling all these historical 00:20:15.700 --> 00:20:18.180 records together, what we find is that James 00:20:18.180 --> 00:20:20.640 Butler Hickok was undoubtedly a real man who 00:20:20.640 --> 00:20:23.339 survived incredible violence. But the wild bill 00:20:23.339 --> 00:20:26.200 that the public knows, the flawless invincible 00:20:26.200 --> 00:20:29.599 gunfighter we see in modern westerns, is largely 00:20:29.599 --> 00:20:32.059 a product of 19th century PR. Without a doubt. 00:20:32.259 --> 00:20:34.319 He was a creation of an Eastern media machine. 00:20:34.460 --> 00:20:36.539 desperate for heroes after the trauma of the 00:20:36.539 --> 00:20:39.339 Civil War, aided by Hickok's own willingness 00:20:39.339 --> 00:20:43.740 to exaggerate his life just to survive. Which 00:20:43.740 --> 00:20:45.579 leaves us with his final thought for you to mull 00:20:45.579 --> 00:20:48.319 over. We look back at the 1800s and laugh at 00:20:48.319 --> 00:20:50.380 how easily people bought into the myth of Wild 00:20:50.380 --> 00:20:53.000 Bill Hickok. But in today's era of highly curated 00:20:53.000 --> 00:20:55.480 social media profiles, personal branding, and 00:20:55.480 --> 00:20:57.980 flawless influencer culture, aren't we all just 00:20:57.980 --> 00:20:59.859 doing a digital version of what Hickok did when 00:20:59.859 --> 00:21:01.720 he grew out his mustache and changed his name? 00:21:01.900 --> 00:21:04.579 Next time you see a flawless influencer online, 00:21:04.799 --> 00:21:07.599 perfectly posed and seemingly invincible, ask 00:21:07.599 --> 00:21:09.400 yourself, what's their dead man's hand?