Many Loves of Buffalo Bill

by Enss, Chris

  Louisa wrote William about her daily routine, their home, the health and welfare of his sisters, and the impending birth of their first child. On December 16, 1866, Arta Cody was born. Several months later William was able to return for a brief visit with his wife and daughter. Seeing his child prompted him to consider less life-threatening work. He decided to enter into business with a land speculator named William Rose.

  The two Wills invested in property near the spot where the Kansas Pacific Railroad was to run several miles west of Fort Hays. Their plan was to lay out a town where eager settlers could live and take advantage of this advanced form of transportation. Supplies were ordered and goods were stockpiled in anticipation of the mad rush to the area that the entrepreneurs named Rome. Once the plans for the railroad community were completed, William sent for Louisa and their daughter to come and live with him. “I was at Ellsworth to meet her when she arrived bringing the baby,” he noted in his memoirs. “Besides three or four wagons, in which the supplies for Rome’s new general store and furniture for the little house I had built was loaded, I had a carriage for the baby. The new town was a hundred miles west. I knew it would be a dangerous trip, as the Indians had long been troublesome along the railroad.”16

  A number of immigrants bound for the new town accompanied the Codys on the journey. William, his family, and the future residents of Rome were attacked twice along the way. Louisa was upset by the raids and with her husband as well. “Mrs. Cody asked me if I had brought her and the baby out on the plains to be killed,” William lamented years later. “This is the kind of life I lead every day and get fat on it, I said. But she did not seem to think it especially congenial.”17

  Louisa and William put all their belongings away in their new home and looked forward to the town growing into a booming metropolis. Louisa was left alone quite a bit while William dealt with selling lots to various homesteaders and hunted buffalo to supply meat for the graders working on the railroad. During that time she learned to handle herself effectively against wild animals and drunken soldiers who made advances.

  Before Rome had barely had a chance to get up and running, a ruthless businessman saw the town’s potential and offered to partner with the two Wills. William Cody turned him down, and within three days the citizens of Rome were leaving in droves. The businessman had established a railroad town of his own called Hays City and encouraged residents to move there. The promise of employment for every man in the territory at the new site led to a mass exodus from Rome.18

  Discouraged and broke, William left the deserted town and headed to St. Louis with his wife and child. After making sure Louisa and Arta were settled at her parents’ home, he returned to the plains to hunt buffalo for the railroad. Once more, William and Louisa were separated, with only letters to connect them until he came home again.

  THREEHusband, Father, Scout, and Actor

  My restless, roaming spirit would not allow me to remain at home very long.

  —WILLIAM CODY (1904)

  In late February 1869, Louisa and her two-year-old daughter Arta were tucked safely inside her parents’ home in St. Louis, Missouri. It was cold, and she stood over a fire blazing in a grate fireplace trying to get warm. Her little girl was nearby playing on the floor with a doll. Preoccupied with rereading a letter from William, Louisa paid little attention to the knock on the front door, nor did she look up from the letter when her mother answered the door. The sound of a familiar voice booming over Elizabeth Frederici’s cheerful welcome prompted Louisa to set aside the correspondence.

  Arta immediately recognized the burly figure that entered the room as her father’s. She hurried to William, and he scooped her into his arms. Louisa was less certain that the man was her husband. There was a long moment of silence as she studied his face and rugged manner of dress. The change in his appearance was so striking that she could only stare at him. “Where the close cropped hair had been were long, flowing curls now,” she later wrote in her memoirs. “A mustache weaved its way outward from his lower lip, while a small goatee showed black and spot-like on his chin.”1

  Louisa slowly approached William and then cupped his chin in her hand. He smiled back at her, and she hugged him around the neck, stroking his matted, unruly mane. “What happened to your hair?” she asked, smoothing it down and pushing several strands behind his ear. “This is how they wear it on the plains,” he replied unapologetically. “If it were any shorter I couldn’t claim to be a scout.” He went on to explain that any Indian who got the better of him would have quite a scalp on his hands.2

  William pulled Louisa close to him and kissed her face. They were happy to see each other, but she thought he looked thin and tired. She promised to serve him a fine meal once he “made himself presentable.” After playfully tossing his daughter in the air a few times and tickling her ribs, he reluctantly went to take a bath and change out of his buckskins into store-bought clothes.

