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By Day Four of the Five-Day Battle of Lincoln, the siege has settled into discipline and illusion.
The McSween house still stands. The Regulators still hold their positions. Billy the Kid remains inside — not as legend, not as leader, but as one rifle among many. When Tom Cullins becomes the first Regulator killed inside the house, the men do not collapse. They compartmentalize. They continue.
From within Lincoln, endurance feels like victory.
But outside the walls, patience is ending.
Rumors of reinforcements and artillery begin to circulate. Jimmy Dolan rides to Fort Stanton. Colonel Nathan Dudley calls his officers together. By nightfall, the Army has made its decision — and the fort’s howitzer is being repaired under lantern light.
Day Four ends in silence.
But it is the wrong silence.
This is the last day Billy the Kid exists as simply another defender in a fortified house. By morning, federal authority will step into the street — and the siege will no longer belong to the men holding rifles.
The verdict has not yet been delivered.
But it has already been prepared.
By the fourth day of the Five-Day Battle of Lincoln, the shooting has become routine, the civilians are gone, and the town itself has stopped functioning as a place meant for ordinary life.
In Part 9 of Gallows & Gunfights, The Last Day Without a Verdict, we follow Day Four — Thursday, July 18, 1878, the moment when endurance is mistaken for control and the decision that will end the siege is made quietly, out of sight.
Inside Lincoln, the Regulators remain confident. Billy the Kid is still just one man behind a rifle inside the McSween house—fighting, waiting, and believing the walls will hold. A civilian doctor crosses the battlefield in daylight to save a wounded man. A Regulator is killed inside the house itself. And yet morale does not break.
Outside Lincoln, patience does.
Rumors of John Chisum and artillery spook Peppin’s men. Jimmy Dolan rides to Fort Stanton. And that night, Colonel Nathan Dudley ends the policy of non-intervention, ordering troops—and a repaired howitzer—to march into Lincoln under the banner of protecting women and children.
This is the last night before the verdict is delivered.
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…… And, Make the Guilty Face the Gallows.…
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★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★Gallows & Gunfights explores the real history of the American frontier—where violence, survival, and reputation shaped life in the Old West.
Hosted by Dark Dialogue creator John McColl, the series examines the outlaws, lawmen, and conflicts that defined the era, separating documented events from the myths that grew around them.
From the Lincoln County War and Billy the Kid to lesser-known cases buried in frontier history, each episode breaks down what actually happened—and what didn’t.
Gallows & Gunfights focuses on one goal: cutting through legend to uncover the truth behind the West.