Have you ever seen a reviewer state, “This is a book you just can’t put down?” Well, this book is it! Craig Crease’s superb new biography of “Wild Bill” Hickok will supplant those of eminent English historian and scholar Joseph Rosa, and that is saying a lot based on this reviewer’s cherished memories of Rosa, both as a friend and as one of his last volunteer researchers, this side of “the pond.” Rosa’s work has been the standard for so many years that historians/authors who would have otherwise written books on Hickok could see that Rosa’s work had stood the test of time-until now.
One major reason for Crease’s book to be so acclaimed by this reviewer is that he has wisely and prudently used tools that Rosa did not have from his early research on Hickok in the 1960s through his final published book work in the 1990s. Crease, who is an admirer of Rosa’s work, makes extensive, warranted use of online newspaper archives that give the reader so much more of what could not otherwise be found in printed sources to expound and elucidate on his interpretation of Hickok the man and Hickok the legend.
While telling the truth of a multitude of incidents in Hickok’s life, Crease also puts to rest a good many legends, myths, and outright lies about the man, repeatedly throwing them in the “ash bin of history” as he refers to their worth. Those myths include: Hickok’s fight with a bear; the myth of Black Nell the horse; myths surrounding the oft-falsified stories of Rock Creek and the McCanles Fight; the myth of a relationship between Hickok and Calamity Jane; the myth of “Aces and Eights;” he totally explodes the fanciful Harper’s Weekly article by George Ward Nichols, and, especially gives a clear analysis of legends and lies in “Appendix Three,” “Shysters, Shady Characters, Imposters and More.” The only one of Crease’s “ash bin” myths with which this reviewer has a disagreement is that of the meeting of Hickok and John Wesley Hardin, one that is definitely plausible and worthy of reconsideration as factual.
For Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp fans, Crease includes mentions of these men reported in fanciful books and articles as having some association with Hickok, when they did not.
Crease does an excellent job in collecting all that is known about Hickok’s “wife,” Anna “Indian Annie” Wilson, and Hickok’s son by her, Willie Wilson, who suffered a tragic death. at the age of eight years. This little told period of Hickok’s life and romances enhances our understanding of this frontiersman on a truly personal level. Information and accounts of Hickok’s one “actual” marriage to Agnes Lake is detailed, accurate, and further relates the desire of the man for a lifelong romantic relationship to an exciting woman, the former circus star and entrepreneur.
Like most historians, Crease can’t quite pinpoint everything of significance in Hickok’s life and occasionally turns to terminology such as “may have,” “must have been,” “perhaps,” likely,” when speculation is acceptable and justified. This device reminds the reader that the author’s in-depth research has given him insights into Hickok’s life that allow us to “see” not only what was but, also, what might have been. Offering one criticism, believed by this reviewer to be warranted, is that Crease uses references to such poor resources as Real West, Old West, Saturday Evening Post, etc., while seemingly ignoring, or being unaware of, the excellent work of diligent historians and scholars in publications such as Western Outlaw-Lawman History Association Journal, National Outlaw-Lawman Association Quarterly, and more egregious, Wild West History Association Journal (since 2008), the standard for factually documented articles on the characters and events in America’s Wild West.
Otherwise, we will close with the highest of accolades for this new work by Craig Crease and recommend it as what this reviewer believes will quickly become recognized as the new “standard” in biographies of James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok!
Roy B. Young, Editor Emeritus, Wild West History Association Journal, September 2024