Tombstone, Ariz. The reproduction courtesy the Arizona Historical Society, Tucson. Allen street, Tombstone, looking east, with a parade in progress. Main entrance to O. Corral in clump of trees, top center. Photo courtesy the author, W. William B. Lawrence "Larry" Deger, an early Dodge City marshal, was later mayor. Photo courtesy George Henrichs. Then, confusing matters further, we are told by another prolific writer that not only did Ned Buntline make a great deal of money from the stories the officers' inspiration provided, but that "Wyatt Earp's reputation grew through the tales from Buntline's pen.
Earp and Masterson never became dime-novel heroes. Besides, Ned Buntline himself seldom wrote on Western subjects. Despite speculation to the contrary, it can be fairly well established that Ned spent east of the Mississippi river. By spring, , he began fearing serious trouble in the person of his sometime wife, Lovanche L. Actually she had married him twice -- once in and again 10 years later.
To date no divorce record, dissolving their final union, can be found. Descending from the Kingston train, she arrived at Stamford, N. Being well acquainted with Lovanche's temperament, Buntline wisely retreated from his more familiar Delaware county haunts. He wished to avoid the embarrassment of any chance encounters. Luckily for Ned his close friend, attorney F.
Gilbert, proved an able interceptor. Gilbert quickly soothed the ruffled feathers of the twice Mrs. Judson by arranging a generous financial settlement on the condition she immediately leave town. This done, Buntline once more felt secure enough to appear on the streets. He was soon gone again, this time for his annual fishing trip. Ned's last wife, Anne Fuller, accompanied him on this excursion which took the couple to the Adirondacks and Catskills in New York as well as to the Poconos in nearby Pennsylvania.
His wife Proved such an adept hand with rod and tackle that Ned wrote some articles for the American Angler designed to encourage more women's interest in that sport. With Lovanche and fishing temporarily behind him, and the year being the centennial anniversary of the United States, Ned deliberately returned home in time to plan his own Fourth ' of July celebration. He announced to the local press an intention of making his annual pyrotechnic display more dramatic than usual, with a number of special attractions.
Although an often repeated tale, this hardly seems likely since word of that disaster did not reach New York newspapers until July 6. Later news items published in July concerning Buntline prove he stayed near Stamford during this period. It can be assumed Ned went fishing again in late August, as he once wrote a friend and later biographer, Fred Pond, saying, "it has been my habit for years.
Being a Republican he naturally offered his services to that cause in the upcoming election. At a rally, organized by the party's county chairman with Ned's vocal skills in mind, Buntline spoke so impassionately on behalf of the Democratic candidate he was summarily read out of his own party in disgust.
Buntline's thrust into political oratory having been viewed as less than a complete success, at least by the Republicans, Ned retired from the speaker's rostrum and returned to his writing. On January 16, , he broke two ribs falling on some ice at Stamford but later that year delivered a series of lectures for the Judson Library Foundation.
With his wife expecting a baby that spring, Ned stayed fairly close to home. At no time during did he sojourn west to Dodge City.
Nearly all published accounts printed since Frontier Marshal have adopted Stuart Lake's version of the Buntline Special tale in its entirety. In addition, many writers, unsatisfied with Lake's original description, have unleashed their own well-oiled imaginations and produced variations not contained in Frontier Marshal or T he Saturday Evening Post articles. These colorful inventions are generally presented with such a matter-of-fact air of authenticity that most Western buffs accept them immediately as fact.
As a result there is much unnecessary confusion when one attempts to separate one story's origin from another. For example, one article reports, "there is testimony to the effect that" Bat Masterson used his Buntline Special while in Dodge City. The result of such practice is obvious. The more serious-minded reader has no way of knowing if the report is based on some contemporary document, or newspaper story, or is merely the semifictional meanderings of one of Masterson's biographers.
For the sake of argument assume momentarily that Bat had received one of Ned Buntline "Specials. Available evidence points out Masterson preferred a shorter barreled gun than the Buntline would have been. Between October, , and October, , he ordered at least eight Single Action Army revolvers directly from the Colt factory. The first of these, marked "W.
