February 1878 was a time
for murder in the County of Lincoln, New Mexico. There was a posse looking for Englishman and
entrepreneur John H. Tunstall in order to take his horses and other property
through a writ of attachment that was part of crooked deal with the
Murphy-Dolan Ring in the town of Lincoln. A mercantile rivalry had been going on for some time. And Lincoln County sheriff Brady and the posse
were in the pocket of the Murphy-Dolan gang.
At about three o’clock
in the morning of a cold, snowy February 18, 1878 John Tunstall decided to
drive nine horses from his ranch on the Rio Feliz on a fifty mile trek to the
town of Lincoln. At the break of dawn,
Tunstall and his foreman Dick Brewer, along with ranch hands Billy Bonney, John
Middleton, Rob Widenmann, Henry Brown and Fred Waite got an early start and
headed for Lincoln with the nine horses. All were on horseback except for Waite who was in a wagon. Six of the horses they were driving belonged to
Tunstall, two were Brewer’s and one was Bonney’s. After about ten miles of riding they split up,
with Waite taking the wagon trail that leads to La Junta on the Rio Hondo and
the rest of the group taking a short cut through Pajarito Springs.
At about the same time,
that forty-five man posse looking for Tunstall was headed for the Tunstall
ranch on the Rio Feliz. The posse was led by
deputy sheriff Billy Matthews, an employee of Jimmy Dolan and, Jimmy Dolan himself, partner in the Murphy gang. Well, as luck would have it, Henry Brown’s horse
threw a shoe and he had to leave to Tunstall group and go back to the ranch on
the Rio Feliz to get it fixed. Brown ran into the Dolan-Matthews posse on the way back because
they were also headed for the Tunstall ranch. They all got to the ranch at the same time and
Dolan was fit to be tied when he discovered that the horses they were going to
repossess were gone. The only person at the
ranch was Godfrey Gauss, Tunstall’s cook. When the posse asked where Tunstall and the horses were, both
Brown and Gauss played dumb.
Concluding that Tunstall
had taken the horses to avoid the posse, Mathews and Dolan figured that the
best thing they could do to catch up to Tunstall and the horses was to follow
the hoof prints left in the snow by Henry Brown’s horse. So they decided to send eighteen men in a
sub-posse led by Buck Morton to back-track the hoof prints. Among the eighteen were members of the infamous
Jesse Evans gang, such as Evans himself, Tom Hill and Frank Baker. Jimmy Dolan, Bill Matthews and the rest of the
posse stayed around the Tunstall ranch, in case Tunstall had a change of plans
and would come back with the horses.
At about five o’clock in
the afternoon, John Tunstall and Dick Brewer, along with ranch hands Billy
Bonney, John Middleton and Rob
Widenmann rode down a gorge
leading to the Rio Ruidoso, about ten miles from Brewer’s own Ruidoso
ranch. Tunstall, Brewer,
and Widenmann were in front of the pack of horses while Bonney and Middleton
rode drag, bringing up the rear.
Suddenly Bonney and
Middleton heard the sound of horses behind them. They quickly turned in their saddles and saw the
sub-posse rapidly approaching. The two ranch
hands then quickly rode forward, yelling for Tunstall, Widenmann, and Brewer to
ride with them. The sub-posse
immediately opened fire on the five men. Bullets tore through the air. Widenmann and Brewer along with Bonney and
Middleton rode fast through a hail of lead to reach cover. Middleton yelled straightforwardly at Tunstall
to run.
For some unknown reason,
Tunstall froze.
Riding low and taking
cover in a ravine, Billy Bonney, Dick Brewer, Rob Widenmann, and John Middleton
all suddenly lost sight of Tunstall. Seeing the unmoving Tunstall, the sub-posse ceased their
fire and rode up to him. John Tunstall,
hoping to reason with the sub-posse, rode his horse closer to them. As he approached, Tom Hill and Billy Morton each
slowly and calmly raised his rifle and fired one shot at him. Tunstall took one
bullet in the chest and one bullet in the head and was immediately killed.
For whatever crazy
reason went through his head, one the posse then killed Tunstall’s horse by
shooting it in the head. At that point, to make
it look as though the group killed Tunstall in self-defense, another one of the
posse took Tunstall's pistol out of its holster and fired two shots in the air. Members of the sub-posse then picked up
Tunstall's body and laid it next to his dead horse. Tunstall’s hat was then placed on the
horse's head as a sick joke. One sub-posse
member, inexplicably, then took it upon himself to bash in Tunstall's head with
the butt of his rifle. The sub-posse rounded up the nine horses that Tunstall
was driving and drove them back to the Rio Feliz ranch.
After hearing the
shooting and the commotion, Billy Bonney, Dick Brewer, Rob Widenmann and John
Middleton all realized that Tunstall had been killed. They waited, hiding in
the ravine until dark, then rode on towards Lincoln when they were sure that
the sub-posse had gone. The four men arrived in Lincoln around midnight and
told Tunstall’s partner Alexander McSween what occurred. McSween then called a mass meeting of most
of his supporters and Tunstall's supporters at the McSween house. Plans of vengeance were discussed. With the murder of John H. Tunstall, the Lincoln
County War had begun.
