Joyce, you write.: "Just referring to possible connection with Earp killing Ringo, this accounts to the obvious nonsense. John Ringo's name was all too well known. If this guy rattled off people Wyatt supposedly went after, how did he omit a name like Ringo's among some lesser-known characters? Clearly, Ringo was not believed or known to be among the "...others who had a hand, directly or indirectly, in the war..."

Ringo had quite a reputation in Texas due to his participation in the Mason County War in the '70s and in Arizona in the '80s due to being considered a leader of the Cowboys and his participation in the Cochise County War, but by the early 1900s he was virtually unknown nationally as a Western character. Go to Chronicling America and search for articles on John Ringo, and other than a very few that are in Arizona and California papers, it's surprising how he had dropped off the map. The first article I could find about him after a more than thirty-year dry spell was one in an Arizona paper in which Judge James Hancock tells of an unsuccessful attempt by Ring and Joe Hill to steal some mules. Same with Newspapers.com. His name does not begin to show up in the national press until the mid-Twenties because of Bechdolt's WHEN THE WEST WAS YOUNG, Breakenridge's HELLDORADO and Burns' TOMBSTONE.

Even though he never participated in a face-to-face gunfight and was connected to several murders, Ringo certainly had a presence or charisma that set him apart from the typical rustler. Util Breakenridge started to act like a one-man PR firm for him to every writer that visited him, John Ringo had virtually disappeared from the public memory by the time Bat wrote these articles.