Among other things he specified the barrels to be "about the same length that the Ejection rod is. Both guns were nickle-plated and had gutta percha hard rubber grips of the still popular "eagle" design.
One of these weapons is presently in the Richard P. Mellon collection. Aside from the confusion concerning Masterson, another source goes so far as to say that on his way to Dodge City "Judson had stopped off in North Platte and presented his friend Bill Cody with a 'Buntline Special. It seems Cody spent much of this time scouting for Col.
Nelson A. Miles during that officer's campaigns following the Custer fiasco. Ever since Cody and Buntline quarreled over the division of profits from the first extended tour of "The Scouts of the Prairie," in , they were no longer very close.
It therefore seems highly unlikely that Ned would have bothered to consider ""Buffalo Bill" in any give-away scheme. Even the famous James Butler Hickok is included in Buntline's presentation by another adventuresome author. Aside from this point, it is fairly well-known that Hickok preferred a smaller caliber percussion revolver. Buntline killed off "Wild Bill Hitchcock" in his first "Buffalo Bill" story and the real "Wild Bill" seems to have resented this fictional incident.
They are nothing more than the products of their authors" overworked imaginations. One of the earliest published statements not fully accepting Stuart Lake's Buntline tale comes from Colt firearms authority John E.
Parsons in his book The Peacemaker and Its Rivals An examination of this interesting volume reveals that after mentioning Lake's account Parsons adds the significant statement: "The making up of this special order has not been traced in the Colt Company records, which do, however, indicate that Peacemakers with 10 inch and 16 inch barrels were supplied on occasion. Actually, Colt's ledgers account for the sale of just over half of the so-called "Buntline Specials" until the company never officially used this designation manufactured within the original group of roughly 30 weapons.
The remaining revolvers must have either been sold, given as display models and salesman's samples to Colt dealers, or altered at the factory and sold with shorter barrels, since Colt is presently not in possession of them. Recently one writer vainly tried to reconcile the fact of no inch Colts being available by theorizing, ". It should be pointed out that Colt did not ship a inch Peacemaker until August 30, Besides, Ned Buntline had died in Although Colt displayed some long-barreled single actions at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in , it was not until December 1, , that any left the Hartford assembly plant for actual sale.
Besides, five guns were not involved in this shipment, nor were they sent to Ned Buntline or even to a New York dealer.
Instead, this order consisted of four inch. The point concerning the actual number of guns presented, an important consideration here, doesn't effect [ sic ] some writers at all. One Of these even claimed Ned gave "about a dozen of his 'Buntline Specials' to famous, and infamous, people of the West.
If this is true, the reduced presentation from five men to four could not possibly have taken place until early -- not in Yet Wyatt Earp wasn't in Dodge City the first few months of that year.
Clark, Texas. Three days later he replaced John Brown. Nor could the presentation have taken place soon after Wyatt's return. Ned Buntline's whereabouts can be accounted for and he certainly didn't spend mid traveling to Dodge City loaded down with give-away Colts. His health had begun giving him trouble the previous summer, forcing the normally active writer to remain in bed during the entire month of August -- presumably with gout. Because of this Buntline decided to spend the winter of in the Deep South, after first visiting a number of Civil War battlefields.
Ned also complained, with more drama than accuracy, of "a wound received in June, ' This, in turn, caused a great deal of pain from sciatica. At any rate, Buntline returned to New York in April and spent the entire summer of at his home outside Stamford. Fitted with a inch barrel, this gun apparently had been rechambered at the factory in.
These two. Buntline certainly did not give them to any Kansas "lawmen. It is true Colt sent five more long-barreled single action. An interesting idea comes from long-time Colt expert William B. Edwards's idea came from Lake saying, "each gun had a demountable walnut rifle stock.
