Vitals

Timothy Olyphant as Seth Bullock, taciturn Canadian-born lawman and hardware store owner

Deadwood, Summer 1876 to 1877

Series: Deadwood
Air Dates: March 21, 2004 to August 27, 2006
Creator: David Milch
Costume Designer: Janie Bryant

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

One of my favorite shows of all time, Deadwood aired its final episode 20 years ago tonight on August 27, 2006, shot down in its prime by HBO before series creator David Milch could fully execute his vision. Milch micro-lensed his poetically profane reflection on civilization through the real-life settlement of Deadwood, from its rugged origins as a lawless frontier mining camp to an incorporated town in Dakota Territory within a year. While Deadwood frames its narrative with actual figures and events, the series dramatizes and fictionalizes when needed to serve the story’s greater impact.

Though arguably an ensemble series (and one of the best to do it), Deadwood‘s closest equivalent to a lead character is Timothy Olyphant’s portrayal of real-life lawman Seth Bullock. Bullock was born in 1849 in Amherstburg, Canada, which he fled as a teenager to join an older sister. Despite an unhappy childhood and transient teen years, Bullock rose to quick prominence as a Montana Territorial Senator who helped create Yellowstone National Park in March 1872. The following year, he was elected sheriff of Lewis and Clark County, Montana.

It’s here where Deadwood begins, as Bullock gives up his Montana badge in the summer of 1876 to join business partner Sol Star (John Hawkes) hawking hardware to the gold miners in the boomtown of Deadwood. As demonstrated by the opening scene where Bullock remains steadfast against a lynch mob to enforce the law, the ex-marshal’s stubbornness doesn’t make him popular among town leaders like the shrewd pimp/saloon owner Al Swearengen (Ian McShane), but luckily the more tactful Sol often pacifies the pair’s confrontations while also patient weathering the more temperamental Seth’s moods. By the end of the first season, Deadwood’s lawlessness and Bullock’s sense of duty come to a head as he ends up pinning on a badge to become the first sheriff of Lawrence County in the newly created Dakota Territory, assuming the position from the unqualified blowhard Con Stapleton (Peter Jason).

Reality Check: In real life, the 28-year-old Irish-born Stapleton had indeed been voted in by a miner’s court as marshal in September 1876. He served for just over a year until the position was eliminated after the newly appointed Sheriff Bullock gradually assumed many of the marshal’s duties.

The series follows Bullock and living legend “Wild Bill” Hickok (Keith Carradine) arriving in Deadwood on the same July day, though historical record suggests that Bullock actually arrived on August 3, 1876—one day after Hickok’s famous “aces and eights” assassination by Jack McCall (Garret Dillahunt), so the two likely never met. Still, Hickok’s murder is shown to have a rippling effect on the growing demand for law enforcement in the rowdy camp. This and the initial discovery of gold in the Black Hills that had drawn the mass migration resulted in the United States government rescinding the terms of the Fort Laramie treaty that granted the land to the Lakota. Newly annexed into the Dakota Territory, territorial governor John L. Pennington appointed the 27-year-old Bullock as interim sheriff of Lawrence County in March 1877 until formal elections could be held, at which point the Irish-born John J. Manning was elected sheriff.

Reality Check: As opposed to the earnest and upright Johnny Manning who served three terms as Lawrence County sheriff in real life, the show’s flatulent “Harry Manning” as played by Brent Sexton is a considerably less effective lawman whose campaign is singularly focused on implementing a fire brigade.

Bullock and Swearengen’s antagonistic relationship—culminating in a bloody and muddy brawl in the second-season premiere—evolves with the camp’s turn toward civilization as they become uneasy bedfellows in protecting the town against more destructive outside influences, such as the ruthless gold magnate George Hearst (Gerald McRaney). HBO unexpectedly canceled the series after its third season, though Milch finally had the opportunity to conclude the saga of the town and its denizens like Bullock, Swearengen, and Hearst with the long-awaited Deadwood: The Movie (2019), set in 1889.

The real Seth Bullock’s own story continued beyond this as he befriended Teddy Roosevelt (who later described him as “a true Westerner, the finest type of frontiersman”), work with Sol Star to build Deadwood’s first hotel and found the nearby town of Belle Fourche, and served as U.S. Marshal for South Dakota. Bullock died of colon cancer in September 1919 at his home in Deadwood and was buried near Hickok’s grave at Mount Moriah Cemetery.

