The FReeper Foxhole Profiles William "Buffalo Bill" Cody - Aug. 2nd, 2004

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[SAMWolf]

Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
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FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer
for all those serving their country at this time.

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William F. Cody
(1846-1917)

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In a life that was part legend and part fabrication, William F. Cody came to embody the spirit of the West for millions, transmuting his own experience into a national myth of frontier life that still endures today.

Born in Scott County, Iowa, in 1846, Cody grew up on the prairie. When his father died in 1857, his mother moved to Kansas, where Cody worked for a wagon-freight company as a mounted messenger and wrangler. In 1859, he tried his luck as a prospector in the Pikes Peak gold rush, and the next year, joined the Pony Express, which had advertised for "skinny, expert riders willing to risk death daily." Already a seasoned plainsman at age 14, Cody fit the bill.


William F. Cody, age 11. Tintype, c. 1857. William F. Cody Collection.

During the Civil War, Cody served first as a Union scout in campaigns against the Kiowa and Comanche, then in 1863 he enlisted with the Seventh Kansas Cavalry, which saw action in Missouri and Tennessee. After the war, he married Louisa Frederici in St. Louis and continued to work for the Army as a scout and dispatch carrier, operating out of Fort Ellsworth, Kansas.

Finally, in 1867, Cody took up the trade that gave him his nickname, hunting buffalo to feed the construction crews of the Kansas Pacific Railroad. By his own count, he killed 4,280 head of buffalo in seventeen months. He is supposed to have won the name "Buffalo Bill" in an eight-hour shooting match with a hunter named William Comstock, presumably to determine which of the two Buffalo Bill’s deserved the title.


William F. Cody, 1865, age 19

Beginning in 1868, Cody returned to his work for the Army. He was chief of scouts for the Fifth Cavalry and took part in 16 battles, including the Cheyenne defeat at Summit Springs, Colorado, in 1869. For his service over these years, he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1872, although this award was revoked in 1916 on the grounds that Cody was not a regular member of the armed forces at the time. (The award was restored posthumously in 1989).

All the while Cody was earning a reputation for skill and bravery in real life, he was also becoming a national folk hero, thanks to the exploits of his alter ego, "Buffalo Bill," in the dime novels of Ned Buntline (pen name of the writer E. Z. C. Judson). Beginning in 1869, Buntline created a Buffalo Bill who ranked with Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone and Kit Carson in the popular imagination, and who was, like them, a mixture of incredible fact and romantic fiction.


An extremely early portrait of Buffalo Bill Cody (left) and Louis Richard.

In 1872 Buntline persuaded Cody to assume this role on stage by starring in his play, The Scouts of the Plains, and though Cody was never a polished actor, he proved a natural showman, winning enthusiastic applause for his good-humored self-portrayal. Despite a falling out with Buntline, Cody remained an actor for eleven seasons, and became an author as well, producing the first edition of his autobiography in 1879 and publishing a number of his own Buffalo Bill dime novels. Eventually, there would be some 1,700 of these frontier tales, the majority written by Prentiss Ingraham.

But not even show business success could keep Cody from returning to the West. Between theater seasons, he regularly escorted rich Easterners and European nobility on Western hunting expeditions, and in 1876 he was called back to service as an army scout in the campaign that followed Custer’s defeat at the Little Bighorn.



On this occasion, Cody added a new chapter to his legend in a "duel" with the Cheyenne chief Yellow Hair, whom he supposedly first shot with a rifle, then stabbed in the heart and finally scalped "in about five seconds," according to his own account. Others described the encounter as hand-to-hand combat, and misreported the chief’s name as Yellow Hand. Still others said that Cody merely lifted the chief’s scalp after he had died in battle. Whatever actually occurred, Cody characteristically had the event embroidered into a melodrama--Buffalo Bill's First Scalp for Custer--for the fall theater season.

Cody’s own theatrical genius revealed itself in 1883, when he organized Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, an outdoor extravaganza that dramatized some of the most picturesque elements of frontier life: a buffalo hunt with real buffalos, an Indian attack on the Deadwood stage with real Indians, a Pony Express ride, and at the climax, a tableau presentation of Custer’s Last Stand in which some Lakota who had actually fought in the battle played a part. Half circus and half history lesson, mixing sentimentality with sensationalism, the show proved an enormous success, touring the country for three decades and playing to enthusiastic crowds across Europe.



In later years Buffalo Bill’s Wild West would star the sharpshooter Annie Oakley, the first "King of the Cowboys," Buck Taylor, and for one season, "the slayer of General Custer," Chief Sitting Bull. Cody even added an international flavor by assembling a "Congress of Rough Riders of the World" that included cossacks, lancers and other Old World cavalrymen along with the vaqueros, cowboys and Indians of the American West.

