John Wesley Hardin - Unconfirmed Claims

Unconfirmed Claims

In his autobiography, Hardin made several claims to have been involved in events which either cannot be confirmed or which have proven to be unreliable:

• Hardin's claims to have shot three Union soldiers of the US 4th Cavalry in 1868. In none of the military records is Hardin named as a suspect; nor do any facts agree with his claims.

• Hardin said he shot one of the two soldiers killed in 1869, in "Richland Bottom", the other having been shot by his cousin, Simp Dixson, a member of the Ku Klux Klan and a man who hated Union soldiers. Hardin claims they each killed a soldier.

• Hardin claimed in January 1870 that he killed a circus hand at Horn Hill, Texas. A contemporary newspaper account did report a fight in Union Hill, Texas between Circus "canvasmen" and "roughs" who tried to get in without paying-although the outcome did not come out the way Hardin claimed it did!

• Hardin claimed that during his January 1871 escape from Stakes and Smalley, he also killed a Mr. Smith, a Mr. Jones, and a Mr. Davis in Bell County, Texas. No contemporary newspaper accounts from Bell County confirm these additional killings.

• He claimed that after killing Paramour in October 1871, he forced an African-American posse to flee after killing three of them. There are no contemporary newspaper, or other, accounts to confirm this claim.

• After being wounded by Sublett in August 1872, Hardin claimed that in September he either killed, or drove off, one or two members of the Texas State Police in Trinity, Texas. Hardin gave different versions of the event at different times.

• Hardin claimed that on July 1, 1874 he drove off 17 Texas Rangers that had been trailing him, killing one of them. There are no contemporary reports to confirm this story.

• He claimed to have been involved in the killing of two Pinkerton agents on the Florida/Georgia border sometime between April and November, 1876, after a gunfight with a "Pinkerton Gang" who had been tracking him from Jacksonville, Florida. This confrontation never happened, as the Pinkerton Detective Agency never pursued Hardin.

• Hardin claimed that in a saloon on election night of November 1876, he and a companion, Jacksonville, Florida policeman Gus Kennedy, were involved in a gunfight with Mobile, Alabama policemen in which one person was wounded and two killed. He further claims that he and Kennedy were arrested (but later released). This encounter also never happened. Hardin and Kennedy were arrested and driven out of town simply for cheating at cards.