William Frederick
"Buffalo Bill"
Cody

I may here state that Buffalo Bill is a Democrat, but that should not be held against him, for he is a splendid fellow, and perhaps regrets it as much as any genuine American could. - Bat Masterson, 1908.

Willam Frederick Cody "Bison Bill"

We knew it! You can't even talk about Buffalo Bill without dragging in politics! But here we will rise above the lowing herd and speak of Will - as he was called - in dispassionate and objective terms.

And what better way than to cite another contemporary news story from the same year when Bat put in his two cents. This was a time when Buffalo Bill was at the height of his fame:

This town has just been pestered with a visit from Bill Cody's show. It really seems a shame to think that in this enlightened age a man of such ordinary ability as this decrepit man Buffalo Bill should be able to perpetrate such a fraud on the public as he did during his visit in this town.
-	The Western Weekly, September 12, 1908.

Hm. Obviously there's some digging to do here if we want to find out who was the real "Buffalo Bill".

William Frederick Cody was born February 26, 1846, in Le Claire, Iowa which was not yet a state. His folks were Isaac Cody and the former Mary Ann Laycock. But when Will was seven, Isaac pulled up stakes and headed to Fort Leavenworth in the Kansas Territory.

Kansas soon became "Bleeding Kansas" and although Isaac wasn't an abolitionist - then a most radical stand - he was supportive of Abraham Lincoln's position that slavery should not be allowed in new territories. In 1854 he was voicing his sentiments to a group of settlers, and a pro-slavery man ran up and stabbed him in the chest. The knife punctured his lung and although Isaac recovered, when he died of pneumonia in 1857, the wound was considered a contributing factor.

As the sole male in a household consisting of himself, his mom, and four sisters, Will went to work at the age of eleven. In those days you didn't opt for a career; you just got a job.

And in the Old West jobs were frequently short term, maybe only for a few days, a few weeks, maybe some months, and quite seasonal. Often you had more than one job at a time. But although the Old West was a rough place, it did offer opportunities for young men with entrepreneurial mindsets.

Will's first job was driving a herd of oxen from a neighbor's ranch to Fort Leavenworth for 50 cents a day. However, his first steady job was working for the Majors and Russell Freight Company where he mostly carried messages back and forth between the company and the local telegraph office at Leavenworth. If there weren't messages to send, he helped herd cattle for the local ranchers.

Later in the summer of 1857, the Majors and Russell Company organized some shipments to Utah and Will went along. The provisions were being shipped to the federal troops that President James Buchanan had ordered to combat the Mormons who James said were in insurrection against the government. Although attacks on wagon trains from the Native Americans were rare, they did happen and Will always claimed that on the trip he killed a Sioux warrior. Some historians seem dubious of this and indeed of many of Will's claims. After all in 1857 he was only eleven years old and his job was probably to convey orders back and forth along the wagon train.

It was on this trip that Will said he met James Butler not yet "Wild Bill" Hickock. Most likely, though, the Young Will had met Wild Bill a year earlier when Wild Bill was living in Leavenworth. Obviously the two men met somewhere since despite a ten year age gap they became good friends.

One story everyone knows is that Will rode for the Pony Express. We figure he must have seen one of the famous posters:

... posters which must be historical since we heard about them on the BBC panel show, Qi. Yes.

Alas and Qi's excellence notwithstanding, such advertisements have never been found in newspapers of the time. But it is true that the riders were generally young wiry fellows. Given the speed and distances they rode, hefty fellows were too hard on the horses.

The problem for historians researching the lives of public figures is sifting out what they said they did and what they really did. Some historians flat out pooh-pooh that Will rode for the Pony Express - an enterprise that didn't even last for two years and finally succumbed to the availability of transcontinental telegraph lines. Other scholars, though, say there are contemporary references that confirm Will was a rider albeit briefly. And Bill's employers, the Russells and Majors Freight Company was instrumental in setting up the Pony Express.

But soon there was a war on. The Civil War, that is. Will was only 15 when the Confederate battery in Charleston Harbor opened fire on the Federal garrison in Fort Sumter. Will was a bit young for active service, but in a couple of years he was at the prime recruiting age. But Will himself said he wasn't interested in enlisting as his mother had become quite ill. As for how he finally joined up he later wrote:

One day after having been under the influence of bad whisky, I awoke to find myself a soldier in the Seventh Kansas [Volunteer Cavalry]. I did not remember how or when I had enlisted but I saw I was in for it, and that it would not do for me to endeavor to back out.

Will's regiment shipped out to Tennessee primarily to protect railroad workers who were laying the lines to convey troops and war matériel. But the Seventh didn't just spend their time on guard duty and they were in a number of skirmishes during which the commander Colonel Thomas Herrick said they gave the Rebs a sound thrashing with little cost to themselves.

