John N. Thacker's Books

Badge and Buckshot

Lawlessness in Old California

By: John Boessenecker

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Badge and Buckshot

Lawlessness in Old California

By: John Boessenecker

Badge and Buckshot is a comprehensive book at many of the once-famous peace officers and outlaws of Old California. Told here for the first time are the true stories of Ben Thorn, the iron-willed but scandal-plagued sheriff of Calaveras County; John C. Boggs, the fast-shooting nemesis of the Tom Bell and Rattlesnake Dick gangs; Ben and Dudley Johnson, the notorious “Tulare Twins”; Kid Thompson, whose train-robbing exploits took place just blocks from present-day Los Angeles film and television studios; and Coates-Frost feud, California’s bloodiest vendetta, which endured more than twenty years and left fourteen men dead. Here, too, are the first complete accounts of Captain Ingram’s Rangers, the band of Confederate guerrillas who raided stagecoaches in California during the Civil War; Steve Venard, the soft-spoken lawman who killed three outlaws in a single gunfight; and the legendary Bill Miner, whose career of banditry spanned almost half a century. The product of more than ten years of painstaking research, Badge and Buckshot recounts one of the forgotten sagas of the Old West, an action-packed tale of shoot-outs, stage holdups, manhunts, and lynchings. At the same time, through extensive use of pioneer newspaper files, court records, and previously unpublished illustrations, it shatters old myths and demonstrates the overall effectiveness of the criminal justice system in Old California. For authentic Americana, Badge and Buckshot is not to be missed.

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Page Count

354

Publisher

University of Oklahoma Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0806125101

ISBN 13

9780806125107

Last of the Old-Time Outlaws

The George West Musgrave Story

By: Karen Holliday Tanner,John D. Tanner

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Last of the Old-Time Outlaws

The George West Musgrave Story

By: Karen Holliday Tanner,John D. Tanner

Soft-spoken, cheerful, handsome, and well dressed, George West Musgrave “looked more like a senator than a cattle rustler.” Yet he was a cattle rustler as well as a bandit, robber, and killer, “guilty of more crimes than Billy the Kid was ever accused of.” In Last of the Old-Time Outlaws, Karen Holliday Tanner and John D. Tanner, Jr., recount the colorful life of Musgrave (1877-1947), enduring badman of the American Southwest. Musgrave was a charter member of the High Five/Black Jack gang, which was responsible for Arizona’s first bank hold-up, numerous post office and stagecoach robberies, and the largest Santa Fe Railroad heist in history. Following a decade-long hunt, he was captured and acquitted of killing a former Texas Ranger. After this near brush with prison or execution, he headed for South America, where he gained fame as the leading Gringo rustler. It wasn’t until the 1940s that Musgrave’s age and poor health brought an end to a criminal career that had spanned two continents and two centuries. Incorporating previously unknown facts about the career of this frontier outlaw, the Tanners thoroughly document Musgrave’s half-century of crime, from his childhood in the Texas brush country to his final days in Paraguay.

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Page Count

378

Publisher

University of Oklahoma Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0806147245

ISBN 13

9780806147246

Ride the Devil's Herd

Wyatt Earp's Epic Battle Against the West's Biggest Outlaw Gang

By: John Boessenecker

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Ride the Devil's Herd

Wyatt Earp's Epic Battle Against the West's Biggest Outlaw Gang

By: John Boessenecker

The story of how a young Wyatt Earp and his brothers defeated the Old West’s biggest outlaw gang, by the New York Times–bestselling author of Texas Ranger. Wyatt Earp is regarded as the most famous lawman of the Old West, best known for his role in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. But the story of his two-year war with a band of outlaws known as the Cowboys has never been told in full. The Cowboys were the largest outlaw gang in the history of the American West. After battles with the law in Texas and New Mexico, they shifted their operations to Arizona. There, led by Curly Bill Brocius, they ruled the border, robbing, rustling, smuggling and killing with impunity until they made the fatal mistake of tangling with the Earp brothers. Drawing on groundbreaking research into territorial and federal government records, John Boessenecker’s Ride the Devil’s Herd reveals a time and place in which homicide rates were fifty times higher than those today. The story still bears surprising relevance for contemporary America, involving hot-button issues such as gang violence, border security, unlawful immigration, the dangers of political propagandists parading as journalists, and the prosecution of police officers for carrying out their official duties. Wyatt Earp saw it all in Tombstone. Praise for Ride the Devil’s Herd A Pim County Public Library Southwest Books of the Year 2021 A True West Reader’s Choice for Best 2020 Western Nonfiction Winner of the Best Book Award by the Wild West History Association “A marvelous book. By means of meticulous research and splendid writing John Boessenecker has managed to do something never before attempted or accomplished, tying together the many violent clashes between lawmen and outlaws in the American southwest of the 1870-1890 period and showing how depredations by loosely organized gangs of outlaws actually threatened “Manifest Destiny” and the successful taming of the Wild West.” —Robert K. DeArment, author and historian “A ripsnortin’ ramble across the bloodstained Arizona desert with Wyatt Earp and company. . . . Boessenecker displays a fine eye for period detail. . . . A pleasure for thoughtful fans of Old West history, revisionist without being iconoclastic.” —Kirkus Reviews

