History Mercer, A. S.: The Bandits of the Plains

[cjc15153]

This book, written by Asa Shinn Mercer, has also been published as The Powder River Invasion and it is at Archive.org asThe Bandits of the Plains

For us it is a history, but in 1894 this book was intended as an exposé of the Johnson County War just two years prior. Cattle barons hired a small army to kill suspected rustlers in Johnson County Wyoming. The hired army, after killing several men, was cornered by the local citizenry before being rescued by the U.S. Army. This incident served as the basis of the novel and film The Virginian along with the infamous (but underrated) Heaven's Gate, among many others.

Because of copyright concerns, I have not included the foreword by William H. Kittrell from the 1954 edition. It gives biographical detail on Mercer and the various players, and also details the many attempts to suppress the book by those it incriminated. If I've been overcautious I will upload a version with the foreword. The book is available with the foreword at archive.org (but the OCR is uncorrected.)

The drop-caps code is straight from the Sigil website. The image and caption alignment is taken from pigsgourdsandwikis.com.

Please let me know about any errors you find, copyright details you learn, or cover images that will make this book fly off the server.

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