Reading up on the people you want to portray is the only way!
For Indian Warfare on the High Plains, 1865-1879 READ Scalp Dance by Thomas Goodrich. Great work of actual accounts!
California:
Bad Company by Joseph Henry Jackson (searches out the truth)
Trail Dust and Saddle Leather by Jo Mora (leans heavy on the
20th century Hollywood influences)
Californios by Jo Mora
Tombstone, Arizona (The most accurate books):
"The OK Coral Inquest" - Edited by Al Turner
"The Earps Talk" Al Turner
"Helldorado" - Breckenridge
"I Married Wyatt Earp" - Boyer (Recent historians debate
the truth of Boyer's work and call it collectable, but not history!)
"The Search for the Holidays" - Pendleton
"The Tombstone Epitaph" - Douglas D. Martin
Also:
The Tombstone Epitaph
P.O.Box 1880
Tombstone, AZ
Continuously being published since May 1, 1880!
Tabloid format, published monthly (the actual newspaper is still being published as a weekly by the students at U of AZ Journalism School in Tucson), contributors are mostly members of Western Writers of America - gratis, Subscription $15/year.
Ranch Life and Hunting Trail by Theodore Roosevelt
The Trial of Frank James
Good Man With a Gun - Haley
John Selman - Metz
Billy the Kid - Utley
Arizona's Dark & Bloody Ground - Forrest
The Hash Knife Brand - Tinsley
Knights of the Green Cloth - Robert K. DeArment
Badge & Buckshot
Jesse James Was His Name - Dr. William A Settle
The Outlaw Youngers: A Confederate Brotherhood - Marley Brant
The Pistoleer - James Carlos Blake
The Last Gunfighter - Dr. Richard C. Marohn
Resource Materials
"The Old West" series - Time/Life
"Packing Iron - Gunleather of the Frontier West"
- Richard C. Rattenbury
"Peacemakers - Arms and Adventure in the Old West"
- R.L. Wilson
"Authentic Costumes and Characters of the Wild West"
- E. Lisle Reedstrom, published by Sterling Publishing,
ISBN#0-8069-8644-1 (A must for reenactors!)
"I See By Your Outfit " - Tom Lindmier and Steve Mount
"GIT BACK!"
