Wyatt Earp and Billy Clanton who threatened to kill the Earps on several occasions. The conflict escalated over the next year, culminating in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral on October 26, 1881 in which the Earps and Doc Holliday killed three of the Cowboys. In the next five months, Virgil was ambushed and maimed, and Morgan was assassinated. Wyatt, Warren Earp, Doc Holliday, and others formed a federal posse which killed three of the Cowboys whom they thought responsible. Wyatt was never wounded in any of the gunfights, unlike his brothers Virgil and Morgan or his friend Doc Holliday, which only
James Earp worked in gambling houses. He was not present at the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral on October 26, 1881. On December 28, 1881, his brother Virgil Earp was ambushed, shot three times with a shotgun. He survived, but only two months later on March 18, 1882, his brother Morgan Earp was assassinated in a billiard parlor. The New Mexico and Arizona Railroad ended about away in Benson, Arizona. On Sunday, March 19, Wyatt and James Earp accompanied Morgan's body in a wagon to Benson, where it was loaded onto a freight train for immediate shipping to Colton. Morgan's wife was