John Wesley Hardin, Texas gunman and killer, could shoot a man to death using either hand, or both, to fire his deadly weapons.
It was once said of John Wesley Hardin after he'd shot down five armed men that were sending bullets flying in all directions, that Hardin, with either hand or both at the same time, could "handle a pistol faster than a frog can lick flies."
Hardin, born in 1853 in Texas, was the son of a God-fearing circuit-riding preacher. Wes' pa had big hopes for his son, even going so far as to name him after a bishop of the Methodist Church. For a while, while young Hardin was teaching Sunday School, it looked like the boy might fulfill his father's hopes. But those high hopes were soon dashed as the bloody American Civil War came to a close and the government made lawmen of free Blacks, a situation that got little approval from many southerners.
John Wesley was only eleven years old when the war ended but by the time he was fifteen his southern dander was well stirred up. It was then, in a fit of anger, that Hardin killed his first man. It happened in Washington County, Texas and the man now dead was a Negro. Four men set out in pursuit of Hardin and soon those same four men were also dead by Hardin's hand.
Hardin was then just a kid with a gun on his hip and a big-rimmed hat on his young head. But in spite of his age he figured it was time for a good slug of hard liquor. In the process of having his manly drink, John Wesley got into a fight with an Arkansas gunslinger from Horn Hill. The man beat Hardin to the draw but that did the Arkansas shooter little good. Wes was the better shot and the man from Arkansas didn't live to shoot again.
Either at the time or shortly there after, there must have been a circus setting up because Hardin next got into a ruckus with one of the circus' roustabouts. This time Hardin outdrew his opponent. And like previously, the man died.
From then on it seemed that John Wesley either purposely went looking for trouble or else trouble just naturally had a keen way of finding him. He met his next trouble in the town of Kosse where another hothead was just asking for a death penalty. And he got it.
John Wesley Hardin continued.
