Wyatt Earp and The Cowboy War (2024) s01e06 Episode Script

[uneasy music playing]
[man 1] Morning, Ike.
[man 2] Mr. Clanton.
[Ed Harris] In the spring of 1882,
Ike Clanton had gotten himself more
Cowboys to join his fight against Wyatt.
How'd he do that?
By getting people angry.
The outlaw Wyatt Earp
is a hired assassin
working for the United States government.
My father told me
there were people from the North
who wanted to take away our freedom
and rob us of our way of life.
It was here
that my brother Billy
was murdered by Wyatt Earp.
I didn't know it then,
but he was the first victim in a new war.
A war being waged by this government
against the people of the South.
[all] Yeah!
[dramatic music playing]
Ike tried to spin the drama
as Confederates versus Yankees.
Even though the South lost the Civil War,
doesn't mean
that the former Confederate soldiers
rolled gently into the night.
They were bitter. They were angry.
They despised Uncle Sam.
They despised the Republican Party
of the North.
They never bought into the fact
that they shouldn't be
their own country in the South.
And places like Arizona
were just filled with sympathizers
to the Confederate cause.
For too long, we have kept our silence.
It's time we took back control!
We will not be trodden on ever again!
[crowd cheers]
[yells]
Yeehaw!
[cheering continues]
Yeah!
[tense music playing]
[music fades]
[Ed] While Ike was building
an army of Cowboys,
Wyatt Earp was building one of his own.
[tense music playing]
[sheep bleating]
[Ed] At a ranch
belonging to an Earp supporter,
he collected money to pay for more men,
supplies, and fresh horses.
[Paul] Wells Fargo was actively involved
in all of this.
They provided him with funds.
There's big money involved here,
and that's how Wyatt can engage
in this so-called Vendetta Ride.
[tense music continues]
[Ed] Wyatt had everything he needed
for a final battle with Ike.
[tense music crescendos and fades]
[Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky playing]
[Ed] Ike had found a way
to stoke up the flames of the past.
And from those flames,
the South would rise again.
[foreboding music playing]
[Ed] Now with an army of Cowboys,
Ike could take over Tombstone.
[Ed] The town would be their fortress.
[laughs]
[Swan Lake playing]
[Ed] You were either with the Cowboys
or against them.
[gunshot]
[dramatic music playing]
[John] The crime rates,
especially the homicide rates,
in Arizona territory in this period
were off the charts.
They range from 30 to almost 60 times
the modern homicide rate.
Your odds of getting killed
in Arizona territory
were about the same
as a combat infantryman in South Vietnam.
[Swan Lake playing]
[Ed] And now,
Ike was thinking even bigger.
[Ike] Every week, $2 million
worth of silver leaves Tombstone,
silver that belongs to us!
[ominous music playing]
[music fades]
[tense music playing]
[cocks gun]
[gunshot]
[John] Martin Peel
was a young mining engineer
who was murdered
when several of the Cowboys
raided the mining office
across the river from Charleston,
uh, not far from Tombstone.
[somber music playing]
[Ed] The newspapers
were all over the story.
You see, nothing was stolen.
By the looks of it,
the Cowboys had assassinated
an innocent person
to make a point to the North.
Because Ike didn't just target
any old silver mine.
The Tombstone Milling and Mining Company
was hugely symbolic.
It was the site where the first streak
of silver was discovered in the area,
and gave rise to a silver rush
that brought in thousands of outsiders
from the North hoping to get rich.
[dramatic music playing]
Now Ike had sent them a message.
Arizona belonged to the South,
and everyone else should get the hell out.
[somber music playing]
[Ed] The murder of Martin Peel
made headlines across the country.
If the Cowboys
were now targeting silver mines,
they would stop the flow of silver,
and America's economy would crash.
J.P. Morgan knew
something needed to be done.
The president had to act.
Telegraph this to the White House.
[Ed] Whatever it took,
the Cowboys had to be stopped.
[somber music continues]
[music fades]
[dramatic choral music playing]
[Ed] President Arthur
got the message loud and clear.
He had to find a way
to end the Cowboy War.
As far as he was concerned,
there was only one person
who knew how to end wars,
and that was William Tecumseh Sherman.
- [explosions]
- [clamoring]
[Ed] One of the most feared Union generals
of the Civil War.
[dramatic music playing]
[David] Chester A. Arthur decides to send
the commanding general
of the federal army,
William Tecumseh Sherman,
uh, to investigate
what's going on in Arizona.
Now, remember, Sherman is the one
who orchestrated the March to the Sea.
This is the guy who burnt down Atlanta,
as far as the South is concerned,
and then destroyed plantations and towns
all the way across Georgia
and then up the coast of the Confederacy.
