THE DEAL: When Lew Wallace Met Billy the Kid

By: The Man Behind the Mask

It had to be the strangest showdown ever in the Old West.

On the one hand, there was the fifty-two year old attorney and ex-soldier. He was tall, dignified, and many of his contemporaries considered him a Renaissance man who could succeed in almost any endeavor.

On the other was the teenage ruffian, a young man with a sparse education but with plenty of street smarts. He was variously described as a warm-hearted, funny and likable youth—and as a cold-blooded killer and thief.

Lew Wallace—the older man—was territorial governor of New Mexico. (WALLACE)

Henry McCarty—alias William H. Bonney, Kid Antrim, Kid, and Billy the Kid—was a wanted man. (THE KID)

And on March 17, 1879 the two had a face to face meeting in Lincoln, New Mexico.

The road to this remarkable event began less than six months previous, when Wallace first came to the territory. His charge: stop the violence that had been plaguing New Mexico throughout most of the 1870s. Power struggles in Colfax, Dona Ana and Lincoln Counties had left a trail of bodies and civil unrest. Wallace’s predecessor, Samuel Axtell, had been unable—and a bit unwilling—to put the clamps down on the factions grabbing for the golden ring. A federal Justice Department investigation had found him to be corrupt, influenced by financial/political/business ties to the Santa Fe Ring. That group owned or controlled millions of acres of New Mexico land, as well as mercantile and banking operations throughout the territory. The Ring had the legislature in its pocket—and Governor Axtell on its payroll.

Wallace was given the job as a political payback: his investigation of voting irregularities in the 1876 election handed the presidency to Rutherford B. Hayes. But Wallace was a maverick whose arrogance tended to be off-putting, so the New Mexico job was not a jewel assignment. He was being sent to an American Siberia where, it was thought, he could do no harm.

Wallace probably knew that, but he accepted the job anyway—and did so with some excitement. This was a chance to prove himself, an opportunity to begin a career that he hoped would lead to a diplomatic position, preferably in the Holy Land. He’d always been fascinated by exotic cultures and foreign lands, and over the previous few years his attention had been focused on the Middle East. Wallace was two-thirds of the way through writing a novel about the area during the time of Jesus: Ben-Hur, A Tale of the Christ. During the process of putting the book together, Wallace had been “born again” into the Christian faith, and he was eager to actually see the places he’d read about in the Bible—and that he was writing about in Ben-Hur.

Even before the new governor assumed his post in Santa Fe, he’d already decided who were the good guys and who were the bad guys. His notes show a contempt for the members of the Santa Fe Ring and their associates in Lincoln County, the Murphy-Dolan forces. The same notes indicate support for the upstarts who were trying to compete with Murphy-Dolan for a share of the mercantile, banking and cattle markets, folks like John Tunstall and Alexander McSween.

But Tunstall had been killed several months before Wallace’s arrival, shot down by a deputized posse of Murphy-Dolan men. Tunstall’s supporters got revenge by assassinating Lincoln County Sheriff William Brady and Deputy George Hindman. The violence had escalated, culminating in the Battle of Lincoln in July 1878. The two sides had it out in a pitched battle that was only determined when troops from nearby Fort Stanton helped out the Murphy-Dolan forces.

Billy the Kid was involved in most of those proceedings, fighting on the Tunstall-McSween side.

Wallace arrived in Santa Fe at the end of September. The Lincoln County War was pretty much over, so there was a long period of peace during the governor’s first months in office. He kept promising to go to Lincoln to see things first-hand, but Wallace failed to do so. It was a mistake, as it turned out.

The peace ended on February 18,1879—ironically, at the end of a peace conference.

Representatives of Murphy-Dolan and Tunstall-McSween got together to formalize the cease-fire. The evening was punctuated by some heavy drinking and good fellowship. But when the meeting broke up, some of the participants ran into Huston Chapman, a lawyer for the McSween family. Murphy-Dolan men, including James Dolan himself, accosted Chapman—and then put a couple of bullets into him. Billy the Kid watched the murder, up front and personal.

The Chapman killing finally forced Wallace to travel to Lincoln in early March. He was more determined than ever to stop the violence.

On March 11, he made a list of 33 men that were to be arrested. Billy the Kid was number 14.

The Kid was quick to respond.

