History of the Old West
Earp Vendetta Ride

• Frank Stilwell

• The Earp posse rides out of Tombstone

• Florentino Cruz a.k.a. Indian Charlie

• Curley Bill Brocius and Johnny Barnes

• Pete Spence

• The Earp Posse Disbands

• Johnny Ringo

• Aftermath

• Possible Killings

The vendetta ride was variously known in newspapers which reported it at the time as the Earp Vendetta or Arizona War. During the ride, the Earp federal "posse" was pursued by a sheriff's posse consisting of Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan, deputies Fin Clanton, Johnny Ringo and about 20 other Arizona "Cowboys." The two posses never made contact. All known shootings during the vendetta occurred March 20-24, 1882, beginning with the Earp faction's killing of Frank Stilwell. The ride ended April 15 as the Earps and associates rode out of the Arizona Territory for good, and headed to Colorado.

The vendetta ride is an example of a jurisdiction dispute and failure of the law enforcement system on the Old West frontier. During the ride, U.S. Deputy Marshal Wyatt Earp ostensibly led a federal posse with a warrant for "Curly Bill" (William Brocius). However, the Earp posse killed at least four men (including Brocius) and took no prisoners. 

At the same time, the opposing sheriff's posse, headed by Behan, consisted of many known rustlers and local outlaws, while deliberately failing to include Pima County Sheriff Bob Paul, the sheriff with jurisdiction for the Tucson killing for which the sheriff's posse sought Wyatt Earp and his compadres. The Behan posse spectacularly failed to engage the much smaller Earp posse. It did, however, end up charging Cochise County a great deal of money ($2,593.65 in 1882, or about $49,500 in 2005 dollars).

After Morgan Earp's death on Saturday evening, March 18, 1882 Wyatt Earp did what he could to protect his family. He made arrangements to have Morgan's body sent immediately to their father's family home in Colton, California. James would go with Morgan. Morgan's wife was already in Colton, where she had traveled for safety, before Morgan was killed. Virgil and his wife Allie would also follow to Colton as soon as it could be arranged, but it was not practical to get them out of Tombstone at the same time as Morgan.

The railroad had not reached Tombstone in 1882. Morgan's body was loaded to a wagon, accompanied by Wyatt and brother James to be sent to Colton from the railhead in nearby Benson. On Sunday, March 19, James left Tombstone for good, with the body of his brother.

The next day, (Monday, March 20) as Wyatt planned to take Virgil and Allie to the Benson rail depot for their own passage back to Colton, he received a warning that Ike Clanton, Frank Stilwell, Wes Fuller and another Cowboy were watching the passenger trains in Tucson, so that they could kill Virgil. Wyatt, Warren Earp, Holliday, Turkey Creek Jack Johnson and Sherman McMasters decided they needed more than a single wagon for Virgil and Allie to make the trip. 

They would take their horses to Contention City, A.T. (at that time a larger town than Benson), stable their animals there, then continue with the wagon to Benson and there board the train to accompany Virgil and Allie until it reached Tucson. This they did. After having dinner in Tucson, Virgil and Allie reboarded the train, headed for California, while Wyatt and the others stood guard and watched. When the train pulled away from the station in the dark, gunfire was heard. Witnesses only saw men running with weapons far away, and nothing could be identified. Frank Stilwell's body was found on the tracks the next morning.

Wyatt later said to his biographers that he saw Frank Stilwell (who was probably in Tucson to face a charge of stage-robbery) and another man he believed to be Ike Clanton, lying prone on a flatcar, shotguns in hand. As Wyatt approached, the two men ran. Stilwell stumbled, and, by Wyatt's own admission, he shot Stilwell while Stilwell was fending off the barrel of Earp's shotgun and saying "Morg!" (possibly confusing Wyatt for Morgan). Stilwell's body was found with not only shotgun wounds, but many other bullet wounds as well, and other parties with Wyatt obviously joined in Stilwell's killing (or at least, shooting). Wyatt Earp, a man who took pride in avoiding bloodshed all of his life, had now by his own admission crossed the line into a blood-vendetta murder.

Ike Clanton, would-be murderer, once again got away. What Stilwell was doing on the tracks near the Earps' train, if not ill-intended, has never been explained. However, Ike Clanton once again made his own case worse by giving an interview to the newspapers, claiming that he and Stilwell had been in Tucson for Stilwell's legal problems, and that they'd heard that the Earps were coming in on a train to kill Stilwell! 

