Reviews for Death of the Law - Lois G. Forer - Hardcover

The average rating for Death of the Law - Lois G. Forer - Hardcover based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-12-05 00:00:00 Starr Williams III Deeply mixed reactions to this one! Being interested in the Old West of America, I couldn't ignore this autobiography from someone who was there. Breakenridge was a Deputy Sheriff in Tombstone in the early 1880s, and while away from town on the day of The Gunfight, he was definitely part of the whole story. There is, of course, also plenty of material covered from before and after those few years, and it's interesting to read about the day-to-day doings of a pioneer. He is writing late in life, and looking back over many decades, so maybe some of the details aren't spot on, but the overall story is authentic. It's a bloody tough read, however, when Breakenridge recounts, in his "dry, terse, matter-of-fact" way, his experiences at Sand Creek. While Breakenridge seems not to have been directly involved in the worst of things, it's clear he didn't see anything he couldn't condone, and he states his continuing support for his commanding officer, Colonel John Chivington. After finishing this chapter, I went off to refresh my memory of what happened at Sand Creek, and ended up feeling physically ill. Breakenridge can't be excused as a man of his times, because Captain Silas Soule and Lieutenant Joseph Cramer were also men of their times - and they refused to let their Companies take part, then testified afterwards against Chivington. Sand Creek isn't something to be dismissed as only happening in the past, either. My copy of this book is a 1970 reprint, and the Publisher's Preface indulges a great angry rant against "liberals" like me who cry out against massacres. (Apparently we "shriek with joy" to do so!) The publisher equates Sand Creek (1864) with the My Lai massacre (1968) and states that soldiers on the front lines "ought not to have to account for one killing, not one, anywhere". Some readers will not mind this. Some, like me, will. On a (slightly) less contentious issue, I was very interested to read Breakenridge's account of Curly Bill Brocius, John Ringo and the other Cowboys during the Tombstone years. Deputy Sheriff Breakenridge and his boss County Sheriff John Behan were aligned with the Cowboys (and the Clantons and McLaurys) against the Earps and their friends. And there's no denying that Breakenridge is friendly with and even fond of Curly Bill and Ringo. But Breakenridge describes these outlaws and rustlers in much the same way as is found in books that take the Earps' side of things. There has been some suggestion that The Cowboy Problem in this corner of Arizona - which received notice all the way up to the President - was exaggerated. I therefore came to this account thinking to find arguments in their favour, or a view of them that lessens the crimes committed. But, no. Breakenridge still refers to them as rustlers, and notes that the small ranchers were implicated by providing the rustlers with pasture, and so on. Breakenridge is anti-Earp and very much anti-Holliday - but he also seems to regard The Cowboy Problem as real. So this is an interesting read in many ways, but there are some parts (including the Preface!) that will please some and horrify others. You already know whether you want to read this or not, and what use you might make of it, so I'll leave you to it!

Review # 2 was written on 2018-07-28 00:00:00 Stephen Murray R R Donnelley & Sons, Lakeside Press - Christmas 1982 reprint of the 1928 book by William Breakenridge. From my Lakeside Classics collection.