Description

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Will Rogers Gold Medallion Award in Western Nonfiction, 2023
New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards Winner, 2023
Best First Book selected by True West Magazine in annual “Best of the West” feature, 2022

In the annals of American western history, few people have left behind such lasting and far-reaching fame as Billy the Kid. Some have suggested that his legend began with his death at the end of Pat Garrett’s revolver on the night of July 14, 1881, in Fort Sumner. Others believe that the legend began with his unforgettable jailbreak in Lincoln, New Mexico, several months prior on April 28, 1881. Others still insist his legend began with the publication in 1926 of Walter Noble Burns’s book, The Saga of Billy the Kid.

James B. Mills has left no stone unturned in his twenty-year quest to tell the complete story of Billy the Kid. He explores the Kid’s disputable origins, his family’s migration from New York into the Southwest, and how he became an orphan, as well as his involvement in the Lincoln County War, his outlaw exploits, and his dealings with Governor Lew Wallace. Mills illuminates the Kid’s relationships with his enemies, lovers, and numerous friends to contextualize the man’s character beyond his death and legacy. Most importantly, Mills is the first historian to fully detail the Kid’s relations with New Mexicans of Spanish descent.    

So, the question remains, who really was the person the world knows as Billy the Kid? Was he more than a young reprobate committed to a life of crime, who relished becoming the famous outlaw and cold-blooded, self-absorbed “sociopath” or “thug” that some still prefer him—need him—to be? Or was he in fact the generally good-hearted, generous, courteous, young vigilante that so many remembered with considerable fondness, who ultimately preferred the company of the more peaceable Hispanic population than his own Anglo people? In this groundbreaking biography, Mills takes the reader closer to the flesh-and-blood human being named Henry McCarty, alias William H. Bonney, than ever before.

About the Author

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JAMES B. MILLS was born in 1983 and resides in Australia. He has studied the American frontier and numerous other areas of history since childhood. He has published numerous articles for True West and Wild West magazines. He enjoys living a quiet life with his cat Bernard and dog Dennis.

Praise For…

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“This book is going to knock the socks off everyone who thinks they know who Billy really was.”—Bob Boze Bell, author of The Illustrated Life and Times of Billy the Kid

“Mills has done a superb job, in thorough research, in inclusive writing, to bring forth another readable, historically sound biography. He explores the Hispanic side of the story, a side not often emphasized. A winner!”—Robert M. Utley, author of Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent Life

“Billy the Kid is exhaustively researched, as thorough as any book on Billy the Kid, invitingly written, and a clear contribution to the field. Mills’s huge book moves well beyond previous studies. He deals more extensively with Hispanics and their close relationships with Billy, and he dives deeper into census, interview, and other obscure sources. Mills also provides more information than most other previous biographers and historians on those who sided with and opposed the Kid.”—Richard W. Etulain, author of Thunder in the West: The Life and Legends of Billy the Kid and Billy the Kid: A Reader's Guide
 
“James B. Mills has produced a fast-paced, well-documented history of one of the West's most enduring enigmas. It is highly enjoyable for lay readers and historians alike.”—David Johnson, author of John Ringo, King of the Cowboys and The Mason County “Hoo Doo” War, 1874–1902

 

"[This] is a biogra­phy that places the real boy in the context of both his mythology, and his real, troubled life from his birth in an Irish neighborhood of Manhattan to his violent death in the Anglo-Hispano com­munity of Fort Sumner. . . .  Without a doubt, Mills' Billy the Kid will be the first resource scholars and researchers will reach for when asking questions about McCarty, law and order in the New Mexico Territory and the Lincoln County War."--True West

"James B. Mills's first published biography raises the bar high for all scholars of the New Mexico outlaw. The young historian's detailed research on Henry McCarty, aka William H. Bonney, provides readers with a fresh perspective on the Kid's amiable and loving relationship with the Hispano community of New Mexico."--Western Writers of America ROUNDUP Magazine

"It is most fascinating to read about the many theories, beliefs, and facts about virtually all aspects of the Kid's life, career, and apotheosis. . . . One may be tempted to state that with this work James B. Mills has provided history with a definitive work on Billy the Kid."--Wild West History Association Journal

"Bilito ("Little Billy") spoke Spanish fluently and endeared himself to much of the Hispano populace of Lincoln County and beyond. . . . Mills makes a case that Billy remained in his stamping grounds--after the Lincoln County War made him a wanted man, after being hunted down by Pat Garrett, and even after his death sentence and deadly escape from the Lincoln County Courthouse--out of reluctance to leave his Hispano friends."--Wild West

"James B. Mills' work falls into the category of a fresh narrative with some fresh perspectives. . . . What we have is an excellent retelling of the story of the Lincoln County War, which reminds us that not only was the main street of Lincoln the most dangerous street in America at one time, but the rest of the territory wasn't exactly quiet either."--Tally Sheet, English Westerners Society

"Sometimes it takes an outside perspective to really nail a narrative. Last year, Australian writer James B. Mills's well researched and rollicking Billy the Kid: El Bandido Simpático won a gold Will Rogers Medallion Award in western nonfiction."--New Mexico Magazine