Think gunfighter, and Wyatt Earp or Billy the Kid may come to mind, but what of Jim Moon? Joel Fowler? Zack Light? A host of other figures helped forge the gunfighter persona, but their stories have been lost to time. In a sequel to his "Deadly Dozen," celebrated western historian Robert K. DeArment now offers more biographical portraits of lesser-known gunfighters--men who perhaps weren't glorified in legend or song, but who were rightfully notorious in their day.

DeArment has tracked down stories of gunmen from throughout the West--characters you won't find in any of today's western history encyclopedias but whose careers are colorfully described here. Photos of the men and telling quotations from primary sources make these characters come alive.

In giving these men their due, DeArment takes readers back to the gunfighter culture spawned in part by the upheavals of the Civil War, to a time when deadly duels were part of the social fabric of frontier towns and the Code of the West was real. His vignettes offer telling insights into conditions on the frontier that created the gunfighters of legend.

These overlooked shooters never won national headlines but made their own contributions to the blood and thunder of the Old West: people less than legends, but all the more fascinating because they were real. Readers who enjoyed DeArment's "Deadly Dozen" will find this book equally captivating--as gripping as a showdown, twelve times over.

Bleeding Kansas"" has earned its name. A state already scarred from the violence wrought by the likes of John Brown and William Quantrill, Kansas witnessed further episodes of wanton bloodshed in the late nineteenth century when settlers poured into a supposedly peaceful frontier.Focusing on the tumultuous years 1885-1892, Robert K. DeArment's compelling narrative is the first to reveal the complete story of the county seat wars that raged in Kansas - controversial episodes that made national news in the late 1900s but are largely unknown today. With a story populated by some of the most notorious characters of the West - including Sam Wood, Theodosius Botkin, Bat Masterson, and Bill Tilghman - Ballots and Bullets relives the violence that only avarice can breed. Ordinary, decent citizens were drawn into bitter conflicts to advance their own communities and block the fortunes of other towns, even if it meant using hired gunmen. Gripping and historically accurate, DeArment's account reveals a shocking chapter in the history of the West.

He may be little known today, but Ben Daniels was a feared gunman who typified the journeyman gunfighter every bit as much as those whose names have become legend. Yet his story has eluded researchers and yarn-spinners alike--until now.

Two prominent western historians have teamed up to tell the story of Ben Daniels's rise from outlaw and convict to presidential protege and high-ranking officer of the law. Tracing his life from jailhouse to White House, from Dodge City to San Juan Hill, Robert DeArment and Jack DeMattos present a full-length biography of Daniels, the most controversial of Teddy Roosevelt's "White House Gunfighters."

The book faithfully traces Daniels's early years, the time he spent in the Wyoming Territorial Penitentiary, his rebirth as a Dodge City lawman--including the controversy over his shooting a man in the back--and his part in the Battle of Cimarron. Following military service with the Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War, Daniels was appointed by President Roosevelt as U.S. marshal for turbulent Arizona Territory. Daniels was as quick with his mind as with a gun, but he had a rough ride to redemption.

This original biography belongs on the shelf of every gunfighter buff and anyone interested in the broader story of the Old West. It rescues Daniels from the footnotes of history and shows us the amazing life of one of the West's most intriguing gunmen.

For every Wild Bill Hickok or Billy the Kid, there was another western gunfighter just as deadly but not as well known. Robert K. DeArment has earned a reputation as the premier researcher of unknown gunfighters, and here he offers twelve more portraits of men who weren't glorified in legend but were just as notorious in their day.Those who think they already know all about Old West gunfighters will be amazed at this new collection. Here are men like Porter Stockton, the Texas terror who bragged that he had killed eighteen men, and Jim Levy, who killed a man for disparaging his Irish blood, though he was also the only known Jewish gunfighter. These stories span eight decades, from the gold rushes of the 1850s to the 1920s. Telling of gunmen such as Jim Masterson, the brother of Bat Masterson, or the real Whispering Smith-the man behind the fictionalized persona-whose career spanned four decades, DeArment conscientiously separates fact from fiction to reconstruct lives all the more amazing for having remained unknown for so long. The product of iron-clad research, this newest Deadly Dozen delivers the goods for gunfighter buffs in search of something different. Together the Deadly Dozen volumes constitute a Who's Who of western outlaws and prove that there's more to the Wild West than Jesse James.