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What’d He Wear?

Following the usual pilot episode experimentation as character looks are established, Seth Bullock’s approach to dressing was affirmed by costume designer Janie Bryant, balancing frontier hardiness and genteel presentability through a limited rotation of dark jackets and frock coats, soft waistcoats, striped shirts with wing collars framing his hefty tie knots, and subtly patterned trousers—always topped with the same brown-on-black hat that featured in the series pilot.

Bullock’s hat follows a pattern that blends the frontier sensibilities of a cattleman’s-style cowboy hat with the formality of a homburg, appropriately known as a “Dakota” design. The body is a black felt, creased along the side of the crown and finished with a curled brim trimmed in a brown grosgrain silk that matches the band. Bryant specifically wanted Bullock’s headgear more restrained than the traditional broad-brimmed hats of screen cowboys since, after all, Bullock is not a cowboy. Baron Hats has stated that they designed and crafted Bullock’s hat, beginning their longstanding working relationship with actor Timothy Olyphant that continued onto Justified.

Bullock’s Dark Jackets

“Somebody like Seth Bullock pretty much always had his high collars and cuffs and cotton shirts and ties and vests and frock coats and trousers,” Bryant described for Matt Zoller Seitz’s essential companion volume, The Deadwood Bible: A Lie Agreed Upon, before expanding on the specific tailoring details: “The clothes needed to be period correct in terms of the particular style of pattern in which clothing was made at that time. For instance, the shoulder seam is behind the shoulders, as opposed to the top center of the shoulder—that helps to keep the shoulders back. And with the sleeve patterns, the sleeve is more rounded at the elbows, as opposed to the straight sleeve pattern [of today].”

The pilot episode brings Bullock into Deadwood wearing a dark charcoal flannel lounge jacket, mimicking modern tailored jackets but with more exaggeratedly wide notch lapels that taper to a two-button front. The natural shoulders bump over the tops of Bullock’s heavy waistcoat, finished with roping at the sleeve-heads. These sleeves are left plain at the cuffs, without buttons or vents. A welted pocket is set-in low on the chest, and the hip pockets have straight jetting at the tops.

Interestingly, this approach—paired with nearly matching trousers—most mimics how the actual Seth Bullock reportedly dressed, as Peter Cozzens describes in Deadwood: Gold, Guns, and Greed in the American West that “he favored black suits, perhaps to match his black hair and mustache”.

Appears in episode: “Deadwood” (1.01)

Through the following four episodes of the first season, Bullock wears yet another mottled charcoal flannel lounge jacket, though this one is clearly distinguished by the black scalloped braiding along the edges of the lapels—also widely notched with lazily rounded corners—rolling over the top of three buttons. The pocket layout is consistent with his earlier jacket, with a low-slung breast pocket and lower-positioned hip pockets (also with black scalloped trim), and the back is also ventless. The shoulders are natural but without roping at the sleeveheads, and the sleeves are finished with two vestigial cuff-buttons.

Appears in episodes: “Deep Water” (1.02), “Reconnoitering the Rim” (1.03), “Here Was a Man” (1.04), “The Trial of Jack McCall” (1.05)

Upon his return to the camp in the seventh episode, creatively titled “Bullock Returns to Camp”, Bullock debuts the frock coats that would become his staple for the rest of the series. “I always felt like that style of coat is definitely a hero’s coat—a leading man’s coat,” Bryant explains. He first wears a black hopsack wool single-breasted frock coat which extends to his knees. The short peak lapels have straight gorges at mid-chest, tapering to a closely spaced arrangement of four silver-toned shank buttons that mirror his three-button cuffs and the two decorative buttons positioned around the back of the waistband above each tail. It has straight side pockets but no breast pocket.

Bullock wears this through the duration of the first season and over the first four episodes of the second, pulling it back from his closet when in mourning for the last two episodes of the second season and [somewhat randomly] in the third-season episode “Leviathan Smiles”.

