Holliday is best known for his role in the events surrounding and his participation in the gunfight at the O. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. He developed a reputation as having killed more than a dozen men in various altercations, but modern researchers have concluded that, contrary to popular myth-making, Holliday killed only one to three men. Holliday's colorful life and character have been depicted in many books and portrayed by well-known actors in numerous movies and television series.
He set up practice in Griffin, Georgia, but he was soon diagnosed with tuberculosis , the same disease that had claimed his mother when he was 15 and his sister before his birth, having acquired it while tending to his mother's needs.
Hoping the climate in the American Southwest would ease his symptoms, he moved to that region and became a gambler, a reputable profession in Arizona in that day. He saved Wyatt Earp's life during a saloon confrontation in Texas, and they became friends. While in Tombstone, local members of the outlaw Cochise County Cowboys repeatedly threatened him and spread rumors that he had robbed a stagecoach.
The lawmen attempted to disarm five members of the Cowboys near the O. Corral on the west side of town, which resulted in the famous shootout. Following the Tombstone shootout, Virgil Earp was maimed by hidden assailants while Morgan Earp was killed. Unable to obtain justice in the courts, Wyatt Earp took matters into his own hands. As the recently appointed deputy U. As a federal posse, they pursued the outlaw Cowboys they believed were responsible.
The local sheriff issued a warrant for the arrest of five members of the federal posse, including Holliday. The federal posse killed three other Cowboys during late March and early April , before they rode to the New Mexico Territory.