  William’s appearance was significantly less wild when he sat down to eat dinner that evening with his family. It gave Louisa pleasure to see how well he liked her cooking. Still, the good food, the congenial surroundings, his wife’s attentiveness, and the affection of his daughter were not enough to entice him to stay put for an extended period of time.

  General Phil Sheridan, commander of the troops on the western front, needed William as a scout for the Fifth Cavalry. The outfit was being transferred from Fort Lyon, Colorado, to Fort McPherson, Nebraska. As soon as the way was made safe from assault by the Sioux, Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Arapahoe, William promised to return for Louisa and Arta and take them with him to the Northern Plains. The day he announced that he needed to be on his way, a troubled light came to Louisa’s eyes, and the lines around her mouth deepened with sorrow. She worried for her husband’s well-being on such a dangerous journey. She did not doubt his ability as a hunter; indeed, she had been present at numerous shooting expeditions in which William occasionally and successfully competed.

  Riflemen challenged the claim that he was the best buffalo hunter in the West. Huge sums of money were offered to William to prove his talent. Hundreds of spectators would converge at the spot where the contests were held, twenty miles east of Fort Sheridan, Illinois. William and his opponents would hunt for eight hours to see who could shoot the most buffalo. William always won. Many of the Plains Indians knew of his reputation and feared him. Louisa hoped his notoriety would protect him beyond the area where he had earned his fame. Soon after William rode off to join Sheridan’s troops, Louisa began packing and making arrangements to go with him when he returned.

  Riding well in advance of the cavalry, William blazed a trail through treacherous, unsettled territory scanning the area for hostile Indians. Not far from Fort Larned, Kansas, where his trip originated, he spotted a large gathering of Kiowa and Comanche warriors. Other than being restless and anxious about receiving a herd of cattle the U.S. government had promised the tribes, the Indian leaders assured William that they were not planning any attack, and he accepted their word. He did not fail to notice, however, that many of the Indians were armed with rifles and had a generous supply of ammunition. He continued on his way but kept a careful eye out for tribesmen who might be considering going on the warpath.

  Days after his first encounter with the Indians, he was hurrying toward the next outpost on the trek to get supplies and a fresh mount when he was stopped by forty warriors. He recognized them as the same men he had met outside Fort Larned. Their faces were now smeared with red paint, and their demeanor was clearly unfriendly. William was jerked off his ride, disarmed, and escorted to their camp along the Arkansas River. After some fast talking and the promise to help round up several head of cattle and drive them to their village, William was set free.

  More than a dozen warriors trailed along behind him to make sure he would do what he said. William slowly managed to pull ahead of his followers and eventually spurred his ride into a full gallop. A chase between the scout and the Indians ensued. T
he warriors were gaining on William just as he spotted a party of soldiers moving out of a thicket beside a stream. The troops noticed that William was in trouble and took position with their rifles to fire on the incoming Indians. When William reached the soldiers, he leaped off his mount and fell in with them. Several shots were fired, and two Indians were killed. The remaining warriors turned away from the ambush and rode back to their encampment.3

  The Indian uprising along the route did not end with the exchange of gunfire outside Fort Larned. Native Americans were sullen and bitter about the intrusion on their land and the slaughter of the buffalo. From the time William left Louisa at the Kansas military post in 1867 until the time he was able to move his family to Nebraska two years later, he would be involved in numerous skirmishes with a variety of Indian tribes.

