{"id":130098,"date":"2020-08-02T11:45:35","date_gmt":"2020-08-02T15:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gunsamerica.com\/digest\/?p=130098"},"modified":"2020-08-02T11:45:35","modified_gmt":"2023-09-06T20:27:02","slug":"the-life-and-times-of-the-brain-damaged-gunslinger-clay-allison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/the-life-and-times-of-the-brain-damaged-gunslinger-clay-allison\/","title":{"rendered":"The Life and Times of the Brain-Damaged Gunslinger Clay Allison"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"The
Our vision of Old West gunplay was formed by Western movies rather than the Old West itself. The very term \u201cGunslinger\u201d was an early-20th<\/sup> century concoction. Clay Allison, however, was the real deal. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The archetypal image of the flinty-eyed Western gunfighter, his fingers twitching over the butt of a Colt revolver, came to define an era. As is so often the case with archetypes, however, reality bore little similarity to the embellished tales from the pulp novels of the day. An exception, however, was the shootist, Clay Allison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soldier,\nRancher, Gunfighter, Psychopath<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"The
Clay Allison\u2019s remarkable life was hard, brutish, and relatively short. His father died when he was five. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Robert Clay Allison was\nborn in September 1841 in Waynesboro, Tennessee, the fourth of nine children.\nClay\u2019s father Jeremiah Scotland Allison was a bi-vocational Presbyterian\nminister who also raised sheep and cattle. Clay worked on the family farm until\nthe outbreak of the American Civil War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
This scan is taken from a person who suffered a skull fracture after a fall on ice. Balance of probability Clay Allison\u2019s childhood traumatic brain injury left him with some lasting behavioral deficits. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Growing up on a mid-19th<\/sup>\ncentury Tennessee farm was hard. Clay was afflicted with a congenital club foot\nand at some point had received a mighty blow to the head. This injury left him\nwith a visible divot in his skull and some fascinating personality traits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The human brain is the most amazing machine. When you hold a fresh one for real it is remarkably insubstantial, kind of like really thick Jell-O. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The human brain is the most complex mechanism in the known universe. A typical adult brain weighs about three pounds and is predominantly fat. The brain generates about 23 watts of power and consumes about one-fifth of the body\u2019s total blood and oxygen. The brain is comprised of some 100 billion neurons and features 100,000 miles of blood vessels. This remarkable device can reason, scheme, love, create and survive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Despite generations of intensive study we still don\u2019t really understand exactly how the human brain works. My Neuroanatomy text in med school was titled \u201cFundamental Neuroscience.\u201d If ever there was an oxymoron it is that. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The normal function of the brain is characterized by a yin and yang of impulses and inhibitions that are even today poorly understood. When everything is operating correctly you get a normal well-adjusted productive citizen. Let some of those inhibitory functions be traumatically damaged, however, and you get Clay Allison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Allison\u2019s\nExploits<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"The
Despite one odd false start, Clay Allison spent most of the American Civil War riding with the Confederate Cavalry General and founder of the KKK Nathan Bedford Forrest. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In October 1861 Allison\nenlisted into the Confederate Army with CPT WH Jackson\u2019s artillery battery.\nThree months later he was discharged. His discharge papers stated, \u201cEmotional\nor physical excitement produces paroxysmal of a mixed character, partly\nepileptic and partly maniacal,\u201d whatever that actually means. However, less\nthan a year later Allison signed on with the 9th<\/sup> Tennessee Cavalry\nunder Nathan Bedford Forrest. Allison rode with Forrest until the end of the\nwar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Clay Allison adopted his dapper facial hair from his former commander in the Confederate Army. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Inspired by Forrest,\nAllison grew a similar Van Dyke beard that he wore for years. After\nsurrendering to the Federals at Gainesville, Alabama, Allison was convicted of\nspying and sentenced to death. The night before sentence was to be served he purportedly\nkilled a guard and escaped. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Clay Allison was a plank holder in the post-Civil War KKK. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What followed was a most remarkable life of action, adventure, and wanton gunplay. Upon returning to civilian life, Allison joined the local Ku Klux Klan. Back home on his family farm in Tennessee Allison confronted a Union corporal from the 3rd Illinois Cavalry who had paid a call with mischievous intent. Allison retrieved a long gun and calmly cut the man down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Settling\nSquabbles<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"The
A disagreement over a ferry fee resulted in a fearsome beating and some lasting bad blood. The Allison clan subsequently commandeered the ferry and fled. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Allison got into a disagreement over the fee for portage across the Red River in Texas and beat the ferryman, one Zachary Colbert, senseless as a result. Nine years later he met the ferryman\u2019s nephew, a gunfighter of some renown named Chunk Colbert, with bloody results. Hold that thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
By all accounts, Clay Allison was a nightmare with a Bowie knife. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

