
How Wild Was Wild Bill Hickok? - ohaikbai
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/books/review/tom-clavin-wild-bill-biography-james-butler-hickok.html
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agf
The legend in my family was never really that he was that wild -- he's my
first cousin ~five times removed.

The story told over and over again when I was growing up was of his death,
shot in the back playing poker with his back to a window. He normally refused
to sit with his back exposed, and it was used to remind us to be careful and
not let us be tempted into doing something rash. The effect? I was mildly
uncomfortable sitting with my back to a window in a restaurant into my 20s,
and would avoid it if convenient.

Though lots of people have "heard of him", no one I've ever met can be
specific about what he did or who he was, other than part of the "old west".
The lasting impression he's left on the modern world seems to be the dead
man's hand --
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_man%27s_hand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_man%27s_hand)
\-- a term commonly associated with the hand he was (possibly apocryphally)
holding at his death since the 1920s.

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ensignavenger
Not related (as far as I know) to Wild Bill, but I lived for several years in
Springield MO, just blocks from the square where he famously shot Dave Tutt.
The evening I proposed to my (now) wife, I had some mutual friends "kidnap"
her, and take her to the square. I showed up and dueled them with our cap
guns, "re-enacting" the famous gun fight... rescued her, and the rest is
history as they say. In those parts, there are many that still know a lot
about Wild Bill.

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agf
That's fun to hear, thanks.

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chrisdhoover
He could fire off 10 shots because he was ambidextrous. Revolvers are carried
with the hammer down on an empty chamber lest they go off accidentally and put
a big hole in your leg

~~~
hoorayimhelping
Yeah, the fact that he mentions shooting 6 shots is pretty iffy on this
historical account. There are stories of him knowing he was about to go out to
a gunfight and preparing his guns and bullets, so maybe he loaded up six shots
and was very careful while transporting his pistols

Here's a good video explaining why people would load post-Civil War single
action revolvers with 5 shots instead of 6:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldHPNnsp-
cs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldHPNnsp-cs).

~~~
overcast
Wasn't aware they could accidental fire that easily! That sounds like a
massive design defect.

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neurobashing
Theres reasons. One, we just sorta didn’t know. In less than 100 years we went
from single shot flintlock pistols to repeating revolvers; we were still
figuring a lot of things, like safety, out. Modern revolver lockwork would
take a few more decades.

Even today, in a world of very high quality modern firearms, safety issues
arise. The Sig 320 - now the M17 service pistol of the US Army - had a problem
where if dropped just so, it could discharge. It was kind of a scandal; modern
firearms are incredibly safe to handle, compared to even 30 years ago.
Consider that in the 60s it was not unheard of for pistols to require the user
to pull the trigger as part of operating the decocker mechanism. Insanity to
modern eyes.

Anyway, firearms at that point were kinda new. We didn’t know what “safe”
really meant, we didn’t do things like drop tests, we lacked the material
science to make carefully heat-treated components, we lacked the manufacturing
ability to make the sorts of small, high quality components we use today ...
it wasn’t a design defect as much as we didn’t have the science and
understanding.

~~~
cladari
Modern revolvers don't have the "striking the hammer can discharge the round"
because they now use a hammer bar. You can load all the chambers without fear
of this happening. You may be surpised to learn that all modern revolvers
require pulling the trigger and thumbing the hammer down, as do the very
popular 1911 pistol and it's many clones. It should be noted that modern
revolvers don't have a safety. A large majority of striker fired pistols don't
have a traditional safety either.

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melling
I saw another review sometime last week and did a little research.

There was the series Deadwood on HBO, which included him for a couple years.
And there’s a hand in poker which is based on his last hand.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_man%27s_hand](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_man%27s_hand)

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georgehaake
We visited Deadwood last summer. There is a private museum I can recommend.
Town seems similar to my imagination with horses replaced with Harleys.
Gambling is legal. I asked my wife, ‘I wonder where are the whore houses?’

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billfruit
If I remember correctly, he is featured in the amazing Thomas Berger novel
'Little Big Man'.

Many colourful characters of that period is vividly portrayed in the movie
"Tombstone", especially Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday. The film has a certain
gravitas that is missing from more recent studio big-budget movies.

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mitchtbaum
Wow.. And to this day, his name precedes him..

[https://www.youtube.com/user/hickok45](https://www.youtube.com/user/hickok45)

Now I'll have another mental image of a man once I also hold a Mossberg 500.

