Includes bibliographical references and index.

"Wyoming's infamous Johnson County War exploded on the local and national consciousness in 1892 and has never lost its imaginative power. The basis for such classic novels as The Virginian and Shane, it has been re-enacted in such major motion pictures as Shane and Heaven's Gate." "Now Wyoming attorney John W. Davis retells the story of the West's greatest range war. Having scoured all the sources other writers have used, Davis has delved more deeply into land and census records, newspapers, and trial transcripts. The result is an all new interpretation. Davis looks at the conflict from the perspective of Johnson County residents - the people whose home territory was invaded and many of whom the invaders targeted for murder. He finds that, contrary to the received explanation, these people were not thieves and rustlers but legitimate citizens." "The broad outlines of the conflict are familiar: some of Wyoming's biggest cattlemen, under the guise of eliminating livestock rustling on the open range, hire two-dozen Texas cowboys and, with range detectives and prominent members of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, "invade" north-central Wyoming to clean out rustlers and other undesirables." "The invaders kill two alleged rustlers - Nate Champion and Nick Ray - but doing so delays their arrival in Buffalo, the county seat, and provides citizens time to mobilize. Local residents turn the tables, surrounding the invaders at the T. A. Ranch, where they intend to capture them by force. An appeal for help convinces President Benjamin Harrison to call out the army from nearby Fort McKinney, and after an all-night ride the soldiers arrive just in time to stave off the invaders' annihilation. Taken prisoner, they later avoid prosecution." "For years afterward, the cattle barons sought to justify their deeds, often by impugning the integrity of the people of Johnson County. Thanks to the big cattlemen's powers of persuasion, that skewed viewpoint has colored accounts of the war for a century."--BOOK JACKET.