When the sun rose over Lincoln on July 15, 1878, the town wasn’t waking up — it was bracing for war.

Billy the Kid, Doc Scurlock, Tom O’Folliard, Jim French, and nearly sixty Regulators fortified the McSween home and Tunstall store, carving rifle portholes into adobe walls as they prepared for the inevitable clash with Sheriff George Peppin, The House, and their hired guns.

Across the street, Peppin and James Dolan transformed the Wortley Hotel and Murphy-Dolan store into military strongholds. Reinforcements thundered in from the west — the Jesse Evans Gang, John Kinney’s fighters, the Seven Rivers Warriors — men who weren’t there for law, but for blood and pay.

By mid-morning, Lincoln’s single dusty street had become a war zone. Civilians hid behind adobe as volleys cracked across the valley. The Torreón fell into a mini-siege. A newborn and her mother were caught in the crossfire. And the law — the real law — never came.

Day 1 of the Lincoln Siege was defined not by high casualties but by the birth of inevitability.

This episode takes you inside that first day — the fortifications, the failed warrants, the battlefield psychology, and the quiet moments between gunfire when every man wondered whether dawn would be his last.

If you think you know Lincoln… you’ve never stood inside the smoke.

⭐ Like, follow, rate, and review Gallows & Gunfights to keep these stories alive.