Battle of Lincoln (Lincoln County War)

Background

The Lincoln County War erupted into open violence when John Tunstall was gunned down on February 18, 1878, at the hands of men belonging to the Jesse Evans Gang. These gunmen worked for the Murphy-Dolan faction, an outfit local residents simply called "The House," and their goal was to intimidate a rival cutting into their business in Lincoln. Tunstall's growing presence as a merchant had put him in direct competition with the long-established Murphy-Dolan store and bank.

Sheriff William J. Brady declined to pursue justice for Tunstall's killers, and this inaction pushed Tunstall's allies toward forming their own militia. Calling themselves the Lincoln County Regulators, they operated under the leadership of Richard "Dick" Brewer. Among their ranks were fighters like Charlie Bowdre, John Middleton, Frank Coe, George Coe, "Big Jim" French, Doc Scurlock, and a young man later known as "Billy the Kid," William Bonney. Bloodshed followed on both sides of this struggle, and Sheriff Brady himself was cut down on April 1, 1878.

Weeks later, on April 29, newly installed sheriff George Peppin assembled a posse drawing on Jesse Evans and members of his gang alongside the Seven Rivers Warriors. This force clashed with three Regulators at the Fritz Ranch. Frank McNab lost his life in the fighting, Ab Saunders suffered wounds, and Frank Coe was taken prisoner, only to break free from custody soon afterward under circumstances that remain unclear.

Dawn the next day found George Coe perched atop Alexander McSween's house in a defensive stance, despite having lost his trigger finger just weeks before during a gun battle with Buckshot Roberts. From this rooftop position he set his sights on 'Dutch Charlie' Kruling of the Seven Rivers gang. Henry Brown doubted the shot could connect given the distance, over 350 yards, but Coe fired anyway and struck Kruling. That same day brought death to four Seven Rivers men in Lincoln, Tom Green, Charles Marshall, Jim Patterson, and John Galvin, with suspicion for these killings falling on the Regulators.

Then on May 15, a party of twenty-two Regulators, with Deputy Sheriff Scurlock at the head and Bonney among their number, hunted down Manuel Segovia of the Seven Rivers gang, convinced he bore responsibility for McNab's death. Segovia met his end, allegedly shot while attempting to flee custody.

The battle

McSween himself stayed out of the fighting, but as Tunstall's onetime business partner he had joined forces with John Chisum to fund and organize the Regulators. On July 15, 1878, he made his way back to Lincoln bringing roughly 41 more men to bolster the cause; ten stayed with him at his own residence, and the remainder found lodging scattered across town. Not long after this, the Murphy-Dolan faction assembled a substantial hired force under Peppin's command, marched into Lincoln, and encircled the Regulators holed up in McSween's home.

Gunfire passed between the two sides for most of that opening day. Five men from the Murphy-Dolan posse took wounds during this first burst of shooting, whereas the Regulators emerged from it unscathed. The following three days brought little in the way of change, and no additional injuries surfaced on either side. Then, on July 18, Lt. Col. Nathan Dudley marched a cavalry detachment in from Fort Stanton. Accounts differ on what prompted this move, whether it came from townspeople frightened by the violence or from word that a soldier had taken a bullet somewhere in Lincoln.

Their arrival brought the standoff to a swift halt. By the third day's end, McSween's supporters who had been scattered through town had already cleared out, leaving only the group holed up at his house. Sometime during the night spanning July 18 and 19, someone set the McSween residence ablaze. Come morning, as McSween and his companions tried to break free of the burning building, he and several fellow Regulators were cut down by gunfire. Bonney and Jim French, now leading what remained of the group, rapidly worked out a new plan and managed to force their way out of the burning adobe structure.

Numbers on the dead from this engagement differ depending on the source, though the Regulators are known to have lost no fewer than five men, McSween among them, while Peppin's posse counted two fatalities in Bob Beckwith and Charlie Crawford.