Possibly because of his experience as a rider, Will became a scout which also meant he did some spying. Again we generally have to take Will's word for what he did. Once he said he was dressed up in confederate garb and in a farmhouse he came across his friend Wild Bill Hickok eating some bread and milk. He got a laugh to find Bill was also spying for the Union and decked out as a Reb. The account may very well be true since Wild Bill also told the story.

On the other hand independent documented evidence shows a less romantic occupation for the teenage recruit. By January, 1865, Will was not actively with the Seventh but was working in a hospital in St. Louis as an orderly. Although Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox on April 9, Will remained in St. Louis and didn't return to his regiment in Kansas until September 14 - a day which many feel marks a day of great calamity in history. On September 29 he was mustered out of service.

It was while he was in St. Louis that Will met a young lady named Louisa Frederici. As he told the story he and Louisa decided to play a practical joke. They would pretend to be engaged and so arouse the jealousy of one of Louisa's admiring swains. Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho! What a laugh! What a joke!

But after Will returned to Kansas he got a letter from Louisa asking when they were going to go through with their nuptials. Although now Will wasn't quite sure if he really had been serious or not, he nevertheless decided to go through with it. It's only fair to point out that this is only one version out of many about how Will and Louisa got hitched. There are many variants told over the years by Will, Louisa, their friends, and their families.

In any case, Will and Louisa got married on March 6, 1866. He had just turned twenty, and Louisa was about 22. The marriage was a bumpy one - at times really bumpy - but they did eventually have four kids.

After the war, Will got a job driving a stage from Leavenworth west to Plum Creek, a distance of about 200 miles. By now he knew Kansas like the back of his riding glove and when William Tecumseh Sherman, now the Commanding General of the Military Department of the Mississippi, showed up in Leavenworth, Will volunteered to guide him to Fort Kearny which is about 50 miles north of Plum Creek. General Sherman was impressed with the young man and Will soon became a guide and a scout for the army.

But being a scout and a stage driver also took him away from Louisa and so Will seems to have made a brief try at a more settled career. He and Louisa opened a hotel, and with his affable nature, Will seems to have done well enough at this venture. But he really liked being out in the wide open spaces and again returned to being a guide and scout.

Will just didn't guide military men. After the war it became fashionable for the better off fellows to go on hunting expeditions. This was a time when game was plentiful but roads and hunting lodges virtually non-existent. So the usual modus hunterandi was to hire someone who knew the land to lead the party and make arrangements suitable for rich tenderfeet and keep them entertained around the campfire. Will could fill that role perfectly.

But in many ways scouting for the army was a simpler job since the scout didn't have to organize the expedition and obtain provisions. Instead scouting was what modern armed forces would call reconnaissance. The scouts would head out into the unsettled areas and locate where the Native Tribes were on the move. The tribes were supposed to stay on the reservations in exchange for provisions provided by the government. This had been agreed to by the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867. There was, though, a wee bit of a problem.

The Plains Tribes did not have governments in the modern sense. Although there were elders in the tribes that were often called "chiefs" and they gave advice, they did not have executive authority as do American presidents or European prime ministers. If the "chiefs" made an agreement, anyone in the tribe who wanted to ignore it could do so.

That the "chiefs" (again note quotes) "ruled" (yes, quotes) by prestige and experience and whose advice was followed on a voluntary basis wasn't understood by most Americans. Negotiators from Washington thought the chiefs could order the members of their tribe to obey the agreed to terms. Then if some members of the tribes didn't do so, the government accused the tribes of breaking the treaty.

It didn't help that the government didn't keep their part of the bargain either. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was fraught with corruption, and Indian agents were lining their pockets and stealing the tribes blind. With only paltry government issues coming in, it was logical that bands from the tribes would ride out onto the plains and hunt buffalo. Although the massive herds had been rapidly depleted beginning in the mid-1860's, hunting buffalo was a better living than waiting around to be cheated by corrupt officials and tradesmen. Many who left the reservations were young men who also wanted to gain prestige by engaging adversaries in battle and stealing their horses.

But regardless of how much the administration had muddled the affairs, the army field commanders were charged with getting everyone to stay on the reservations. When they didn't, the usual procedure was to have the scouts locate the "trail" of the villages - marks left by the horses' hooves and travois - and then the soldiers would move in. Although the army scouts were civilians and were not required to fight, sometimes the circumstances so dictated.

And Will did. On one of the early expeditions, Will was with Major George Armes and his troopers when they came across a band of warriors. A fight ensued and one soldier was killed although in his autobiography Will inflated the number to "five or six".

Of course, there are only so many scouting trips that the army wanted to do or hunters who wanted to go hunting. So Will had to fill in the time with other jobs. But no more herding cattle. Instead Will was going into business.

