Reprisals and The Epitaph For Legacy Media

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“Evidently, Mr. Ringo’s an educated man. Now, I really hate him.”

 — Doc Holliday (Val Kilmer), Tombstone

The date was October 26, 1881 and four determined men in long black coats walked down Fremont Street to face off against six other men who were part of the day’s criminal gang known as the Cochise County Cowboys. (Source: O.K. Corral)

The four men turned the corner to enter into a narrow vacant lot located just behind the O.K. Corral to face off against those gangsters known as Cowboys. 

In case you haven’t figured it out by now, those four men I’m talking about were Wyatt Earp along with his friend Doc Holiday and his brothers Virgil and Morgan Earp. 

This face off between the Earps and the Cowboys would end up resulting in arguably the most famous shootout in American history. After 30 seconds of gunfire the shootout would leave three members of the cowboy gang with Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers dead. Billy’s brother Ike was unarmed and ran from the fight, but after the event he would end up filing murder charges against the Earps for the death of his brother Billy. 

Now the thing you gotta understand is that back then carrying the label of being a Cowboy wasn’t a compliment, or a cool term of endearment like it is today. In fact, it was an outright insult. Cowboys were really one of the first known forms of organized crime and were notorious for stealing cattle and causing trouble. 

The thing is this trouble was no different concerning the Cochise County Cowboys. Prior to the shootout Virgil Earp had learned that Wyatt was talking to the Cowboys at Spangenberg's gun shop where he grabbed either a 10 gauge or 12 gauge short, double-barreled shotgun from the Wells Fargo office on Allen Street. Virgil would end up giving this very shotgun to Doc who would end up hiding it under his coat. 

When the Cowboys moved from Spangenberg's gun shop to the O.K. Corral several witnesses had overheard them threatening to kill the Earps. 

The truth is that the Cowboys had constant building tensions with the Earps throughout 1881 because the Earps served to be an impediment for the Cowboys making life more difficult for them to carry out their illegal activities. 

On September 16, 1881, thirty days before the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, The Tombstone Epitaph wrote the following regarding the “Cow-boy Nuisance” in Arizona: 

It has come to pass in this county that life and personal property are unsafe; even in the town of Tombstone it seems as if one of the leading industries is to be destroyed. There is not a teamster to-day who is not in fear and dread of the cow-boys, or so-styled "rustlers" depriving him of his hard earnings... How must such men feel to be robbed by a hand of thieves and cutthroats, who take pride in announcing to the public that they are "rustlers!" Where is the teamsters protection? Can you find any officers who will follow, arrest and recover your property? If you can, I would like to see him... These chaps seem to have no difficulty in evading the law, while others, not inclined to work, daily join the band and they are increasing fast in numbers. Our town is filled with spies watching every move of the officers and imparting their information to their comrades... Men who come to examine different mines outside of town, when they learn how the cow-boys stand fellows up, do not wish to run such risks; they quietly take the road they came and get into civilization as soon as possible. (Source: Wikipedia)

The reality is that the famous shootout was only the beginning of the disputes continuing to grow between Ike and Wyatt Earp, but aside from the bullets flying around from the wild west gunfight at the O.K. Corral these disputes also took many other forms during that time that mirrored how we see many disputes play out in this modern day hostile environment. 

You see, the concept of 5th Generation Warfare wasn’t something that just went on hyperdrive here in modern day history between 2020 and 2024, but was something that also occurred even during the life and times of Wyatt Earp and Ike Clanton.