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Earp Vendetta Ride

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Earp Vendetta Ride

The Earp Vendetta Ride was a deadly search by a federal posse led by Deputy U.S. Marshal Wyatt Earp for a loose confederation of outlaw "Cowboys" they believed had ambushed his brothers Virgil and Morgan Earp, maiming the former and killing the latter. The two Earp brothers had been attacked in retaliation for the deaths of three Cowboys in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral on October 26, 1881. From March 20 to April 15, 1882, the federal posse searched southeast Cochise County, Arizona Territory for the men they believed were responsible for the attacks on Virgil and Morgan. Several suspects had been identified and were charged but were soon released by the court, owing in some cases to legal technicalities and in others to the strength of alibis provided by the Cowboy gang. Wyatt subsequently pursued the suspects with a federal warrant.

On March 20, two days after Morgan's murder, Wyatt Earp and his brothers Warren and James along with Doc Holliday, and two other deputies were escorting Virgil and his wife Allie to a California-bound train in Tucson. They learned that suspects Ike Clanton and Frank Stilwell were already waiting there. After Virgil, Allie, and James boarded the train, Wyatt spotted two men near the train that he thought were Clanton and Stilwell. He and several men chased down and killed Stilwell but lost the other. After Stilwell's body was found the next morning, the Tucson Justice of the Peace issued arrest warrants for the five lawmen suspected of the extra-judicial murder. When the men returned to Tombstone, Cochise County sheriff Johnny Behan had received a telegram notifying him of the Tucson warrants and attempted to detain the five members of Earp's federal posse named in the warrants, but they ignored him. Still carrying arrest warrants for Curly Bill Brocius and others, they left Tombstone to pursue further Cowboys implicated in the attacks.

Behan formed a Cochise County sheriff's posse consisting of deputies Phineas Clanton, Johnny Ringo, and about twenty other Cowboys and Arizona ranchers. Based on the local warrants, they followed the Earp posse and set out to arrest them. The large sheriff's posse came close to but never engaged the much smaller Earp posse, which received help from local businessmen and ranchers (and at one point, published a letter in a Tombstone newspaper taunting Behan and his men). The federal posse ultimately killed four men, starting with Stilwell and ending with Brocius. About April 15 the Earps and some of their associates rode out of Arizona Territory, headed for New Mexico Territory.

After a long-simmering feud and increasing animosity and threats, Tombstone town Marshal Virgil Earp, Assistant Town Marshal Morgan Earp, and temporary deputy marshals Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday confronted outlaw Cowboys Billy Claiborne, Ike and Billy Clanton, and Tom and Frank McLaury in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral on October 26, 1881. The 30-second gunfight is generally regarded as the most famous gunfight in the history of the American Wild West. The lawmen killed three of the Cowboys during the gunfight. Ike Clanton filed murder charges, and after a month-long preliminary hearing, Justice of the Peace Wells Spicer found that the lawmen had acted within their duty. However, Spicer's finding did not end the matter for Clanton and other Cowboys.

At about 11:30 pm on December 28, 1881, just over two months after the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, three men ambushed Virgil Earp as he walked from Schieffelin Hall back to the Cosmopolitan Hotel where the Earps had moved for mutual support and protection. He was hit in the back and upper left arm by about 20 buckshot pellets, shattering his humerus. Dr. George Goodfellow, who treated him, had to remove 5.5 inches (140 mm) of bone. Wyatt telegraphed U.S. Marshal Crawley Dake. He requested appointment as Deputy U.S. Marshal for eastern Pima County and authority to form a posse.

Commenting on Earp's request to Dake, the Weekly Arizona Miner wrote on December 30, 1881 about the repeated threats received by the Earps and others.

For some time, the Earps, Doc Holliday, Tom Fitch and others who upheld and defended the Earps in their late trial have received, almost daily, anonymous letters, warning them to leave town or suffer death, supposed to have been written by friends of the Clanton and McLowry boys, three of whom the Earps and Holliday killed and little attention was paid to them as they were believed to be idle boasts but the shooting of Virgil Earp last night shows that the men were in earnest.

Dake replied affirmatively by telegraph, and Deputy U.S. Marshal Wyatt Earp deputized Warren Earp, Doc Holliday, Sherman McMaster, Jack "Turkey Creek" Johnson, Charlie "Hairlip Charlie" Smith, Daniel "Tip" Tipton, and John "Texas Jack" Vermillion to protect the family and pursue the suspects, paying them $5 a day.

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