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Page Count

573

Publisher

Harlequin

Published Date

ISBN 10

1488057214

ISBN 13

9781488057212

The Bronco Bill Gang

By: Karen Holliday Tanner,John D. Tanner

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The Bronco Bill Gang

By: Karen Holliday Tanner,John D. Tanner

The short, bloody career of "Bronco Bill" Walters and his gang captures the devil-may-care violence of the Wild West. In this detailed narrative of the gang's crime spree in territorial New Mexico and Arizona, two experts in outlaw history offer a gunshot-by-gunshot account of how some especially dangerous outlaws plied their trade in 1898. William Walters reached New Mexico Territory from Texas in the late 1880s and quickly gained a reputation for his ability to sit a horse and for his violent ways. The Bronco Bill Gang skillfully dissects his propensity for trouble and shows how he soon found himself in the territorial penitentiary. In the spring of 1898, after a sojourn stealing horses in Arizona, Walters and four apprentice outlaws turned to armed robbery, holding up passenger trains on the Santa Fe Railroad in Grants and Belén, New Mexico. By the time a Wells Fargo posse captured Bronco Bill, two of the outlaws, two deputies, and a Navajo tracker had been killed in gunfights. Anyone with a taste for western history or an interest in New Mexico and Arizona in the bad old days will find this book irresistible. The authors' attention to the ways Bill and his men fell into a life of crime shows us the real West, where cowboys and gunmen could wind up on either side of the law. The Bronco Bill Gang is the first book to explore this fabled band of outlaws who crisscrossed the American Southwest.

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Page Count

290

Publisher

University of Oklahoma Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0806186534

ISBN 13

9780806186535

Shotguns and Stagecoaches

The Brave Men Who Rode for Wells Fargo in the Wild West

By: John Boessenecker

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Shotguns and Stagecoaches

The Brave Men Who Rode for Wells Fargo in the Wild West

By: John Boessenecker

The true stories of the Wild West heroes who guarded the iconic Wells Fargo stagecoaches and trains, battling colorful thieves, vicious highwaymen, and robbers armed with explosives. The phrase "riding shotgun" was no teenage game to the men who guarded stagecoaches and trains the Western frontier. Armed with sawed-off, double-barreled shotguns and an occasional revolver, these express messengers guarded valuable cargo through lawless terrain. They were tough, fighting men who risked their lives every time they climbed into the front boot of a Concord coach. Boessenecker introduces soon-to-be iconic personalities like "Chips" Hodgkins, an express rider known for his white mule and his ability to outrace his competitors, and Henry Johnson, the first Wells Fargo detective. Their lives weren't just one shootout after another—their encounters with desperadoes were won just as often with quick wits and memorized-by-heart knowledge of the land. The highway robbers also get their due. It wouldn't be a book about the Wild West without Black Bart, the most infamous stagecoach robber of all time, and Butch Cassidy's gang, America's most legendary train robbers. Through the Gold Rush and the early days of delivery with horses and saddlebags, to the heyday of stagecoaches and huge shipments of gold, and finally the rise of the railroad and the robbers who concocted unheard-of schemes to loot trains, Wells Fargo always had courageous men to protect its treasure. Their unforgettable bravery and ingenuity make this book a thrilling read.

