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John Ringo: The Gunfighter Who Never Was
He was the deadliest gun in the West. Or was he? the very name has come to represent the archetypal Western gunfighter and has spawned any number of fictitious characters laying claim to authenticity. John Ringo's place in western lore is not without he rode with outlaw gangs for thirteen of his thirty-two years, participated in Texas's Hoodoo War, and was part of the faction that opposed the Earp brothers in Tombstone, Arizona. Yet his life remains as mysterious as his grave, a bouldered cairn under a five-stemmed blackjack oak.Western historian Jack Burrows now challenges popular views of Ringo in this first full-length treatment of the myth and the man. Based on twenty years of research into historical archives and interviews with Ringo's family, it cuts through the misconceptions and legends to show just what kind of man Ringo really was.
242 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 1987
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 3, 2022
This book should have been called John Ringo: The Biography that Never Was.
Burrows spends most of time telling the reader why everybody else's biography of Ringo is wrong, and spends very little time telling us who John Ringo really was. In some ways I empathize with the author because there really is no substantial or reliable primary sources for a biography of Ringo. But frankly, having read a lot of history of the Old West, nothing in this book is new or revealing. While the exegesis and (extreme) criticism of Ringo's biographers was somewhat interesting -- it really becomes somewhat tedious.
Burrows could boiled this entire work down to a nice article in an academic historical journal -- and quite frankly probably should have.
Burrows spends most of time telling the reader why everybody else's biography of Ringo is wrong, and spends very little time telling us who John Ringo really was. In some ways I empathize with the author because there really is no substantial or reliable primary sources for a biography of Ringo. But frankly, having read a lot of history of the Old West, nothing in this book is new or revealing. While the exegesis and (extreme) criticism of Ringo's biographers was somewhat interesting -- it really becomes somewhat tedious.
Burrows could boiled this entire work down to a nice article in an academic historical journal -- and quite frankly probably should have.
September 20, 2012
I'm giving this book three stars as an average. At times it merits five stars; at others it sinks down to one.
This is the story of John Ringo, a mysterious figure in the Tombstone, Arizona, Cowboy-Earp feud. The author, Jack Burrows, rightly points out that very little is known for certain about this outlaw and that most of what has been written about him is supposition or simple fabrication. Yet Burrows oversteps it when he says, "There have been more extravagant claims made for John Ringo than for Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid, Wild Bill Hickok, Jesse James, and Buffalo Bill combined." Anyone who has read deeply into Old West literature knows this isn't true. Ringo simply isn't famous enough to compete with the mythology built up around these greater figures.
The shrill tone continues throughout this book, in which Burrows lambasts earlier writers for their inaccuracies and inventions. While they deserve it, it begins to get repetitive. I know a lot was made up, that's why I bought this book! These lesser writers could have been dismissed in much shorter order, leaving more room to talk about the real John Ringo.
The problem is, Burrows hasn't discovered enough new material to fill a book. What he has found is groundbreaking--a family diary, family stories about Ringo, and some important details about his life such as his participation in the Texas Hoodoo War. These paint a much clearer picture of the outlaw than what we had before. He also gives an even-handed, well-cited account of events in Tombstone and makes a convincing case that Ringo's mysterious death was a suicide and not murder.
Too often Burrows fills the blank spaces in our knowledge with amateur psychology. In one passage he states that his sisters couldn't have developed "strong or realistic feelings" about him before he left the family and went to the frontier (p. 139). His sisters were twelves, nine, and seven. Children of this age can't have strong feelings for an elder sibling? In another passage he actually made me laugh out loud when he described the tree Ringo sat by when he killed himself as having a "deep, all-embracing tree bole with its spreading trunks as beckoning womb", reminding him of the mother he abandoned (p. 196).
Ridiculous pop psychology and time-wasting complaints about other writers aside, this is still the only book that comes close to a serious biography of an understudied outlaw. Perhaps some day someone will write a better one.