During a stint in Texas, Allison got into a disagreement with a neighbor named Johnson over usage rights to a local watering hole. Allison dug a grave and entered the hole along with Johnson and a brace of Bowie knives. The winner retained access to the water. The loser retained access to the hole. The club-footed, brain-damaged Clay Allison lived to fight another day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Vigilante justice was part and parcel to life in the untamed American West. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Allison had a fairly binary view of frontier justice, and he didn\u2019t manage liquor well. In 1870 a ne\u2019er-do-well named Charles Kennedy was jailed for robbing and killing overnight guests at his rural cabin. Allison felt that the wheels of justice were turning too slowly so he gathered some buddies, broke into the jail, and appropriated the hapless Kennedy. Allison then proceeded to lash the man to his horse and drag him back and forth along the main street until his body was a lifeless bloody pulp. Still not satisfied, Allison severed the man\u2019s head and carried it in a sack 29 miles to the town of Cimarron. There he staked Kennedy\u2019s head on a fence outside what later became the St. James Hotel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Allison suffered numerous physical afflictions during his time. An accidental discharge that struck him in the foot left him partially crippled. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Allison accidentally shot\nhimself in the foot while trying to steal a dozen government mules. Though he\nrecovered from the injury it left him with a noticeable permanent limp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
In my experience, throwing a knife effectively is incredibly hard. Clay Allison had some mad knife-throwing skills. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Just in case anybody thought of denigrating the man over his physical shortcomings, Allison was legendarily accomplished with both a knife and a handgun. On two different occasions Allison, while drunk, threw his Bowie knife and pinned men to the wall by their shirts. The first was a county clerk named John Lee. The second was a local attorney named Melvin Mills. In both cases, the men were otherwise unharmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nArt of the Gunfight<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"The
Old West watering holes such as this were the center of social life in rugged frontier towns. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By 1874, Clay Allison had a reputation. Chunk Colbert, the nephew of the ferryman mentioned earlier, purportedly had six kills to his credit when he came looking to make Allison his seventh. The two men met in a local saloon and spent most of a day together drinking and gambling on horse races.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
This is all that remains of the old Clifton House today. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That evening Colbert invited Allison to join him at an overnight stage stop called Clifton House on the Canadian River. Prior to this fateful meal, the local sheriff had accidentally shot and killed a Clifton House waiter while trying unsuccessfully to apprehend Chunk Colbert. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The gunfight between Clay Allison and Chunk Colbert was widely publicized. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Both men were wary, but by all accounts, they enjoyed an expansive meal together. Upon taking their seats Colbert set his hogleg in his lap, while Allison laid his Peacemaker on the table alongside his plate. The meal complete, Colbert thumbed back his hammer to kill Allison. However, Mr. Murphy is seldom far from enterprises of this sort. Colbert\u2019s muzzle caught on something underneath the table, and his shot went wide. Allison raised his roscoe and shot Colbert through the head at contact range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Allison was relatively philosophical about having shot a man in the forehead across a dinner table. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Friends later asked\nAllison why he ever accepted an invitation to dinner from a man so clearly bent\nupon killing him. Allison responded, \u201cBecause I didn\u2019t want to send a man to\nhell on an empty stomach.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nGun<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"The
The .45-caliber Model 1873 Colt Peacemaker was a remarkably efficient close-combat tool. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Colt Model 1873 Peacemaker attained a larger-than-life reputation in the hands of gunfighters like Clay Allison. Lots of companies made sidearms during this tumultuous period in lots of different calibers. However, it was the Colt .45 that came to define the genre. The many splendored motivations behind this rarefied reputation were fully deserved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The concept of the revolver actually dates back to 16th<\/sup> century China. However, Samuel Colt perfected the idea into an efficient mankiller. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sam Colt devised his\nrevolver action during a voyage as a young seaman on the brig Corvo.<\/em>\nIntrigued by the action of the ship\u2019s capstan, young Sam adapted the same\nmechanism into a rotating handgun action and changed the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The gracefully curving butt of the Peacemaker looks like it should be remarkably inefficient. The opposite is actually the case. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s tough to quantify the\nsecret sauce that Sam Colt used to make his eponymous revolver so awesome. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The sensual arching grip of the Colt Peacemaker, shown here on the right, is markedly more comfortable, to me at least, than that of a modern combat pistol like this HK VP9. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The gracefully curved butt\nlooks so antiseptic and mechanical, yet it fits my own hand better than that of\nany modern plastic pistol. The single action requires a little attention, but through\nsix rounds I can run mine almost as well as I might a Glock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nRest of the Story<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"The