  One of the most dangerous of the armed conflicts occurred in the summer of 1869 on the north fork of Nebraska’s Beaver Creek. William was leading a group of civilian scouts and Fifth Cavalry soldiers through this dangerous area when they happened upon a tribe of more than three hundred Cheyenne warriors and their families. All were traveling along the water’s edge. Word of the Indians’ presence was sent to the commander of the troops, and orders were given to the soldiers to keep themselves low in the ravine to avoid being detected. William was sent ahead to find out how quickly the Indians were moving and in what direction. He returned with the recommendation that the cavalry attack the Cheyenne before they discovered the army was there.

  The tribe was not caught unaware. Their own scouts had caught sight of the army. The Indians lined up on one side of the creek bed and were waiting for the advancing soldiers. The Fifth Cavalry’s commander, General Carr, divided his men into divisions and concentrated a wave of troops on the point in the line that had the fewest warriors. A rogue lieutenant decided to attack another point in the line and found himself and his division surrounded by a hundred warring Cheyenne. While the remaining troops fought to rescue the men, the Indians fortified their defense. They held off the cavalry long enough to get the women and children out of the area and then, a little at a time, began retreating toward the Republican River.

  William’s superior shooting and riding skills were instrumental in driving the Cheyenne into the hills and out of the immediate area. The grueling battle had left the scout and the other members of the cavalry exhausted and in need of provisions, ammunition, fresh horses, and reinforcements. The soldiers knew the Cheyenne were tenacious and would mount a counterattack. They knew they would need more help to fight back the rested warriors. William, who had been severely wounded in the episode, volunteered to travel to the nearest fort for assistance.

  General Carr recalled William’s brave ride in his daily log:

  His head was swathed in a bloody handkerchief, which served as a bandage as well as a chapeau, his hat having been shot off, the bullet plowing his scalp badly for about five inches. He was bleeding profusely—a very close call, but a lucky one. The advance guard had been relieved, the Indians severely punished, with a loss on our side of only three killed. Our greatest need was supplies, which the hot trail had side tracked. As the country was infested with Indians, and it was fifty miles to the nearest supply point, Fort Kearney, on consultation with Cody he decided it would be best to undertake the job himself, a point of characteristic [sic] of him, as he never shirked duty or faltered in emergencies.

  I gave him the best horse in the outfit, and when twilight arrived, he, after patching up his head a little, was off to bring relief and meet us at a point northwest about a day’s march away. These were about the most definite directions any scout got in the trackless wastes…. Cody made a ride of fifty miles during the night, arriving at Fort Kearney at daylight.

  He had chased and fought Indians all day, been wounded, and when, through his rare frontier instinct, he reached us he had been almost constantly in the saddle and without sleep for forty hours.4

  By late summer 1869, William had moved Louisa and Arta to Fort McPherson, and the family was busy partaking in the many social engagements at the post. At twenty-two, Buffalo Bill, as many came to call him, was recognized by military leaders and government officials as the best guide and hunter on the plains. He and Louisa were highly sought-after guests at dinners, dances, and weekly stage plays.

  Female camp followers—wives and daughters of the military men stationed at the fort—found William’s unconventional looks appealing. They were attentive and eager to be near him. Louisa had become accustomed to William’s long whiskers and found them as attractive as the other ladies did.5 She had her share of admirers at the post as well. Settlers, soldiers, and cowboys kept her dance card full at every gala.6

  William was proud of his wife, and in the first year together at the army camp, the two shared many wonderful memories. Years later, Louisa fondly recalled a Christmas when William left the fort to travel to Cheyenne, Wyoming, to bring back “gifts and other necessities of the season.” While waiting for him to return, she and some of the other wives decorated the hall where a Christmas party was to be held. She helped prepare a massive holiday meal for the soldiers and their families as well. William arrived back at the post with a wagon that was overflowing with presents for Arta and the other children who lived there. “The program,” Louisa later wrote, “came off in high style, except when our daughter stood up and recited a bit of a silly verse her father had taught her, instead of the more appropriate recitation I had selected for her.”7