According to Ike, Stilwell then disappeared from the hotel and was found later blocks away, on the tracks, dead. By Ike Clanton's account, the Earp party was not in Tucson to protect the wounded Virgil but to kill Stilwell, and Stilwell, knowing this, obligingly went to the tracks near Virgil's train after dark, in order to be killed. Once again, this was an Ike Clanton story which few believed. Clanton's story also relieved Stilwell of any good alibi for being near the train station, since Ike made it perfectly clear that Stilwell knew he was being hunted.

After killing Stilwell and sending their train on its way to California with Virgil, the Earp party was afoot, and not about to wait to see what the results of killing Stilwell would be. They managed to make it back to Tombstone from Tucson overnight by hopping a freight train, then hiring a wagon in Benson to take them from the freight terminal there, back to their stabled horses in Contention. From there they rode into Tombstone by the middle of the next day (Tues, March 21), ready for rest. 

It would be short, for they were indeed wanted men. Once Stilwell's killing had been connected to the Earp party on the train, a warrant for the arrest of Wyatt Earp, Warren Earp, Holliday, Johnson and McMasters as suspects in the murder of Stilwell, was quickly issued. Pima County Justice of the Peace Charles Meyer sent a telegram to Tombstone saying that the Earps were wanted in Tucson for the killing of Stilwell, and Behan should arrest them.

The manager of the telegraph office, a friend of the Earps, showed the message to Wyatt before delivering it to Behan and agreed to hold on to it long enough for the Earp posse to leave town again Tuesday evening, now as semi-fugitives. Behan got the message just as Earp's posse was getting ready to leave. Behan approached them to arrest them, but Wyatt told him that they would be seeing Pima County sheriff Bob Paul (who had jurisdiction in Tucson) about the matter, and rode out.

By then, Texas Jack Vermillion had joined the Earp posse, and Behan had deputized Johnny Ringo, Phin Clanton and other cowboys so that they could be part of the posse that arrested the Earps. Officially, a territorial federal (U.S. Marshal's) posse (the Earps) was now hunting for a local county Sherrif's posse, both armed with warrants for men in the other bands. Historians have noted that for two weeks, these posses managed to avoid each other remarkably well.

Based on the testimony of Pete Spence's wife, Marietta, at the coroner’s inquest on the killing of Morgan Earp, the coroners jury concluded that Spence, Stilwell, Frederick Bode, John Doe Fries, and Florentino "Indian Charlie" Cruz were the prime suspects in the assassination of Morgan Earp. Spence immediately turned himself in so that he would be protected in Behan's jail.

The next morning, on Wednesday March 22, the Earps rode to the wood camp of Pete Spence at South Pass in the Dragoon Mountains, looking for Spence. By now, they knew of the Morgan Earp inquest testimony. Spence was in jail, but at the wood camp, the Earp posse found Florentino "Indian Charlie" Cruz. Earp said to his biographer Lake that he got Cruz to confess to being the lookout, while Stilwell, Hank Swilling, Curly Bill and Ringo killed Morgan. 

After the "confession," Wyatt shot Cruz. The coroner's inquest found Cruz with a minor arm wound, a leg wound to the thigh, a serious wound to the groin and pelvis (very much like that which killed Morgan Earp), and a shot to the side of the head. The coroner thought either of the last two shots would have been fatal. Wyatt Earp would later tell the story of letting Cruz draw a pistol in a set-up contest for his life. This story does not jibe with Flood's earlier 1926 account of the shooting given by Wyatt, nor with an eyewitness account at the coroner's inquest by one of Cruz's compadres, which noted a relatively short time between the first and last shots of the Cruz homicide.

Two days later, in Iron Springs, Arizona, the Earp party seeking a rendezvous with a messenger for them, instead stumbled upon a group of cowboys led by William B. “Curley Bill” Brocious. In Wyatt's account, he jumped from his horse to fight, when he noticed the rest of his posse retreating as fast as their horses could carry them. Curley Bill and some of his companions got off a few shots that perforated both sides of Wyatt's long coat and hit his boot heel and saddle horn. 

