What type of shotgun did Doc carry?
The make and gauge of the shotgun Virgil Earp retrieved from the Wells Fargo office and subsequently handed Holliday were never specified. All we have is the Nuggets description of Doc “using a short shotgun, such as is carried by Wells Fargo & Co.’s messengers.” Generally, such weapons were ten-gauge. However, the small number of buckshot in Tom McLaury’s body (12), leads some to speculate it may have been a twelve-guage. When the Earps and Holliday passed Bauers Market, did Morgan tell Doc to “Let them have it?” Martha J. King said that while she was in the market, and as the City Marshal’s party passed, she heard one of the Earps say, “Let them have it!” and that Doc replied “All right.” However, Mrs. King didn’t know one Earp from another and couldn’t specifically identify the initial speaker. It was Glenn G. Boyer, in his book, I Married Wyatt Earp (1976), who identified Morgan Earp as the speaker. Boyer has “Josephine” say: “A woman in a butcher shop testified that as the Earps a
