re: August 2, 1876 - Aces and Eights

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Why doesn’t any know what the 5th card was?

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According to a book by Western historian Carl W. Breihan, the cards were retrieved from the floor by a man named Neil Christy, who then passed them on to his son. The son, in turn, told Mr. Breihan of the composition of the hand. "Here is an exact identity of these cards as told to me by Christy's son: the ace of diamonds with a heel mark on it; the ace of clubs; the two black eights, clubs and spades, and the queen of hearts with a small drop of Hickok's blood on it,"[7] though nothing of the sort was reported at the time immediately following the shooting.

Hickok biographer Joseph Rosa wrote about the make-up of the hand: "The accepted version is that the cards were the ace of spades, the ace of clubs, two black eights, and the queen of clubs as the 'kicker'."[8] Rosa, however, said that no contemporaneous source can be found for this exact hand.[9] The solidification in gamers' parlance of the dead man's hand as two pairs, black aces and eights, did not come about until after the 1926 publication of author Frank Wilstach's 1926 book, Wild Bill Hickok: The Prince of Pistoleers, 50 years after Hickok's death.[6][1]

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