WEBVTT - Ep. 740: The Gunslingers 0:00:08.760 --> 0:00:13.280 If this is the meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:18.319 bug bitten, and in my case, underware listening podcast, you 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:19.320 can't predict anything. 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:22.800 The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by first Light. 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:26.040 Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:29.520 for ELK. First Light has performance apparel to support every 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:32.400 hunter in every environment. Check it out at first light 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:35.640 dot com. F I R S T L I T 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:41.600 E dot com. Brian Burrow, Dude, this book makes me 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:44.400 so happy, like like I love reading it. 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:46.120 I'm not done with it, I'm halfway through it. I 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:46.800 love reading it. 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:49.360 Well, I'm happy for you. 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:51.880 It is how you could have so much fun reading 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:53.240 about so many people getting shot. 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:57.040 Well, that was the primary challenge of the book. Sure 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:02.440 is how to convey one's enthusiasm for a pastime and 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:05.000 get people to keep reading a book that is, you know, 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:08.080 averages three or four dead people every page or so. 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:09.280 Yeah, it's incredible. 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:11.200 A lot of the reading I do, I have to 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:14.120 read stuff just because I'm reading it for work research stuff. Right, 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:17.000 this is my this is me. Like when I want 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:18.840 to have fun, I work on reading your book. 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:22.680 It's not work. I just I love the book. 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:26.119 Well, thank you, I as you can probably tell love 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:28.640 to doing it. Yeah, you know, I've kind of reached 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:31.120 the age I'm sixty three where I stop doing stuff 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:33.360 I don't want to do, OK, And I just want 0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:37.760 to pursue projects that I really want to go disappear 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:40.280 into a room and learn about for five, six, seven years. 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:43.920 This we took seven and dude, I've been reading about 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:46.319 gunfighters since sixth grade, since I was eleven. This is 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:48.120 a book I'm wanted to do for like fifty years. 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:51.360 You're from Texas, A Yeah, and as you point out, 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:55.120 we'll get into it. Texas is like. 0:01:57.400 --> 0:02:00.600 Just kind of is a force that pushes gun fighters 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:01.800 out into the American West. 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:05.040 It's probably the most important of the number sources. Yeah, 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:05.880 I think that's fair to say. 0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:08.399 Yeah, you got a bunch of you got a bunch 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:10.240 of books. I'm gonna tell people about your books because 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:11.480 they might recognize some of them. 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:12.760 Barbarians at the Gate. 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:19.320 You have eight books, four New York Times bestsellers, Public Enemies, 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:22.320 America's greatest crime wave, in the Birth of the FBI 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:27.040 nineteen thirty three to thirty four, The Big Rich, The 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:31.240 Rise and Fall of the greatest Texas oil families. Forget 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:34.720 the Alamo, the rise and fall of an American myth. 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:36.919 When you talk about that for a second, I haven't 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:41.040 read that one. And we're here now to discuss the gunfighters. 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:43.480 How Texas made the Wild West? 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:46.680 Can we touch on the Alimal? Yeah? What am I saying? 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:50.000 How Texas made the West wild? I don't have my 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:52.440 glasses on two ws. 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:53.320 I get it well. 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:55.919 Not only that it's Krin put it in italics? Which one? 0:02:55.919 --> 0:03:00.840 You're as you as you age. As you age and you. 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:04.919 Start losing your ability to see letters up close, italics 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:06.240 is becomes your worst enemy. 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:08.080 Metallics as hell, Yeah, it becomes. 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:10.560 Your worst You just leave your glasses on at all times. 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:13.960 Yeah, I could leave mine name, but then this would 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:15.200 be clear and you'd get blurry. 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:18.080 It's like a real time. 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:20.160 Drop them down. 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:21.919 Is that what you're doing right now? 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:25.720 I thought you just did that to look pretentious. 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:29.000 That's what happens when you get old. 