How tall was wild bill hickok

We wonder, who was Wild Bill Hickok? The man who became marshal of Abilene, Kan. He stood 6 foot 3 in his custom-made boots. His riveting gray eyes, set off by a drooping mustache, seemed to look right through people. Beneath the black hat with the sweeping brim, blond hair tumbled to his shoulders, and a Prince Albert frock coat showed off broad shoulders and a narrow waist. There were even rumors of an affair.

Tall, lithe, and free in every motion, he rode and walked as if every muscle was perfection, and the careless swing of his body as he moved seemed perfectly in keeping with the man, the country, the time in which he lived. I do not recall anything finer in the way of physical perfection than Wild Bill when he swung himself lightly from his saddle, and with graceful, swaying step, squarely set shoulders and well poised head, approached our tent for orders.

He was rather fantastically clad, of course, but all seemed perfectly in keeping with the time and place. He did not make an armory of his waist, but carried two pistols. He wore top-boots, riding breeches, and dark blue flannel shirt, with scarlet set in front. A loose neck handkerchief left his fine firm throat free. I do not all remember his features, but the frank, manly expression of his fearless eyes and his courteous manner gave one a feeling of confidence in his word and in his undaunted courage.

Some Westerners may have been fooled by the fancy dress, but most understood the promise of the twin Colts. The man was deadly in a confrontation. He moved with cat-easy grace, had lightning reflexes, and shot with great accuracy using either hand. Above all, he was absolutely cool and composed in pressure situations-fine attributes to have in Abilene, which may well have been the toughest town in the West. So Abilene went after the man with the biggest reputation of all, J.

He ruled Abilene from the card tables of the Alamo Saloon, telling his deputies to come and get him if he was needed. Despite the many hard cases in the boisterous cow town, few challenged him. Did Hickok deserve his reputation? Yes and no. He became famous, maybe even more famous than the president, because Eastern publishers wanted to sell magazines to a public hungry for tales of the Wild West. Some said the two men fought over a card game, while others attributed the duel to competition for the attention of a woman named Susannah Moore.

After Tutt missed, Hickok rested his gun on his left arm to steady it and then shot him. Regardless of who fired when, Hickok established himself as a cool, deadly gunfighter. Nichols cared little for the truth, and in his exaggerations he found a willing accomplice in Hickok. When the story finally appeared in February , Hickok emerged as a superman.

McCanles to use on their Pony Express route to California. Their company generally known as the Overland Stage Company was experiencing financial difficulties at the time, however, and could not pay McCanles the full amount promised. On July 12, , McCanles, assisted by his cousin James Woods and James Gordon, tried to reclaim the station, but all three died under the guns of company employees Hickok, J. Brink and Horace Wellman. For many years it was believed that Hickok killed McCanles, but recent research suggests one of the others shot him.

Hickok worked for the Union during the Civil War. At various times he acted as a scout, a spy, a detective, a special policeman and a sharpshooter. Some people attribute the sobriquet to an early incident in Independence, Mo.

Why did Hickok help Nichols embellish his accomplishments? Again, the answer is complex. Three sheriffs had quit during the previous 18 months. Hickok may have been acting sheriff before he was elected; a newspaper reported that he arrested offenders on August 18, and the commander of Fort Hays wrote a letter to the assistant adjutant general on August 21 in which he praised Hickok for his work in apprehending deserters.

The regular county election was held on November 2, , and Hickok, running as an independent, lost to his deputy, Peter Lanihan, running as a Democrat, but Hickok and Lanihan remained sheriff and deputy, respectively.

Hickok accused a J. Macintosh of irregularities and misconduct during the election. On December 9, Hickok and Lanihan both served legal papers on Macintosh, and local newspapers acknowledged that Hickok had guardianship of Hays City. In September , his first month as sheriff, Hickok killed two men. The first was Bill Mulvey, who was rampaging through town, drunk, shooting out mirrors and whisky bottles behind bars. Citizens warned Mulvey to behave, because Hickok was sheriff.

Mulvey angrily declared that he had come to town to kill Hickok. When he saw Hickok, he leveled his cocked rifle at him. Hickok waved his hand past Mulvey at some onlookers and yelled, "Don't shoot him in the back; he is drunk. He became a Deputy U. Hickok was assigned to bring the men to Topeka for trial, and he requested a military escort from Fort Hays. He was assigned William F. Cody, a sergeant, and five privates.

