GOLD RUSH GUNFIGHTER
The era of the Western gunfighter began at the close of the Civil War. This falsehood has been repeated so many times that it has become accepted as dogma by many historians and Western enthusiasts. Several writers of the 1930s created the myth through their obsessive focus on such post–Civil War gunfighters as Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Billy the Kid and the like. Plainly they had never heard of the many gunfighters of California Gold Rush days.
The era of the Western gunfighter truly began in 1848 when the discovery of gold in California set off one of mankind’s greatest mass migrations. That pivotal event coincided with Samuel Colt’s development of revolving firearms, notably the 1848 First Model Dragoon, the 1849 Pocket Model and the 1851 Navy Model. These cap-and-ball firearms were affordable, reliable, easily carried on one’s person and ideal for self-defense. Each model held five to six rounds and was a vast improvement over traditional single-shot handguns. Prospectors brought Colt revolvers to California by the thousands.
California’s gold camps were plagued by astronomical rates of violent crime and murder. The reasons were many. As news of the strike at Sutter’s Mill spread, wanderers and adventurers from around the globe flocked to the mother lode country in the Sierra Nevada foothills. A polyglot society of diverse races and religions sprang up and with it a veritable cauldron of social unrest. Most Forty-Niners were young, hard-drinking males separated for the first time from the stabilizing influences of home, family and women. Their rowdy, oft-illegal behavior—including open fighting, drinking, gambling and whoring—would never have been tolerated back home. Men of that era also understood they were responsible for their own safety and for solving their own problems. Government was minimal, and in the early years of the rush California had few jails, no state prison and only minimal police and fire
