Tombstone by Walter Noble Burns — Read

John Slaughter's pearl-handled six-shooter shines out in opalescent beauty in Tombstone's history. But it is remembered not so much for its gleaming handle as for its flaming other end. Slaughter's four years as sheriff of Cochise County, 1887–1890, was a period of reconstruction and marked the dividing line between lawlessness and law in the Tombstone country. This pearl-handled forty-four was the tool with which Slaughter cemented a permanent fabric of law and order.

John Horton Slaughter was of a family that had been rooted in the soil and traditions of the South since the days of the thirteen colonies. He was born in Louisiana, October 2, 1841, according to an entry in the old family Bible, whose dilapidated, dog-eared pages give evidence of a line of churchgoing forbears. With slaves and household chattels, his parents moved to west Texas while he was a baby. The Texas war of independence, San Jacinto, and the Alamo, were still fresh in the memories of Texas people, and the news of the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma at the beginning of the Mexican War of Polk's administration gave him his first-remembered thrills as a boy. He grew up on the Texas steppes when buffalo were still plentiful and settlers had to fight for their lives against Kiowas and Comanches. He enlisted as a soldier under the Stars and Bars of the Confederacy at the outbreak of the Civil War, but after brief service was invalided home. Though little fighting against Yankees fell to his experience, he saw hard fighting against Indians and outlaws as a Texas Ranger under the noted Captain Tom. In early manhood, he embarked in the cattle business on his own, married Miss Adeline Harris, and established his ranch in Atacosa County in the Panhandle.