Henry Andrew "Heck" Thomas (January 3, 1850 – August 14, 1912) was a lawman on the American frontier, most notably in Indian Territory. He was known for helping bring law and order to the region. In 1889 as a deputy in Fort Smith, Arkansas, he tried to capture Ned Christie (Cherokee), wanted as a suspect in the killing of a US marshal. Thomas was among the lawmen who ended the run of the Wild Bunch, also known as the Doolin-Dalton Gang. Emmett Dalton, the surviving member of the gang, said that due to Thomas's relentless pursuit, they attempted two simultaneous robberies in Coffeyville, Kansas, planning to leave the territory with a haul. These failed and four gang members died in a shootout there. In August 1896, Thomas led a posse that tracked down and killed outlaw Bill Doolin. Early life Thomas was born in 1850 in Oxford, Georgia, the youngest of five children of Martha Ann Fullwood (née Bedell) and Lovick Pierce Thomas, I. At the beginning of the American Civil War, Thomas was twelve when he accompanied his father and his uncle, Edward Lloyd Thomas, to war as a courier. The men were officers in the 35th Georgia Infantry and fought in the battlefields in Virginia. Career On September 1, 1862, Union General Philip Kearny was killed at the Battle of Chantilly. Young "Heck" Thomas was entrusted with the general's horse and equipment; Confederate General Robert E. Lee ordered him to take them through the lines to General Kearny's widow. Thomas recounted this in a letter to his brother Lovick Pierce Thomas, II: In 1863, Thomas contracted typhoid fever and returned to his family in Athens, Georgia. As a young man, he clerked in Atlanta at his brother Lovick's store. Later he worked as an Atlanta policeman. In 1871, he married Isabel Gray. Thomas and his family migrated to Texas in 1875; with the help of his cousin, Jim Thomas, he obtained a job as a guard with the railroad. Thomas was promoted to railroad detective and later went to work for the Fort Worth Detective Association. He was appointed a U.S. Deputy Marshal based in Fort Smith, Arkansas, working under U.S. District Judge Isaac C. Parker. Parker's district included Indian Territory. By 1889, Thomas teamed with two other deputy U.S. marshals, Chris Madsen and Bill Tilghman. They became known as the Three Guardsmen and were credited with bringing