Triggernometry

I just finished Triggernometry by Eugene Cunningham, a book about the careers of the famous gunfighters of the old west. It is told through a series of short biographies of characters such as Tom Horn, Billy the Kid, John Wesley Hardin, Wild Bill Hickock, John Hughes, and a number of others. It also includes a final chapter on the techniques of some of the famous gunfighters. It was published in 1934. The author worked at a time when many participants in and witnesses to the events of the post-Civil War west were still alive and available as sources. He was a friend or acquaintance of several of his main subjects and drew on them for firsthand accounts. The result is a book full of interesting stories. I found it fascinating and learned a lot from it both about its particular subjects and the times. It is not any sort of definitive academic history, partly because such was not the intent and partly because, as the author says, a lot of the events on the frontier in those days were not documented, and tales and recollections after the fact varied. Still the book rings true, and the author seems usually to have made a decent effort to sort out what is most likely.

That said, there are problems. The author was a southerner born in 1896 and had a view of Yankees, Reconstruction, and black people that is typical of that place and time. He grew up under the shadow of the Civil War as a citizen of the still resentful defeated side. His prejudices show up in the book from time to time particularly when at least partially whitewashing the crimes of several Texas criminals against blacks and members of the occupation forces during Reconstruction. He also has a particularly critical and really somewhat bitter view of those such as Hickock and the Earps who were associated with the Union side or with Yankee Kansas. The prejudices are obvious enough, though, that it is easy to take them into account in forming judgments.