Popular gambler tangles with Will Bill

Always willing to do fellow Texans a favor, Phil Coe agreed on Oct. 4, 1871 to give four dozen cowboys the grand tour of Abilene when they arrived the next day in the Kansas cowtown. As adept at making friends as filling an inside straight, Philip Haddox Coe was so popular that a company of Confederates elected him their lieutenant. However, as soon as the six-foot-four civilian learned a…