3 Review(s)

In October 1892 the notorious Dalton gang concluded their days of outlawry at Coffeyville, Kansas, with a bold attempt to rob two banks at once in broad daylight. The raiders--Bob, Grat, and Emmett Dalton, Bill Powers, and Dick Broadwell--were nothing more than common hoodlums, says author Robert Barr Smith. The real heroes of the day were the townspeople, who spontaneously turned out in haste and in force to dispatch the outlaws in a bloody downtown shoot-out. Smith sorts out the truth from the legends and suggests answers to some of the perplexing questions about the Coffeyville fight--including whether or not there was a sixth man who got away. In addition, Smith recounts the violent aftermath of the fight: the trial and later life of Emmett Dalton, the only outlaw to survive the raid; and the bloody ends of the Dalton gang's successors, Bill Doolin and Bill Dalton.