Yet some writers don't attempt any explanation of this minor discrepancy in Lake's story but simply have Ned presenting the guns with skeleton stocks. Instead he tackled the problem with his usual enthusiasm. The result is a very tempting theory for Stuart Lake fans. If the two recipients Bat Masterson and Bill Tilghman "cut off" the barrels of their Buntlines as Lake claimed, "or gave them away as presents" as yet another writer details, [80] the remaining inch guns could now be lost to history.
In any case, Colt certainly would have no record of them. But, as intriguing as Edwards's theory may appear on the surface, it must be remembered that its acceptance means a deletion of all major descriptive portions of Stuart Lake's original passage. The entire story then ceases to have any foundation, since, contrary to the claim that "Wyatt Earp made the 'Buntline Special' famous," [81] no published account of Ned Buntline's presentation can be found which predates Lake's writings.
Since the evidence thus far examined seems to disprove any "Buntline Specials" being presented in Dodge City, a review must be made of those events where Wyatt Earp is said to have used the weapon. This approach is necessary on the slim chance Stuart Lake simply gave a garbled rendering of an otherwise true story. In doing so historical accuracy will be satisfied.
Fortunately for those interested in documented history, before Wyatt Earp died on January 13, , he left to John H. Flood, Jr. Earp remained rather remarkable in that, above all else, he kept meticulous records -- letters, business papers, maps, receipts, and even ticket stubs. From until Wyatt's death, John Flood served as his mining partner and secretary.
They eventually became close personal friends. In shorthand, Flood methodically transcribed Wyatt Earp's dictated life story. After Wyatt's death in Los Angeles he carefully preserved the thousands of items he and Earp had saved over the years. This entire collection, including Wyatt's guns and Flood's copies of the yet unpublished autobiography, is now the property of Western historian John D.
Gilchriese also gathered much additional material, after an exhaustive year search, which fully documents Earp's life. No hint of the Buntline Special appears within this treasury of Earpiana -- although Wyatt supposedly told Stuart Lake, "Mine was my favorite over any other gun.
Flood later remarked to John Gilchriese that he and Mr. Earp discussed weapons in detail many times but no mention was ever made of such a gun. At that time, he said, Wyatt carried a Colt S. Thorp claimed Earp told him, "I don't like a gun with a longer barrel. Sometimes an inch or two makes a difference when you want to jerk it quickly.
Together with this, a careful examination of Wyatt Earp's career reveals he seldom fired a gun in anger. He found it unnecessary to kill anyone until the late Clanton-McLaury fight in Tombstone. Wyatt once wrote a friend saying, "I never carried a gun only upon occasion and that was while on duty as an officer of the law. Earp harbored no fetish about deadly weapons. Besides reporting Wyatt knocking several people cold with the Buntline Special and relating a totally fictitious story of Earp backing down Clay Allison by shoving a six-gun into his ribs, Lake mistakenly has Wyatt Earp killing a young Texan named George Hoyt [86] in Dodge City in Lake's version has Wyatt standing in front of the Comique theater as Hoy[t] rides by at a gallop firing three.
Lake goes on to say, "Wyatt went into action toward the horseman, jerking his Colt's as he jumped. I carried it at my right hip throughout my career as marshal.
According to more reliable contemporary accounts, a small group of Texans simply decided to fire some random shots into the rear of Ben Springer's newly opened Comique theater before leaving town early on the morning of July 26, Luckily no one in the dancehall was hurt as the private boxes were unoccupied and the bullets passed too high to hit anyone on the dance floor. Assistant Marshal Earp and Policeman James Masterson responded to the scene and "together with several citizens, turned their pistols loose in the direction of the flying horsemen.
As his friends escaped, Earp and Masterson carried the badly wounded man to Dr. Thomas L. McCarty's office on Front street for medical assistance. Hoy[t] died from his wound on August In an newspaper article, Wyatt Earp claimed he killed the young Texan, [91] but there is no way of crediting the fatal shot. With so many persons firing, he could just as easily [have] been wounded by James Masterson, one of the "several citizens" in the crowd, or even accidently by one of his friends.