Appears in episodes: “Bullock Returns to the Camp” (1.07), “Suffer the Little Children” (1.08), “No Other Sons or Daughters” (1.09), “Mister Wu” (1.10), “Jewel’s Boot Was Made for Walking” (1.11), “Sold Under Sin” (1.12), “A Lie Agreed Upon (Part I)” (2.01), “A Lie Agreed Upon (Part II)” (2.02), “New Money” (2.03), “Requiem for a Gleet” (2.04), “Complications” (2.05), “Something Very Expensive” (2.06), “The Whores Can Come” (2.11), “Boy-the-Earth-Talks-To” (2.12), “Leviathan Smiles” (3.08)

Bullock introduces a second frock coat in the season’s seventh episode, “E.B. Was Left Out”, which he would wear with the aforementioned exceptions through the end of the second season and the majority of the third. Perhaps his flashiest outerwear yet, the brown-and-cream birdseye-woven wool cloth presents a subtly mottled sheen. The coat is trimmed with black piping around the the edges, including the Parisian-style “cran necker” lapels. The single-breasted button arrangement echoes his charcoal frock coat, with four closely spaced silver buttons up the front, two decorating the rear waistband, and three decorating the cuffs—set apart by bands of similar black piping.

Appears in episodes: “E.B. Was Left Out” (2.07), “Childish Things” (2.08), “Amalgamation and Capital” (2.09), “Advances, None Miraculous” (2.10), “Tell Your God to Ready for Blood” (3.01), “I Am Not the Fine Man You Take Me For” (3.02), “True Colors” (3.03), “Full Faith and Credit” (3.04), “A Two-Headed Beast” (3.05), “A Rich Find” (3.06), “Unauthorized Cinnamon” (3.07), “A Constant Throb” (3.10), “The Catbird Seat” (3.11), “Tell Him Something Pretty” (3.12)

Shirts, Collars, and Ties

Bullock keeps a wardrobe of five different shirts that he rotates among over the course of the series. With one exception, these shirts all follow a period-specific design of a short neckband (on which to attach a collar), a front bib that contrasts against the lightweight body of the shirt and two wide loops integrated over the chest to keep his suspenders in place. These popover shirts have a long four-button placket up the back, which I imagine would take some degree of acrobatics to put on oneself.

Appearing in the pilot episode, most of the first season, and again through the second and third seasons, Bullock’s first—and perhaps most frequently worn—shirt is white cotton, patterned with gray pencil-stripes along the body, sleeves, and neckband, leaving the single-button barrel cuffs a plain white cotton that matches the front bib; the effect is such that, with an attached collar, tie in place, and jacket on, the shirt would appear solid white.

Appears in episodes: “Deadwood” (1.01), “Deep Water” (1.02), “Reconnoitering the Rim” (1.03), “Here Was a Man” (1.04), “The Trial of Jack McCall” (1.05), “Mister Wu” (1.10), “Jewel’s Boot Was Made for Walking” (1.11), “Sold Under Sin” (1.12), “The Whores Can Come” (2.11), “Boy-the-Earth-Talks-To” (2.12), “A Rich Find” (3.06), “Unauthorized Cinnamon” (3.07)

While some elements of Bullock’s pilot-episode costume would steadily reappear over the course of the series (such as this striped shirt and checked waistcoat), others would be abandoned entirely. Perhaps the most prominent example of the latter is his collar.

Up until the 1920s, men’s dress shirts were almost exclusively designed to take detachable collars, so that the shirts themselves could be more vigorously laundered while the most presentable aspects—namely the collar—would undergo a separate cleansing, typically involving enough starch to keep them crisp and white.

In the pilot episode, Bullock dresses up to launch his and Star’s new hardware concern by attaching a stiff white point collar onto his shirt, which he wears through the following morning as he and Hickok gun down a shifty road agent who attempted to draw on them. Held in place with a silver stud, this collar frames the wide knot of his black-on-black patterned silk tie.

Appears in episode: “Deadwood” (1.01)

Whether due to shifting historical research or a revised vision for the character, the pilot was the only time Bullock wears the more modern turndown-style collar (at least until the reunion film, set more than a decade later in 1889); the second episode introduced the more old-fashioned wing collars he would wear for the duration of the series. Typically sized to fit the respective wearer’s neck, these collars overlapped in the front where they were held to the shirt’s neckband through a single stud.

For instances where Bullock would need to dress himself without anyone to button up his back placket, he changes to shirts with more self-accessible front plackets. The first of these appears when his lone ride in pursuit of McCall is waylaid by a Sioux warrior whom he brutally fights to the death in “Plague” (Episode 1.06).

Against the white ground, it is uniquely patterned with pale periwinkle stripes bordered on one side by slate stripes that alternate in width every four stripes; thus, four periwinkle stripes are each bordered by a hairline slate stripe, followed by four periwinkle stripes bordered by a slate stripe of equal width, and so on. The simpler design has a neckband (which he wears both with and without collar, even when he doesn’t wear a tie), a four-button front placket, and single-button barrel cuffs, lacking the bib and brace loops on his other shirts.