You you really couldn't have picked
a more provocative individual
than William Tecumseh Sherman
to investigate what was going on.
[tense music playing]
[David] So Sherman gets there
and he's asking around, looks around,
and he reports back to Washington,
"This is not good. There really is
a problem here with the violence."
The state of affairs in Tombstone
has reached a crisis.
Business is paralyzed.
Nothing can get in. Nothing can get out.
Silver mines have ceased
to operate in the town.
Anarchy prevails.
[Ed] Sherman's report
confirmed what Arthur had feared.
That the Cowboys were growing
more violent and powerful by the day,
terrorizing the local community.
At the same time, Wyatt Earp,
who was supposed to be the law,
was on a killing spree of his own
and showed no signs of stopping.
It was clear that the federal government
had to step in.
[suspenseful music playing]
[music fades]
[Ed] Meanwhile in Arizona,
Wyatt Earp received word
that representatives from Wells Fargo,
the company
that was supporting his Vendetta Ride,
wanted to meet with him.
[tense music playing]
Gentlemen.
[tense music continues]
Wyatt, first off, we just want you to know
that we appreciate everything you've done.
Right.
But, uh [clears throat]
we were just wondering
when all this is gonna stop.
When the war with Ike is over.
Things have gotten a bit out of hand.
You know what he did to his brother.
We do.
But it's time to move on.
Well, I'm not stopping until Ike's dead.
[man] "The Wyatt Earp Vendetta Ride
is a path strewn with violence."
"It is a bloody, murderous act
where defenseless people are slain."
You're an outlaw.
[tense music playing]
He's no outlaw.
He's bringing them to justice.
You call that justice?
He's not bringing people in.
There's no due process.
He has made himself
judge, jury, and executioner.
He's an outlaw.
[David] Wyatt becomes a bit of
a Frankenstein's monster for Wells Fargo,
because on one hand,
he's taken out a bunch of Cowboys,
but on the other hand,
he's generating a lot of press
about the mayhem
and violence in the southwest.
[tense music continues]
[Ed] Now that Wyatt Earp
was widely seen as part of the problem,
Wells Fargo needed
to distance themselves from him.
Don't forget, just two weeks earlier,
Wells Fargo was funding his Vendetta Ride.
They even gave him $150
for hunting down
Frank Stilwell and Curly Bill,
and marked it down as a business expense
in their annual ledger.
But now Wells Fargo had a problem.
If Wyatt was arrested and word got out
that they were financing an assassin,
that would be the mother of all scandals.
[Yohuru] You see this all the time.
A big corporation backing someone
and then dropping them
once they become toxic.
[tense music playing]
[Wyatt] No.
This stops when I get Ike and his Cowboys.
[tense music continues]
[music fades]
[uneasy music playing]
[Ed] Back in Washington,
President Arthur was weighing
the advice from General Sherman,
which was basically,
"If you want to restore
law and order in Arizona,
send in federal troops."
But Arthur knew
he couldn't send in the army.
He'd tried that before
and the southerners in congress
had shut him down.
So Arthur found another way
that didn't require
congressional approval.
President Arthur had
a special army formed.
A local militia
who were called the Rangers.
They had no political affiliation.
They didn't represent North or South.
And they had one purpose.
To rid Arizona of outlaws.
[tense music playing]
[music fades]
[jaunty piano music playing]
[tense music playing]
[Ed] Now, Ike was probably wondering,
"Who the hell were these guys?"
Walking into his town
like they were in charge?
But he soon got his answer.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Ed] On May 3rd, 1882,
President Chester Arthur
issued a proclamation.
[Yohuru] President Arthur's proclamation
is wordy and full of legal jargon,
but the message is clear.
The Cowboys have until May 15th
to get out of Arizona or be killed.
[suspenseful music playing]
[music fades]
- [voice 1] Ike, we're coming for you.
- [voice 2] We're gonna get you, Ike.
- [voice 3] You're a dead man.
- [voice 4] You're a dead man.
[gunshot]
[tense music crescendos]
[music stops]
- [voice 1] Ike, we're coming for you.
- [voice 2] We're gonna get you, Ike.
- [voice 3] You're a dead man.
- [voice 4] You're a dead man.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Ed] Once the government
turned its full attention
to the Cowboy problem in Arizona
[gunshot]
[Ed] Ike realized his time was up.
[suspenseful music continues]
[Ed] So what did he do?
He did what he did best.
Don't kill me.
Shit, they see me.
[lively music playing]
[Ed] He ran.
[horse neighs]
[lively music continues]
[music fades]
[gentle music playing]
[man 1] Things have gotten
a bit out of hand.
