I have never properly given William F. Cody his due. Perhaps the very showmanship that made him the most recognizable American celebrity of the late 19th and early 20th Century put me off. Maybe there was just a bit too much bombast in his style for my tastes. I tend to favor grittier and less flamboyant heroes.
But… sitting here in Cody, Wyoming, a town he founded in the 1890s, hosted by the newspaper — The Cody Enterprise — which he founded with his friend Col. John Peake, it seems time to reckon with the old scout.
A Quiet Professional, he was not. That said, the man who became famous as Buffalo Bill was the real deal — a highly capable scout and hunter and a fighting Frontier Partisan who counted coup and won the Medal of Honor for his services. He really did ride with the Pony Express, and he really did earn his monicker as a meat hunter for the Kansas Pacific Railroad. He wielded a an 1866 Allin Conversion Springfield Rifle, caliber .50-70 he called Lucretia Borgia after the wanton daughter of a Renaissance Pope. (There was, in the late 1860s, a popular opera about her based on a Victor Hugo play).
I posted on that rifle here:
Firearms Of The Frontier Partisans — The Rifle That ‘Made’ Buffalo Bill
And I got to pay her a visit an the Cody Center of the West…
That’s her on the right, with a busted stock. The rifle on the left is an intact Allin Springfield for reference.
The Cody Center of the West has collected a whole bunch of firearms with solid provenance tying them to the scout. Buffalo Bill owned a LOT of very fine rifles in his day.
The pistol on the bottom right in this shot is an 1858 Remington revolver — one of two specimens in the museum that could be a war trophy taken in Cody’s duel with the Cheyenne warrior Yellow Hair in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of the Little Big Horn and the death of Col. George Armstrong Custer.
By the summer of 1876, William F. Cody was a famous actor. Not a very good actor, but a famous actor — who played himself in stage productions written by a penny dreadful scribbler and empresario named Ned Buntline.
When the shocking news of the destruction of Custer and 268 7th cavalry troopers and civilian and Indian scouts on June 25, electrified the nation, Cody abandoned the stage and headed for the plains to take up a position as Chief of Scouts for the 5th Cavalry under Col. Wesley Merritt. He wore his stage costume in the field. There never really would be again a gap between William F. Cody the man and the persona of Buffalo Bill.
American Heritage recounts Cody’s appearance at dawn on July 17 at Warbonnet Creek in northwest Nebraska:
He showed up for work that morning wearing a red silk shirt with puffy sleeves, decorated with silver buttons. His trousers were black velvet, with a silver braid crisscrossing the thighs. He sported an extra-wide leather belt with a large silver buckle, and an oversized beaver-felt hat with a floppy brim. A colleague said he looked more like a fiesta-bound Mexican vaquero than a battle-bound U.S. Army scout.
He was armed with a Winchester 1873 rifle, a Bowie Knife, and presumably a revolver.
Merritt’s command was tasked with patrolling to prevent Cheyenne warriors from the Red Cloud Agency or the Spotted Tail Agency from linking up with the forces of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. At Warbonnet Creek, a force of Cheyenne led by the chief Dull Knife made a move to attack the regiment’s supply wagons. They were apparently unaware that the regiment’s main force was right over the hill.
At Cody’s suggestion, 5th Cav troopers hid in a ravine, then rode to cut the Cheyenne warriors off. Cody and the young warrior Yellow Hair — also flamboyantly dressed for battle — rode hard at each other. A trooper named Chris Madsen — a veteran of the Danish Army and the French Foreign Legion — witnessed the confrontation from a nearby hillock:
“The instant they were face to face, their guns fired,” Madsen recalled in later years. “It seemed like almost one shot … Cody’s bullet went through the Indian’s leg and killed his pinto pony. The Indian’s bullet went wild. Cody’s horse stepped into a prairie dog hole and stumbled, but (Cody) was up in a moment. Kneeling, he took deliberate aim and fired the second shot. An instant before he fired the second shot, the Indian fired at him (again) but missed. Cody’s bullet went through the Indian’s head and ended the battle. Cody went over to the fallen Indian and neatly removed his scalp while the other soldiers gave chase to the Indian’s companions.”
Buffalo Bill’s Duel With Yellow Hair by CM Russell.
It was a classic piece of personal combat that is reminiscent of medieval battle — like Robert Bruce riding out to cleave Henry De Bohun’s helm and skull with a battle ax at Bannockburn. Like a warrior of old, Cody stripped Yellow Hair for trophies of war — war bonnet, shield, bridle, whip, lance, and other weapons including an 1858 Remington — and sent them along with the scalp to his friend Moses Kerngood, who displayed them in a cigar store window in Rochester, New York.
The Battle of Warbonnet Creek was just a minor skirmish. Yellow Hair was its only casualty. But Cody made the most of this “first scalp for Custer!” He would reenact the scene over and over on stage and in his Wild West Show.
A fine Bowie Knife carried by Buffalo Bill. It is not known whether this is the blade that took the first scalp for Custer.
Trophy taking and such aggrandizement are distasteful to modern sensibilities. Hell, they offended some Victorian Age sensibilities in Buffalo Bill’s own time. Such doings are contrary to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. But they persist even today — there’s always an urge for Beowulf to nail Grendel’s arm to the wall of Heorot.
Cody was typical in his frontiersman’s callousness toward Indians — but his outlook evolved over the many years he worked with native peoples in his Wild West Show, and he came to regard them as justified defenders of their homeland and way of life. He would write in his autobiography:
“In concluding, I want to express the hope that the dealings of this Government of ours with the Indians will always be just and fair. They were the inheritors of the land that we live in. They were not capable of developing it, or of really appreciating its possibilities, but they owned it when the White Man came, and the White Man took it away from them. It was natural that they should resist. It was natural that they employed the only means of warfare known to them against those whom they regarded as usurpers. It was our business, as scouts, to be continually on the warpath against them when they committed depredations. But no scout ever hated the Indians in general.”