Though the shirt gets ruined by blood and mud, it reappears at the start of the second season when it would meet a similar fate during his fight against Swearengen in the thoroughfare. After being cleaned up for the third episode (set the following day) this particular striped shirt was retired from Bullock’s screen closet.

Appears in episodes: “Plague” (1.06), “A Lie Agreed Upon (Part I)” (2.01), “A Lie Agreed Upon (Part II)” (2.02), “New Money” (2.03)

When Bullock returns to camp after capturing McCall, he wears a plain white cotton shirt that also has a button-up front placket—presumably a three-quarter-length “popover” placket, like the striped shirt. He keeps the neckband undone, worn sans collar.

The all-white shirt accompanies an all-black waistcoat, both of which only feature together in these three first-season episodes—a uniquely transitory time in Bullock’s screen wardrobe that also introduces the charcoal frock coat that he would continue to wear off and on into the third and final season.  This particular vest differs from its others by a lighter-weight wool fabric, its single-breasted front (with black self-covered buttons), and four total welted pockets. Curiously, he foregoes this somber waistcoat (in favor of one of his more stalwart checked vests) when mourning his son at the end of the second season.

Appears in episodes: “Bullock Returns to the Camp” (1.07), “Suffer the Little Children” (1.08), “No Other Sons or Daughters” (1.09)

Bullock also wears a blue striped shirt that would feature in twelve episodes across the second and third seasons, tying with his first white striped shirt for frequency. The front bib features a light-blue two-toned mini-graph check while the body and sleeves are light-blue with navy stripes, the latter bordered on each side in a lighter blue tonal stripe. The shirt has integrated suspender loops over the chest, single-button cuffs made from the same checked fabric as the bib, a plain white crimped neckband, and a four-button popover placket in the back.

Appears in episodes: “Requiem for a Gleet” (2.04), “Complications” (2.05), “Something Very Expensive” (2.06), “Childish Things” (2.08), “Amalgamation and Capital” (2.09), “Advances, None Miraculous” (2.10), “The Whores Can Come” (2.11),”Tell Your God to Ready for Blood” (3.01), “I Am Not the Fine Man You Take Me For” (3.02), “Leviathan Smiles” (3.08), “Amateur Night” (3.09), “Tell Him Something Pretty” (3.12)

The third season introduces a fifth and final shirt from Bullock’s collection: the shirt’s body and sleeves are a light peach-pink patterned with white stripes, contrasted with a white crimped neckband, white pleated bib, and plain white single-button cuffs, as well as the expected popover-style back placket. He debuts this shirt in “True Colors” (Episode 3.03), paired with his iridescent purple silk tie that nicely calls out the pinkish shirting.

Appears in episodes: “True Colors” (3.03), “Full Faith and Credit” (3.04), “A Two-Headed Beast” (3.05), “A Constant Throb” (3.10), “The Catbird Seat” (3.11)

And on that note, let’s briefly catalog Bullock’s neckwear! The sheriff has a penchant for thick swaths of colorful silk, tied in a long, loose, and somewhat awkward variation of the modern four-in-hand knot known at the time as a “Teck scarf”, which Vintage Dancer advances was named after the Duke of Teck.

In addition to the black-on-black silk tie that only appears in the first episode, Bullock’s neckwear includes:

• A navy silk Teck tie with a raised brown-stenciled paisley pattern
  • Appears in episodes: “Deep Water” (1.02), “Reconnoitering the Rim” (1.03), “Here Was a Man” (1.04), “The Trial of Jack McCall” (1.05), “Requiem for a Gleet” (2.04), “A Rich Find” (3.06), “Unauthorized Cinnamon” (3.07), “Leviathan Smiles” (3.08)
• An indigo silk Teck tie with a light-blue, beige, and white paisley pattern (yes, this is a different tie!)
  • Appears in episodes: “Mister Wu” (1.10), “Jewel’s Boot Was Made for Walking” (1.11), “Sold Under Sin” (1.12),”Complications” (2.05), “Something Very Expensive” (2.06), “Tell Him Something Pretty” (3.12)
• A burgundy and indigo floral-patterned woven silk Teck tie with an iridescent shine
  • Appears in episodes: “E.B. Was Left Out” (2.07), “True Colors” (3.03), “Full Faith and Credit” (3.04)
• A black self-patterned Teck tie in a softer cloth that may be velvet, worn primarily for mourning and campaigning
  • Appears in episodes: “Childish Things” (2.08), “Amalgamation and Capital” (2.09), “Advances, None Miraculous” (2.10), “The Catbird Seat” (3.11)
• A dark-brown self-patterned silk Teck tie
  • Appears in episodes: “Tell Your God to Ready for Blood” (3.01), “I Am Not the Fine Man You Take Me For” (3.02), “A Two-Headed Beast” (3.05)