Wyatt, please.
[operatic music playing]
[man 1] We were just wondering
when all this is gonna stop.
[gunshot]
[man 2] You call that justice?
[Florentino] I only held the horses!
I only held the horses.
[man 2] He's not bringing people in.
There's no due process.
[operatic music continues]
You're an outlaw.
[music fades]
[distant thunder rumbles]
[tense music playing]
Wyatt rode off on the vendetta
and changed almost immediately.
He went from being anti-vigilante
to the ultimate vigilante.
Remember, this is a man
who spent his life
avoiding killing people.
Wyatt Earp was protecting his family,
but it was murder
and there's no way around that.
[Ed] Wyatt was left with a tough decision.
Whether to go after Ike and fulfill
the promise he made to his brother
or end the vendetta.
[somber music playing]
[Ed] By the beginning of May 1882,
Wyatt and Doc had left Arizona
and were on a train heading to Colorado.
Wyatt had made his decision.
The Vendetta Ride was over.
[somber music continues]
[Paul] Wyatt and Doc
really have no choice but to flee.
It's either kill or be killed in Arizona,
and, of course,
they're losing the support of, you know,
the business interests
that are trying to tone down violence.
[somber music continues]
[David] Everybody kind of felt
enough's enough,
and so there was a deal offered to Wyatt.
You know, just disappear,
things quiet down,
we arrange a presidential pardon
and you'll be able to come back.
[somber music continues]
[Ed] But one question remained.
One of the mysteries of this entire saga
is why didn't he go after Ike?
Uh, this is the guy
who was the cause of the trouble
from the O.K. Corral on forward,
uh, and yet he's the one
he doesn't go after,
and it's still a mystery.
[Ed] With Wyatt Earp and Ike Clanton gone,
peace returned to the town of Tombstone.
[Jeff] This war between the Earps
and the Cowboys
never came to a settled finish.
Wyatt and his friends left the territory
and the Cowboys gradually vanished.
[Ed] The Cowboy War was finally over.
[quiet suspenseful music playing]
[Ed] Which you'd think would be good news
for J.P. Morgan and his investors.
But you'd be wrong.
You see, President Arthur's threat
to impose martial law in Arizona
may have gotten rid of the Cowboys
but southerners were up in arms about it.
[dramatic music playing]
[Yohuru] When you have
an unpopular president
threatening to forcibly put down
a southern insurrection,
it's going to drum up old animosities
between North and South.
[dramatic music continues]
[Ed] Just five months
after the proclamation,
in America's midterm elections,
Arthur's Republican Party
lost in a landslide to the Democrats,
the party of the South.
[dramatic music continues]
[Ed] If he wasn't
the most disliked president already,
he certainly was now.
He was also a president with no powers,
who could only stand by and watch
as the North-South divide
grew to such a point
that people were again
talking about America being two countries.
And that's when J.P. Morgan had had enough
and decided on a new course of action.
[J.P. Morgan] Pull.
[Zachary] Men like Morgan
exerted their influence
by funding the campaigns and candidacies
of elected representatives.
And there was no category
of political contributions.
You didn't have to fill out a form.
You didn't have to declare what you did.
You just gave a candidate
who you thought
was gonna serve your interests money.
[Ed] Morgan dropped his support
for Chester Arthur
and backed another candidate.
Grover Cleveland.
He was the governor of New York.
But he became the presidential candidate
for the Democrats,
the party of the South.
[intriguing music playing]
[Ed] And that was the genius
of the entire thing.
To take someone from the North
and make them the candidate of the South.
With financial support from J.P. Morgan,
Cleveland went on to win the election.
[David] So Grover Cleveland was the first
Democrat elected since the Civil War,
and there is a sense that Grover Cleveland
was going to reunite the nation.
[Ed] And that worked perfectly
for J.P. Morgan,
because, to his foreign investors,
a reunited America
was a safe place to put their money.
Which meant that Morgan
could make his big move.
[train horn blares]
[intriguing music playing]
[Ed] Buying up America's railroads.
[Edward] J.P. Morgan wanted
to organize the railroads
in a way that created the most efficient
national railroad system
that could make
tons of money for investors
and facilitate business.
That's really his primary motivation.
[intriguing music continues]
[Ed] Once Morgan
consolidated the railroads,
he turned them into engines of industry.
[Zachary] Morgan's empire
is built in these years,
and railroads are the linchpin.
Once you have the railroads,
almost anything is possible.
You're able to ship
goods and services and people
much more seamlessly
throughout the country,
and it's only then that you really create
a unified American economic system.