During his work as a scout, Will met William Rose who had a "grading contract" with the Kansas Pacific Railway. That is, William was hired to smooth down a path so the rail crews could lay down the track. Of course Rose didn't do the work himself but recruited local workmen to handle the picks and shovels with horses and wagons hauling the dirt away. It was hard work with some dangers as occasionally bands of warriors would swoop down to steal the horses. But for the contractors like Rose the pay was good.

Will joined Rose in his grading contract and the two men also decided to build a train station not far from Fort Hays. They had big plans and even marked off lots for sale at what soon became a town with the somewhat grandiose name of Rome. Unfortunately, the railroad built the station at Fort Hays not Rome. That decision plus a cholera outbreak brought on the demise of the town in a couple of years.

But land speculation was no more a full time occupation than serving as a hunting guide or army scout. So Will had to find a more steady means of income. And by now you're probably wondering when we can start calling Will Cody "Buffalo Bill".

You may read that in 1867 Will was given the contract to provide meat for the railroad workers of the Kansas Pacific. Actually the contract was granted to the Goddard Brothers Company and they hired Will. He received $500 a month - a huge wage in the mid-19th century - and as an indication of his skill, a contemporary newspaper story mentioned that Will and a friend brought in 4000 pounds of buffalo meat in one day. All in all Will said he killed over 4000 animals. So Will Cody became Buffalo Bill.

Yes, but exactly when did Will Cody become Buffalo Bill? You will read on a popular informational website that the name "Buffalo Bill" originated from the dime novels about the (fictional) exploits of the plainsman. That is not correct. The name was dubbed well before then. The earliest known record of the "Buffalo Bill" moniker was on November 26, 1867, when a newspaper story mentioned that "Buffalo Bill" was one of the army's scouts.

Land speculation, scouting for the army, and hunting buffalo were all well and good, but more and more Will preferred leading the parties of rich fat cats who wanted to tell everyone how they had bagged a buffalo. Soon people were reading about Buffalo Bill as "the noted guide and hunter". Will's fame was regional but he was getting a name.

Of course, when there were no fat cats around, Will still worked for the army. As usual in the Spring the tribes had been heading out to hunt for buffalo and live as they wanted. So in 1869 Will was hired as a scout for General Eugene Carr (actually Frank North was the head scout for the expedition and Will served under him). The expedition moved from Kansas to Colorado about 110 miles northeast of Denver and 14 miles southeast of Sterling.

There on July 11, the soldiers came on a Cheyenne village led by Tall Bull. The encounter led to the rather grandiosely named Battle of Summit Springs. Like the - quote - "Battle" - unquote - of the Washita this was actually an attack on a village. The "Indian" casualties were totaled as 52 killed and about 17 women and children were captured. The tribe's 300 horses were killed and the village burned.

Will claimed it was he who killed Tall Bull. This, like so much of what he said, is questioned by the historians who think Will's accounts tended to inflate his participation and perpetuated a bit of hyperbole.

But a bit of inflation and hyperbole was fine with a courteously titled journalist named Ned Buntline. Ned, whose real name was Edward Zane Carroll Judson, Sr., had been in Nebraska in 1869 looking for "material" for his readers back east when he bumped into Will. Ned - who it turns out was married nine times and didn't always bother to dissolve any previous marriages - found Will a most genial companion and an excellent raconteur. In a few months Ned had written and published a paperback, Buffalo Bill, the King of the Border Men.

Buffalo Bill, the King of the Border Men was a bestseller and soon everyone in the country knew about Buffalo Bill. According to one tally there would eventually be over 500 of these dime novels about the Amazing Exploits of Buffalo Bill Cody.

Of course, the real Will Cody continued working as a scout and guide. But there was now a difference. He was nationally famous and on the advice of high level army officers he was recommended to assist and guide important visitors other than the rich hunters.

In 1870 the professor of paleontology from Yale, Othniel Charles Mash, came west with his students hunting fossils. Will and his former boss, Frank North, were asked to be the guides. Although Will was able to be with Professor Marsh only for one day, they became friends and Will now had a connection with the East Coast intelligentsia.

Another of Will's well-heeled clients was Leonard Jerome, the father-in-law of the famous General Philip Sheridan. Leonard's #2 daughter, Jenny, later married a British chap named Randolph Henry Spencer Churchill. So yes, Will was the guide for the grandfather of Winston Churchill. This expedition received considerable attention in the press and gave Will's fame an additional shot in the arm.

But not as much a shot as the next hunting trip. In November 1871 The Grand Duke Alexis Romanov, the son of Czar Alexander II, arrived in the United States. This was a time when the United States and Russia were good friends and the government made every effort to accommodate the son of the Czar of All the Russias.

