Virgil Earp as a colonel during the Second Mexican War. Virgil Earp Virgil Walter Earp (July 18, 1843 – October 19, 1905) was both deputy U.S. Marshal and Tombstone, Arizona City Marshal when he led his brothers Morgan and Wyatt and Doc Holliday in a confrontation with outlaw Cowboys at the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral on October 26, 1881. They killed brothers Tom and Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton. All three Earp brothers had been the target of repeated death threats made by the Cowboys who were upset by the Earps' interference in their illegal activities. All four lawmen were charged
Wyatt Earp a western screenwriter for years to come. It also established the gunfight at the O.K. Corral in the public consciousness and Earp as a fearless lawman in the American Old West. The book "is now regarded more as fiction than fact", "an imaginative hoax, a fabrication mixed with just enough fact to give it credibility". Josephine Earp worked hard to create an image of Wyatt as a teetotaler, but as a saloon owner and gambler, he drank occasionally as well. When Flood and Lake wrote their biographies, Prohibition was in force. Among the other facts Josephine wanted scrubbed from Earp's