Other notable participants included Sheriff William J. Brady, cattle rancher John Chisum, lawyer and businessmen Alexander McSween, James Dolan and Lawrence Murphy.

The older, established faction was dominated by James Dolan, who operated a dry goods monopoly through a general store referred to locally as "The House".

The Tunstall-McSween faction organized their own posse of armed men, known as the Lincoln County Regulators, and had their own lawmen consisting of town constable Richard M. Brewer[3] and Deputy US Marshal Robert A.

Further killings continued unabated for several months, climaxing in the battle of Lincoln, a five-day gunfight and siege that resulted in the death of McSween and the scattering of the Regulators.

Tunstall learned that Murphy and Dolan, who bought many of their cattle from rustlers, had lucrative beef contracts from the United States government to supply forts and Indian agencies.

[citation needed] The main event that resulted in the beginning of the Lincoln County War was controversy over the disbursement of Emil Fritz's insurance policy.

[8][9] On February 18, 1878, members of the Sheriff's posse caught up to Tunstall while he and his ranch-hands, Richard "Dick" Brewer, Billy the Kid, John Middleton, Henry Newton Brown, Robert A. Widenmann, and Fred Waite, were herding his last nine horses back to Lincoln.

Frank Warner Angel, a special investigator for the Secretary of the Interior, later determined that Tunstall was shot in "cold blood" by Jesse Evans, William Morton, and Tom Hill.

Tunstall's cowhands and other local citizens formed a group known as the Regulators to avenge his murder, since the territorial criminal justice system was controlled by allies of Murphy and Dolan.

While the Regulators at various times consisted of dozens of American and Mexican cowboys, the main dozen or so members were known as the "iron clad", including McCarty, Richard "Dick" Brewer, Frank McNab, Doc Scurlock, Jim French, John Middleton, George Coe, Frank Coe, Jose Chavez y Chavez, Charlie Bowdre, Tom O'Folliard, Fred Waite (a Chickasaw), and Henry Newton Brown.

After the Regulators were deputized by the Lincoln County justice of the peace, together with Constable Martinez, they attempted to serve the legally issued warrants to Tunstall's murderers.

[citation needed] On March 9, 1878, the third day of the journey back to Lincoln, the Regulators killed McCloskey, Morton, and Baker in the Capitan foothills along the Blackwater Creek.

Axtell also was able to revoke Widenmann's status as a Deputy US marshal, making Sheriff Brady and his men the only law officers of Lincoln County.

[16] On April 1, 1878, the Regulators French, McNab, Middleton, Waite, Brown and McCarty (Billy the Kid) made ready in the corral behind Tunstall's store before attacking Brady and his deputies on the main street of Lincoln.

[17] Three days after the murders of Brady and Hindman, the Regulators headed southwest from the area around Lincoln, reaching Blazer's Mill, a sawmill and trading post that supplied beef to the Mescalero Apaches.

[19] The next day, the Seven Rivers members Tom Green, Charles Marshall, Jim Patterson and John Galvin were killed in Lincoln, and although the Regulators were blamed, this was never proven.

Frank Coe escaped custody some time after his capture, allegedly with the assistance of Deputy Sheriff Wallace Olinger, who gave him a pistol.

[19] The day after McNab's death the Regulators known as the "iron clad" assumed defensive positions in the town of Lincoln, trading shots with Dolan men and, allegedly, members of the US Army cavalry.

Around the time of Segovia's death, the Regulator "iron clad" gained a new member, a young Texas cowboy named Tom O'Folliard, who soon became McCarty's best friend.

[20] A large confrontation between the two forces occurred on the afternoon of July 15, 1878, when the Regulators were surrounded in Lincoln in two different positions; the McSween house and the Ellis store.

Around this time, Henry Brown, George Coe, and Joe Smith left the McSween house and went to the Tunstall store, where they chased two Dolan men into an outhouse with rifle fire and forced them to dive into the bottom to escape.

As the flames spread and night began, Susan McSween and the other woman and five children were granted safe passage out of the house, while the men inside continued to fight the fire.

[26] Susan McSween took over a large sum of land in the years after the Lincoln County War ended, establishing a ranch in Three Rivers, New Mexico.