Abilene James (1825-1865) was an American gunslinger and soldier of fortune of the Wild West who was affiliated with Joe Erin's outlaw gang during the 1860s. He and the rest of Erin's gang were killed in Mexico while fighting for the Second Mexican Empire against Benito Juarez's liberal rebels.
Biography[]
"Abilene James" was born in 1828 and raised in Abilene, Republic of Texas, and he became a gunslinger in the Wild West and joined Joe Erin's outlaw gang on the Texas-Mexico border. The gang came to Mexico during the Franco-Mexican War of the 1860s to serve as soldiers-of-fortune, and they became reluctant partners with Erin's new acquaintance Ben Trane in 1865, having briefly believed that Trane had killed their boss after they saw Trane ride up to their cantina on Erin's horse. The gang behaved boorishly when they were brought to Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico's palace at Mexico City to be hired as escorts for Countess Marie Duvarre's convoy from the capital to Veracruz; during the ride, they had to be restrained by Erin and Trane because of their scrappy nature and their mistreatment of Mexican women. When the gang accompanied Erin and Trane to steal the convoy's carriage after the Americans' treacherous plans to steal the convoy's valuables were discovered by the Marquis Henri de Labordere, the gang decided to mutiny against Erin and Trane, as they deduced that the two men were cutting them out of whatever goods the two men believed were in the carriage. The mutiny was briefly averted when no gold was found in the carriage, and when General Mauricio Ramirez's Juarista rebels ambushed the group and shot Little-Bit McCallion before Trane and Erin negotiated a secret deal with them, by which they would help the Juaristas capture the gold for themselves in exchange for $100,000. Erin's former gang comrades returned to Veracruz, where they would fight alongside the Mexican Army against the attacking rebels, resulting in the deaths of all of Erin's former gang mates.