Before this, however, Wyatt returned fire and hit Curley Bill in the chest with a double shotgun blast, felling him in the water by the edge of the spring. Wyatt, while under attack from the others who were with Curly Bill (Pony Deal, Johnny Barnes, and seven others) managed to draw his "Buntline Special", and hit Johnny Barnes in the chest, and another cowboy in the arm. Wyatt finally was able to mount his horse and retreat. According to Earp biographer John H. Flood, Brocius' friends buried Curley Bill on the Patterson ranch near the Babocomari River. If so, his grave is unmarked. Some have claimed he survived, but he was never seen again.

Apparently Brocious' compadre Johnny Barnes, the man who many credited with firing the shot that permanently crippled Virgil Earp, also received wounds in the Iron Springs fight, and later died from them. Before he died, Barnes told Wells, Fargo & Co. agent Fred Dodge that Wyatt Earp had killed Brocius.

While the Earps were riding, the trial for the murder of Morgan Earp began on April 2 and ended very quickly when the prosecution called Mrs. Spence to the stand, and the defense objected to the testimony (which would have been hearsay, and also partly testimony of a wife against a husband). Without Mrs. Spence, the prosecution dropped its case against Pete Spence. Spence would later go to prison briefly on a charge of murder and marry Fin Clanton's widow in 1910. He died in 1914 and is buried in Globe, Arizona, in the plot next to Fin.

By the middle of April 1882, the Earp posse had been riding for nearly three weeks, and it was clear that they were never going to meet in the country with Behan's posse, and it was also clear to Wyatt that it was not safe to go back to Tombstone. They went to Henry Hooker's Ranch in the Sierra Bonita's where Dan Tipton joined the posse. The posse then headed to Reilly Hill. Behan's posse went to Hooker's Ranch, and were informed of the Earps Posse's position. However Behan's "Honest Ranchmen" headed out in a different direction. Seeing that Behan was not going to attack them, they raided the last of the Water Holes in the region, and drove Ike Clanton, Pony Deal, and the others out of the territory.

Apparently believing he could not get a fair trial in Tucson for the death of Stilwell, Earp and the others decided to flee the territory into the state of Colorado. This was essentially fleeing the Western frontier back into country in which the power of the Federal government held more sway. In particular, Wyatt Earp was counting on the good graces of the governor of Colorado.

The vendetta ride ended April 15 as the Earps and associates rode east, which was the shortest way out of the southeast Arizona Territory, into Silver City, New Mexico Territory. Here they would sell their horses and travel by train through New Mexico Territory, then on to Colorado.

On July 18, 1882, Johnny Ringo was found dead with a bullet in his head. According to one supposed account by Josephine Marcus, Wyatt and Doc returned to Arizona (this is disputed, see below). Upon their arrival they were met by "Harelip" Charlie Smith, Lou Cooley,Wells, Fargo Agent Fred Dodge, John Meagher, and Johnny Green. Either Dodge or Cooley, paid Franklin Leslie to keep an eye on Ringo, and when Ringo left town, Leslie reported it to Dodge. 

The men found Ringo on the trail napping about three miles from where his body was found. Ringo took aim and fired, just missing Doc Holliday. At the same instant, Wyatt fired and hit Ringo in the head. Earp set Ringo's body up to make it as a suicide, and Fred Dodge reported that the killing was done by John O'Rourke. Earp and Doc returned to Colorado while the others returned to Tombstone.

The accounts of Josephine Marcus are based upon a known manuscript biography of Wyatt which she prepared with Wyatt Earp's surviving sister, Mable Cason. However, this manuscript contains none of the information above. Additional information was added by Glenn Boyer in his book supposedly based on Mrs. Earp's remembrances: I Married Wyatt Earp. However, the stories in this book are not documented by any primary sources, and have been discounted by historians. 

Primary biographers of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and Johnny Ringo all point out that there is good reason to suppose both Earp and Holliday were in New Mexico at the time of Ringo's killing, and would have had great difficulty making it back to the Arizona Territory (where both were wanted men) and back again, between known sightings of them in New Mexico.

After the Vendetta, members of the “Cowboy” gang began to get killed. Billy Breakenridge killed Billy Grounds and wounded Zwing Hunt at the Gunfight at Chandler's Ranch on March 29, 1882; "Buckskin Frank" Leslie killed William "Billy the Kid" Claiborne on November 14, 1882; and Pony Deal was killed in a gunfight in 1887.