Family feuds in the United States had occurred on October 26, 1881, and was itself the climax of the Earp–Clanton family feud, simmering since the summer of 1880. Tensions between the Earps and both the Clantons and McLaurys increased through 1881, culminating in the historic gunfight. At the O.K. Corral, three deputized Earp brothers, Wyatt, Morgan and Virgil, along with Doc Holliday, had killed Billy Clanton, Frank McLaury and Tom McLaury. The Clanton and McLaury families were aligned with the "Outlaw Cowboys", a loosely knit outlaw group of families, friends and acquaintances then living in surrounding Cochise and Pima counties. The Earp Vendetta ride was a
Josephine Earp when she was 17 and he was 33. He promised to marry her and she joined him in Tombstone. He reneged but persuaded her to stay. Behan was sympathetic to ranchers and certain outlaw Cowboys, who were at odds with Deputy U.S. Marshal Virgil Earp and his brothers, Wyatt and Morgan. Josephine left Behan in 1881, before the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, during which Wyatt and his brothers killed three Cochise County Cowboys. She went to San Francisco in March 1882 and was joined that fall by Wyatt, with whom she remained in a common-law marriage for 46 years