In May of 2022, Rock Island Auction Company was
privileged to offer a Colt 1851 Navy attributed to none other than the Prince of Pistoleers, Wild
Bill Hickok. Formerly housed in the Cody Firearms Museum. The excitement surrounding this monumental
piece of Old West history pushed it to far exceed its pre-auction estimate and bring
over $616,000. In our video about that gun we spoke at length on the life of Wild Bill.
Tried to separate the fact from the fiction. In this video we'll speak to his death and
look specifically at the Smith & Wesson Number Two Old Army that's documented to his time in
Deadwood, South Dakota in the weeks immediately preceding his death. In early 1876 Wild Bill
was just 38 years old but his eyesight was failing him. He was losing hair. In that March he
married the wealthy widow, Agnes Thatcher Lake, a woman more than 10 years his senior. She had
been a bareback rider in the circus who now owned and operated it. The couple honeymooned
for several weeks in Cincinnati, but by June Wild Bill was bound for the gold fields of the Black
Hills. He traveled there via the wagon train of his companion Colorado Charlie Utter. He planned
on making some money either by prospecting, gambling, or buying timber tracts and then
sending for his new bride to join him. She would never see him again. He was en route to
a date with destiny in Deadwood, a boom town that might have come and gone like so many others
were it not for what the fates had in store. Hickok's arrival that April was a quiet
one. He set up camp, did some prospecting, started playing some poker. But slowly he began
playing more and more. His favorite haunt, the Number 10 Saloon where he happened
to know the proprietor and a barkeep. Some accounts portray him as a model
citizen. A man who kept to himself, minded his manners, and gave no indication
of his earlier life as a hard man of the law. He even wrote sweet ,optimistic letters to
his wife about their future life together. Other accounts are less kind. It was
a time in Wild Bill's life where he was greatly diminished from the legendary
gunfighter famous on the national stage. In addition to a nagging eye disease that affected
his shooting he was gambling more, winning less, drinking to excess, and is said to have
been arrested several times for vagrancy. In addition, Wild Bill was having
premonitions of his own death. He mentioned these to his traveling companion and
now business partner, Colorado Charlie Utter. And even in a letter to his wife dated
August 1st, 1876. Part of his letter reads, "Agnes darling, if such should be that we
never meet again, while firing my last shot I will gently breathe the name of my wife, my
Agnes, and with a kind word even for my enemies i will make the plunge and try to swim to
the opposite shore. JB Hickok." The same day Wild Bill penned that letter, August 1st, he
had a surprisingly good day at the poker tables, winning as much as a hundred and ten dollars,
much of it coming from a man named Jack "Crooked Nose" McCall. In a kind gesture, Hickok gave
McCall some of his money back so he could buy a bite to eat. But McCall, already mad from
the card game, viewed the gesture as an insult. The very next day, Hickok's sense of foreboding
would come to fruition. Aug. 2, 1876, 146 years ago this month, Wild Bill Hickok made
his way to Nuttal & Mann's Number 10 Saloon as he did any other day. Most of the
prospecting was done in the morning, and when the summer sun became too much men would
venture into town for the shade of the saloons and poker tables. But in a dramatic change of
fortune from the day before Hickok found his luck running short and the career gambler had to borrow
fifty dollars from the house to continue playing that day. He also had been forced to
uncharacteristically sit with his back to a door. Wild Bill was understandably cautious. He was
a man with no shortage of folks seeking revenge against him or even those who just wanted to test
themselves against the man of his reputation. Thus he made it a habit never
to sit with his back to a door, allowing other people to potentially get the drop
on him. He had asked his playing companions to give up their seat but no one accepted. Wild Bill
sat at the only remaining chair, allowing him to see the front door but with his back to the rear
door. Whether Hickok had gotten his requested seat or not when Jack McCall entered that day, his
presence would likely have not been suspicious. He had gambled there before and even said to
have done some odd jobs for the proprietors. Now some sources have McCall entering the front
door. Others, the rear. Some say he was drunk and was at the bar, and others still say he
snuck in the back, right behind Wild Bill. But whatever the details the results remain
the tragic same. Around 4 :15 in the afternoon, Jack McCall pulled a .45 caliber Colt Single
Action Army, and from a distance measured in feet, fired a single slug into the back of the skull of
Wild Bill Hickok, shouting, "Take that, damn you!" As is well known the cards that were held by Wild
Bill Hickok were black aces and black eights, to be forever known as this "dead man's hand."
The legendary gunslinger, lawman, and scout was dead at just 39 years of age. This Smith & Wesson
Number Two Old Army is solidly documented as owned and carried by Wild Bill Hickok during his brief
time in Deadwood. It is listed by serial number in a sworn affidavit, and one source calls it,
quote, "one of the best documented firearms ever to go on sale." The six-inch rosewood clad .32
caliber revolver can be traced all the way back to Sheriff Seth Bullock who was made de facto
sheriff in the aftermath of Hickok's murder. Some say he bought it when Hickok's belongings
were auctioned off to pay for his funeral. Others state that Bullock took
Hickok's possessions as evidence. But either way, Bullock came into possession
of this revolver. He eventually passed it on and it remained in Deadwood until the 1930s when
Wild Bill's Smith & Wesson was again documented, but this time by renowned handgunner Ed McGivern,
in his book, "Fast and Fancy Revolver Shooting." All the copious documentation and provenance
solidifies the fact that this revolver was the property of Wild Bill Hickok, but the question
on everybody's mind is, is this the revolver that American West legend Wild Bill Hickok
was carrying when he was murdered? The answer may be lost to time. No one seems to have
documented the serial number of the gun he was carrying that fateful day, but there
are several compelling facts to consider. One, this revolver is documented to Wild Bill's
time in Deadwood. Now that's a period not measured in months but in weeks. Number two, Wild Bill was
known to carry Smith & Wesson Number Two revolvers at this time in his life. He had moved on from
the Colt 1851 Navies to a cartridge gun, moving away from percussion into a gun that was smaller,
easier to carry and conceal. And number three, perhaps the most compelling is that numerous and
respected authors and historians on the topic have stated that Wild Bill was in fact carrying a Smith
Wesson Number Two when he was murdered, including the foremost of Hickok historians, Joseph Rosa.
Those facts demand consideration. After all, how many could he have been carrying or
have owned during his time in Deadwood? This revolver, available in our August Premier
Firearms Auction represents a very exciting opportunity for any collector of fine arms,
or for anyone who still carries a torch for the Old West. A little after a month after Wild
Bill Hickok's murder, Sept. 13th to be specific, the poet scout Capt. Jack Crawford found
himself sitting at the graveside of his old pard and he jotted down one of two poems
that he wrote to commemorate his fallen friend entitled "An Epitaph to Wild Bill" was even later
turned into song. And the last stanza is especially poignant. And it reads, "under the sod in the
prairie land we have laid the good and true; an honest heart and a noble man has bade his
last adieu. No more his silvery voice will ring; his spirit has gone to God; around his faults let
charity cling while we cover him with the sod.