Bullock’s Fancy Waistcoats

With few very exceptions for when he’s riding solo or engaged in manual labor, Bullock invariably presents himself in one of his four waistcoats, even when he’s not wearing a jacket or tie. The Deadwood Bible shares that Janie Bryant “made Bullock a velvet vest, checked woolen pants, and striped cotton shirts, to create ‘a lot of textures and patterns, all mixed together in a very subtle way.’ She thought Bullock’s subdued but stylish way of dressing would subliminally communicate ‘that he was a textured character’—perhaps more than Bullock himself realized.”

The checked waistcoat that Bullock wears in the first episode would be his arguably most frequently worn, appearing in 16 of the show’s 36 episodes. The pattern is a black-and-gray shepherd’s check, textured with a mottled complexity. While indeed constructed from a thick fabric with some degree of napping, it appears to be a tweed-adjacent wool rather than velvet like the softer vest that would follow. It otherwise sets the template for Bullock’s preferred waistcoats with its broad-collared notch lapels sweeping to the top of a high-fastening double-breasted front, consisting of ten metal buttons arranged in two parallel columns above a straight-cut bottom. This particular waistcoat has ten nickel-finished shank buttons that shine against the darker waistcoat cloth. The back is finished in a black lining, with an adjustable strap across the bottom.

Appears in episodes: “Deadwood” (1.01), “Deep Water” (1.02), “Reconnoitering the Rim” (1.03), “Here Was a Man” (1.04), “The Trial of Jack McCall” (1.05), “Mister Wu” (1.10), “Jewel’s Boot Was Made for Walking” (1.11), “Sold Under Sin” (1.12), “Complications” (2.05), “Something Very Expensive” (2.06), “The Whores Can Come” (2.11), “Boy-the-Earth-Talks-To” (2.12), “True Colors” (3.03), “Full Faith and Credit” (3.04), “Leviathan Smiles” (3.08), “Amateur Night” (3.09)

The second season premiere introduces a brown velvet waistcoat that Bullock would wear across a dozen episodes through the show’s penultimate chapter. Like his charcoal frock coat in the same scene, Bullock’s waistcoat gets ruinously dirty during his street brawl with Swearengen, but Martha must be one hell of a laundress because he manages to wear both again the next day in “New Money”… and they look nearly pristine.

The self-backed brown velvet vest follows the same design as his checked waistcoat, with broad-collared notch lapels, welted pockets over the hips, and a straight-cut bottom. The ten recessed buttons up the high-fastening front are a brown horn sew-through style.

Appears in episodes: “A Lie Agreed Upon (Part I)” (2.01), “A Lie Agreed Upon (Part II)” (2.02), “New Money” (2.03), “E.B. Was Left Out” (2.07), “Childish Things” (2.08), “Amalgamation and Capital” (2.09), “Advances, None Miraculous” (2.10), “A Two-Headed Beast” (3.05), “A Rich Find” (3.06), “Unauthorized Cinnamon” (3.07), “A Constant Throb” (3.10), “The Catbird Seat” (3.11)

Given his subdued personality, it makes sense that Bullock reserves his fanciest waistcoat for the most limited occasions. Introduced in “Requiem for a Gleet” (Episode 2.04), perhaps to present himself more cleanly in something new after his fight with Al, this teal vest features a blue, green, and gray tartan plaid against a light-blue overcheck. The wide-collared notch lapels roll high to the brass-finished semi-spherical buttons arranged in twin columns of five each down to the straight-cut bottom.

