* December 28 – Virgil Earp is ambushed in Tombstone and loses the use of his left arm.

The gunfight, believed to have lasted only about thirty seconds, was fought between the outlaw Cowboys Billy Clanton, Tom McLaury and his brother Frank McLaury, and the opposing lawmen Virgil Earp and his brothers Morgan and Wyatt Earp, aided by Doc Holliday acting as a temporary deputy of Virgil.

Lawmen Holliday and Morgan and Virgil Earp were wounded.

On December 28, 1881, Virgil Earp was maimed in an assassination attempt by the outlaw Cowboys, and on March 18, 1882, they assassinated Morgan Earp.

Virgil Earp had been given the job of Deputy U. S. Marshal for the region around Tombstone only days before his arrival.

Clum and his newspaper tended to side with the local business-owners ' interests, and supported Marshal Virgil Earp.

James, Virgil, Wyatt, Morgan, and Warren Earp were a tight-knit family who had worked and served together as deputy marshal, marshal, sheriff, and saloon owners in several towns, among other occupations, and had moved together from location to location.

Wyatt, James and Virgil Earp, along with their wives, arrived in Tombstone during the initial period of its chaotic growth on about December 1, 1879 when there were only a few hundred residents.

Virgil Earp thought that some of the Cowboys had met at Charleston, Arizona and taken " an oath over blood drawn from the arm of Johnny Ringo, the leader, that they would kill us.

Among those involved in the shooting, only Virgil Earp had any real experience in combat.

On July 25, 1880, Captain Joseph H. Hurst, of Company A, 12th Infantry, and Commanding Officer of Fort Bennett, asked Deputy U. S. Marshal Virgil Earp to help him track Cowboys who had stolen six U. S. Army mules from Camp Rucker.

Hurst brought four soldiers, and Virgil invited Wyatt and Morgan Earp, as well as Wells Fargo agent Marshall Williams.

Deputy U. S. Marshal Virgil Earp, along with temporary federal deputies Wyatt and Morgan Earp, Wells Fargo agent Marshall Williams, former Kansas Sheriff Bat Masterson ( who was dealing faro at the Oriental Saloon ), and County Sheriff Behan set out to find the robbers.

Ike Clanton later testified at the Spicer hearing that Doc Holliday, Virgil Earp, Wyatt Earp, and Morgan Earp had all confided in him that they had actually been involved in the stage robbery.

Wyatt and Virgil Earp rode with a sheriff's posse and tracked the Bisbee stage robbers.

Frank Stilwell had just arrived in Bisbee with his livery stable partner, Pete Spence, when the two were arrested by Deputy U. S. Marshal Virgil Earp for the holdup.

Released on bail, Spence and Stilwell were re-arrested October 13 by Deputy U. S. Marshal Virgil Earp for the Bisbee robbery on a new federal charge of interfering with a mail carrier.