As for John Hardy, he was an actual person, and largely thanks to a researcher named John Garst, we now have a fair amount of information about him.
Hardy killed Drews… in a disagreement over a game of craps. Both were enamored of the same woman, and the latter proving the more favored lover, incurred Hardy’s envy, who seized the pretext of falling out in the game to work vengeance on Drews, who had shown himself equally expert in dice as in love, having won money from Hardy. Hardy drew his pistol, remarking he would kill him unless he refunded the money. Drews paid back part of the money, when Hardy shot, killing him.
The execution was apparently a major event, with three thousand spectators attending, and Hardy’s scaffold oration in the song’s last verse is in keeping with the newspaper report, which says, “He exhibited great nerve, attributed his downfall to whiskey, and said he had made peace with God…. He was baptised in the river this morning.”
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