Not many figures in history are known as both heroes and outlaws, and still, even fewer go into legend. However, Billy the kid stuck both hatred and love in the hearts of America during his life and death. He was immortalized by the public, but feared by the law. Though his life was made up of a wonderer and a drifter, facts were put together to have the American public educated on the boy who became a legend. Even though educators sometimes like to look the other way at some of America's unpleasant points in history, the truth should be told about the days of the wild west and Billy the kid, because it was a time that Americans endured. It would be like omitting the fact that America embraced slavery. So many mysteries and few facts surrounded his life, that most people, including the man who wrote the first biography on him Ash Upson, used imagination and fiction to describe his life, rather than facts. Really, the only thing people ever knew about the kid was that he lived and he died by the gun. However, there was a boy before there was a legend, there were facts before there were fictions, and his life story must be told so that perhaps in death, justice will prevail.
             Catherine McCarty, the mother of the kid, was seventeen when she emigrated from Ireland to New York during the great potato famine. On April 10, 1846, she stepped off of the Devonshire onto United States shores. She had two sons, Joseph and William. Joseph was born between 1854-1863, and William was born sometime in 1859-1862. (http://www.zianet.com/snm/kidsmom.htm. Gordon Fikes, April 22nd, 2002) It was thought for some time that his birth was on November 23, 1859, but November 23 was Ash Upson's birthday. Furthermore, the year 1859 is thought to be a fabrication according to make it seem more right to have killed a man of twenty-one, rather than a child of nineteen. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A247691 The kid behind the Alias, April 22nd ...