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:30.639 Because no matter what, if you got a hoodie and 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:32.080 a hat on, I don't care what you do with 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:33.400 your glasses, you're not gonna look. 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:39.279 I just's if I put doctor in my there's a certain. 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:41.080 Feeling when someone looks at you over the top of 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:43.240 their glasses. It makes me think that I did something 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:46.960 like get authoritative. Yeah, it's a power move. 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:49.400 I feel like, what's your take do you think? Do 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:51.760 you think uh see, you're from Texas. 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:53.760 I don't know if you're not gonna give a straight answer, 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:58.000 because Texas get prickly about this subject. Do you think Crockett, 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:01.520 uh Crocketts they caught him alive? Or do you think 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:03.200 that Crockett got killed in action? 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:07.200 The versions that we have from people on the ground, 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:09.520 which are Mexican soldiers, but just let's face it, all 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:13.280 the Americans died. There are multiple versions that say that 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:14.760 he was captured and executed. 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:16.479 Yeah, so you believe that. 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:19.920 I don't have any reason not to. I mean, it's 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:26.559 the only non fiction based source for Crockett information. Most 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:29.560 of kind of the famous stuff about him swinging Old 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:33.240 Betsy is kind of neo fiction. 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:37.400 Yeah, so, no source. It's a good point you're saying, 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:38.160 the only. 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:40.200 Sources that could have described what happened at the end 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:43.120 of the battle would be Mexican soldiers, right, And there's 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:46.839 no source that ever came forward to say, oh no, 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:48.640 Crockett went down swinging his rifle. 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:51.640 The problem is, for years that just made sense, right. 0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:55.320 We didn't really have much information until decades after the 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:58.520 battle about that some people might be captured. For the 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:01.680 longest time, it was just assumed that everybody died because 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:04.160 ultimately they died. The idea that some of them were 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:07.080 executed after being captured is in an idea that really 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:09.720 didn't start popping up till maybe fifty years after the battle. 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:10.719 Got it? Got it? 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:15.599 What's your primary argument in the book? Like I said, 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:18.760 I haven't read it. I'd like to, but why I 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:19.600 forget the Alamo? 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:25.040 Well, we at Texans have put are enormously proud of 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:29.719 our creation and should be. But you know, we wrote 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:33.480 the book with a sense that we love history. We 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:36.360 love the accurate stories of history. We don't believe that 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:40.679 the accurate stories of history make Texas any less special. 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:44.279 I think the argument that got people most irked was 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:46.839 when you go back and you read Steven F. Austin 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:49.640 and the Father of Texans memoirs. When you go back 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:51.719 and read a lot of people, do you realize that 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:56.359 the primary driver that split Texas from Mexico was the 0:05:56.400 --> 0:05:59.720 Texans insistence that they could only live there if they 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:02.800 were to use slaves to bring in their cotton, because 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:05.359 that's why they came. That's the only way they knew 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:09.200 to raise cotton. And so for that first ten years, 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:12.960 from eighteen twenty to eighteen thirty, that was primarily what 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:15.520 they were arguing about. And there's ample evidence of that. 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:19.160 Got it, got it, And you dig into that in 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:23.400 the story. Oh yeah, yeah, uh, I got a bone 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:24.560 to pick with you about this one here. 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:30.360 Okay, yeah, I. 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:34.440 Don't really get a thing you did. So everyone that 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:36.960 reviewed your book. I read a bunch of reviews of 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:39.040 your book, which are all good. I haven't found any 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:42.000 bad ones yet, and they're all like, all the reviewers 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:45.440 get a kick out of you saying that Hitcock was 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:50.080 a Titanic fraud. Okay, yes, the Hitcock was a fraud. 