page_title: John Wesley Hardin
section_title: Encounters with "Wild Bill" Hickok
hierarchical_section_title: John Wesley Hardin / Fugitive from justice / Encounters with "Wild Bill" Hickok
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Fotografie von Ben Thompson in seiner Zeit als Marshal for Austin, Texas English: Ben Thompson while acting as Marshal for Austin, Texas
context_page_description: John Wesley Hardin was an American Old West outlaw, gunfighter, and controversial folk icon. The son of a Methodist preacher, Hardin got into trouble with the law from an early age. He killed his first man at age 15; he claimed it was in self-defense.
  Pursued by lawmen for most of his life, he was sentenced in 1877, at age 23, to 24 years in prison for murder. When he was sentenced, Hardin claimed to have killed 42 men, but contemporary newspaper accounts attributed only 27 deaths to him. While in prison, Hardin studied law and wrote an autobiography. He was well known for wildly exaggerating or completely making up stories about his life. He claimed credit for many killings that cannot be corroborated.
  Within a year of his release in 1894, Hardin was killed by John Selman in an El Paso saloon.
context_section_description: The Bull's Head Tavern, in Abilene, Kansas, had been established as a partnership between ex-lawman Ben Thompson and gambler Phil Coe. The two entrepreneurs had painted a picture of a bull with a large erect penis on the side of their establishment as an advertisement. Citizens complained to Town Marshal "Wild Bill" Hickok. When Thompson and Coe refused his request to remove the bull, Hickok altered it himself. Infuriated, Thompson tried to incite his new acquaintance, Hardin, by exclaiming to him: "He's a damn Yankee. Picks on Rebels, especially Texans, to kill." Hardin, then under the assumed name "Wesley Clemmons" (but better known to the townspeople by the alias "Little Arkansaw"), seemed to have had respect for Hickok, and replied, "If Bill needs killing why don't you kill him yourself?" Later that night, Hardin was confronted by Hickok, who told him that he was wearing guns in violation of town ordinance, and ordered to hand over his guns, which he did, but in a quite surprising way: Hardin reached down, picked his revolvers up from the holsters, and handed the guns to Wild Bill butts forward, then swiftly rolled them over in his hands and suddenly Wild Bill was staring right into the barrels. However, both men did back down. Hickok had no knowledge that Hardin was a wanted man, and he advised Hardin to avoid problems while in Abilene.
  Hardin met up with Hickok again while on a cattle drive in August 1871. This time, Hickok allowed Hardin to carry his pistols into town - something he had never allowed others to do. For his part, Hardin (still using his alias) was fascinated by Wild Bill and reveled in being seen on intimate terms with such a celebrated gunfighter. Hardin alleged that when his cousin, Mannen Clements, was jailed for the killing of two cowhands Joe and Dolph Shadden in July 1871, Hickok – at Hardin's request – arranged for his escape.
caption: Ben Thompson, as Austin City Marshal 1881–1882