On March 13, he sent a letter to Wallace suggesting that he could testify against Chapman’s killers—except that he was under indictment for a few crimes of his own. He asked the governor if something might be done to kill the charges and allow him to give evidence.
Wallace’s response two days later called for a meeting on March 17 at the home of John B. Wilson, an acquaintance of the Kid and Tunstall-McSween supporter. (WALLACELETTER1)

Wallace later remembered:

Billy the Kid kept the appointment punctually. At the time designated, I heard a knock at the door, and I called out, “Come in.” The door opened somewhat slowly and carefully, and there stood the young fellow generally known as the Kid, his Winchester in his right hand, his revolver in his left.

“I was sent for to meet the governor here at 9 o’clock,” said the Kid. “Is he here?” I rose to my feet, saying, “I am Governor Wallace,” and held out my hand. When we had shaken hands, I invited the young fellow to be seated so that we might talk together. “Your note gave me promise of absolute protection,” said the young outlaw warily. “Yes,” I replied, “and I have been true to my promise,” and then pointing to Squire Wilson, who was the only person in the room with me, I added, “This man, whom of course you know, and I are the only persons in the house.”
(WALLACE MEETS THE KID)
This seemed to satisfy the Kid, for he lowered his rifle and returned his revolver to its holster. When he had taken his seat, I proceeded to unfold the plan I had in mind to enable him to testify to what he knew about the killing of Chapman at the forthcoming session of court two or three weeks later without endangering his life. I closed with the promise, “In return for your doing this, I will let you go scot free with a pardon in your pocket for all your misdeeds.”

When I had finished, the Kid talked over the details of this plan for his fake arrest with a good deal of zest. He even ventured the suggestion that he should be kept hand-cuffed during his confinement in order to give a bona-fide coloring to the whole proceeding. He did not commit himself definitely to the proposal, but promised to write me in a few days what his decision was.

The Kid did so on March 20, telling Wallace how the fake arrest would be handled. All went smoothly when the little drama was performed the next day. (BILLYLETTER1)

In April, Billy appeared before the Grand Jury to testify about the Chapman murder. He also responded to the charges against him for his Lincoln County War crimes. He’d kept up his part of the bargain.

But things got complicated over the next month. The Cimarron News and Press—a pro McSween and anti-Ring/Murphy-Dolan paper--reported on May 22:

The Messila News states that the Kid, Scurlock, and other warriors of the McSween party have been arrested and that the Governor made the request of Prosecuting Attorney Rynerson that the Kid be allowed to turn state’s evidence, and that Colonel Rynerson refused the request.

The News by this little story—which doubtless entirely originated with the editor—endeavors to show partisanship and reflect ridicule on the Governor.

Now the facts are these. The Kid was a very conspicuous actor in the Lincoln County War drama, but has not committed any overt act since the issue of the Governor’s amnesty proclamation—at least no such act has been chronicled in the local papers and we have hard of none. Therefore he could properly plead the Governor’s pardon. He was, however, an eyewitness of the dastardly murder of poor Chapman, which was committed after the amnesty proclamation, and for which Dolan, Evans, and Campbell have been indicted. And the fact of his being an important witness against the favorites of the News fully accounts for the milk in the cocoa-nut.

To make matters worse, Rynerson had changed the Kid’s trial venue from Lincoln County to Dona Ana County, where the Ring had much more influence. Billy, in all likelihood, faced a conviction in the killing of Sheriff Brady and Deputy Hindman. And with Rynerson’s challenge of the Wallace pardon, there was a significant chance that Billy was headed to the gallows.

The governor never conceded that, of course. His voluminous notes indicate that he planned to stick by his deal with the Kid. But Billy couldn’t take the chance that Wallace might be overruled. So in late June, the young men walked out of his confinement and hit the trail. Once again he was a wanted man, on the run.

So in the end, the remarkable meeting of Billy the Kid and Lew Wallace didn’t amount to very much. The Kid’s testimony didn’t lead to any convictions in the Chapman murder or any other case. Wallace never gave Billy the “pardon in your pocket for all your misdeeds.”

The governor left New Mexico in the middle of 1881, painfully aware that he’d accomplished next to nothing during his tenure in Santa Fe. Ben-Hur had come out a few months earlier and made a big impression on many people—including President James Garfield, who gave Wallace the appointment as ambassador to Turkey.

The Kid was captured in 1881, tried and sentenced to hang. He told the Mesilla News:

Considering the active part Governor Wallace took on our side and the friendly relations that existed between him and me, and the promise he made me, I think he ought to pardon me. Don’t know that he will do it. When I was arrested for that murder, he let me out and gave me my freedom of the town, and let me go about with my arms. When I got ready to go, I left.

A pardon never came. The Kid escaped on April 28, killing his two jailers. In July, Billy cashed his own chips in, shot in a dark room at Fort Sumner by Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett.

(KIDGRAVE)