In the summer of 1865, the dusty town square of Springfield, Missouri, bore witness to a fatal encounter that would become one of the few recorded instances of a one-on-one quick-draw duel in the Old West. Davis Tutt, a man of about 28 or 29 years and a former soldier for the Confederate Army, was shot and killed on July 21, 1865. His death was the culmination of a bitter feud with the man who would become a Western legend, James Butler 'Wild Bill' Hickok.
The trouble between the two
men, once friends who gambled together despite their opposing allegiances during the Civil War, reportedly stemmed from a combination of disputes over women and a gambling debt. The immediate catalyst for the deadly confrontation was a prized Waltham repeater gold pocket watch belonging to Hickok. During a poker game, Tutt claimed Hickok owed him $35, and when Hickok would only admit to $25, Tutt took the watch as collateral. Hickok warned Tutt not to wear the watch in public, but the next day, Tutt brazenly appeared in the town square with the watch prominently displayed. This public humiliation was an affront Hickok could not ignore.
Around 6 p.m. on that fateful July evening, the two men faced each other across the square, a distance of about 75 yards. After a final, unheeded warning from Hickok to not come across the square with the watch, both men drew their pistols. They fired almost simultaneously. Tutt's shot missed its mark, but Hickok's found its target, striking Tutt in the chest. Stumbling, Tutt cried out, 'Boys, I'm killed,' before collapsing on the steps of the courthouse, where he died.
In the aftermath of the shooting, Wild Bill Hickok was arrested and charged with manslaughter. His trial began on August 3, 1865, and lasted for three days, with twenty-two witnesses testifying. Hickok was ultimately acquitted of the charge. The jury seemingly accepted that dangling the watch as security for a poker debt was a justifiable provocation for the shooting in the context of the time. The event, largely forgotten in the annals of history for Davis Tutt, served as the launching pad for Wild Bill Hickok's enduring fame as a gunfighter.
