A large confrontation between the two forces takes place on the afternoon of July 15, 1878, when the Regulators are surrounded in Lincoln in two different positions; the McSween house and the Ellis store.

Facing them are the Dolan/Murphy/Seven Rivers cowboys.

In the Ellis store are Scurlock, Bowdre, Middleton, Frank Coe, and several others.

About twenty Mexican Regulators, led by Josefita Chavez, are also positioned around town.

In the McSween house are Alex McSween and his wife Susan, Billy the Kid, Henry Brown, Jim French, Tom O'Folliard, Jose Chavez y Chavez, George Coe, and a dozen Mexican vaqueros.

Over the next three days, the men exchange shots and shouts.

Tom Cullens, one of the McSween house defenders, is killed by a stray bullet.

The Dolan cowboy Charlie Crawford is shot at a distance of five hundred yards (four hundred and sixty meters) by Doc Scurlock's father-in-law, Fernando Herrera.

Around this time, Henry Brown, George Coe, and Joe Smith slip out of the McSween house to the Tunstall store, where they chase two Dolan men into an outhouse with rifle fire and force them to dive into the bottom to escape.

The impasse continues until the arrival of U.S. Army troops under the command of Colonel Nathan Dudley.

When these troops point cannons at the Ellis store and other positions, Doc Scurlock and his men break from their positions, as do Chavez's cowboys, leaving those left in the McSween house to their fate.

On the afternoon of July 19, the soldiers set the house afire.

As the flames spread and night falls, Susan McSween and the other woman and five children are granted safe passage out of the house, while the men inside continue to fight the fire.

By 9 p.m., those left inside get set to break out the back door of the burning house.

Jim French goes out first, followed by Billy the Kid, O'Folliard, and Jose Chavez y Chavez.

The Dolan men see them running and open fire, killing Harvey Morris, McSween's law partner.

Some troopers move into the back yard to take those left into custody when a close-order gunfight erupts.

Alexander McSween and the Seven Rivers cowboy Bob Beckwith both die.

Three other Mexican Regulators get away in the confusion, to rendezvous with the "iron clad" members yards away.

The Lincoln County War has accomplished little other than to foster distrust and animosity in the area.

The surviving Regulators, most notably Billy the Kid, continue as fugitives.

Gradually, his fellow gunmen will scatter to their various fates, and he will ride with Bowdre, O'Folliard, Dave Rudabaugh, and a few other friends, with whom he rustles cattle and commits other crimes.