Bleeding Kansas" has earned its name. A state already scarred from the violence wrought by the likes of John Brown and William Quantrill, Kansas witnessed further episodes of wanton bloodshed in the late nineteenth century when settlers poured into a supposedly peaceful frontier.Focusing on the tumultuous years 1885–1892, Robert K. DeArment's compelling narrative is the first to reveal the complete story of the county seat wars that raged in Kansas—controversial episodes that made national news in the late 1900s but are largely unknown today. With a story populated by some of the most notorious characters of the West—including Sam Wood, Theodosius Botkin, Bat Masterson, and Bill Tilghman—Ballots and Bullets relives the violence that only avarice can breed. Ordinary, decent citizens were drawn into bitter conflicts to advance their own communities and block the fortunes of other towns, even if it meant using hired gunmen. Gripping and historically accurate, DeArment's account reveals a shocking chapter in the history of the West.

The legend of Bat Masterson as the heroic sheriff of Dodge City, Kansas, began in 1881 when an acquaintance duped a "New York""Sun" reporter into writing Masterson up as a man-killing gunfighter. That he later moved to New York City to write a widely followed sports column for eighteen years is one of history's great ironies, as Robert K. DeArment relates in this engaging new book.

William Barclay "Bat" Masterson spent the first half of his adult life in the West, planting the seeds for his later legend as he moved from Texas to Kansas and then Colorado. In Denver his gambling habit and combative nature drew him to the still-developing sport of prizefighting. Masterson attended almost every important match in the United States from the 1880s to 1921, first as a professional gambler betting on the bouts, and later as a promoter and referee. Ultimately, Bat stumbled into writing about the sport.

In "Gunfighter in Gotham, " DeArment tells how Bat Masterson built a second career from a column in the "New York""Morning Telegraph." Bat's articles not only covered sports but also reflected his outspoken opinions on war, crime, politics, and a changing society. As his renown as a boxing expert grew, his opinions were picked up by other newspaper editors and reprinted throughout the country and abroad. He counted President Theodore Roosevelt among his friends and readers.

This follow-up to DeArment's definitive biography of the Old West legend narrates the final chapter of Masterson's storied life. Far removed from the sweeping western plains and dusty cowtown streets of his younger days, Bat Masterson, in New York City, became "a ham reporter," as he called himself, "a Broadway guy."

Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid, Doc Holliday--such are the legendary names that spring to mind when we think of the western gunfighter. But in the American West of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, thousands of grassroots gunfighters straddled both sides of the law without hesitation. "Deadly Dozen" tells the story of twelve infamous gunfighters, feared in their own times but almost forgotten today.

Now, noted historian Robert K. DeArment has compiled the stories of these obscure men. DeArment, a life-long student of law and lawlessness in the West, has combed court records, frontier newspapers, and other references to craft twelve complete biographical portraits. The combined stories of "Deadly Dozen" offer an intensive look into the lives of imposing figures who in their own ways shaped the legendary Old West.

More than a collective biography of dangerous gunfighters, "Deadly Dozen "also functions as a social history of the gunfighter culture of the post-Civil War frontier West. As Walter Noble Burns did for Billy the Kid in 1926 and Stuart N. Lake for Wyatt Earp in 1931, DeArment--himself a talented writer--brings these figures from the Old West to life.

John Bull, Pat Desmond, Mart Duggan, Milt Yarberry, Dan Tucker, George Goodell, Bill Standifer, Charley Perry, Barney Riggs, Dan Bogan, Dave Kemp, and Jeff Kidder are the twelve dangerous men that Robert K. DeArment studies in "Deadly Dozen: Twelve Forgotten Gunfighters of the Old West. "

More than a century after his death in 1878, the mere mention of John Larn's name can trigger strong reactions along the Clear Fork of the Brazos River in northern Texas. In "Bravo of the Brazos," Robert K. DeArment tells for the first time the complete story of this enigmatic and controversial figure.

Larn was good-looking, well-mannered, and gentle around women and children. He was a successful rancher and renowned frontier sheriff. Yet he was also the charismatic leader of a vigilante committee that enjoyed widespread support. Before his death at age 29, Larn had killed or participated in killing at least a dozen men.