Appears in episodes: “Requiem for a Gleet” (2.04), “Tell Your God to Ready for Blood” (3.01), “I Am Not the Fine Man You Take Me For” (3.02), “Tell Him Something Pretty” (3.12)

All of Bullock’s waistcoats have a pair of low-positioned welted pockets where he tucks his engraved gold hunter-cased pocket watch, strung “single Albert”-style on an open-link chain that loops adjacent to his vest’s third buttonhole with a decorative gold fob seal suspended from a short drop. The watch is most clearly seen in “New Money” (Episode 2.03), when Miss Isringhausen (Sarah Paulson) returns it to him after he left it in Alma’s room following their latest assignation.

Bullock’s Trousers

Bullock holds up his trousers with dark leather suspenders (braces) which, as mentioned, often pull through integrated loops on his shirts.

• In the first season, these are smooth black leather braces with belt-like brass single-prong buckles to adjust their fit over the front, snapped onto double-ear hooks that connect to buttons along the inside of the trouser waistband.
• By the end of the second season, he has graduated to thicker dark-brown leather suspenders with a subtle tooled design. These function more similarly to modern cloth braces, pulled through silver-toned adjusters and looped onto silver rings that sprout the pairs of hooks connecting inside the trouser waistband.

Bullock arrives in Deadwood wearing dark charcoal woolen flat-front trousers that set the template for his pants across all three seasons. The waistband is tailored cleanly to be worn with the aforementioned suspenders, with only a single button exposed above the button-up fly. The front pockets have slightly slanted full-top entries, positioned lower than modern wearers would expect, with no back pockets. They fit straight through Olyphant’s legs, down to plain-hemmed bottoms.

Appears in episodes: “Deadwood” (1.01), “The Whores Can Come” (2.11), “Boy-the-Earth-Talks-To” (2.12), “Tell Your God to Ready for Blood” (3.01), “I Am Not the Fine Man You Take Me For” (3.02)”, The Catbird Seat” (3.11), “Tell Him Something Pretty” (3.12)

The second episode debuts Bullock’s most frequently worn trousers, nattily patterned in a black-and-gray glen plaid. Though the “glen plaid” appellation wouldn’t become common until the Prince of Wales popularized this fabric in the 1920s, it had originated as early as the 1840s, when the Countess of Seafield outfitted the Glenurquhart Estate’s gamekeepers in it. Bullock’s fellow glen plaid enthusiasts are the camp’s nattier dressers like Silas Adams (Titus Welliver) and the doomed New York dude Brom Garret (Timothy Omundson).

Appears in episodes: “Deep Water” (1.02), “Reconnoitering the Rim” (1.03), “Here Was a Man” (1.04), “The Trial of Jack McCall” (1.05), “E.B. Was Left Out” (2.07), “Childish Things” (2.08), “Amalgamation and Capital” (2.09), “Advances, None Miraculous” (2.10), “The Whores Can Come” (2.11), “True Colors” (3.03), “Full Faith and Credit” (3.04), “Leviathan Smiles” (3.08), “Amateur Night” (3.09)

Across the second half of the first season, Bullock exclusively wears gray herringbone wool flat-front trousers that follow the same design as his others. Though he initially wears these for his ride to capture McCall, he continues wearing them in town with his frock coat, waistcoats, and ties.

Appears in episodes: “Plague” (1.06), “Bullock Returns to the Camp” (1.07), “Suffer the Little Children” (1.08), “No Other Sons or Daughters” (1.09), “Mister Wu” (1.10), “Jewel’s Boot Was Made for Walking” (1.11), “Sold Under Sin” (1.12)

Through the second and third seasons, Bullock occasionally rotates in a new set of woolen trousers, complexly detailed with sand-colored chalkstripes framing a charcoal plaid against a taupe-brown ground.

Appears in episodes: “A Lie Agreed Upon (Part I)” (2.01), “A Lie Agreed Upon (Part II)” (2.02), “New Money” (2.03), “Requiem for a Gleet” (2.04), , “A Two-Headed Beast” (3.05), “A Rich Find” (3.06), “Unauthorized Cinnamon” (3.07)

Midway through the second season and again in the series finale, “Tell Him Something Pretty” (Episode 3.12), Bullock wears charcoal woolen trousers detailed with a white pinstripe consisting of broken white dots arranged in closely spaced stripes, otherwise following the same design as his other trousers.

Appears in episode: “Complications” (2.05), “Something Very Expensive” (2.06), “Tell Him Something Pretty” (3.12)

Bullock’s riding boots throughout the series are solid black leather with a squared plain-toe, smooth calf-high shafts, and leather riding heels of a modest height that also allows for effectively strutting through the muck of the thoroughfare.