Alexis was young and handsome with an impressive set of whiskers and a fluency in English. Naturally Alexis wanted to see the Wild and Wooly.

On January 12 - a date which many see as bright a spot in the history of the nation as September 14 is dark - the entourage arrived by train in North Platte, Nebraska. Although the hunting trip took place in the dead of winter it evidently wasn't a great hardship. In fact the weather was surprisingly good although the next week a blizzard hit the region.

The hunting party included not only Alexis and Buffalo Bill, but Phil Sheridan - whose physique was beginning to balloon up and who opted out of the actual hunt. Then there was the famous "boy general" of the Civil War, (Brevet) General George Armstrong Custer.

During the day the men would ride out and hunt. Afterwards they would retire to the railcar to feast on champagne dinners. Under the tutelage of Buffalo Bill, Alexis bagged eight buffalo.

On these fat-cat hunts Will made sure he was dressed up in a fashion suitable for the Greatest Scout of the Plains. He would wear a buckskin suit complete with fringes, a crimson shirt "handsomely ornamented on the bosom", and all this topped off with a "broad sombrero" - the predecessor of the ten-gallon hat. He rode a "snowy, white horse" which he said was a "gallant stepper".

At the end of the hunt Will decided to take advantage of the invitations from his well-heeled clients and visit New York. He traveled from Chicago stopping by Niagara Falls and then went on to the Big Apple.

In New York Will was wined and dined and attended the theater. He saw a number of plays including Julius Caesar starring Edwin Booth. But there was one play that was of particular interest.

Ned Buntline had not been idle. He had adapted Buffalo Bill, the King of the Border Men to the stage. The play received surprisingly good reviews considering how hokey it was. Naturally Will was invited to be the guest of honor for a performance.

Of course, once the audience was informed that the real Buffalo Bill was present, they cheered. Will was even persuaded to take the stage and - reluctantly and inexpertly he said - say a few words.

Despite Will's modest appraisal of his speaking talents there was something that made the audience sit up and listen. After all he was young (only 25) and with rugged and handsome features that would later be called Hollywood.

The producer of the play, William Freleigh, offered Will $500 a week if he would play himself. Will said he thought that was impossible for a man of his limited experience. You might as well, he said, try to make an actor out of a government mule.

We're pretty sure Will didn't mean it. He was now a national celebrity and loved New York. He was actually given a write-up in a real book about the West, Buffalo Land. But Will was still employed by the Army and Phil Sheridan said they needed him back West.

What had happened is a group of warriors had stolen a large number of horses kept near Fort McPhereson and two men had been killed. Will and a group of soldiers tracked the band down. Will's actions were decisive. In fact, he was cited for bravery in the official army report.

This action earned Will the Medal of Honor, the highest honor the military can bestow. However, he was a civilian, not a soldier, and so the award was rescinded in 1916 when the requirements were specified only for armed service members. However, the medal was restored in 1989.

So 1872 was a good year for Will. But things got even better. He got a letter from Ned Buntline. Ned asked Will to come to Chicago and star in his new play, The Scouts of the Plains. Ned would also take a part as would John Baker "Texas Jack" Omohundro, another real life scout and plainsman turned thespian. Will said he was reluctant but decided if there was a need for bad actors, he might as well give it a try. Besides, Ned had told him "There's money in it."

It really was a win/win situation. Ned said they'd try the show for week and Will would get $600. If it didn't pan out then he could return to his job of scout and guide.

The play opened on Monday, December 16, 1872, and admittedly it wasn't a great start. At one point Will couldn't remember a line. Although there was a prompter in the wings, Will ad-libbed his dialog. From there on he made it through the play without a problem.

Of course, the 2500 strong audience didn't realize that Will had flubbed his lines. They loved the play. Here was the real Buffalo Bill right on stage, and there was plenty of action including gun battles (but with blanks). Of course, the critics tended to scoff at the play and commented that Will was no actor. But they all conceded that, actor or not, Buffalo Bill was one heckuva showman.

With sellout crowds and the public clamoring for more, the run was extended well beyond the first week and later the troupe even went on the road to cities like St. Louis and Cincinnati. Receipts could be over $2000 per night and there were matinees as well.

But then there was a mishap. In Cincinnati, one of the actors playing the part of Big Wolf was injured and died the next day. No one ever spoke of the details but the tour was suspended for a month before moving to New York where they performed in Rochester and Buffalo.

The play finally closed in June, 1873. Will was a little disappointed with his take - a net profit of only $6000. But Louisa had been along on the tour with the kids and she admitted that they had all been rather extravagant.

