Billy The Kid Sparknotes

The Wild West is romanticized by many, despite the horrors people encountered and the lack of law it was home to people who wanted to settle away from city life. The West was home to many gang and bandits such as Butch Cassidy, Jesse James, and specifically, Billy the Kid. Billy the Kid is famous for being one of the most notorious outlaws of New Mexico and fought in the infamous gang war The Lincoln County War. In Robert M. Utley’s book, Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent Life, Utley describes the young gunslinger’s life upbringings, how his actions affected people and his untimely death, and an overall response to Utley’s work. In Utley’s book, he describes that the origins of Billy the Kid are an enigma. His book begins with saying that

Henry McCarty is more famously known for being one of the youngest outlaws of the west, Billy the Kid. Catherine McCarty moved the two young boys around from New York City to Indianapolis where she married a veteran of the Civil War named Bill Antrim. Utley signifies the marriage of Bill and Catherine by saying it lifted the McCarty family out of a poor home and eventually the family moved from Indianapolis to Wichita, Kansas where Kid’s mother ran a laundry business. All of the sudden, the family decided to pack up and move without any solid evidence and wandered from Kansas to Colorado, and eventually ended up in New Mexico. At the time of the McCarty’s arrival in New Mexico, the territory was untouched by railroads and ruled by violence. The majority of Kid’s life before the passing of his mother was mainly growing up in a rustic New Mexico mining town called Silver City. Utley states that after the death of his mother in 1874, his stepfather started to pay little attention to the youth and Kid fell into a life of crime. With Kid’s lack of a

Personally, I think this has been one of the best books I have read and seen regarding the young life of Billy the Kid and provides excellent sources and pictures to prove as evidence to Utley’s writings. Robert Wooster of Corpus Christi State University wrote in regards to Utley’s book, “The analysis of legends, the footnotes, and the notes on sources justify the author’s interpretations and express his refreshing intellectual honesty.” Despite all the great evidence that Utley shares, he did have the tendency to be a little over dramatic when it came to some of the situations that Billy the Kid overcame. For example, he often would have the flare for the dramatics whenever Kid was in a shootout and if something happened to Kid, he played it like a drama similar to ones on a television show or a movie. Besides that issue, his work on Billy the Kid was a very interesting read and it left me hungry to know more about the young