On February 18, 1878 Tunstall was murdered by members of a sheriff's posse after he had surrendered his gun. According to the "code of the West," an unarmed man was not to be shot. The Regulators vowed to take vengeance upon House followers responsible for killing Tunstall. Among the group of Regulators was a young man known as Billy the Kid, who had befriended Tunstall. Billy the Kid rode in and out of the war with the purpose of avenging Tunstall's murder. The killings on both sides continued into the summer. The large confrontation between the two forces materialized on the afternoon of July 15, 1878, when the Regulators were surrounded in Lincoln in two different positions; the McSween house and the Ellis store. Facing them were the Dolan/Murphy/Seven River cowboys. In the McSween house were Alexander McSween and his wife, Susan, Billy the Kid, Henry Brown, Jim French, Tom O'Folliard, Jose Chavez y Chavez, George Coe, and a dozen Mexican cowboys.

Over the next three days, shots and shouts were exchanged but nothing approached an all-out fight. Henry Brown, George Coe, and Joe Smith slipped out of the McSween house to the Tunstall store. The impasse remained until the arrival of U.S. troops under the command of Colonel Nathan Dudley. Upon firing cannons at the Ellis store and other positions, Doc Scurlock and his men broke from their positions in the Ellis store, leaving those left in the McSween house to their fate.

By the afternoon of July 19, the McSween house was set afire. As the flames spread and night fell, Susan McSween ventured into the street to plead with Col. Dudley to intervene; he rudely rebuffed her. He did, however, give sanctuary to the noncombatants in the house, granting safe passage out of the house while the men inside continued to fight the fire. By 9 o'clock, just before nightfall, those left inside got set to break out the back door of the burning house. Jim French went out first, followed by Billy the Kid, Tom O'Folliard, and Jose Chavez y Chavez. The Dolan men saw the running men and opened fire, killing Harvey Morris, McSween's law partner. The Kid reached the river and disappeared. McSween and the rest, waiting too long to follow, emerged into a trap. Some troopers moved into the back yard to take those left into custody when a close-order gunfight erupted. Alex McSween was killed, as was Seven Rivers cowboy Bob Beckwith. Francisco Zamora and Vicente Romero were killed as well, and Eugenio Salazar was shot in the back, while three other Mexican Regulators got away in the confusion.

After this bloody encounter, the Lincoln County War began slowly to abate. In September 1878 President Rutherford B. Hayes removed Governor Axtell from office and appointed Lew Wallace as New Mexico's new governor. Wallace was famous for having served in both the war with Mexico and the Civil War. At first Governor Wallace felt that conditions in Lincoln County might call for martial (military) law. The president, however, advised lawbreakers to return to peace. Wallace offered amnesty to persons involved in the Lincoln County War, open to anyone who had not been charged with or convicted of a crime. Gov. Wallace put a $500 reward on Billy's head. Billy the Kid was captured by Sheriff Pat Garrett and imprisoned in Mesilla--also called Old Mesilla and La Mesilla. The courthouse in which he was held, tried, and sentenced to be hanged still stands in Old Mesilla at the corner of the Plaza in which the Gadsden Purchase was confirmed in a flag-raising ceremony in 1854. Transferred to Lincoln County for execution, the Kid escaped, killing two deputies in the process. Garrett, later sheriff of Dona Ana County, shot and killed the Kid at Fort Sumner. The Kid was buried in a cemetery at Fort Sumner that still exists. His trial, escape, and death all occurred in 1881.   Back to Preservation...