  The Codys’ home at Fort McPherson was a modest two-room cabin with an adjacent small log barn. Before Louisa and Arta’s arrival, William had furnished the home with items he had ordered from a store in Cheyenne. In his attempt to make the primitive structure presentable for his wife and child, he tried to paper the rough walls of the cabin. He abandoned the chore before it was completed. “I’m more of a success as an Injun killer,” he told his wife as she inspected the messy job. Louisa was grateful for her husband’s efforts.8

  William wasn’t the only one in the family who had dangerous dealings with the Native Americans who surrounded the post. Louisa had her share of menacing encounters as well. One incident occurred at the Codys’ cabin while Louisa and her friend, Mrs. Charles McDonald, were working on sewing projects. They heard a noise outside the building and spotted hostile Indians lurking about. The two women knew that Indian warriors were mortally afraid of drunken women, so the pair guzzled down a bottle of tea and pretended to be inebriated. When the Indians saw their behavior, they fled in terror. William was pleased with the fact that Louisa could take care of herself if needed. He didn’t worry too much about the safety of his wife and baby when he was out on a scouting mission because he knew she was a capable woman.

  The Codys’ marriage grew strong during their time at the fort. The time they spent together during breaks between scouting expeditions and community activities was enjoyable. They looked forward to the arrival of a baby and building a life for themselves in Nebraska once William’s commitment to the army reached its end. Louisa had big plans for herself and her husband, but so did Ned Buntline.

  Ned Buntline was a newspaper publisher and writer. He was traveling through the region delivering lectures on the evils of drinking when he met William. The two men met each other at Fort Sedgwick, Nebraska. Ned was fascinated with the adventures the seasoned scout had experienced. He spent hours questioning William about his life and listening to harrowing tales of near-death experiences and survival on the untamed frontier. Ned was so impressed with William that when he returned to his home state of New York, he penned a dime novel entitled Buffalo Bill: The King of Bordermen—the Wildest and Truest Story I Ever Wrote.9

  The book was a huge success and helped make William the most famous westerner to date. The book became a series, and William read each installment with great enthusiasm and wonder. He and Ned corresponded between novels, and any new stories involving the daring scout’s encounters with Indians were transformed into another book.10<
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  William’s popularity was still on the rise when his and Louisa’s son was born on November 26, 1870. The couple named him Kit Carson, after the famed frontiersman William had met when he was a boy. Not long after Kit’s birth, William was offered the job of justice of the peace of Cottonwood Springs. The onetime Pony Express station and county seat for North Platte was one mile southeast of Fort McPherson. A series of crimes were being perpetrated outside the jurisdiction of the post. Government property was being hijacked coming into and going out of the army camp. Because the post commander had no jurisdiction over the civilians who were behind the thefts, a judge to handle such legal issues had to be appointed.

  At first, William was hesitant about accepting the job. He told the post commander that he didn’t “know any more about law than a government mule does about book-keeping.”11 Believing the job would not only keep William close to her but also be a prestigious honor, Louisa convinced him to take the position. William tracked down horse thieves, settled property disputes, officiated at weddings, and presided over divorce proceedings.12

  William’s interest in scouting and buffalo hunting did not wane with his new position. He was called on many times to guide buffalo-hunting parties for such well-known men as General Phil Sheridan and the grand duke of Russia. Louisa sent her husband out on such expeditions dressed in elaborate, ornamental garments she had stitched herself. Those who accompanied him on various hunts wrote about how striking William looked. For example, General Henry E. Davies made this observation: “Tall and somewhat slight in figure, though possessed of great strength and iron endurance, straight and erect as an arrow, and with strikingly handsome features, he once attracted to him all with whom he became acquainted, and the better knowledge we gained of him during the days he spent with our party increased the good impression he made upon his introduction.”13