Timothy Isaiah ""Longhair Jim"" Courtright operated on both sides of the law and became a legend in his lifetime and after his death. One of the most colorful characters from the wild and woolly days of Fort Worth's Hell's Half Acre, Courtright was at various times city marshal, deputy sheriff, deputy U.S. marshal, private detective, hired killer, and racketeer. Today, he is almost forgotten, either as a gunfighter or a lawman, except in Fort Worth. Little is known about Courtright's early life, though he apparently served in the Union army during the Civil War, But when he arrived in the West, Courtright seemed to attract trouble. He was involved in a shootout during the 1886 railroad strikes and was accused of murder in New Mexico. Deputies were sent to Fort Worth to escort him to New Mexico to stand trial. His escape from them, complete with guns hidden under a restaurant table, is one of Fort Worth's most colorful stories. Finally, he was killed in a shootout that he apparently provoked with gambler and gunman Luke Short. To this day nobody is sure what provoked that feud, but Courtright was honored with the longest funeral procession Fort Worth had ever seen. The myth of Courtright as legendary gunfighter was built in two previous biographies - one by a novelist and the other by a Franciscan priest. After exhaustive research into contemporary newspapers and other accounts and close study of the previous two books, historian Robert K. DeArment deconstructs the myth of Longhair Jim and reconstructs the gunfighter as a real human being, complex, flawed, often courageous, usually both honorable and dishonorable. This book is a must for all those interested in the legends of the West, its lawmen, and its outlaws.

Think gunfighter, and Wyatt Earp or Billy the Kid may come to mind, but what of Jim Moon? Joel Fowler? Zack Light? A host of other figures helped forge the gunfighter persona, but their stories have been lost to time. In a sequel to his Deadly Dozen, celebrated western historian Robert K. DeArment now offers more biographical portraits of lesser-known gunfighters-men who perhaps weren't glorified in legend or song, but who were rightfully notorious in their day.DeArment has tracked down stories of gunmen from throughout the West-characters you won't find in any of today's western history encyclopedias but whose careers are colorfully described here. Photos of the men and telling quotations from primary sources make these characters come alive. In giving these men their due, DeArment takes readers back to the gunfighter culture spawned in part by the upheavals of the Civil War, to a time when deadly duels were part of the social fabric of frontier towns and the Code of the West was real. His vignettes offer telling insights into conditions on the frontier that created the gunfighters of legend. These overlooked shooters never won national headlines but made their own contributions to the blood and thunder of the Old West: people less than legends, but all the more fascinating because they were real. Readers who enjoyed DeArment's Deadly Dozen will find this book equally captivating-as gripping as a showdown, twelve times over.

Now, for the first time, Robert K. DeArment has told the full story of George Scarborough's life, illuminating his activity as a lawman during the final part of the nineteenth century and his controversial killings while wearing the badge-he was tried for murder on three occasions and acquitted each time.

The English essayist Charles Lamb once said, "Man is a gaming animal." If he had known the American frontier gamblers depicted in this book, he might have added "in spades," referring to the avidity with which these "knight of the green cloth" pursued their profession.

All of the pioneers who ventured into the American West of the nineteenth century were gamblers in a sense, betting on the land, the future, and themselves. They risked their fortunes and, sometimes, their very lives. And for those too impatient to wait for the bonanza of a rich ore strike, or for the cattle to multiply, or for the town to develop, the gambling table offered an opportunity for instant riches. The almost universal acceptance and popularity of gambling games on the frontier was predictable, and the rise of the professional gambler inevitable. It was a time of almost unlimited personal freedom in a tolerant society, with few to call gambling a sin, a crime, or a folly.

The American public was introduced to the frontier gambler very early when a number of them became folk heroes and were interviewed in the popular press of the time. Later, fictional characters made known the western gambler stereotype now seen in movies and on television. Seeking to separate the myth from the reality, Robert K. DeArment gives us more than fiction in this book. Here we meet the long vanished and almost forgotten historical frontier gamblers who, between the years 1850 and 1910, were to be found playing their trade in every settlement from the Gulf of Mexico to the Klondike, Not many found fortunes, but some discovered at the tables an exciting way of life, a calling true and real for them as the law, medicine, or the clergy was for others.

DeAement's research into the lives of the well-known and less-known frontier gamblers provide a story replete with the color and excitement if the Old West. The Good Guys, the Bad Guys, and their women--wives, mistresses, and colleagues in gambling establishments--are here, honestly described in a refreshing, readable manner.