William Morton

[susan]

Some think that William Morton is the one that shot Tunstall and since the Regulators executed him they must have thought that also.  My question is since Dolan and Murphy were the troublemakers why did not Billy and the Regulators kill them?  That seems to me that it would have resolved a lot of Lincoln County's problems.  They themselves were basically criminals.  I understand that the Santa Fe Ring controlled much of what happened in Lincoln County but since the Regulators were quite efficient at what they did I just wondered why they did not get rid of the real problem.

[MissyS]

Susan,
Welcome to the board, that's a good question, Im not an expert on the Lincoln County War, but I believe the reason the Regulators didn't persue Murphy and Dolan is because when they were sworn in or deputized their mission was to hunt down and arrest the men that shot and killed Tunstall, and to hand them over to the authorities for trial, it wasn't their goal to hunt down the killers bosses, since some of the Regulators had witnessed the killing, they were trusted to hunt down and arrest the men responsible, they weren't supposed to kill them, only arrest and bring those men in for trial, but things turned ugly. Im not saying the Regulators wouldn't have shot Murphy or Dolan if any seen a chance to, It just wasn't their mission to do so. It started out hunting down and arresting a handful of men to an all out war, so after it escalated I believe hardly no one was exempt, I read that after McSween was killed Chisum left New Mexico for a spell, maybe he was thinking he may have been the next target? I do believe Murphy and Dolan had to have been looking over their shoulders and keeping a low profile for awhile though, living in fear had to have been tough for all involved.

[clydec]

I would say as well that Murphy and Dolan like most modern day mob bosses were probably pretty well protected with quite a few gunmen around them and were harder to get to.