Will had stumbled on a career that suited him perfectly. In the summers he could go out and act as a guide for the rich fat cats or scout for the army. Then in winter when the tribes tended to stick to the reservations, he could tread the boards for good dough.

The two careers were not completely separate. For instance, in 1876 some bands of Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho had left their reservations. They joined forces in what is now the modern state of Montana and had set up a large village that was actually within the boundaries of the Crow Reservation on the banks of the Little Bighorn River.

Will's old friend, George Armstrong Custer, was part of the army group that was sent out to locate the errant bands. Now it is possible that had George sent in a small group of soldiers for a parlay, he may have gotten the villagers to return to the reservation without incident. But the army had come out to "fight Indians" and by golly they were going to fight Indians.

The loss of 210 cavalrymen including their flamboyant commander (who President Grant said was completely to blame for the debacle) created such a stir that all indigenous people that were not on the reservations would now be hunted down. And Will was called in to help.

After the Battle of the Little Bighorn the warriors and their families split back up to the individual tribal villages. And although the Hunkpapa Sioux band led by Sitting Bull crossed over into Canada, the others stayed on the American side of the Great Plains. Will was part of the division charged with hunting down the Cheyenne band headed by Yellow Hair who incidentally had not been at the battle.

During the fight with Yellow Hair, Will personally fought, killed, and even scalped Yellow Hand - as Will incorrectly called the chief. He had also been sure to wear his fancy duds. So now he could return to the theater and standing on the stage in his splendid regalia boast that he was wearing the very suit as when he killed "Yellow Hand¹" and took "the first scalp for Custer".

Of course debate rages if Will really killed Yellow Hair. Although some may dismiss the story as a fabrication, there is a newspaper account written only five days after the battle that states he did. So Will may have stretched the blanket in details, but the overall story is apparently correct.

Through the 1870's and into the early 1880's Will continued his two simultaneous careers. He would serve as scout and guide during the summers and in winter he'd take to the stage.

At one point Will was playing in Scouts of the Prairies (not to be confused with the earlier Scouts of the Plains), and he asked his old friend Wild Bill Hickok to join him in the play. Wild Bill now had a reputation as a gunfighter and the crowds flocked to the play. But Wild Bill didn't particularly like the theatrical life. For one thing his voice did not have the booming timbre expected for unamplified theater. Instead it was thin and rather high pitched. One critic even said Wild Bill "spoke like a girl". Soon he returned to the West.

Will found that starring as himself in a melodrama had advantages over being a scout, guide, buffalo hunter, stagecoach driver, or cattle drover. Acting permitted him to indulge his wanderlustic nature and it was also far less hazardous than being a scout. Besides it paid better. So more and more Will was spending his time on the stage and less on the Plains

Like many actors then and since, Will also noticed that the lion's share of the money went to the impresarios. And as the impresarios often starred in their productions Will decided that he could do better without excess overhead. So in 1873 as Scouts of the Prairies wound up its run, Will and Texas Jack decided for the next season they'd do without Ned Buntline in the cast.

But don't despair. Unlike in the movie Buffalo Bill and the Indians or Sitting Bull's History Lesson, Ned Buntline did not end up broken down and penniless. He continued his writing career and settled in Connecticut with his ninth wife and actually lived well on the income from his books. He died in 1886.

But of course Will still had a life beyond the theater and at heart he was a Plainsman. He bought a sprawling ranch in North Platte, Nebraska, where Louisa spent most of her time. In 1879 Will began penning his autobiography.

The ranch actually led to a bit of a domestic problem. Since then as now it was wise to diversify your investments, the property had been listed in Louisa's name. Then due to various financial pressures Will wanted to sell some of the land for some cash. However, since the property was legally hers, Louisa had to agree on the sale which she did not. Will's irritation at Louisa's independence was a bit ironic since he believed in women's rights. But he was certainly irritated with his spouse.

As the 1880's rolled in, Will was wondering where to go from there. Texas Jack had returned to the West and stage acting was getting a bit stale. So Will decided to try a new venture.

The new show would be an extravaganza with elements of the theater, the circus, and the rodeo all rolled together. For the audience in the stands, he would stage dramas showing buffalo hunts, stagecoach robberies, and "Indian" fights and dances. There would be the cavalry being charged by the warriors and homesteaders being attacked. Of course, the hero coming to the rescue would be Buffalo Bill.

Of course Will's plan cost money and although he was well to do he was not fabulously rich. But in 1882 he met an actor and theatrical manager named Nate Salsbury. Whether Nate really did come up with the idea of the Wild West show first (as he said he did), Nate became the manager of the enterprise.

Will had staged outdoor shows before. The first was in 1871 in Niagara Falls, New York. That one wasn't a great success since some of the buffalo got away and ran through the streets. He had also arranged a Fourth of July show in North Platte with contests for roping and rounding up cattle and buffalo. But whose ever the idea was, Buffalo Bill's Wild West² was launched on May 19, 1883 at Omaha, Nebraska.

