Editorial Reviews
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The Truth Behind the Tragic Hero Who Helped Save the Union and Created the Myth of the American Gunslinger "There was such magic in that name, SLADE! I stood always ready to drop any subject in hand, to listen to something new about Slade. . . . Slade was at once the most bloody, the most dangerous and the most valuable citizen that inhabited the savage fastnesses of the mountains."--Mark Twain, Roughing It In 1859, as the United States careened toward civil war, Washington's only northern link with America's richest state, California, was a stagecoach line operating between Missouri and the Pacific. Yet the stage line was plagued by outlaws and hostile Indians. At this critical moment, the company enlisted a former wagon train captain to clean up its most dangerous division. Over the next three years, Jack Slade exceeded his employers' wildest dreams, capturing bandits and horse thieves and driving away gangs. He kept the stagecoaches and the U.S. Mail running, and helped launch the Pony Express, securing California and its gold for the Union. Across the Great Plains he became known as "The Law West of Kearny." Slade's legend grew when he was shot and left for dead, only to survive and exact revenge on his would-be killer. But once Slade had restored the peace, his life descended into an alcoholic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde nightmare, transforming him from a courageous leader, charming gentleman, and devoted husband into a vicious, quicktriggered ruffian, who finally lost his life at the hands of vigilantes. Since Slade's death in 1864, persistent myths and stories have defied the efforts of writers and historians to capture the real Jack Slade. Despite his notoriety and place in history as the first celebrity gunfighter, the pieces of Slade's fascinating life--including his marriage to the beautiful Maria Virginia--have remained scattered and hidden. In Death of a Gunfighter: The Quest for Jack Slade, the West's Most Elusive Legend, journalist Dan Rottenberg assembles more than fifty years of research to reveal the true story of Jack Slade, one of America's greatest tragic heroes.
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