Though he was by this time almost wholly absorbed in his celebrity existence as Buffalo Bill, Cody still had a real-life reputation in the West, and in 1890 he was called back by the army once more during the Indian uprisings associated with the Ghost Dance. He came with some Indians from his troupe who proved effective peacemakers, and even traveled to Wounded Knee after the massacre to help restore order.


"Buffalo Bill" Cody and the Prince of Monacco presented Plenty Coups a rifle in a 1913 ceremony in Cody, Wyoming.

Cody made a fortune from his show business success and lost it to mismanagement and a weakness for dubious investment schemes. In the end, even the Wild West show itself was lost to creditors. Cody died on January 10, 1917, and is buried in a tomb blasted from solid rock at the summit of Lookout Mountain near Denver, Colorado.

[SAMWolf]

There is something terribly wrong when people hate everyone and everything.

Why? It works for me. ;-)

[snippy_about_it]

Thanks WaterDragon. btw- when are you do back in Oregon..I have been so busy I haven't picked the book up for over a week.

[PhilDragoo]

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Cody received the United States Medal of Honor in 1872 for gallantry as an army scout, but a congressional ruling in 1917, shortly after Cody's death, caused his medal to be revoked. The ruling stated that only enlisted men and officers could receive the medal and that army scouts, who were considered civilians, were ineligible. In the summer of 1989 the army returned Cody's name to the Medal of Honor list. The medal which reads "The Congress to William F.Cody, guide, for gallantry at Platte River, Neb., April 26, 1872," had been retained by the Cody family, because the army had not requested its return. The bronze, star-shaped medal may be seen at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center at Cody, Wyoming.

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America shall ever honor such heroes as above, and expose such zeroes as below:

This zero threw away the medals he never earned.

[GailA]

FNC just said hanoi john said he'd suspend his campaign and rush right back to DC to vote on fixing the intel mess.........if only GW would call a special session of congress! Duh his buds in the congress are out campaigning for reelection, and they won't want to go back to DC for a photo op for hanoi john.

[snippy_about_it]

This zero threw away the medals he never earned.

Before he decided against it and threw away someone else's medals.

flippity flop flop

[snippy_about_it]

Gee, what would this be, his third or fourth vote of the year?

[Valin]

As I recall he was President Reagans favorite president.

[Valin]

Here comes Peter Cottontail
Hoppin' down the bunny trail,
Hippity hoppity,
Easter's on its way

[SAMWolf]

Evening Phil Dragoo.

LOL! Love the Girly-Manchurian Candidate graphic.

[SAMWolf]

[Light Speed]

Dropping in to say Hi...

Caught a great documentary on History Channel tonight... 2 Hours..on Jutland.

Admiral Beatty:....."There seems to be something wrong with our Bloody ships today"! : )

Hope you get to see this program..its really good.

Dive and ROV on some sunken British Warships.
An overview :..seems the concensus is that the British doubled up on shells and cordite...some Navy reg passed.
so ya.....way to much cordite and sloppy handling.
Brits lost 4 ships when they blew up internally from flash fires which ignited cordite..then travelled up to turrets and shell storage rooms.

The program covered some of the post battle politic-ing..other documentaries I have seen cover this more...Jellico..and Beatty..allong with Admiralty cover-up.

A bit of a vanity turn.....which involves the U.S. at a later date.

Their has been several Navy /Gov scandals involving WW-1 and post...Winston Churchill is in the mix..[The Great Gunnery Scandal]

After WW-1.....a guy named Arthur Pollen invented a first Gen computer targeting system ....part of its system was a range finder/calculus/computer thingy known as *The Argo clock.

Winston went to bat for Arthur ..yet he was blocked by the Admiralty.
Pollens system was superior to the existing Royal Navy targeting system.
The U.S. Navy was impressed with the gunnery accuracy which Pollens system netted...they negotiated after 1925? I believe to take the patent and incorp it into the U.S. fleet.

Eventually the U.S. devolped their own targeting computer.....lofted upon Pollens.

During the beginning of WW-2..The British Battleship *Rodney which still had the Argo clock.... scored successive hits in minutes on Bismarcks Turrets in the first action of the German BB's last day..

Pollens targeting system was engineered by a Family member....Harold Isherwood.

Hope Summer is finding you Happy : )

[WaterDragon]

I'll be home on Aug 21, and very much looking forward to it!!!!

[SAMWolf]

Evening Light Speed"There seems to be something wrong with our Bloody ships today"! : )

I always liked that quote. Typical Brit understatement.

Snippy and I watched the "Operation Downfall: The Invasion That Never Was" program this afternoon. Scary to think the US was actually planning massive Chemical attacks on Japan. Estimated casualties 5 million.

Pollens targeting system was engineered by a Family member....Harold Isherwood.

:-)

Hope your summer is going good too. We missed you around the Foxhole.

[snippy_about_it]

Hiya Light Speed. Summer has been busy but good. Hope yours has been good for you.

[snippy_about_it]

Yeah. I don't think the grass has grown for over a month now, no rain.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!