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:54.200 Hitcock wasn't a badass. He wasn't the ultimate gunfighter like 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:55.400 people think he might have been. 0:06:56.279 --> 0:07:00.920 I argue that he was came into view as a 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:02.000 Titanic fraud. 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:04.599 No, you say he was a Titanic fraud. Well, and 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:08.080 then you go on to totally contradict yourself at that point, 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:11.000 he was a tight because you're blaming you're blaming Hitcock. 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:15.200 So Hitcock, just a refresh, you could tell the story. 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:17.200 I'm just gonna give a little quick outline just so 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:22.240 you understand my gripe. Some journalists early on in Hitcock's life, 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:25.880 some journalists or some you know what passed for a 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:29.200 journalists in those days, interviews Hitcock or whatever and comes 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:32.120 out saying, oh, Hitcock killed one hundred men with his pistol, 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:38.200 and all Hitcock Hitcock doesn't contradict him. Hitcock's like he 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:42.480 wants to say that that's fine, and then goes on 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:45.600 to shoot all kinds of people. And you're saying he's 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:46.520 a Titanic fraud. 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:48.960 But it's not his fault. He couldn't control what the 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:49.720 guy said. 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:52.080 And we don't. I don't argue that it was his fault. 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:55.360 No reason, The same reason, the same reason with Johnny Ringo. 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:58.200 Johnny Ringo is a Titanic fraud and he never once 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:01.160 made a claim. They were all made years after his death. 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:04.880 With Hiccock, yeah he was the only reason you know 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:08.440 his name is that article by oh yeah, you never 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:09.360 know of him otherwise. 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:11.320 But you start the book with him shooting a guy. 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:15.080 Yes, but that does not make you some notable gunfighter, 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:17.840 that you shot one guy. What makes you the nation's 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:20.840 first gunfighter is to claim that you shot a hundred 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:23.320 guys when the actual number at that point would appear 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:24.440 to be like two. 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:28.960 That's how you build a reputation, I know. 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:31.280 But I just think Titanic fraud. I was thinking when 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:33.160 I said that when I read that in the reviews, 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:35.240 I don't want to start out negative here. When I 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:38.800 read that in the reviews, I thought, Okay, he's going 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:41.080 to dismantle Hickcock. But then I'm reading the book and 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:45.880 I'm like, the one hundred that notwithstanding that hundred thing, 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:49.920 he still was kind of a remarkable gunfighter. 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:54.960 I yes, but when he first became known, he became 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:58.080 known for what I think was a fraud fact that 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:00.600 he killed over one hundred people. I think it's notable 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:03.280 about him is that after that you can argue, as 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:05.480 I think you're trying to, that he grew, that he 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:08.319 grew into his legend, that he became a notable lawman 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:11.080 and became a notable gunfighter. But I'm sorry, when it 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:15.200 was first written in eighteen sixty seven, he wasn't okay. 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:19.880 Like I say, you win, but lay out the premise 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:20.959 of the book, like how you lay it out in 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:24.160 the beginning. You know, you kind of fine, first, you 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:27.680 kind of go like what is a gunfighter? Like what 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:31.400 is and you kind of you kick around different people 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:34.520 that carried pistols and different Western icons, and then you 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:37.800 settle at when I say a gunfighter, here's what I mean. 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:41.040 Yeah, the first thing to do is to define our terms. 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:44.520 A gunfighter is generally acknowledged as someone who was involved 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:48.600 in exchanges of gunfire among civilians on the on the 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:53.800 old Western frontier, so not involving soldiers military of any kind, 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:57.560 and not involving Native Americans generally speaking. What I set 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:00.040 out to do was I identified, you know what, what 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:02.679 do all these guys that have in common, from wide 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:05.920 Europe to Hiccock to Jesse James. The only thing they 0:10:06.040 --> 0:10:08.760 really had in common is a they got famous shooting people, 0:10:08.920 --> 0:10:11.959 mostly for shooting people. And it all happened during a 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:14.800 period from eighteen sixty five till I ended at nineteen 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:18.680 oh one. So I've grandly dubbed this the gunfighter Era. 