Back on August 7th, I wrote about Billy the Kid being really right-handed despite appearing left-handed in the famous photograph.
The August 6th Chicago Tribune had an article by Deborah Baker of AP "His notorious hand also gripped a pen" about a letter that has been found written by one William H. Bonney, one of the aliases used by Henry McCarty, also known as Billy the Kid, Scourge of the West.
He wrote it to the territorial governor of New Mexico, Lew Wallace, of Civil War and Ben Hur fame. It began, "Dear Sir, I wish you would come down to jail and see me." At the time, Billy was being held in jail. Four months later, he was shot dead by Sheriff Pat Garrett.
This March 1881 letter and another one are now on public display at the Frey Angelico Chavez History Library in Santa Fe.
They were written in the aftermath of the "Lincoln County War, a bloody five-month shootout in 1878 between mercantile interests in the town of Lincoln, New Mexico. Billy said he'd testify in court about a murder he witnessed if, in return, he was protected from his enemies and indictments against him dropped.
Hardly the stuff of a really hard, bad guy.
Poor Old Billy. --Coot
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