[Ed] As trains brought more people,
resources, and money into the West,
the once vast frontier
became more developed,
and the Wild West wasn't wild any longer.
[Yohuru] Really what it's about
is the establishment of law and order.
The confidence
that American citizens can have
in moving to some far-flung
part of the nation
and enjoying the same rights,
responsibility, safety, and security
they could
in more established communities.
[Mark] It's the end of the Old West.
There's telephones,
there's rail Iine connections.
Um, it's it's a different world.
You know, those Old West lawmen,
those famous outlaws, the Cowboys,
that's a world that's gone,
that that they could no longer survive.
They could no longer exist.
[Ed] And it was in this new world
that Wyatt and Doc met for the last time.
They parted ways
after the end of the Cowboy War
and hadn't seen each other for five years.
[dramatic music playing]
Hey.
Thanks for making the journey.
It was nothing.
[Ed] Wyatt had heard
that Doc's tuberculosis
had returned with a vengeance.
[Doc coughs]
Did I ever tell you
about the time Doc saved my life?
About ten times.
[Wyatt laughs]
[John] His life was so extraordinary,
because he should have been
a dentist in Georgia
and he would have died in obscurity.
[dramatic music playing]
[John] And instead,
he takes this different path.
[dramatic music continues]
- [gunshots]
- [man yells]
And now he's one of the most famous
characters of the American West.
[Ed] Wyatt knew
that Doc didn't have long to live.
[gentle music playing]
Goodbye, Wyatt.
Goodbye, Doc.
[gentle music continues]
[Ed] Shortly after seeing Wyatt,
Doc died.
[gentle music continues]
[Ed] He was only 36.
[music fades]
[Ed] Now, there was always a question
about whether or not Ike Clanton
ever went back to Tombstone.
[ominous music playing]
[Ed] Some have wondered
if he was the one who started the fire
in order to send a message.
"If I can't have Tombstone,
then no one can."
[Ike] Hyah.
- [glass shatters]
- [people screaming]
[Ed] Tombstone was burned to the ground.
[Yohuru] The fire was devastating.
It swept through town,
destroying almost every building
and causing more than
a half a million dollars in damages.
Ironically, the one thing that remains
in the ashes and rubble
of the town of Tombstone
is the sign for the O.K. Corral.
[somber music playing]
[Ed] What we do know
is that after leaving Tombstone
[men clamor]
[Ed] Ike Clanton
went back to stealing cattle.
Until a detective caught up with him.
And this time, Ike didn't escape.
[gunshot]
[Ed] Ike Clanton was shot dead.
He died the same year as Doc Holliday,
and was 40 years old.
As for Wyatt,
well, he and Josephine married
and spent
the rest of their lives together.
Wyatt tried his hand at several jobs,
from gambler to gold miner,
but he remained haunted
by what people thought of him.
Accusations that he was a murderer
followed him wherever he went.
Ultimately,
the story of Wyatt Earp is tragic.
I mean, he was not a happy man.
He was not happy with his reputation
and he did not like the idea
that he was going to go down in history
as this outlaw,
and he's kind of haunted by this,
uh, all the way to the to the end.
[Ed] But when Wyatt was in his seventies,
he tried one last time to clear his name
in a small town in California.
[tense music playing]
Are you gonna fight this time
or you gonna run?
[tense music continues]
[music fades]
[director] Cut.
[Wild West movie music playing]
Did we get it?
[Ed] Wyatt Earp ended up in Hollywood
working as a consultant on early westerns.
- [exhales] Was that good?
- Yeah.
Thanks.
[Ed] It gave him the chance
to set the record straight
and tell his own story.
Only, he died before that could happen.
He was 80 years old.
[David] What's interesting
in the story of Wyatt Earp
is he was a complicated man.
He wasn't purely a good guy,
he wasn't purely a bad guy.
But when that story
gets picked up by Hollywood,
Hollywood tends to translate reality
into good guys and bad guys,
black hats versus white hats.
Uh, and so, in a way,
Hollywood then takes this story
and there is a kind of revival
of the reputation of Wyatt Earp,
just as he had hoped.
[Mark] And in movies and in legend,
the true winner is Wyatt Earp,
because Wyatt Earp survived
with this amazing reputation.
He truly became a hero.
And it's the legend
that has really painted our minds
and and changed our consciousness
about what the West was.
[Jeff] In all American history,
it's the Old West that was glamorized.
We needed that for a national identity,
and so we made it what we wanted it to be.
[Ed] The legends of the Old West
continue to echo through time,
and none more so
than the stories of Wyatt Earp,
the gunfight at the O.K. Corral,
and the Cowboy War.
[dramatic music playing]
[music fades]