Billy The Kid Analysis

Billy the Kid has a lot of history surrounding him. Some of it true and some left unknown. People like making his story more elaborate or more heroic than it might have been. But in reality Billy the Kid wasn’t as big of a figure as most stories make him out to be. Yes, he was a very good shot and had plenty of run ins with the law, but how people personify him range from fact to fiction leaving one to question many of the accounts made of him. Billy’s actual name growing ups wasn’t actually Billy, but Henry McCarty. His broken childhood can explain how he ended up living the way he did as he grew up in a New York City slum in 1859. It wasn’t until he was five that he ended up moving with his mother Catherine McCarty, who was widowed, to Kansas,
Here he heard that Evens and a couple of other men were in jail and he was quick to help break them out of jail. After this Henry or also known as Billy by this point decided that he would sign on as a cowhand at the Tunstall ranch in Rio Feliz. This would put him on one of the sides in a conflict called the Lincoln County War. On one side was Tunstall and a lawyer called Alexander McSween, and on the other side was Lawrence G. Murphy, James J. Dolan and John H. Riley. Both of these people wanted to make a monopoly on cattle ranching and federal contracts from the government. Lawrence G Murphy and his men held good partnerships with the county sheriff, Jesse Evans and The Boys. Not only that but they put a lot of people in debt and were not afraid to use violence if
He was very well liked by a lot of people but unfortunately he ended up rubbing a man named Chisum the wrong way. Chisum ended up hiring a man named Pat Garrett who ended up finding him and taking him into court once again. Billy begged Wallace to be good on his word of pardoning him, but Wallace didn’t. Billy ended up being the only one convicted for a crime in the Lincoln County war out of fifty or so men. So Billy planned his next escape. He had asked a friend to place a gun in a privy that he would later use as he was being escorted to lunch. After getting the gun he later shot the people holding him and escaping town. Pat Garrett again went looking for him back in Billy’s old stomping ground. At one of the houses Pat was investigating, it so happened that Billy ended up walking into the room. Pat took no chance to loose Billy and ended up shooting and killing Billy. As a result, the real legend of Billy the kid ended here. He was liked by many, mostly native New Mexicans, and was definitely a skilled gunman. But many of the stories told of Billy the kid is formed in fictitious events of his