Matthew says
It’s a cliche to say it but Buffalo Bill was a complicated man.
There’s never a clear line between persona and ones inner self. They influence each other.
Wayne says
By all accounts, he gave the Indians who performed in his Wild West a fair deal and treated them with respect.
Monk says
A true measure of the man, might be the way he tried to come to the aid
of Sitting Bull, shortly before the Chief’s “demise” at Standing Rock.
JimC says
Yep.
Quixotic Mainer says
The legitimate warrior going on to popular entertainment on their fighting man’s laurels is stronger today than ever. I’m thinking of guys like Tim Kennedy or Jocko Willink. They get their coin from show business now, but that detracts nothing from their very real repertoire.
I would love to see the Cody museum someday, I would be in hog heaven! I had always wondered how Cody’s Allin trapdoor got destroyed, was there any explanation there?
JimC says
Truth.
There are a couple of stories about the broken stock. One that Cody broke the stock over the head of an elk or bison he had shot — which is just silly. He’d have simply put another round in it. The other story is that when he was guiding Grand Duke Alexis of Russia on his big Plains hunt, he lent him Lucretia and he exuberantly threw it in the air, dropped it and it got run over by a horse.
Quixotic Mainer says
Huh, that’s cool lore either way. I am going to bet on the overzealous royalty option over a case of elk clobbering.
JimC says
Yes, much more plausible.
Padre says
We’re still seeing showmanship crop up among very capable warriors. Some seek only normalcy when they leave the special ops community, while others immediately start signing TV and book deals. Now, as then, there’s an eager audience willing to pay to adventure vicariously.
JimC says
Truth.
John says
Richard Marcinko…
lane batot says
Got into it not long ago, with an otherwise reasonable fellow(and his self-righteous cohorts), who was joining the Buffalo Bill-Bashing that has become the politically correct thing to do these days(sigh…..). He was considered(by these folks) to be abusive to Native Americans with his Wild West Show, because it was DEGRADING for them to portray themselves in his circus. I mentioned so did cowboys, sharpshooters, etc., and they were not considered “degrading” themselves. A lot of the Indians reveled in getting a chance to show others their culture!(read their own accounts of such…..) I also pointed out(which I know from reading various sources of Indians that actually participated in his Wild West Show), that some really LOVED the experience, and chances to get to see the rest of the world, and some did not! You know, just like the variety exhibited in all human cultures! The fact that Buffalo Bill “abandoned” Indians in Europe was also in the bashing theme of the conversation, but I also pointed out that Buffalo Bill HAD to have some rules and regulations–one of which is that his show folks were NOT supposed to take off on their own, Indian or otherwise! One only has to read Chief Luther Standing Bear’s autobiography “My People The Sioux”, where he describes being put in charge of all the Indians, and the frustrating time he had wrangling them–some followed the rules, some did not! And some of those that did not got their arses left behind! But no, it couldn’t have been the Indians’ own fault, it mustv’e been that showman, Buffalo Bill! The shallow negative perceptions people conjure up without knowing THE FACTS has always been a foible of humans, just maybe more-so in these days of easier public conversations on the computer! I have a DVD copy of the PBS series, “The American Experience” episode on Buffalo Bill that I’d recommend to anyone to watch–a very balanced and factual documentary on an amazing(if controversial) man!
lane batot says
……I also have a special sentimental tie with Buffalo Bill–back in college,, I tried out for a campus play by Arthur Kopit– “Buffalo Bill And The Indians”(also a film starring Paul Newman) taking a shot at some of the Buffalo Bill controversy. I went to the audition, not really serious about getting a part(I’d never been in a college play before!)more as an excuse to wear and show off my splendid, home-made Plains Indian outfit and regalia I had at the time, which I rarely got a chance to do in public! I discovered quickly, that no one DRESSES UP as the characters to audition! But guess what? I got a part! TWO parts, actually! As Spotted Tail the Sioux(I got shot onstage with a REAL Sharp’s Buffalo Gun–real gunpowder used, just no ball! That thing shot flames so far, the shooter had to aim somewhat away from me to keep from burning me! And it shook the whole theater whenever it went off! And I splattered fake blood so far I’d hit some people in the front row of the audience!(a personal acting triumph of mine!) Also, I portrayed(after my demise as Spotted Tail!), in a different costume, the Indian interpreter for Sitting Bull and the other Indians–faking some sign language hoo-haw! Great fun, it was–got me hooked on theater in college! I ended up Minoring in Theatre(with a major in Anthropology), perhaps because one got an automatic “A” for doing a play, and those are some of the only “A’s” I ever made!
David says
Audie Murphy was probably the best at that there ever was . . .
Jean Nave says
Great stuff. Have a wonderful time.
Squire Rusticus says
I went to College at Fort Hays State where Cody founded the town of Rome, and my good friend , it seems so long ago, was Kirk Shapland (Cody of the West) whom played Cody on the show “Carson and Cody Hunter Heroes” on the History Channel, with whom I had many a good camp as a Buffalo Hunter in times past. One excellent gentleman, of the highest order. My friend carried a .50-70 just like Bill, and was the most authentic representation of Buffalo Bill Cody from his Kansas Railroad hunter days.
Anyway William Cody could walk the walk , and knew how to promote his skills, while other Plainsmen died or were forgotten.
JimC says
That is really cool.
muhsin sk says
War is armed conflict between nations.
It impacts landscapes and societies.
Geography influences war strategies.
Terrain affects troop movement.
Wars alter borders and geopolitics.
Conflict’s aftermath reshapes regions.
Geopolitical factors drive war