Book Review: A Most Noted Man

Azariah Wild.

It’s one of the great names of the Wild West. But even most serious students of American history have either never heard of him, or have heard of him only in connection with Billy the Kid, to whom he offered a deal.

In the fall of 1880, Wild was a U.S. Secret Service operative sent to Lincoln County, New Mexico, to investigate a counterfeiting ring. During his investigation, he crossed paths with attorney Ira Leonard and lawman Pat Garrett, and through them, Billy the Kid himself. Billy, then a wanted man, offered to cooperate with Wild's investigation in exchange for immunity. Wild, by the book, refused to promise anything without approval from his superiors. The deal fell through. Weeks later, Billy was in chains, and Tom Folliard was bleeding out in the dirt.

But there’s much more to Wild than this missed opportunity.

Born in Vermont in 1835, Azariah Faxon Wild was a Union veteran who served in the 8th Vermont Infantry and later as a white officer in the United States Colored Troops. After the war, he became an outspoken Radical Republican in Reconstruction-era Louisiana, where he registered Black voters, clashed with white supremacists, and survived an arson attempt on his home. He went on to become a dedicated federal operative, risking his life investigating government fraud and counterfeiters—most notably exposing a corrupt whiskey ring that nearly cost him his life when a paid assassin stabbed him multiple times in broad daylight.

The Secret Service Reports of Azariah F. Wild compiles his daily reports from September 1880 through May 1881, chronicling his time in New Mexico with vivid, first-person detail. The transcriptions, presented here by historian James Townsend, are bookended by a well-researched biography that fills in Wild’s broader life and career. Townsend, known as the host and creator of the Chasing Billy video series (www.chasingbilly.com) and his efforts with the Billy the Kid Coalition, has a gift for finding overlooked stories in the margins of Western myth and bringing them to the fore with precision, clarity, and respect for the facts.

That clarity matters. In an era where half-truths and legend often stand in for evidence, Townsend's dogged determination to get it right (even when it ruffles feathers among the more established but less careful corners of Western history) is a breath of fresh air. His work here on Wild isn’t just a recovery of one man’s part of the story; it’s a reframing of our understanding of law enforcement, government authority, and federal presence in the Wild West.

Azariah Wild himself? He’s fascinating. A man of contradictions: idealistic and frustrated, principled and worn-down, proud and occasionally over his head. His reports reveal the chaos and limitations of federal authority on the frontier. Mail was stolen. Warrants went undelivered. The marshal was drunk. The jails were worthless. And yet Wild carried on, often alone, trying to impose order with paperwork and persistence in a land ruled by bullets and bluff.

This book is for anyone interested in the real machinery behind Western history, because that history isn't just the gunslingers, but the agents and officers who tried (and often failed) to hold it all together. For readers interested in New Mexico, the Lincoln County Wars, or the world orbiting Billy the Kid, this is essential material. But it’s also a model for how to present primary sources: carefully researched, contextualized, and compelling.

If Townsend continues producing history at this level, he’s going to become a serious force in the field. Here’s hoping this book finds the audience it deserves, and that it’s only the beginning.