This is the story of John Ringo, a mysterious figure in the Tombstone, Arizona, Cowboy-Earp feud. The author, Jack Burrows, rightly points out that very little is known for certain about this outlaw and that most of what has been written about him is supposition or simple fabrication. Yet Burrows oversteps it when he says, "There have been more extravagant claims made for John Ringo than for Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid, Wild Bill Hickok, Jesse James, and Buffalo Bill combined." Anyone who has read deeply into Old West literature knows this isn't true. Ringo simply isn't famous enough to compete with the mythology built up around these greater figures.
The shrill tone continues throughout this book, in which Burrows lambasts earlier writers for their inaccuracies and inventions. While they deserve it, it begins to get repetitive. I know a lot was made up, that's why I bought this book! These lesser writers could have been dismissed in much shorter order, leaving more room to talk about the real John Ringo.
The problem is, Burrows hasn't discovered enough new material to fill a book. What he has found is groundbreaking--a family diary, family stories about Ringo, and some important details about his life such as his participation in the Texas Hoodoo War. These paint a much clearer picture of the outlaw than what we had before. He also gives an even-handed, well-cited account of events in Tombstone and makes a convincing case that Ringo's mysterious death was a suicide and not murder.
Too often Burrows fills the blank spaces in our knowledge with amateur psychology. In one passage he states that his sisters couldn't have developed "strong or realistic feelings" about him before he left the family and went to the frontier (p. 139). His sisters were twelves, nine, and seven. Children of this age can't have strong feelings for an elder sibling? In another passage he actually made me laugh out loud when he described the tree Ringo sat by when he killed himself as having a "deep, all-embracing tree bole with its spreading trunks as beckoning womb", reminding him of the mother he abandoned (p. 196).
Ridiculous pop psychology and time-wasting complaints about other writers aside, this is still the only book that comes close to a serious biography of an understudied outlaw. Perhaps some day someone will write a better one.
May 13, 2018
A brilliantly conceived book that not only answers the question of who Johnny Ringo was - and wasn't - as well as anyone ever will unless his family releases the records his family has been hiding and/or destroying; but this book also covers the entire history of how he became famous only long after his death.
And it is equally as valuable in it's handicapping of Western writers and historians as to their reliability - along with his exposure of those who tend to lack honesty and those who fully make up 100 per cent of everything they write.
His one fault being his tendency to not sufficiently criticize the Arizona Historians who blatantly hide and fabricate the truth when it comes to the fight between the outsiders - led by Wyatt Earp - and the home team of dishonest law enforcement officers and cattle & horse thieves and stage robbers and murderers.
Because this was written back when writers tended to he more civil with each other.
And my closing comment is - the more you know - or want to know about this period - the more you will treasure this book. Because John Ringo is only one of the books many fascinating characters.
And it is equally as valuable in it's handicapping of Western writers and historians as to their reliability - along with his exposure of those who tend to lack honesty and those who fully make up 100 per cent of everything they write.
His one fault being his tendency to not sufficiently criticize the Arizona Historians who blatantly hide and fabricate the truth when it comes to the fight between the outsiders - led by Wyatt Earp - and the home team of dishonest law enforcement officers and cattle & horse thieves and stage robbers and murderers.
Because this was written back when writers tended to he more civil with each other.
And my closing comment is - the more you know - or want to know about this period - the more you will treasure this book. Because John Ringo is only one of the books many fascinating characters.
November 4, 2020
An enjoyable and thoughtful read - however, I must say up front that in terms of scholarship, Burrows' volume has been overtaken by John Ringo, King of the Cowboys: His Life and Times from the Hoo Doo War to Tombstone, Second Edition, David Johnson's later contribution. The latter has much more data on Ringo's early years, on his immediate and extended family, and on his involvement in the Mason County War in Texas. Another plus is that Johnson is far fairer to John's mother Mary and the "wagon train" journal she kept while the family were westering to California; Burrows is horribly dismissive.
That being said, Burrows still provides a really good read. Importantly, I feel he's far fairer to other players in the Tombstone story. Burrows provides a terrific, succinct overview of the Behan vs Earp personality clash on page 20, for example, and his general approach seems to be that none of the people he mentions were all good or all bad, but instead were complex human beings caught up in events that were at times beyond anyone's control. In contrast, Johnson is decidedly anti-Earp, and unfortunately I feel his attitude to Wyatt Earp in particular undermines his otherwise excellent work on John Ringo.
