Following the terminus of the Civil War, the fledgling West was a refuge for young, troubled men. Wild Bill Hickok, for example, fled to the frontier after an alcohol-induced brawl in which he mistakenly accused himself of murder. Similarly, a rough character named Davis Tutt arrived in Missouri following his family’s own civil war, the Tutt-Everett War, in which several of his brethren were killed. What Tutt and Hickok found in Springfield, Missouri, was not the peace they searched for but the violence they had tried to escape.
Wild Bill Hickock. Though Tutt was known as a better shot, it was Hickok’s bullet that found its mark on that fateful day.
When Tutt and Hickok, both professional gamblers, first met, the two ruffians formed a friendship despite inherent differences (Tutt was a former Confederate soldier, Hickok a Union scout). It wasn’t their morals or alliances that eventually broke their bond but a common agitator in friendships for centuries: women.
According to the legends surrounding the two cardsharks, both men fostered amorous feelings where perhaps they should not. Hickok was said to have had an affair (and fathered a child) with Tutt’s sister, while Tutt was supposedly seen paying his attentions to Hickok’s sweetheart, Susanna Moore. The feud between the two friends grew and festered, until Hickok refused to play in card games in which Tutt was a member.
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