Clay Allison was notorious for stripping down to his birthday suit for drunken forays into town to foment chaos. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Clay Allison shot his way into and out of trouble on several occasions after he executed Chunk Colbert over a meal. He also had a fascinating habit of getting liquored up and riding into town wearing nothing but his gunbelt. In November of 1875, he arrived in Cimarron in just such a state to celebrate his shooting of Francisco \u201cPancho\u201d Griego. Allison performed some kind of war dance at the scene of the recent killing with a red ribbon tied prominently around his manhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Wyatt Earp (right) and Bat Masterson purportedly had a run-in with Clay Allison in Dodge City, but the details have been lost to history. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Allison also played a\nmajor role in the Colfax County War that claimed some 200 lives. In 1876 he\nreacted to a negative editorial in the local paper by blowing up the newspaper\noffice with a substantial black powder charge and throwing the printing press\ninto the nearby Cimarron River. Allison shot and killed a Deputy Sheriff named Charles\nFaber but later beat the rap in court. Allison was said to have faced down\nWyatt Earp and Bat Masterson in Dodge City in 1878, but the details are\ndisputed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Clay Allison did not suffer foolishness well. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In 1886 Allison developed\nan abscessed tooth, but the dentist got nervous in the presence of such a\nnotorious gunfighter and extracted the wrong molar. Enraged, Allison enlisted\nthe assistance of another dentist to remove the diseased tooth before returning\nand pulling a molar from the first practitioner in retribution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
These two stones adorn Clay Allison\u2019s grave to this day. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In 1887 at age 45 Clay\nAllison was driving a wagon loaded with supplies to his new ranch in Pecos,\nTexas. A grain sack shifted, and Allison lurched to prevent its falling. The\ninveterate gunman lost his balance and tumbled out of the wagon. The horses\nreared and the wagon wheel rolled across his head and neck, crushing his skull\nand nearly decapitating him. Clay Allison, legendary gunfighter and originator\nof the term \u201cShootist,\u201d was laid to rest in the Pecos Cemetery the following\nday. A crowd of hundreds arrived to pay their respects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Despite his untimely and ignominious death, Clay Allison became the stuff of legend in Old Western lore.     <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Buy and Sell on GunsAmerica!<\/a><\/em><\/strong>         <\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our vision of Old West gunplay was formed by Western movies rather than the Old West itself. The very term \u201cGunslinger\u201d was an early-20th century concoction. Clay Allison, however, was the real deal. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":130099,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_specdata_upc":"","_specdata_placement":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[257,772],"tags":[132,102,752,636,1106],"featured":[],"hunt365":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-130098","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-historical-guns","8":"category-will-dabbs","9":"tag-buzz","10":"tag-feature-articles","11":"tag-historical-guns","12":"tag-history","13":"tag-western"},"yoast_head":"\nThe Life and Times of the Brain-Damaged Gunslinger Clay Allison<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Life and Times of the Brain-Damaged Gunslinger Clay Allison - Will Dabbs\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/the-life-and-times-of-the-brain-damaged-gunslinger-clay-allison\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Life and Times of the Brain-Damaged Gunslinger Clay Allison\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Our vision of Old West gunplay was formed by Western movies rather than the Old West itself. 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However, shooting guns and claiming it was work seemed like a pretty sweet hustle. As a result, Will serendipitously transformed an avocation into a vocation. Raised in the Mississippi Delta, Will flew UH1H, OH58A\/C, CH47D and AH1S helicopters operationally as an Army Aviator. He is SCUBA-qualified and has parachuted out of perfectly good airplanes at 3 o'clock in the morning. Will has summited Mount McKinley, Alaska, six times\u2026always at the controls of an Army helicopter, which is the only way sensible folk climb mountains. Will has delivered sixty babies and occasionally wrung human blood out of his socks. He is married to his high school sweetheart and has three awesome adult children. Turn-ons include vintage German machineguns, flying his sexy-cool RV6A airplane, Count Chocula cereal and the movie \u201cAliens.\u201d www.word-monkey.com Experience: -Professional Writer-thousands of publishing credits for dozens of titles -Mechanical Engineer\/Practicing Physician -Instrument-rated Commercial Pilot -Sunday School Teacher\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.word-monkey.com\",\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/will.dabbs.9\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/drwildmanmd\/\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/author\/willdabbs\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Life and Times of the Brain-Damaged Gunslinger Clay Allison","description":"The Life and Times of the Brain-Damaged Gunslinger Clay Allison - Will Dabbs","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/the-life-and-times-of-the-brain-damaged-gunslinger-clay-allison\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Life and Times of the Brain-Damaged Gunslinger Clay Allison","og_description":"Our vision of Old West gunplay was formed by Western movies rather than the Old West itself. 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