John Selman and His Terrible Scouts

They ravaged New Mexico in the late 1870s.

John Selman is known for killing gunfighter John Wesley Hardin. But he had a sordid reputation well before that. In the late 1870s, he was living in Lincoln County, New Mexico Territory. He was leader of a gang called Selman’s Scouts, which terrorized people throughout the territory with acts of murder, rape and robbery. When Lew Wallace became governor of the territory, he put together a numbered list of men he wanted captured or killed. John Selman was number one. He hid out in Mexico for several years before returning to Texas—where he became a lawman.