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Page Count

369

Publisher

Thomas Dunne Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1250184886

ISBN 13

9781250184887

Lawman

The Life and Times of Harry Morse, 1835-1912

By: John Boessenecker

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Lawman

The Life and Times of Harry Morse, 1835-1912

By: John Boessenecker

Harry Morse - gunfighter, manhunter, sleuth - was among the West's most famous lawmen. Elected sheriff of Alameda County, California, in 1864, he went on to become San Francisco's foremost private detective. His career spanned five decades. In this biography, John Boessenecker brings Morse's now-forgotten story to light, chronicling not only the lawman's remarkable adventures but also the turbulent times in which he lived. Armed only with raw courage and a Colt revolver, Morse squared off against a small army of desperadoes and beat them at their own game. He shot to death the notorious bandidos Narato Ponce and Juan Soto, outgunned the vicious Narciso Bojorques, and pursued the Tiburcio Vasquez gang for two months in one of the West's longest and most tenacious manhunts. Later, Morse captured Black Bart, America's greatest stagecoach robber. Fortunately, Harry Morse loved to tell of his feats. Drawing on Morse's diaries, memoirs, and correspondence, Boessenecker weaves the lawman's colorful accounts into his narrative. Rare photographs of outlaws and lawmen and of the sites of Morse's exploits further enliven the story. A significant contribution to both western history and the history of law enforcement, Lawman is also an in-depth treatment of Hispanic crime and its causes, immigration, racial prejudice, and police brutality - issues with which California, and the nation, still grapple today.

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Page Count

396

Publisher

University of Oklahoma Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0806130113

ISBN 13

9780806130118

When Law Was in the Holster

The Frontier Life of Bob Paul

By: John Boessenecker

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When Law Was in the Holster

The Frontier Life of Bob Paul

By: John Boessenecker

One of the great lawmen of the Old West, Bob Paul (1830–1901) cast a giant shadow across the frontiers of California and Arizona Territory for nearly fifty years. Today he is remembered mainly for his friendship with Wyatt Earp and his involvement in the stirring events surrounding the famous 1881 gunfight near the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. This long-overdue biography fills crucial gaps in Paul’s story and recounts a life of almost constant adventure. As told by veteran western historian John Boessenecker, this story is more than just a western shoot-’em-up, and it reveals Paul to be far more than a blood-and-thunder gunfighter. Beginning with Paul’s boyhood adventures as a whaler in the South Pacific, the author traces his journey to Gold Rush California, where he served respectively as constable, deputy sheriff, and sheriff in Calaveras County, and as Wells Fargo shotgun messenger and detective. Then, in the turbulent 1880s, Paul became sheriff of Pima County, Arizona, and a railroad detective for the Southern Pacific. In 1890 President Benjamin Harrison appointed him U.S. marshal of Arizona Territory. Transcending local history, Paul’s story provides an inside look into the rough-and-tumble world of frontier politics, electoral corruption, Mexican-U.S. relations, border security, vigilantism, and western justice. Moreover, issues that were important in Paul’s career—illegal immigration, smuggling on the Mexican border, youth gangs, racial discrimination, ethnic violence, and police-minority relations—are as relevant today as they were during his lifetime.

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Page Count

797

Publisher

University of Oklahoma Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0806187743

ISBN 13

9780806187747

Major Works

By: John Clare

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Major Works

By: John Clare

After years of indifference and neglect, John Clare (1793-1864) is now recognized as one of the greatest English Romantic poets. Clare was an impoverished agricultural laborer, whose genius was generally not appreciated by his contemporaries, and his later mental instability further contributed to his loss of critical esteem. But the extraordinary range of his poetical gifts has restored him to the company of contemporaries like Lord Byron, John Keats, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. This authoritative edition brings together a generous selection of Clare's poetry and prose, including autobiographical writings and letters and illustrates all aspects of his talent. It contains poems from all stages of his career, including love poetry and bird and nature poems. Written in his native Northamptonshire, Clare's work provides a fascinating reflection of rural society, often underscored by his own sense of isolation and despair. Clare's writings are presented with the minimum of editorial interference, and with a new introduction by the poet and scholar Tom Paulin.

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Page Count

588

Publisher

Oxford University Press, USA

Published Date

ISBN 10

0192805630

ISBN 13

9780192805638

Doc Holliday

By: John Myers Myers

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Doc Holliday

By: John Myers Myers

A biography of the well-known Old West gambler and gunfighter, Doc Holliday.

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Page Count

230

Publisher

U of Nebraska Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0803257813

ISBN 13

9780803257818

Book's by John N. Thacker

Badge and Buckshot

Badge and Buckshot

Last of the Old-Time Outlaws

Last of the Old-Time Outlaws

Ride the Devil's Herd

Ride the Devil's Herd

The Bronco Bill Gang

The Bronco Bill Gang

Shotguns and Stagecoaches

Shotguns and Stagecoaches

Lawman

Lawman

When Law Was in the Holster

When Law Was in the Holster

Major Works

Major Works

Doc Holliday

Doc Holliday

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