GOOD TIME TO START A WAR

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.