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:21.679 And I set out to tell a narrative history of 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:24.040 those thirty six years. 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:29.240 And you set out explaining, uh, sort of asking this question, 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:33.880 why is it, why does it seemed to be Texans? 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:36.320 Well, that was one of the first things you notice 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:38.880 if you read, if you immerse yourself in this literature, 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:41.960 is that if you look at what I call the 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:44.360 Marquee gunfights, that is the famous ones, the ones that 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:47.800 made the newspapers in the history books, a startling thing 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:50.920 leaps out at you almost immediately, and that's the sheer 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:56.960 number of Texans who were involved in these gunfights. I 0:10:57.000 --> 0:11:00.640 would argue someplay, if you totted them up, I would 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:03.480 say between fifty and seventy percent of these gun of 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:07.720 these famous gunfights from Kansas to Texas to New Mexico, 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:11.520 Wyoming and Arizona involved Texans. At first, that didn't make 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:13.800 a lot of sense because not to get all into 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:18.000 it here. But I only discovered late brogan to understood 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:21.880 how there was this Tayek, this Texas diaspora, this spread 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:25.400 of Texans across the frontier that came with the spread 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:28.440 of longhorn cattle. If you look at the great cattle ranches, 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:31.280 the great cattle herds from Montana all the way down 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:34.800 to Arizona, ninety percent of them came from one place. 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:37.199 They came from Texas, and they came with. 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:39.319 Texas, and they came with pistols. 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:43.520 They sure as I did. Look, Look, I would never 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:48.880 argue that Texans created the gunfighter archetype or certainly created 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:52.760 gun gun violence in the West. They didn't. I wouldn't 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:54.640 want to overstate this. But what I'm saying is that 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:59.600 Texans had an impact on what we remember that's far 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:02.640 more or significant than we remember. 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:05.079 And you get into it in the beginning of the book. 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:13.200 You get into this, this this idea of that people 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:18.520 wanted to would defend their honor at all costs, and 0:12:18.559 --> 0:12:21.199 you kind of talk about how they had these that 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:25.080 at that time it seemed that people had like somewhat 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:26.080 fragile egos. 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:29.560 Well, that's one way to see, that's one way to see. 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:31.240 That's not your word when you look. 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:33.600 At their behavior, that's the way it seems to us. 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:36.880 I think another way to interpret this is that during 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:40.920 the nineteenth century, at the eighteen hundreds, at a time 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:44.400 where we didn't have a whole lot of university degrees 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:48.720 or financial statements for ordinary men and women to brag about, 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:52.240 what emerged, especially in the South, that I'm arguing gravitated 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:55.840 out onto the Western Frontier was a male honor system 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.880 that well, it's a little it's almost hard to explain it, 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:02.320 but it's a little like pornography. I know it when 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:05.839 I see it. You know, when I have attacked your honor, 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:08.680 maybe I call you ugly, or your wife or your dog. 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:11.400 The thing about the Southern honor system, or really you 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:14.160 could argue the American honor system in those days, is 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:17.160 if you felt your honor had been impugned, if you've 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:20.720 been insulted, you had an opportunity and in many cases, 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:24.120 an obligation to respond with violence, even deadly violence. You 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:26.640 know that famously. I mean, I argue in the book 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:30.360 that the genesis of all this gunfighter behavior was duels. 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:33.480 Duels back in the Old South. That's really the only 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:37.600 place you can point to American men shooting each other 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:40.600 in kind of structured contest with guns before this. 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:42.760 You know, that's the thing that people talk about, how 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:44.760 caustic American politics has become. 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:52.400 Artstick to myself, not like then, dude, I mean like people, 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:52.920 you'd have. 