Billy the Kid Born: America's Most Famous Outlaw

Billy the Kid killed his first man at seventeen and became the most wanted outlaw in the American West before Pat Garrett shot him dead at twenty-one. Born Henry McCarty in New York City in 1859, he moved west with his mother and stepfather, landing in Silver City, New Mexico, where his mother died of tuberculosis when he was fourteen. He drifted into petty crime, escaped from jail for the first time at fifteen, and killed his first man in a saloon fight in Arizona Territory in 1877. He moved to Lincoln County, New Mexico, where he was drawn into the Lincoln County War, a violent feud between rival factions of ranchers, merchants, and their hired gunmen over control of the county's economic and political machinery. The Kid fought on the side of John Tunstall and Alexander McSween against the Murphy-Dolan faction, and the war escalated into a shooting conflict that left multiple men dead, including Tunstall, whose murder radicalized the Kid. After the war ended inconclusively, he continued rustling cattle and evading the law. Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett captured him in December 1880, and he was convicted of murder and sentenced to hang. He escaped from the Lincoln County Courthouse in April 1881, killing two deputies in the process. Garrett tracked him to Fort Sumner and shot him on July 14, 1881. His brief, violent life transformed him into a folk legend whose myth of youthful rebellion has endured through over a century of books, films, and songs. The historical record suggests he killed between four and nine men. The legend claims twenty-one, one for each year of his life.