American folk hero and lawman (1837–1876)
A lawman, gambler, and gunslinger who spent as much time inventing his own legend as living it. Wild Bill Hickok fed the frontier press outlandish tales about himself, and the fabrications stuck harder than the truth.
James Butler Hickok grew up on an Illinois farm amid the chaos of prairie banditry, then fled west at eighteen as a fugitive. He drifted through stagecoach driving, scouting, and spying for the Union during the Civil War before settling into frontier law enforcement across Kansas and Nebraska. Between 1861 and 1871 he killed six or seven men in shootouts — though he claimed far more — and parlayed his reputation into work as a gambler, showman, and actor. On August 2, 1876, an unsuccessful gambler named Jack McCall shot him dead while he played poker in a Deadwood saloon, holding two black ace…
Sourced, dated quotes from Wild Bill Hickok
I suppose I am called a red-handed murderer, which I deny. That I have killed men I admit, but never unless in absolute self-defense, or in the performance of an official duty.
I hardly know where to begin. Pretty near all these stories are true. I was at it all the war.
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