However, no group of Texas cattlemen ever placed a bounty on Wyatt's head, although Stuart Lake assures us young Hoy[t] confessed to such a plot before he died. Yet no contemporary reference can be found supporting this outlandish claim. The rest of Wyatt's Dodge City use of the Buntline Special according to Stuart Lake, consisted of "buffaloing' overzealous lawbreakers.
The most colorful of these incidents supposedly occurred around September 24, , when, aided by his friend Doc Holliday, the consumptive gun-fighting dentist, Wyatt arrested Tobe Driskill, Ed Morrison, and some 25 of their gun-toting comrades in front of the Long Branch saloon. In reply to Doc's query of what should be done with their captives, Lake explains, "Wyatt Earp took a single step toward Ed Morrison and, before that individual or any of his followers sensed what was happening, laid the barrel of his Buntline Special over the cowboy's head.
The trouble with this tale is that in all likelihood it never took place. First of all, there is no mention of this affair in either Dodge City newspaper and files for that period are complete. Secondly, this story is unsupported by entries in the docket of the police judge.
The late Stanley Vestal enjoyed access to this vital source, which has since disappeared. However, Vestal recorded the information that between July 5, , and August 5, , ". Wyatt Earp arrested or filed complaints against thirty-five persons. While it is conceivable some arrests may have escaped entry in the police judge's docket, a mass action involving 25 armed and defiant men would hardly go unnoticed by both the court recorder and Dodge City's two newspapers.
The pages of the press actually point out that the Driskill boys, Tobe and Bud, spent much of this time in the field, at one point with Captain Hemphill's company, during the Dull Knife scare. Marauding Indians had reportedly killed two herders at the Driskill's camp. Aside from Wyatt's pistol-whipping arrest of Curly Bill Brocius, following the shooting of Tombstone city marshal, Fred White, in October of , [98] or his similar manhandling of Tom McLaury one year later, [99] the most famous instance of Wyatt Earp raising a weapon against human adversaries is now legendary.
For over four decades Western authors and motion picture writers have postured this desperate battle as the "Gunfight at the O. It is clear that the Earp party, walking west along Fremont street, did not hesitate at the O. Corral's rear entrance but continued four lots further on. There, all but Doc Holliday swung into a vacant lot situated between Camillus S.
Fly's lodging house and photographic gallery on the east, and shielded from Third street to the west by a wooden frame dwelling near the corner. Harwood owned this small frame house as well as the vacant space where the fight began.
After the shooting started, the three Earps backed from the vacant lot on Virgil's order, joining Doc Holliday already in the street. There the battle reached its peak, concluding some 30 seconds later. In its wake, Billy Clanton sat dazed outside the lot where he had fallen. Mortally wounded, the year-old Clanton cried desperately for more cartridges as Mr. Fly, himself armed with a Henry rifle, disarmed the youth. Tom McLaury, his body badly torn by buckshot, slumped near death at the base of a two-span telegraph pole on the corner of Third street while his brother Frank lay dead on the north side of Fremont.
Though shot through the right calf, Virgil Earp stood over his younger brother Morgan, seriously wounded by Billy Clanton's fire. Doc Holliday was superficially grazed along his lower back; but luck stood with Wyatt as he emerged unharmed.
Leaving his younger brother and two companions to their fate, Ike Clanton had scurried to safety after frantically begging Wyatt to spare his life. Unharmed but shaken, Ike sought immediate refuge in a Mexican dancehall on Allen street. Cochise county sheriff, John H. Behan, later testified he finally found Clanton at judge Lucas's old Toughnut street office. Two additional hangers-on, William Claiborne and Wesley Fuller, had also run as the firing began.
The circumstances promoting this battle are both complicated and bizarre but needn't be discussed for purposes of this study. Yet the fight itself is important as Stuart Lake mentions the Buntline Special. He describes the opening exchange of shots with his usual sense of drama:. Frank McLowery [ sic ] and Billy Clanton jerked and fired their six-guns simultaneously. Both turned loose on Wyatt Earp, the shots with which they opened the famous battle of the O.