Now it is true that Nate was a savvy businessman who had a real knack in keeping debtors at bay. Not that Nate was infallible. With the money coming in he and Will tried other ventures, one of which was to irrigate parts of Wyoming. The enterprise failed miserably.

Later Nate told Will they needed another show. It would celebrate the history of the African Americans in the Old West. It was to feature African American cowboys, cavalry officers, and soldiers. Although this venture was incredibly far seeing and showed that Nate had a real appreciation for African American contributions to America, given the tenor of the times and the fact that reconstruction had collapsed twenty years before, it's no surprise that the show bombed.

But that Nate did a good job of managing Buffalo Bill's Wild West is not to be denied. Characterized by a modern historian as a "scrooge", Nate kept a tight rein on expenditures.

The Native American show members received a base pay of $25 a month plus $10 for their wives and $5 for their kids. That may not seem like much but at the time members of the Standing Rock Reservation police force - all tribal members - only received $10 a month. The "Indian chiefs" got up to $60 a month and translators as much as $125. Monthly pay for the "cowboys" was $50 while the skilled performers at roping and trick riding might garner $150. For comparison $150 a month was what Wild Bill Hickock was paid as marshal of Abilene, Kansas.

Will also knew the importance of having big names in the cast, and he was able to get permission from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to have Sitting Bull tour with him for one year. The great chief and medicine man earned a rather chintzy $50 a month. However his duties were light as all he had to do was take a ride around the arena once each show. He also learned to write his name in English and sold autographs for $1 a piece.

You'll hear that Sitting Bull and Will liked each other. That's true enough, but Will really didn't know what to make of the enigmatic Sioux medicine man. Although during the tour Sitting Bull saw how the white man had completely taken control of the country, he never accepted that the tribes were subject to federal authority.

Because Sitting Bull was seen as "uncooperative" by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, they refused Will's further requests that Sitting Bull be allowed to travel with the show. So after one season the old chief returned to the Standing Rock Reservation. Suspected of participating in the Ghost Dance resistance in 1890, Sitting Bull was killed during his arrest by the Sioux police.

Aside from Will, the biggest star of the show was Phoebe Ann Mosey Butler. We don't know exactly what her pay was but it was the second highest in the company (Will's was #1, of course). We're talking about Annie Oakley.

One legend that has not been exaggerated is that of Annie's shooting skills. She once shot a dime out of a man's hand at thirty feet, and even in her old age she could shoot better than almost anyone. Annie was with the show for seventeen years and she had nothing but good to say about her employer.

Because at first the show went to a new town each day it was a logistical nightmare. So after a couple of years Will and Nate decided to stay for extended times in a single location. That worked fine in places like New York and in 1884 the show remained on Staten Island for six months. And of course they played at Madison Square Garden and in 1887 they went to England.

Annie was particularly loved in London. As part of her act she would ask a gentleman volunteer to have the ash shot from the end of his cigar. So during one show a nephew of Queen Victoria immediately stood up. Although the police tried to dissuade him from putting himself in danger, he insisted. Of course, Annie carried the stunt off without incident and in a couple of years the young man would be crowned Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and is generally credited with starting World War I.

Annie's career with the show ended in 1901. The troupe had been playing in North Carolina and was ferried by three separate trains. Due to confusion on the part of one of the engineers, the train with Annie crashed into a second. Annie was knocked unconscious and when she awoke 17 hours later her right side was paralyzed. There were a number of surgical operations over several months, and she and Frank left the show. Fortunately Annie did recover and she and Frank continued to give shooting exhibits and teach others how to shoot.

Over the years everybody came to see Buffalo Bill's Wild West: Mark Twain, Phineas T. Barnum (among other suckers), Elizabeth Custer, Thomas Edison, President Grover Cleveland, Oscar Wilde, and Prince Albert and Queen Victoria. The show toured Europe a total of twelve times.

But then as now economic problems could affect how people were entertained. One of the worst American depressions was the "Panic of 1893". As always the causes are debated but there's no debate that people lost confidence in the currency and began drawing out their savings and hoarding gold and silver. Since banks did not (and do not) keep enough cash on hand to cover their liquid assets, some banks failed. With these tough times people had little money for entertainment, and Will had to go to financiers and make satisfactory arrangements to keep the show afloat.

There was another arrangement that Will made that he felt was definitely unsatisfactory - that with Louisa. With his long absences the marriage had never been easy. Now Louisa was saying that Will actually preferred being on tour with its lure of the whiskey and women. For his part Will simply said that Louisa was ridiculously jealous - and that she even complained when all he did was kiss the girls in the show good-bye after a tour. Others who sided with Will said Louisa was rude to guests and sometimes dressed in an embarrassingly slovenly manner. For good measure Will said she had been poisoning him.