Everything Else

Bullock carries his Remington Model 1875 revolver in a classic gun-belt crafted from a wide swath of smooth dark-brown leather that fastens with a broad leather billet through a large silver-toned buckle with shallowly mitred corners. There are twelve cartridge loops around the back to hold two full extra loads.

Worn on his right side for a strong-side draw, the high-riding open-top holster itself has been worn to a slightly lighter patina, echoing the “Cheyenne Double Loop” style developed several years earlier among Wyoming Territory cowboys. Designed to sit at the waist (though the revolver’s weight often pulls it down on Olyphant’s right side), this is more period-accurate rig than the low-riding “Buscadero” style that originated in 1920s Westerns.

Bullock’s self-imposed mission of bringing Jack McCall to justice in “Plague” (Episode 1.06) finds the future sheriff in a less genteel outfit, pairing the multi-striped shirt and herringbone trousers both described earlier with a brown muslin scarf, brown cotton long-sleeved undershirt with a henley-style two-button top, and a long charcoal woolen sleeveless cloak with a shirt-style collar (laced to knot over the throat) and double-layered shoulder cape.

Appears in episodes: “Plague” (1.06) and “Bullock Returns to the Camp” (1.07)

Bullock wears a plain silver wedding band as a reminder of his occasionally inconvenient marriage to Martha Eccles (Anna Gunn). Though there’s no indication that their real-life union was anything short of loving (and it produced three daughters), the series reconfigures Seth and Martha’s marriage as one of convenience; the TV Martha had been married to Seth’s brother before his death, so Seth then married Martha to provide a father figure for their young son William (Josh Eriksson).

He also [eventually] wears a plain silver five-pointed sheriff’s badge, which he picks up from where Con Stapleton discarded it in “Sold Under Sin” (Episode 1.12). He’s still gripping it when talking to Dan Dority (W. Earl Brown), who tells him: “You ought to pin that on your chest. You’re hypocrite enough to wear it.” He doesn’t just yet, at least not until later in the night when conferring with Swearengen when he affixes it to his coat lapel before later wearing it on his waistcoat through the second and third seasons.

Bullock: I’ll be the fuckin’ sheriff.
Swearengen: Startin’ when?
Bullock: Startin’ now.
Swearengen: You have the tin?
Bullock: I do.
Swearengen: Produce it. (upon Bullock pulling out the badge) On the tit.
Bullock: I know where it goes!

The Deadwood Bible shares that the characters’ undergarments weren’t reserved for scenes where they’d be visible, as “wanting them to feel the era down to their skin, Milch insisted that the actors wear period accurate undergarments, too. That meant, for the men, long-john underwear with a flap in the back, and not just when viewers see them half-dressed.”

Unlike his erstwhile nemesis Swearengen, Bullock appropriately treats his union suit as underwear—only visible in intimate moments, such as sharing his bed with Martha. He invariably wears a thin gray cotton short-sleeved union suit with a full button-up front.

One of Olyphant’s complete screen-worn costume sets from the series was later auctioned, described by Live Auctioneers as “a black/brown tweed jacket with black trim, peach-striped shirt, olive grey velvet vest, purple floral tie, plaid pants and black western hat.”

Bullock’s look evolved over the following decade while maintaining the same frock coat, waistcoat, and contrasting trousers aesthetic, as will be addressed in later posts covering Deadwood: The Movie.

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The Guns

Despite coming to Deadwood as a private citizen, Seth Bullock is no dummy and holsters his Remington Model 1875 single-action revolver onto the right side of his cartridge belt from his first night in the lawless camp, and he continues wearing it through his eventual tenure as sheriff.

The Model 1875 was Remington’s overdue update of its successful New Model Army percussion revolver originally designed in 1858, maintaining the older weapon’s overall appearance, solid top-strap, and removable cylinder but refined for metallic cartridges. It is visually distinguished from contemporaries like the iconic Colt Single Action Army by a wing-like web under the barrel—a strictly cosmetic carryover from the 1858 design, which employed a pivoting loading lever and ramrod to push lead balls into its powder chambers.

Remington initially offered the Model 1875 exclusively in .44 Remington Centerfire, a now-obsolete proprietary cartridge exclusive to this model, but poor initial sales prompted Remington to eventually add chamberings for .44-40 Winchester Centerfire (WCF) and .45 Long Colt, the latter models outfitted with slightly longer cylinders to avoid users accidentally inserting .44-caliber rounds. Available in a blued or nickel-plated finish, the Remington Model 1875 typically boasted walnut grip panels and a 7½”-long barrel, though limited numbers late in its run were produced with 5¾” barrels.