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:56.920 An election, the election would be resolved, and it'd be 0:13:56.960 --> 0:14:00.480 like it'd be like Biden, It'd be like Biden and 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:03.640 Trump would the election to be over Trump's like, I 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:06.680 don't you know, there's a fishiness to the results. 0:14:07.000 --> 0:14:11.440 They'd be like, okay, let's have a duel and well 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:12.360 at noon. 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:16.040 Whoever, that'll wind up being like that, that'll wind up 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:17.080 being the final say. 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:19.520 The voters, in fact, have not spoken. 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:22.880 In the years leading up to the war, there were 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:26.720 fist fights and worse on the floor of Congress, as 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:30.320 well as any number of duels involving politicians. Andrew Jackson, 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:33.640 as you know, was involved in one, Abraham Lincoln almost 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:36.040 was until he talked his way out of it. And 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:39.000 our great Texas President Sam Houston was involved in one 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:41.600 which he aimed a little low and ended up shooting 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:43.040 the other gentleman in the crotch. 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:47.120 You know, what was that role you explained? It's not 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:49.680 ever heard of it before. What was that role in 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:50.200 a duel? 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:53.680 Like where you bring like your second Yeah, you bring 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:54.480 like an advocate? 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:57.240 Explain that? Can you explain that duel? 0:14:57.440 --> 0:15:00.720 In the formal duel as laid out in rules written 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:03.040 by the Governor of South Carolina in eighteen thirty seven, 0:15:03.920 --> 0:15:06.320 you were you know, it laid out exactly how this 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:09.360 is supposed to happen. Now, how often people went by 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:11.240 the former rules. I can't argue. But one of the 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:13.360 things you did see in many, if not most duels, 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:17.240 is the you would bring a buddy who was officially 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:19.560 called your second, and they would you know, kind of 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:21.640 argue for the reasons that they should have a duel 0:15:21.840 --> 0:15:24.840 and should not have a duel, and you know, often 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:27.760 people went ahead with it. But the main place where 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:31.560 you where the duel where the second could come in 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:35.120 is if one of you broke the rules. Let's say 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:39.240 I fired at you and then fired again before anyone 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:41.480 was allowed, the second could take a shot at you. 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:46.200 And so there were all sorts of famous duels where 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:50.280 like joke, there are all sorts of duels where like 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:52.360 Joe and Jim would go out to an island in 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:55.560 the Mississippi, they would shoot at each other from from 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:58.680 ten paces and then miss. And the famous one of 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:01.600 these involved the Texas yer, old Jim Bowie, who was 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:04.440 a second, and both men were so angry and their 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:07.200 seconds were so angry they just a melee, you know, 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:09.560 broke out and they started shooting each other. And Bowie 0:16:09.560 --> 0:16:11.320 had this, you know, six foot short sort of a 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:15.920 nice knife, the famous Bowie knife. So I almost don't 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:18.760 want to emphasize the formal rules of duels too much 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:21.600 because I think there were many more that were informal. 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:24.200 But the fact that there were formal rules speaks to 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:27.160 how prevalent it was and widely accepted. 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:29.840 Yeah, you know, the funny thing you saw in the 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:32.640 South from the high water mark of duels, which is 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:35.000 say the seventeen nineties in the eighteen thirties, which I 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:38.800 know overlaps with some of your work, is a sense 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:41.200 that everybody said, you weren't supposed to do it. The 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:46.640 preachers want women's associations. Formerly, you weren't supposed to do it. 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:49.520 But everybody was like, wink, wink, this is the greatest 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:52.640 things that slice bread. I mean, nobody ever got no 0:16:53.240 --> 0:16:55.320 sheriff ever walked out into the middle of a field 0:16:55.360 --> 0:16:57.760 yelling stop, you're all under arrest. 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:00.600 And they'd have like towns that have a a formal 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:03.120 maybe not formal, but they would have a they would 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:06.200 have a what you well understood to be the dueling grounds. 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:10.000 Yeah. Every southern statey not just some every single one. 