I was reading Texas W.P.A. stories, & stumbled across Auberry A. Akin's story. In 1893, I think, he said he was a U.S. Marshal out of Ft. Smith, & that he was a posseman.
It's really an interesting, first person story.
I'm just curious, how many of these old-time lawmen actually left something in writing, about their work?

Many, many, many.

The previous post was correct that many of the old-time lawmen left accounts of their service. Unfortunately, there are many who left a written record, but official documentation of their service has yet to be located. There are some who probably embellished their service such as Frank "Pistol Pete" Eaton who appears to have been (if he did indeed serve in any law enforcement capacity) a posse for commissioned deputy U.S. marshals.

One of the real treasures in research is to locate the hand-written day books/journals kept by deputy marshals while in pursuit of the lawless. I have only come across those written by DUSM Benjamin Williams (in a private collection), DUSM Addison Beck (the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville has 2 of his day books), and DUSM Henry A. "Heck" Thomas (I believe the originals are either still in the family or in the collection of the Museum of the Great Plains in Lawton, OK).

The WPA Indian-Pioneer history interviews are a very good source for these stories as well and many (if they are truthful) are the only records of service.

Newspapers of the period are another good source as on occasion a researcher can locate letters written to the editors or actual interviews by deputies passing through a particular locale.

The WPA interviews were, in my opinion, one of the best things the government ever did during the Depression, and I am grateful people (usually out of work writers) took the time to record for posterity these fascinating stories. But the interviews should be regarded with caution, as many transcribe recollections of events that occurred some thirty, forty, or even fifty years before they were recorded, and memory is a fallible source.

For example, I consider myself knowledgable about the Dalton train robbery at Adair the night of 14 July 1892. Mrs. Louise Rider, wife of Indian Policeman Charlie Rider, left an account (in an Indian Pioneer interview dated 18 April 1938) of that event. She states that the marshals and police expected a robbery that night at Adair but this seems not to be the case. A robbery was expected but at Pryor Creek, south of Adair, and many accounts report that beside the mobile force aboard the train hoping to ambush the Daltons, another posse (the size of which has been variously estimated) was hidden around the depot in Pryor Creek for the same purpose.

She further states that the doctor who was killed, Dr. Goff, "had just come to that place [Adair] from St, Louis." As best I can tell, Dr. Goff was visiting from his home in Fredericksburg, Missouri.

She reports the doctors were sitting on the porch of a hotel when the robbery began. Most accounts identify their location as a drugstore. The evidence indicates there was a hotel in Adair at that time, but it seems to have been on the east side of the track a couple of hundred yards away from the depot in a residential district. As most reports have the Daltons shooting the doctors as they left the town west on Main Street, it does not appear that her information is correct.

She remembers that "it was a bright moon-lit night," Well, maybe, but only after the robbery was over. We know with some exactitude when the robbery began, at 9:42 that night as it was then the Katy train was scheduled to arrive in Adair. Most accounts of the robbery indicate it lasted about thirty to forty minutes, which would have it over by about 10:15 or 10:30 that night. But the moon, a 3/4 full waning moon, did not rise that night until 11:00.

She thought the "officers killed one of the gang." Some contemporary accounts reported similarly, but most sources report that all the gang escaped unharmed.

My point--I suppose an obvious one--is that such interviews need to be integrated with other historical sources before one can have any condifence in their accuracy. But often they do contain information of great historical interest.

--meursault