Corral echoing from the adobe walls as one. Fast as the two rustlers were at getting into action from a start with guns half-drawn, Wyatt Earp was deadlier. Frank McLowery's bullet tore through the skirt of Wyatt's coat on the right, Billy Clanton's ripped the marshal's sleeve, but before either could fire again, Wyatt's Buntline Special roared; the slug struck Frank McLowery squarely in the abdomen, just above the belt buckle.
By Wyatt Earp's own admission at his and Doc Holliday's subsequent court appearance, he carried his revolver in an overcoat pocket. Wyatt read his testimony from a document carefully prepared with help from his attorney New York-born Thomas Fitch -- the year-old "Silver Tongued Orator of the Pacific Slope. We had walked a few steps further and I saw Behan leave the party and come toward us. Every few steps he would look back as if he apprehended danger. I heard him say to Virgil Earp, "For God's sake, don't go down there, you will get murdered.
Behan then passed up the street and we walked on down. Wyatt had good reason to wear an overcoat. In his later reminiscence, Tombstone mayor and Epitaph editor John P. Clum described the day as "bright and the air crisp. Parsons notes snow, high winds, and extremely cold temperatures on the following morning of October For practical purposes, however, concealing a inch is hardly possible while unthinkable with a inch. This point is not terribly important since in the now famous encounter of October 26, , Wyatt Earp used an eight-inch.
John Clum had graciously given this finely engraved nickle-plated revolver to Wyatt as a gift. Gilchriese collection. Stuart Lake, not wishing to remain idle while something dramatic was happening, soon has Wyatt unlimbering the Buntline Special again in March, , after the cowardly assassination of his younger brother Morgan.
On his own, without legal sanction or authority to act, Wyatt Earp sought personal revenge. First he shotgunned Frank Stilwell, a suspected stage robber and former deputy under Johnny Behan, [] in Tucson's rail yard.
Stilwell died as the train, carrying Morgan's coffin together with Virgil and his wife Allie, pulled out for California. He went on to explain that before Wyatt fired he counted to three slowly in Spanish, thereby giving the inexperienced Florentino a fair chance to draw, but, confessed Lake, "Indian Charlie was no finished gun-fighter.
After examining the coroner's inquest on Florentino, all available newspaper accounts, Wyatt's hand-drawn maps of this incident as well as his verbal presentation, given in amazing detail to John Flood, it is clear Stuart Lake's version is more an example of blood-and-thunder journalism than of accurate historical prose.
It is a fact that Wyatt Earp did not count to three in Spanish -- or in any other language -- before shooting Florentino Cruz. Lake quickly shifts the point of action west, across the San Pedro valley, to Iron Springs in the Whetstone mountains.
Here he has Wyatt wounding two men and possibly a third with the Buntline Special, after first dispatching "Curly Bill" Brocius in a bloody shotgun duel. Many of Wyatt's detractors strongly maintain this fight never occurred. They say Earp simply invented the story in an attempt to enhance his own reputation. On May 22, , the Denver Republican published an extensive interview with the consumptive Doc Holliday, then in jail awaiting possible extradition to Arizona to answer for his part in the killings precipitated by Morgan Earp's assassination.
Unlike Holliday, Wyatt Earp remained out of prison and spent his time gambling in several Rocky mountain towns. Colorado Gov. Frederick W. Pitkin finally refused to honor an Arizona extradition request on May 29, Although Doc still faced a minor charge in Pueblo, Wyatt gambled freely throughout much of the West. A line drawing in the San Francisco Calif.
Copy courtesy the Bancroft Library. Club on the beach at Nome, Alas. Photo courtesy W. The Kansas City Mo. Journal printed on May 15, Masterson precedes by twenty-four hours a few other pleasant gentlemen who are on their way to the tea party at Dodge.
One of them is Wyatt Earp. He has killed within our personal knowledge six men, and is popularly acredited [ sic ] with relegating to the dust no less than ten of his fellow men. The men involved in this affair did not take these garbled renditions of their lethal accomplishments too seriously.
