Chuck Hornung

Wyatt Earp's Cow-boy Campaign (The Bloody Restoration of Law and Order Along the Mexican Border, 1882) by Chuck Hornung is NOT a book you want to read 'for fun'. It is, however, once you get used to the tedious day by-day-entries, and the chapters that are supposed to be a focus on a person or place but tend to jump all over, very informational. Informational of the time period and personalities within in the context. And context is very important. What it was like to live in the 1880's western territories of the United States. Custom and culture of the people (non Native American). For example, the idea of marriage as we know it today was not the same back then. Paperwork was not required by the counties or states, as they had yet to begin to tap that income - charging people in order to "legally" get married and/or divorced.

The book itself centers on the year 1882, the year of the infamous OK Corral shootout - but that is not all that happened. In fact, that was a minor incident in that year of incidents between factions within the Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona territories. During that time there was a huge amount of cattle rustling and nefarious mayhem caused by groups of opportunity known as the Cow-Boys. The Earp posses were the point which finally decimated them by killing leaders and causing members to evacuate into Old Mexico.

I also learned that much of what I knew of the Earp family and group of friends is not very accurate!
If only for that, I highly recommend this book!

Again, the organization is a bit lacking with sections either bouncing all over or so tedious you are tempted to barely skim just to get through it! Unfortunately, you need to follow the tedious day to day information to fully appreciate the last 3rd of the book

Hard to rate this book but I give it a 3.5.… (mehr)

This was my first venture into the fact surrounding Watt Earp. Needless to say i was overwhelmed with the amount of information and detail available. I enjoyed the daily journal approach but got confused with some of the jumping around. I was disappointed. To not learn much more about the Cowboys and their organization or gang. Were they organized? Did they have a goal or objective? Or did they just terrorize with no real leadership or purpose? There questions were not answered in my opinion maybe because the but was more about Watt. It wee an enjoyable read. Great for fans of Watt and those interested in the life in Tombstone.… (mehr)