Virgil married before he left to serve in the Union Army during the American Civil War. When he returned, his wife and child had left. He held a variety of other jobs throughout his life, though he primarily worked in law enforcement. His younger brother Wyatt, who spent most of his life as a gambler, became better known as a lawman because of writer Stuart N. Lake's fictionalized 1931 biography "" and later portrayals of him in movies and fiction as Old West's "toughest and deadliest gunmen of his day." In 1898, Virgil learned that his first wife Ellen Rysdam and their daughter were living in Oregon and reestablished contact with them. After suffering from pneumonia for six months, Virgil died on October 19, 1905.