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The Lincoln County War was an Old West conflict between rival factions in 1878 in New Mexico Territory. The feud became famous because of the participation of a number of notable figures of the Old West, including Billy the Kid, sheriffs William Brady and Pat Garrett, cattle rancher John Chisum, lawyer and businessman Alexander McSween, and the organized crime boss Lawrence Murphy. The conflict arose between two factions over the control of dry goods and cattle interests in the county. The older, established faction was led by Murphy and his business partner, James Dolan, who operated a dry goods monopoly through Murphy's general store. Young newcomers to the county, English-born John Tunstall and his business partner Alexander McSween, with backing from established cattleman John Chisum, opened a competing store in 1876. The two sides gathered lawmen, businessmen, Tunstall's ranch hands〔''Cowboys and Outlaws'': "The Real Billy the Kid". History channel〕 and criminal gangs to their support. The Murphy-Dolan faction were allied with Lincoln County Sheriff Brady, and supported by the Jesse Evans Gang. The Tunstall-McSween faction organized their own posse of armed men, known as the Regulators, to defend their position, and had their own lawmen, town constable Richard M. Brewer and Deputy US Marshal Robert A. Widenmann.〔''The United States Marshals of New Mexico and Arizona Territories, 1846-1912'' (1982) p. 85〕 The conflict was marked by back-and-forth revenge killings, starting with the murder of Tunstall by members of the Evans Gang. In revenge for this, the Regulators killed Sheriff Brady and others in a series of incidents. Further killings continued unabated for several months, climaxing in the Battle of Lincoln, a four-day gunfight and siege that resulted in the death of McSween and the scattering of the Regulators. After Pat Garrett was named County Sheriff in 1880, he hunted down Billy the Kid, killing two other former Regulators in the process. The war was fictionalized in several Hollywood films, including ''The Left Handed Gun'' in 1958, John Wayne's ''Chisum'' in 1970 and ''Young Guns'' in 1988. ==War== In November 1876, a wealthy Englishman named John Tunstall arrived in Lincoln County, New Mexico, where he intended to develop a cattle ranch, store, and bank in partnership with the young attorney Alexander McSween and cattleman John Chisum. They discovered that Lincoln County was controlled both economically and politically by Lawrence Murphy and James Dolan, the proprietors of LG Murphy and Co., the only store in the county. The factions were ethnically at odds, with the Murphy faction mostly Irish Catholic, while Tunstall and his allies were mostly Protestant. LG Murphy and Co. loaned thousands of dollars to the Territorial Governor, and the Territorial Attorney General eventually held the mortgage on the firm. Tunstall learned that Murphy and Dolan, who bought much of their cattle from rustlers, had lucrative beef contracts from the United States government to supply forts and Indian agencies. The government contracts, along with their monopoly on merchandise and financing for farms and ranches, allowed Murphy, Dolan and their partner Riley to run Lincoln County as a personal fiefdom. Murphy and Dolan refused to give up their monopoly. In February 1878, in a court case that was eventually dismissed, they obtained a court order to seize all of McSween's assets, but mistakenly included all of Tunstall's assets with those of McSween.〔Nolan, Frederick, ''The West of Billy the Kid''〕 Sheriff Brady formed a posse to attach Tunstall's remaining assets at his ranch 70 miles from Lincoln. Lawrence Murphy and Dolan also enlisted the John Kinney Gang, Seven Rivers Warriors and the Jesse Evans Gang, and their job was mainly to harass and rustle cattle from Tunstall's and Chisum's ranches, as well as being the faction's hired guns.〔 September 1, 2012〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Lincoln County War」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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