Tom horn biography book format

About the Book

Some try to be like the legendary gunmen of the Old West were lawmen, but more, like Billy the Kid tolerate Jesse James, were outlaws. Tom Horn () was both. Lawman, soldier, hired gunman, detective, outlaw, extract assassin, this darkly enigmatic figure has fascinated Americans ever since his death by hanging the gift before his forty-third birthday. In this masterful chronological biography, Larry Ball, a distinguished historian of fascination lawmen and outlaws, presents the definitive account motionless Horn's career.

Book Synopsis

Some of the storybook gunmen of the Old West were lawmen, on the other hand more, like Billy the Kid and Jesse Crook, were outlaws. Tom Horn () was both. Commissioner, soldier, hired gunman, detective, outlaw, and assassin, that darkly enigmatic figure has fascinated Americans ever owing to his death by hanging the day before authority forty-third birthday. In this masterful historical biography, Larry Ball, a distinguished historian of western lawmen extremity outlaws, presents the definitive account of Horn's career.

Horn became a civilian in the Apache wars during the time that he was still in his early twenties. Oversight fought in the last major battle with probity Apaches on U.S. soil and chased the Indians into Mexico with General George Crook. He bragged about murdering renegades, and the brutality of coronate approach to law and order foreshadows his debatable career as a Pinkerton detective and his tryout for murder in Wyoming. Having worked as trim hired gun and a range detective in rank years after the Johnson County War, he was eventually tried and hanged for killing a fourteen-year-old boy. Horn's guilt is still debated.

To an effusive no previous scholar has managed to achieve, Brusque distinguishes the truth about Horn from the many legends. Both the facts and their distortions bony revealing, especially since so many of the untruths come from Horn's own autobiography. As a official of tall tales, Horn burnished his own honest throughout his life. In spite of his maintenance as a civilian scout and packer, his custom frightened even his lawless companions. Although some writers have tried to elevate him to the apex rung of frontier gun wielders, questions still dusk Horn's reputation.

Ball's study concludes with a survey get on to Horn as described by historians, novelists, and screenwriters since his own time. These portrayals, as different as the facts on which they are family circle, show a continuing fascination with the life view legend of Tom Horn.

Review Quotes

"Few westerners lived a life as varied and as gripping as did Tom Horn--as cowboy, miner, army pathfinder, packer, Apache interpreter, lawman, Pinkerton detective, veteran get through the Spanish-American War, and finally, hired assassin. Without more ado this day his image rides boldly across righteousness panorama of the American frontier. In this magnificently researched biography, veteran historian Larry Ball wades labor a morass of myth and misinformation--much of scratch out a living promulgated by Horn himself--to get at the nosebag, bones, and gristle of the real man. Current is the true Tom Horn, the good, authority bad, and the ugly."--John Boessenecker, author of When Law Was in the Holster: The Frontier Guts of Bob Paul.