Actually what seems to have happened is that Will had gotten food poisoning from bad tinned meat. But Will still wanted to dissolve the marriage - a shocking step in the 19th century particularly for a marriage that had been going for 40 years. Will figured Louisa would go along if he gave her all the property in North Platte and she could then be the boss. But Louisa said no. She wanted to remain married and the courts ruled in her favor.

The show, though, was still plagued by problems. For one thing Will had to manage the show himself since Nate Salsbury had died in 1902. Also the Wild West was being seen more and more as an era long past. It was now less romantic than old hat and in the first decade of the 20th century people began to look to a future based on the technology of the automobile, the airplane, and the radio³.

Another problem is Will's show was no longer the only Wild West show in town. It seems every Old West character was leading an extravaganza. Even Frank James - the brother of Jesse - got into the act. Teaming up with former James Gang member Cole Younger, Frank toured for a single season in 1903. With more of these shows around, attendance for Buffalo Bill's Wild West began dropping off.

Feeling if you couldn't beat 'em you should join 'em, in 1908 Will decided he would merge with Pawnee Bill's Historical Wild West, Indian Museum and Encampment. Pawnee Bill was the stage name of Gordon William Lillie who himself had once worked for Will. The merger - dubbed Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Pawnee Bill's Great Far East - helped quite a bit and they were able to square Will's debts. In 1910 the show took in $1,000,000 of which $400,000 was profit. Pawnee Bill was more than satisfied. Although Will could be temperamental Pawnee Bill realized that any uptick in attendance was because people wanted to see Buffalo Bill.

But audiences can be fickle and again attendance began falling off - particularly after there had been three years running of "Buffalo Bill's Last Season". By the end of 1912 Will found the show needed some immediate cash if it was to stay in business.

In stepped the owners of the Denver Post Harry Tammen and Fred Bonfils. To square immediate debts they offered Will a $20,000 loan at 6% interest repayable in six months. On January 28, 1913, Will signed on the dotted line and some have wondered if he had read the print, large, small, or otherwise.

It seems that in addition to receiving the $20,000 right away, Will had agreed to sell his services to the Sells-Floto Shows Company - that is to Harry and Fred. The terms included the right to use the "Buffalo Bill" name and all that went with it. Will was to manage a "Wild West" feature but he was to be in the employ of Harry and Fred.

Will would get $100 a day while Harry would get $3000 a day - yes, $3000 a day. What was left over out of the profits would be split 30/30/40 between Harry, Fred, and Will. As to why Will would sign such an instrument, some think he didn't realize exactly what he had done. On the other hand he definitely needed the money.

Which was one thing the show wasn't making. Even the printers of the posters were clamoring for their pay. Worse, by the end of July when the show rolled into Denver, the $20,000 note was coming due and Will couldn't even pay off the personnel. He borrowed $500 and divided it among the troupe.

The shows assets were sold off to satisfy the creditors. Will's horse went for $150.

However, we are talking about Buffalo Bill. Independent offers came in from vaudeville producers offering as much as $2500 a week. But Will said he was worth $5000, a sum that was too high even for putting the famous Buffalo Bill on stage. So Will stuck some other irons in the fire.

In 1893 Tom Edison had made films of members of Will's show including an impressive shooting display by Annie Oakley. Then in 1903 Tom made what is considered the first real Western when he filmed The Great Train Robbery. By 1910 the Western had moved to Hollywood who began cranking them out.

So Will set up a company and made eight short films about the history of the Old West. They made little money and were little noticed.

Unfortunately as far as performing on vaudeville, Will was still in hock to Harry and Fred. He could not even use the name Buffalo Bill without their permission and he was still obliged to perform in what was billed as the Sells-Floto Circus and Buffalo Bill Show.

Will still got $100 a day plus 40% of receipts after Harry skimmed his $3000 off the top. But it seems that after deducting the expenses there weren't many profits to divvy up. Will knew he was being taken to the cleaners, but he still signed up for a tour the next year - only this time Harry would take $3100 per diem.

The last year of the show was 1915 and it ended as you now expect. It was losing so much money that Harry claimed Will owed him $20,000 - the same amount as the first loan. But Harry generously said they would still pay Will his $100 a day as long as $50 would be deducted to pay off the debt.

Will was livid. The animosity between the men became so severe that Harry would not even meet Will in person unless Harry received specific assurances that he would not be in danger. For his part Will figured Harry really owed him $18,000, but he knew he'd never collect it. And he never did. Buffalo Bill's Wild West shows closed up for good.