They arrived in Topeka on April 2. Hickok remained in Hays through August , when he brought Cheyenne Indians to Hays to be viewed by "excursionists". On September 4, Hickok was wounded in the foot while rescuing several cattlemen in the Bijou Creek Basin who had been surrounded by Indians.

The 10th Regiment arrived at Fort Lyon in Colorado in October and remained there for the rest of Henry M. Stanley, of the Weekly Missouri Democrat, reported Hickock to be "an inveterate hater of Indians", perhaps to enhance his reputation as a scout and Indian fighter, but it is difficult to separate fact from fiction considering his recruitment of Native Americans to cross the nation in order to appear in his own Wild West show.

Witnesses confirm that while working as a scout at Fort Harker, Kansas, on May 11, , he was attacked by a large group of Indians, who fled after he shot and killed two. In July, Hickok told a newspaper reporter that he had led several soldiers in pursuit of Indians who had killed four men near the fort on July 2. He reported returning with five prisoners after killing ten.

Witnesses confirm that the story was true to the extent the party had set out to find whoever had killed the four men, but the group returned to the fort "without nary a dead Indian, [never] even seeing a live one".

While in Springfield, Hickok and a local gambler named Davis Tutt had several disagreements over unpaid gambling debts and their mutual affection for the same women. Hickok lost a gold watch to Tutt in a poker game. The watch had great sentimental value to Hickok and he asked Tutt not to wear it in public.

They initially agreed not to fight over the watch, but when Hickok saw Tutt wearing it, he warned him to stay away. On July 21, , the two men faced off in Springfield's town square, standing sideways before drawing and firing their weapons. Their quick-draw duel was recorded as the first of its kind.

Tutt's shot missed, but Hickok's struck Tutt through the heart from about 75 yards 69 m away. Tutt called out, "Boys, I'm killed" before he collapsed and died. Two days later, Hickok was arrested for murder. The charge was later reduced to manslaughter. At the end of the trial, Judge Sempronius H. Boyd told the jury they could not find Hickok acted in self-defense if he could have reasonably avoided the fight. However, if they felt the threat of danger was real and imminent, he instructed they could apply the unwritten law of the "fair fight" and acquit.

The jury voted to clear Hickok, resulting in public backlash and criticism of the verdict. In September , Hickok came in second in the election for city marshal of Springfield.

Leaving Springfield, he was recommended for the position of deputy federal marshal at Fort Riley, Kansas. Custer's 7th Cavalry. In , Hickok recruited six Indians and three cowboys to accompany him to Niagara Falls, where he put on an outdoor demonstration called The Daring Buffalo Chasers of the Plains.

Since the event was outdoors, he could not compel people to pay, and the venture was a financial failure. The show featured six buffalo, a bear and a monkey and one show ended in disaster when a buffalo refused to act, prompting Hickok to fire a bullet in the sky. This angered the buffalo and panicked audience members, causing the animals to break free of their wire fencing and chase audience members, some of which were trampled.

One story claimed he killed a bear with his bare hands and a bowie knife. The Harper's piece also told the story of how Hickok had pointed to a letter "O" that was "no bigger than a man's heart. Both towns had become outposts for lawless men before Hickok arrived and turned things around. In an account that changed his life, Hickok was reportedly involved in a shootout with saloon owner Phil Coe.

In the melee, Hickok caught a glimpse of someone moving towards him and responded with two shots killing his deputy Mike Williams. The event haunted Hickok for the rest of his life.

Hickok never fought in another gun battle. In , Wild Bill Hickok was suffering from glaucoma. Relegated to making a living through other means than law enforcement, he traveled from one town to another as a gambler. Several times he was arrested for vagrancy. He left his wife a few months later to seek his fortune in the goldfields of South Dakota.

It was here that he supposedly became romantically linked to Martha Jane Canary, also known as "Calamity Jane," but most historians discount any such amorous relationship between the two. On the afternoon of August 2, , he was playing cards with his back to the door, something he seldom did. Eric Martinez Movie Actor.

Happ Baseball Player. Brian Flemming Film Director. Famous Birthdays May Phillip E. Hardy Screenwriter. Choi Nak-min Association Football Player. Etta Scollo Singer. Glyn Chamberlain Association Football Player.