Rooster Cogburn (True Grit 1969)

History
Goudy: Was this revolver loaded and cocked? Rooster Cogburn: Well, a gun that's unloaded and cocked ain't good for nothin'.

Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn is a fictional character who first appeared in the 1968 Charles Portis novel, True Grit.

Cogburn was a veteran of the American Civil War who served under Confederate guerrilla leader William Quantrill, where he lost his eye. He was once married to an Illinois woman, who left him to return to her first husband after bearing Cogburn a single, extremely clumsy son (of whom Cogburn says, "He never liked me anyway"). Cogburn is described as a "fearless, one-eyed U.S. marshal who never knew a dry day in his life." He was "the toughest marshal" working the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) on behalf of Judge Isaac Parker, the real-life judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas (having criminal jurisdiction in the Indian Territory, as the bailiff repeatedly announces in both films). He shot a total of 64 men in eight years, killing 60. He killed 23 in four years and killed 60 by eight, all of whom he claimed to have killed in self defense.

Description
In the 1969 film, Cogburn helped a headstrong 14-year-old girl, named Mattie Ross, along with Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, to track down Tom Chaney, the man who drunkenly and gladly killed her father. In the 1975 sequel, he teamed up with elderly spinster Eula Goodnight and Wolf while on the trail of a desperado, Hawk, who had stolen a shipment of nitroglycerin from the U.S. Army.

Cogburn demonstrated a ruthless attitude towards the criminals fugitives he pursued, he was generally very fair with Mattie and was shown to have a distaste for what he viewed as unnecessary cruelty. When LeBoeuf is birching Mattie for her refusal to return Fort Smith, Cogburn demanded that he stop, even going as far as to draw his pistol in threat. Later in the film, when Cogburn and Mattie witnessed two children caning a mule with sharpened sticks, Cogburn quickly intervened, cutting the mule loose and roughly throwing the two children onto the ground in retaliation. After Mattie was snakebitten, he rode through the night, holding her, in order to get her medical care. When the horse collapsed, he shot it and then carried her a long distance quickly to get her to a doctor, both saving her life and showing he really had the true grit Mattie thought he did.

Source: Rooster Cogburn's page on Wikipedia

Battle Against John Marston
To Be determined