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:12.680 I can't you know. Saint Louis had an island out 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:16.439 I think they call it Bloody Island. Out in the Mississippi. Uh. 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:20.080 The famous one, the most famous one was you could 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:22.760 still go there in the Oaks and underneath the Oaks 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:24.960 and City Park in New Orleans at the end of 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:27.800 vestipl In made. And you know, there were so many 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:31.159 duels there during the eighteen thirties, you practically have to 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:34.360 make an appointment. There were some Sundays right right, because 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:37.639 there would be ten or twelve duels on a single afternoon. 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:41.560 Now the big asterisk there is in New Orleans. Duels 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:45.800 were almost always done with swords rather than guns, and 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:48.399 typically those duels ended when one man drew blood. 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:50.440 That's the French connection exactly. 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:55.720 He talked about too, a style of duel where you 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:58.760 take like you and me bind are. 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:04.440 Left hands, right, and then you get a knife. Dude, 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:05.880 that's a wicked google right there. 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:08.760 Do you know what I'm saying? Like me and Randall, 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:09.800 we bouting on them. 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:13.640 Me and Randall clasp our hands left our class, our. 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:17.600 Left hands, and they bind them, tie them. 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:20.680 Yeah, what if you're a lefty, that's what. 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:21.240 That's my mold. 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:21.439 Right. 0:18:22.880 --> 0:18:25.959 Then you complain, Yeah, your second has got to make 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:26.639 a case for you. 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:29.760 Yeah, and then you then you're like on the counter three, 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:31.679 and you each got a knife and your hands are 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:33.280 tied and on the counter three. 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:36.920 Go go stab you in this fight wherever fight. 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:40.400 Yeah, it was a you know, a structured knife fight 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:42.240 from a distance of about two and a half feet. 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:45.399 The only problem with that is I, at least I 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:48.800 was unable to find a single one in the non 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:54.199 fiction annals of history. It remains popular in some movies. 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:57.200 If you remember the Long Riders nineteen eighty Walter Hill 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:00.840 movie of the James Gang, there was a beautiful one 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:05.679 involving Cole Younger and Sam Starr. The problem is we 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:09.000 just can't find any that you know, actually actually happened. 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:12.080 We run into that a lot with our audio projects. 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:16.480 There's just stories that you hear about the mountain men 0:19:16.560 --> 0:19:19.280 did this, or the mountain men did that, and then 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:22.680 you spend months reading every mountain man account you can find, 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:27.440 and it just seems to be an invention of later authors. 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:30.840 Or I prefer to call it folklore, folk suggesting that 0:19:30.880 --> 0:19:34.520 they're probably and I suspect this did this practice that 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:37.000 we're talking about now did not arise out of nowhere. 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:39.600 It came from something. But the thing is they didn't 0:19:39.640 --> 0:19:43.120 have Harvard professors with them in Wyoming in eighteen thirty one, 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:47.399 and a lot of those guys didn't live to author memoirs. 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:50.800 So I don't doubt that there were incidents where men 0:19:50.840 --> 0:19:52.920 tied their hands together and went after the wind knives. 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:55.720 I just think that a lot of documentation about that 0:19:55.720 --> 0:19:58.280 stuff in the early especially in the earlier Frontier, is 0:19:58.320 --> 0:19:59.640 pretty pre sparse. 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:01.080 I'm from Michigan. 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:03.639 Do you think that I could pull like if you 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:06.000 saw me running around? I keep thinking about switching to 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:08.880 those shirts you got on, but I feel like it'd 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:12.080 be like, uh, you know what I mean, might not 0:20:12.160 --> 0:20:15.720 be cool if I switched to a Yavar being from Michigan. 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:16.760 What would you think. 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:18.000 I think you can pull it off? 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:18.320 Really? 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:21.160 Oh yeah, now, I mean if you're I think it's 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:24.440 a geographic thing. I think it's harder to pull off 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:28.000 north of Texas, north of areas that don't have a 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:31.960 large Latino population. I think he's also age appropriate. I 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:34.000 don't see a ton of twenty five year olds or 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:37.200