E. Remington & Sons marketed these as the “Remington No. 3 Revolver, Model 1875” in an early catalog, settling into the “Remington Improved Army or Frontier Revolver” through the late 1870s, and finally reverting to the Model 1858’s “Remington New Model Army Revolver” name by the end of its run. Despite this martial nomenclature, the Model 1875 failed to compete with Colt and Smith & Wesson for American military contracts (aside from several hundred purchased for United States Indian Police), though Remington did find a customer base among the Egyptian and Mexican governments. Domestically, it also found its way into the hands of outlaws like Frank James, who handed his Model 1875 over to the law upon his 1882 surrender after his famous brother Jesse’s death.

Remington produced approximately 30,000 Model 1875 revolvers from its 1874 introduction through the late 1880s, when it was usurped by the .44-40 Remington Model 1890 that finally removed the under-barrel web.

Given the nearly pristine conditions of Bullock’s Model 1875, it’s most likely that Timothy Olyphant was armed with one of the modern replicas built by Uberti and Cimarron Firearms. Bullock continues to carry his Remington Model 1875, albeit in a new holster, in the 2019 movie.

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What to Imbibe

Seth Bullock is among the more temperate of Deadwood’s hard-drinking denizens, typically only throwing back a shot of whiskey when offered by Al Swearengen—whose offers including handing him a bottle in the days following their second-season brawl, warning that “you wipe the rim of that bottle, I’ll knock you out from my present vantage.” Thus, Bullock is exclusively seen drinking Swearengen’s preferred Old Weller Antique Original 107 Proof bourbon across all three seasons of Deadwood.

Despite the vintage-style labels that look vintage to the 1870s, I haven’t found any documentation of this real-life brand dating back any earlier than the 1970s, in accordance with the show featuring other modern bourbon brands like Basil Hayden and Bulleit. That said, William Larue Weller had indeed started selling and distilling his own wheated whiskey by the mid-19th century, giving the presence of Weller-labeled bottles in the 1870s a little more validity, though I don’t believe the label as presented on Deadwood had existed until considerably after the establishment of the Stitzel-Weller Distillery in 1935. The brand is now owned by Buffalo Trace, which describes Weller’s distinctive taste as a result of “using wheat instead of rye in the mash for a softer, smoother taste.”

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How to Get the Look

Balancing the camp’s ranging wardrobe from frontier ruggedness to peacocking dandyism, Seth Bullock maintains a smart and characteristically subdued 1870s-era wardrobe consisting of dark frock coats, soft waistcoats, wing collars with chunky-knotted Teck ties, and patterned trousers, all with his usual brown-banded black hat and the Remington-holstered gun-belt befitting his lawful duties.

• Charcoal hopsack or brown birdseye wool single-breasted frock coat with short peak lapels, four closely spaced silver-toned shank buttons, three-button cuffs, and rear tails with two decorative buttons
• Striped popover shirts with neckband, plain front bib, button-up back placket, and single-button cuffs
• White detachable wing collar
• Dark paisley silk Teck ties
• Brown velvet or checked wool double-breasted 10×5-button waistcoats with wide-collared notch lapels, two welted lower pockets, and straight-cut bottoms
• Black-and-gray glen plaid wool flat-front trousers with slanted full-top front pockets and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Dark leather belt-strapped suspenders with double-hook button attachments
• Black leather riding boots with smooth calf-high shafts and plain toes
• Black felt Dakota-style hat with pinched crown and brown grosgrain band and curled edge trim
• Dark-brown leather gun-belt with Cheyenne double-loop holster (right side), twelve cartridge loops across the back, and a leather billet with a silver-toned single-prong buckle
• Gold hunter-cased pocket watch on a gold open-link “single Albert” chain with gold fob seal

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Do Yourself a Favor and…

Watch the fuckin’ series, currently streaming on HBO Max and available on Blu-ray and DVD.

And for anyone interested in reading more about the actual town and its inhabitants like Bullock, Swearengen, and the like, I recommend Peter Cozzens’ recently published nonfiction volume Deadwood: Gold, Guns, and Greed in the American West.

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The Quote

Don’t tell me what the fuck I mean!