New Mexico's ancient feud between Billy the Kid and Pat Garret continues
With Governor Richardson giving serious consideration to pardoning Billy the Kid, arguably the most notorious of all outlaws, we thought it would be helpful to provide some context to the story of Billy the Kid, who even now continues to capture New Mexico news headlines.
The issue of whether to grant the gangster and outlaw a pardon is controversial for a number of reasons, not least of which is that fact that Billy the Kid broke the law, a number of times and killed several people (although exact figures are contested). The Garret family, for one, have written a letter to the Governor urging him not to grant a pardon to Billy the Kid.
“If Billy the Kid was living amongst us now, would you issue a pardon for someone who made his living as a thief and, more egregiously, who killed four law enforcement officers and numerous others?” says part of the letter written by the grandchildren of Pat Garret, the man who is credited with having shot Billy the Kid down on July 14th, 1881.
The family calls even the consideration of a pardon an “inexcusable defamation” of their grandfather’s memory and reputation. Garret was a lawman in the frontier days that have captured the American imagination for well over a century.
Richardson, according to New Mexico news reports, asked historians earlier in the year to examine the facts and see if there were indeed grounds for issuing a pardon to Billy the Kid, some historians sympathetic to Billy have claimed he was wronged by the authorities of the day, thereby forced into a corner in committing some of his crimes, while followers of the legend sympathize with the gun-slinger as a victim of the hardships of the time.
Legend has it that Billy the Kid was born William Henry McCarthy Jr. in New York City on the eve of the Civil War, although no records have ever been uncovered that can prove this beyond doubt. What is known for sure, is that his mother’s name was Catherine McCarthy, but historians are unsure whether she took the name after marriage or whether it was her maiden name. Some records also contend McCarthy was born on November 23, 1859 rather than April 12th, 1861.
His childhood was a harsh one, his father left his mother and she moved with Billy and his brother to Indiana where she met William Antrim, they moved around the country for several years and eventually made permanent residence in Silver City. It is here that Catherine McCarthy married Antrim, but Billy’s stepfather was a drunk and was frequently absent from the home, forcing his mother to find innovative ways of providing an income.
It was this precarious existence that ultimately led Billy the Kid into a life of crime, he read ‘dime novels’ in his youth, which romanticed crime and gambling was a major passtime and industry in the frontier days of New Mexico. The allure of ‘quick money’ was a powerful motivator, but it was infact a stolen block of cheese that led the Billy the Kid’s first encounter with the law. On his second arrest, this time for stealing clothing, he escaped via the jail house chimney and was henceforth a fugitive.
By the age of 15 or 17 (depending on accounts of when he was born), Billy, who called himself Antrim, was engaged in horse thievery with an ex-cavalry private called John R. Mackie. It was during this time that his now-famous sobriquet developed as soldiers started referring to him as “Kid Antrim”.
In 1877 McCarthy was hired as cattle guard by John Tunstall in Lincoln County and thereby became involved in the infamous Lincoln County War, which ultimately led to him becoming part of an outlaw faction called The Regulators. Shortly after, Lew Wallace was elected governor of New Mexico and declared that all involved in the Lincoln County War would be pardoned if they had not already been indicted.
Under this arrangement, McCarthy agreed to testify before a Grand Jury to have several members of the ‘house factions’ arrested, this was in exchange for a pardon despite the fact that he was already under indictment. Because of this situation, Governor Wallace persuaded McCarthy to undergo a token arrest and short stay in prison that would be terminated upon his testimony in the trial.
However, the plan was foiled by the district attorney who refused to acknowledge the order to release McCarthy, who, with the help of some associates, escaped custody after the trial and rode away on horseback.
It is this promise of a pardon that Governor Richardson has said he wants to see through, the controversy, however, is to do with what happened after McCarthy’s escape. It was after his escape into life as a fugitive that McCarthy became known almost exclusively as Billy the Kid and a number of deaths are attributed to him. Some say he killed 21 men in his life, the New Mexico tourism department claims he killed a total of nine, while some historians have put the figure at four.
It was during this time in 1880 that Pat Garret was elected as Sherriff in Lincoln County and arrested Billy the Kid the same year. On April 28 the following year, after a trial and sentence to death for the killing of Sherriff Brady during the Lincoln County War, he escaped from prison by shooting both of the wardens guarding him.
Several months later he was famously hunted down and killed by Pat Garret, although this too has been challenged, with some historians suggesting Billy the Kid escaped to Texas and lived out his days there, while the man Garret shot was in fact someone else entirely.
Gale Cooper, an amateur New Mexico historian has claimed the legend of Billy the Kid having escaped to Texas with someone else buried in his grave is one of the greatest hoaxes in the state’s history. Cooper wrote a book called “MegaHoax” to purport this view.
The feud between Garret and Billy the Kid is not over then, even after death these two notorious figures in the history of the wild west continue to have it out with one another through their supports and descendants, if a pardon is granted for Billy the Kid, it will be the culmination of something the outlaw had always wanted in the days before he realized he would become one of the most enduring real-life characters of America and New Mexico’s history.
“Everybody wants to mythologize Billy the Kid,” Susan Floyd Garret, who lives in Santa Fe, told New Mexico news media recently, adding that a pardon for him would be unjust as he was a gangster.
To a large extent that’s true, but we cannot judge the actions of those who lived in a country very different to today’s America. A time when the law was precarious, corruption was rife and legends rose and fell.
Ironically, it was Pat Garret himself who first began the legend of Billy the Kid when he co-authored a sensationalist biographical account of the outlaw called The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid, so beginning a line of over 43 books, movies, songs, musicals, poems and plays that would feature the notorious gunslinger.
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New Mexico's ancient feud between Billy the Kid and Pat Garret continues
Billy the Kid is one of the most notorious gangsters of all time and a legend for those who lament the abuse of authority and corruption that was prevalent in the frontier lands of American during the time, while others dismiss him as nothing more than a glorified gangster. Governor Richardson’s consideration of a pardon then, is highly contentious.
With Governor Richardson giving serious consideration to pardoning Billy the Kid, arguably the most notorious of all outlaws, we thought it would be helpful to provide some context to the story of Billy the Kid, who even now continues to capture New Mexico news headlines. Read more
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