In this spirit of fairplay the "Peace Commission" had its photograph taken by Mr. Conkling before disbanding. And since these men seldom displayed weapons, no arms of any sort are visible.
In Frontier Marshal Stuart Lake mentions the Buntline Special for the last time in connection with Wyatt's position as referee of the controversial Sharkey-Fitzsimmons heavyweight bout. Near 12 o'clock on the day of the contest, according to Lake, as Wyatt Earp prepared for an afternoon at the races, the fight's promoters and a representative of the National Athletic Club asked him to act as referee. He agreed only if no other suitable person could be found. Then, with just five minutes before the bout's scheduled opening, they supposedly summoned him to Mechanics' Pavilion from "Goodfellow's Restaurant, across the street.
He then stripped off his coat, and "the twenty-thousand did roar. I know I turned red to my heels as I unbuckled the gun and handed it to Police captain Whitman [ sic ], who sat at the ringside. Lake justifies Wyatt carrying a weapon by explaining the presence of a gang of thieves victimizing gamblers and other innocents in route by streetcar from the Ingleside race track to downtown San Francisco.
Earp carried large sums of money which he did not intend losing without a fight. As with outlining other portions of Wyatt Earp's life, Stuart Lake is not accurate in his handling of the Sharkey-Fitzsimmons affair. Actually Wyatt knew long before of the decision naming him referee. Promoters James J. Groom and John G. Gibbs decided on Earp after Fitzsimmons' manager and brother-in-law, Martin Julian, steadfastedly [ sic ] objected to all previously suggested persons.
Julian later delayed the bout while arguing with officials in the ring his fear of Wyatt having a financial interest in the fight's outcome. Earp, did appear armed at ringside to Captain of Police George W. Wittman, who approached the ex-officer asking him to surrender his weapon. He could not, explained the captain, referee the bout wearing a gun.
Wyatt calmly asked Wittman to step into a side room where he would gladly go along with the officer's request. Although he never explained why, Wittman told Earp he felt it improper to speak privately with the referee, so Wyatt voluntarily surrendered his revolver without fanfare. Concerning the gun's appearance, one contemporary newspaper reported: "The offending weapon is of the pattern known as the 'Frontier Colts. This newspaper item hardly identifies Wyatt's revolver as the Buntline Special.
Bob Fitzsimmons carried the fight until the eighth round when Wyatt stopped the bout on a foul. Earp awarded the decision to Sharkey, who attendants carried out as "limp as a rag.
He did so on orders from Captain Wittman, who charged Earp with carrying a concealed weapon at Mechanics' Pavilion. Wittman later explained his action, "I would have arrested you at the fight, but fearing serious trouble I concluded to wait until to-day. After two postponements judge Charles A. Low of the city's Police Court No. During the course of his hearing, Wyatt explained why he carried a gun. His statement disagrees with Stuart Lake's version of highwaymen waylaying streetcar passengers from Ingleside.
Earp simply said he was "under a verbal contract. Since Frontier Marshal's release in , numerous persons interested in Wyatt Earp, have pondered what became of the weapon he supposedly claimed was his "favorite over any other gun.
Remaining puzzled, these first serious Wyatt Earp students, and veteran Colt firearms collectors, began tying to, unearth clues of their own. Many stories were uncovered, discussed, dissected, written about, and finally discarded. Of all these, the one which seemed more plausible to members of this group involved Wyatt, while in Nome, Alas.
The story, first published in , concludes:. The mail-carrier, reaching a precarious situation requiring the immediate lightening of his small whaleboat, threw the gun over-board together with other impedimenta, and thus the "Buntline" now lies at the cold, wet bottom of the Pacific Ocean! Although disproved by the subsequent scholarship of both its author and the historians involved with him in examining the initial account, this colorful dunking story appears without any attempt at clarification in a recent book on Colt's Single Action Army.
