Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - April - 2007 Issue
Books on the American West from Old West Books
Legendary gunfighter "Wild Bill" Hickok.
Item 2 recalls what it was like serving with Custer in the years shortly after the Civil War. The book is Life in Custer's Cavalry, Diaries and Letters of Albert and Jennie Barnitz, 1867-1868. This 1977 book, edited by Robert Utley, gives a glimpse at life inside the Seventh Cavalry through the letters of this Captain who served with Custer. However, injuries forced Barnitz's retirement from the military in 1870, unpleasant at the time, though looking much more fortuitous with the benefit of hindsight. As we know, serving with Custer is 1867 was much better than doing so in 1876. $45.
Item 212 is the story of the court of Isaac Parker, the quintessential western "hanging judge." The book is Hell on the Border. He Hanged Eighty Eight Men, by S.W. Harman. Parker was a two-term congressman from Missouri who was appointed Judge for the federal court of the Western District of Arkansas in 1875. At the time, that district included most of present-day Oklahoma. It was a wild and lawless territory, and Judge Parker did his best to reign in the chaos by hanging the wild and lawless. Eventually, his severe punishment began to raise questions, and many of his convictions were overturned by the Supreme Court, while the size of his district was whittled away. Parker died in 1896, two years before this book was published. $2,250.
Wild Bill Hickok is one of those legendary names of the West that lives on to this day. Hickok was a Union soldier, gambler, lawman, and, most of all, gunfighter. His reputation was sealed in a couple of duels and gunfights, but that reputation may have been his downfall. Hickok was shot in the back while playing cards in a Deadwood, South Dakota, saloon in 1876. Item 190 is the first book written about Wild Bill: Life and Marvelous Adventures of Wild Bill the Scout...by James Buel, published in 1880. $3,000.
The website for Old West Books is www.oldwestbooks.com, telephone 817-557-4830.