There was yet one last insult to injury. Harry demanded a one-time payment of $5000 to return the "Buffalo Bill" name. Tired of fighting, Will paid up. Finally he was free to do as he wanted.

Will never again led a circus of his own. But in 1916 he did sign up with the 101 Ranch Wild West show based in Ponca City, Oklahoma. The ranch owners, the Miller Brothers (Joseph, George, and Zack) paid Will his usual $100 a day plus 30% of the profits above $2750. The Millers were evidently on the up-and-up since in a week Will could pull in over $4000.

The 101 Ranch Wild West closed in November after playing in Virginia. That was the last Wild West show to feature Buffalo Bill.

Will was 70 years old and by the standards of the time he was an old man. Nor was he in good health. Although he said he had been a teetotaler for the last nine years, he had continued to drink well into middle age, and once Nate Salsbury said before a meeting he found Will completely incoherent. Also like most men of the time Will was a smoker.

After the show closed, Will went to visit his sister in Denver. Then on January 5, 1917 and after spending some time in the Glenwood Springs spa, Will had some kind of breakdown. He began to recover, but then back in Denver and at five minutes after noon on January 10, 1917 - and after being baptized a Catholic the previous day - Will died.

Will was buried on Lookout Mountain in Denver. Although there have been stories that he has been snatched and reinterred at Cody, Wyoming, this is not true. Buffalo Bill rests in Denver.

All in all history has been fairly kind to Buffalo Bill. Although he, like virtually all white Americans of the time, felt that the "Indians" needed to be "civilized", he realized that had he been in their place he would have acted no differently. And he really had been a buffalo hunter and scout and fought in the Indian Wars. Will Cody was the real thing.

People who worked with Will liked him. One member of the Wild West show said he never spoke harshly and never yelled at anyone. Nor did he allow anyone else to do so.

Most of all, he knew the difference between the real William Frederick Cody and Buffalo Bill. Once he walked into a saloon in his hometown of North Platte, Nebraska. He took off his hat and his long hair fell to his shoulders.

"Say, Bill," asked the bartender, "why the hell don't you cut the damn stuff off?"

"If I did," he replied, "I'd starve to death."

References

Buffalo Bill Cody: The Man Behind the Legend, Robert Carter, Wiley, 2000.

The William F. Cody Archive: Documenting the Life and Times of Buffalo Bill.

"The Pony Express: History and Myth", Laura Ruttum, New York Public Library, February 2, 2010.

"The Pony Express", Joseph Coohill, Professor Buzzkill, 2003.

Frost's Pictorial History of Indian Wars and Captivities from the Earliest Record of American History to the Present Time, Part First, John Frost, Wells Publishing, 1873.

"George Armstrong Custer", Kansapedia, Kansas State Historical Society, November 2011.

"Battle of Summit Springs, Colorado", Kathy Weiser-Alexander, Legends of America, July 2018.

"William 'Buffalo Bill' Cody", Mark Twain Library,

"Buffalo Bill in Show Business", America's Story, Library of Congress.

Edward T. LeBlanc Dime Novel Bibliography

The Gunfighter: Man or Myth?, Joseph G. Rosa, University of Oklahoma Press, 1969.

"Teddy Ryan's Filibusterings", New York Daily Herald, March 9, 1870.

"Buffalo Bill's Medal Restored", The New York Times, July 9, 1989.

"The Tragic Real Life Story of Annie Oakley", Jan Collins, Grunge, January 3, 2020.

"Col. Cody, Scout and Indian Fighter: A Few Incidents in the Adventurous Career of the Famous Buffalo Bill That Have Passed Under My Personal Observation - His Early Days on the Frontier", W. B. (Bat) Masterson, Human Life, 1908.

"Pawnee Bill (Gordon William Lillie) (1860–1942), Erin Glanville Brown, Oklahoma History Center, Oklahoma Historical Society

"Nate Salsbury Helped Buffalo Bill Become the World’s Top Showman", John Koster, Wild West, December, 2010.

"Christmas Eve and the Birth of 'Talk' Radio", Dean Olsher, National Public Radio, December 22, 2006.

"Bills", Qi, Steven Fry (presenter), Alan Davies (permanent panelist), Clive Anderson (guest panelist), Phil Kay, (guest panelist), John Sessions (guest panelist), BBC, December 2004.Buffalo Bill and the Indians or Sitting Bull's History Lesson, Paul Newman (actor), Joel Grey (actor), Geraldine Chaplin (actor), Burt Lancaster (actor), Robert Altman (director), Alan Kopit (writer), Alan Rudolph (writer), United Artists, 1976, Internet Movie Data Base.

"Buffalo Bill", Ngram Viewer.

"William F. Cody", Ngram Viewer.

"Old West", Ngram Viewer.