Some writers have even transferred the point of action from Alaska to the Yukon. A look at the historical record proves Wyatt Earp never visited the Yukon, although he did spend time in Alaska, at the turn of the century.
These involved in various enterprises included the operation of the Dexter Saloon at Nome. Through careful research all stories regarding the Buntline Special's demise can ultimately be traced to someone else's imagination, not Stuart Lake's. Other writers have simply perpetuated an ever-expanding legend using Lake's semifictional account of Wyatt Earp's life as their foundation.
Yet not only are we continually told of Wyatt's unnamed friend losing the Buntline off Alaska, but to confuse matters even further, Western artist Lea F. McCarty quoted a fellow named Arthur M. King in a national Western pulp magazine as saying:.
Hell no. He never wore any gun when I knew him. He used to let it lay up in the seat of that old Franklin car of his and he'd go get it if he wanted to lay it across the head of some galoot who was looking for trouble.
He carried that thing in the back of that car all the time I worked with him through to about However, this portion of the Buntline Special legend cleared itself up. For in the following issue of the magazine a reader questioned the point of mentioning the Buntline after by citing the Alaskan dunking story.
McCarty eventually replied, "I was in error when I wrote that Mr. King had seen Earp with the Buntline. He never had. Another "quote" which must now be considered in some detail appears in Frontier Marshal as the second paragraph describing the Buntline Specials supra , p. It is written as coming directly from Wyatt Earp himself. In his book Stuart Lake quotes Earp extensively and these are constantly being cited as primary source statements supporting that writer's version of events.
The question therefore must be asked: how accurate is Lake in presenting direct quotes from Wyatt Earp? Stuart Lake claimed he persuaded Wyatt "to devote the closing months of his long life to the narration of his full Story. It now appears certain that Wyatt Earp became acquainted with his future biographer, on a face-to-face basis, only seven months before he died, [] although Stuart Lake had written to him for the first time some months before. Josie certainly hoped to gain financially from the book's success.
According to the LA Times , O'Brian spent hundreds of hours practicing the quick draw, which "became a very big promotional tool Wyatt Earp's revolver would capture the minds of gun enthusiasts and children who wanted to be like their favorite lawman.
However, many still wonder exactly how real the Buntline Special was. It was later found to be manufactured by Colt as showpieces with smaller barrels, not 12 inches. Just right. The first half of the movie sees Earp trying to make his way as a saloon owner and businessman in the boomtown of Tombstone.
When tensions rise in town and Wyatt knows a fight is coming, he retrieves his gun from a velvet lined case he keeps in a drawer. Dodge City, Kansas, is where Earp made a name for himself as a lawman. Cimarron Firearms even makes a replica of this version of the Buntline Special today. Since the movie follows him through most of his life, he carries a number of pistols, including an Army, two Colts, and a Remington revolver, but no special-made, long-barreled Colt.
The short answer is nobody knows for sure. There have been a number of guns purported to be owned by him—some have even been auctioned off with that claim. Many of them were also miraculously owned by him during the right timeframe so that they could have been used in the most famous gunfight of all time. Some have been Colt single-action Army revolvers of various barrel lengths. But the authenticity of every Wyatt Earp gun has been contested, and each provides flimsy providence for their claims of having ridden in his holster.
With that said, it seems likely that Wyatt carried a longer-barreled gun for at least for some of his life. This would certainly be easier to accomplish with a gun that had a bit more heft. Earp likely carried a good number of pistols, rifles, and shotguns during his life.
It was far more important that they work when called upon than any special features or fancy name. Earp did provide some insight on how he thought about gunfights during a interview:. The second was that, if I hoped to live long enough on the frontier, I would shun flashy trick-shooting—grandstand play—as I would poison. Shooting, to them, was considerably more than aiming at a mark and pulling a trigger.
Hours upon hours of practice, and wide experience in actualities supported their arguments over style. It is hard to make this clear to a man who has never been in a gunfight. But as a fan of Old Westerns and old guns, I wish he would have just told us how long that pistol barrel really was. It's the best.
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