As with many of us, Burrows' imagination was caught early on by the idea of John Ringo, and he spent the subsequent decades searching for more information. As Burrows suggests, a large part of the appeal of this historical figure may well be in his mellifluous name. It sticks in the mind, and early historians, filmmakers and novelists felt free to embroider on the few facts as they wished. The facts are indeed few, especially before Johnson's later findings, and many of them are at least open to interpretation if not downright contradictory. Burrows doesn't say so (that I recall), but maybe it's this very lack of tangible fact that helped create the myths attracted to the resonant name. Maybe, also, the Old West and its larger-than-life figures are part of America's self-mythology; hence the wish and willingness to embroider.
Given that the facts as Burrows had them wouldn't fill this volume, it becomes more of a reception history than a biography. The whole is organised by Burrows' journey to search out some truths about John Ringo, as much as by Ringo's birth, life and death. And so he recounts various histories and stories along the way, and analyses them in an attempt to sort the wheat from the chaff. I find this sort of thing really interesting, but I can understand it would be frustrating to someone looking for a more straightforward biography.
ETA: One of the things I really value in this volume is the map of the Barfoot Trail on page 6. I hadn't seen this represented before, but it suddenly makes visual sense of Ringo's wanderings in Cochise County. The Trail begins at the Clanton ranch near Charleston on the San Pedro River, and heads east and a little north across most of the County to Galeyville. Along the way it takes in Tombstone and the Dragoon Mountains, and it follows Turkey Creek through the Chiricahua Mountains. On Turkey Creek, of course, we find John Ringo's grave. He didn't make it to Galeyville that time.
Recommended for those who enjoy a good yarn and some thoughtful pondering about an intriguing man.
That being said, Burrows still provides a really good read. Importantly, I feel he's far fairer to other players in the Tombstone story. Burrows provides a terrific, succinct overview of the Behan vs Earp personality clash on page 20, for example, and his general approach seems to be that none of the people he mentions were all good or all bad, but instead were complex human beings caught up in events that were at times beyond anyone's control. In contrast, Johnson is decidedly anti-Earp, and unfortunately I feel his attitude to Wyatt Earp in particular undermines his otherwise excellent work on John Ringo.
As with many of us, Burrows' imagination was caught early on by the idea of John Ringo, and he spent the subsequent decades searching for more information. As Burrows suggests, a large part of the appeal of this historical figure may well be in his mellifluous name. It sticks in the mind, and early historians, filmmakers and novelists felt free to embroider on the few facts as they wished. The facts are indeed few, especially before Johnson's later findings, and many of them are at least open to interpretation if not downright contradictory. Burrows doesn't say so (that I recall), but maybe it's this very lack of tangible fact that helped create the myths attracted to the resonant name. Maybe, also, the Old West and its larger-than-life figures are part of America's self-mythology; hence the wish and willingness to embroider.
Given that the facts as Burrows had them wouldn't fill this volume, it becomes more of a reception history than a biography. The whole is organised by Burrows' journey to search out some truths about John Ringo, as much as by Ringo's birth, life and death. And so he recounts various histories and stories along the way, and analyses them in an attempt to sort the wheat from the chaff. I find this sort of thing really interesting, but I can understand it would be frustrating to someone looking for a more straightforward biography.
ETA: One of the things I really value in this volume is the map of the Barfoot Trail on page 6. I hadn't seen this represented before, but it suddenly makes visual sense of Ringo's wanderings in Cochise County. The Trail begins at the Clanton ranch near Charleston on the San Pedro River, and heads east and a little north across most of the County to Galeyville. Along the way it takes in Tombstone and the Dragoon Mountains, and it follows Turkey Creek through the Chiricahua Mountains. On Turkey Creek, of course, we find John Ringo's grave. He didn't make it to Galeyville that time.
Recommended for those who enjoy a good yarn and some thoughtful pondering about an intriguing man.
December 19, 2013
Pretty dry reading. Good at times, other times, boring. Still if you want to know about the West, range wars & gunfighters, this is one of the books to read.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews