by Enss, Chris
The idea that William was going to be leaving home again annoyed Louisa. The two argued, and Louisa told William that she was taking the children and moving back to her parents’ home in Missouri. According to a court deposition William gave in 1904, he could not persuade her otherwise. “I divided what money I had with her and she went to St. Louis. I went on to California.” En route to the West Coast, William invested in a land and cattle venture in Nebraska and purchased several thousand acres in the Bighorn Basin of Wyoming.14
By the time William arrived at the Bush Theatre in San Francisco, where his show was being held, the theater was sold out. For several nights he played to a standing-room-only crowd. His success as a showman was growing, but he missed his family. A letter from his sister May indicated that Louisa had had a change of heart. She had visited her sister-in-law in Colorado and poured her feelings out to her about the fight she and William had. She was sorry for her part in their disagreement and wanted William to come back to her. “My sister begged me in her letter to do so,” William recalled in 1904. “I finally consented and I went to Denver and at my sister’s house I again met her [Louisa] and as she said she was sorry for what she had done we concluded to try again.”15
Louisa and William tried to patch up their differences on a new ranch house in North Platte. William spared no expense in the construction of the magnificent home, which was built on property he had previously purchased. Lumber for the structure, which Louisa referred to as “a little less than a mansion,” was carted in from Vermont, and the interior was decorated with furniture from Chicago and New York. William remained at home for several months, tending to his livestock, playing with his children, and taking long rides with Louisa along the Dismal River. For a while the couple was content. “We had money now, plenty of it,” Louisa wrote in her memoirs about their life in Nebraska. “All about us ranchers were beginning to take up their claims and begin the life that Will had always dreamed…. The untrammeled ‘great American desert’ was beginning to fade forever.”16
During the summer months of 1879, 1880, and 1882, William shared a career goal with Louisa that he believed would delight them both for the rest of their lives. “It will take a lot of planning and a lot of money,” Louisa remembered her husband saying. “William’s fondest ambition, outside of living a life in the ‘bright, free sunshine of the west,’” she added in her autobiography, “was creating a massive western show.”
“All the people back east want to find out just what the west looks like,” William told Louisa, “and you can’t tell them on a stage. There ain’t no room. So why not take the west right to them?” He explained his elaborate plans to his interested wife. He wanted to transport the prairie, Indians, buffalo, horses, and stagecoaches by train to the East Coast and beyond. Louisa remembered the two talking for hours about the grand project, “like two enthusiastic, happy children planning a ‘play show’ in the back yard.”17
William invested countless hours in organizing a Wild West program. He made plans to recruit Native Americans, trick ropers, riders, and sharpshooters. Numerous guests arrived at the ranch to help plan the show. Numerous guests, including William’s theatrical associates and their children, arrived at the ranch to help plan the show. Louisa, who was feeling pushed aside by then, had limited tolerance for the frequent barrage of out-of-towners. At times she was sullen and withdrawn.18
Despite what William referred to as her “depressing conduct,” Louisa did attend the opening performance of his new show in the fall of 1876.19 The show, entitled The Mountain Meadow Massacre, debuted at the Baltimore Opera House. William was well received by audiences from Rochester to Omaha and had the attention of many women. Their constant presence unnerved Louisa. At the conclusion of the theatrical season, she witnessed four actresses—Ada Forester, Connie Thompson, Tillie Shields, and Liddy Denia—kissing William. Louisa misinterpreted the friendly gesture, and the argument that ensued between her and William was a heated one.20
Louisa kept a close eye on William and the attentive ladies who were involved with his 1878–1879 show The Knight of the Plains. He found such close scrutiny and the complaining that went along with it distracting. It had a definite effect on his job. When Louisa decided to return to the ranch in Nebraska in February 1878, William was glad to see her go. “It [Louisa’s behavior] kept me disturbed and made me nervous,” he revealed in 1904. “I was doing a very particular act in the way of shooting that when I would get excited and nervous over these family jars, I wasn’t in a fit condition to do justice to my performances.”21
William’s autobiography, William F. Cody as Buffalo Bill the Famous Hunter, released in 1879, did little to help alleviate Louisa’s jealousy or lessen her complaints. He made mention of the “throngs of beautiful ladies” around him and how embarrassed he was by their attention; however, he was not shy about being photographed with the women. He posed for many pictures with female followers. Even pen-and-ink artists captured the showman’s image on canvas with genteel fans on his arm.
Although his amiable, sometimes flirtatious personality kept him at odds with Louisa, he did appreciate seeing her happy and attempted to make her happy whenever he could. The house they built in Nebraska seemed to make up for some of his shortcomings. “One great source of pleasure to me was that my wife was delighted with the home I had given her and the prairies of the far west,” William recalled in his memoirs.22
For years William dutifully sent a large portion of the money he earned performing to the Codys’ bank account in North Platte. He hoped that Louisa would recognize his fiscal faithfulness and that the monetary security he provided would make her just as happy as their home. As always, some of the income went to support his family, Louisa’s parents, and his sisters. Now he was also providing for upkeep of the ranch and the purchase of additional acreage. In addition, some of the funds were to be used to help finance the lavish Wild West show William had dreams of producing. He believed that Louisa wanted to see his dream realized just as much as he did. When he learned that the deed to the land he thought he co-owned with Louisa did not have his name on it, he was stunned.
In March 1882 he expressed his irritation over the matter in a letter to Julia. With no land to borrow against to finance the bulk of the Wild West show, William felt that his dream might not be realized:
My Dear Sister, I am in a peck of trouble. What do you think? Lulu has got most if not all of our North Platte property in her name. Now what do you think of that? Ain’t that a nice way for a wife to act?… Would you have thought that of Lulu? After all these years of my working for her. I don’t care a snap for the money, but the way she has treated me.23
Louisa did not consider whether William might see her actions as a betrayal. She believed she was protecting her long-term interests and those of her children from an overly ambitious spouse who might possibly risk everything to fund a theatrical production. In her opinion she was a dutiful wife who was exercising good business sense. The couple did not speak to each other for some time over the incident.24
The setback did not stop William from continuing to organize the Wild West show. He was certain it would be professionally satisfying and would also bring in the money he would need to build a house for himself.
By the summer of 1882, the Codys were once again civil to each other and were preparing to spend the Fourth of July with the citizens of North Platte. The townspeople had asked William to participate in the Independence Day celebration, and he decided to present a portion of the western show he had been working on and rehearsing. The production featured expert riders demonstrating how to lasso and brand cattle, how to break a wild stallion, and how to hunt and shoot buffalo. The “Old Glory Blowout,” as it came to be known, was the most popular and well-attended event in the county’s history. The enthusiastic reception the program received gave William the incentive he needed to take the show on the road.
Two months before William escorted his crew out of North Platte, Lo
uisa gave birth to their third daughter. Irma Louise was born on February 9, 1883. William proudly carried his baby around for all the cast members to see.
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show opened in Omaha on May 17, 1883. His partner in the venture was Nate Salsbury. Salsbury’s background was in theatrical presentations. He was also a performer and co-creator of the frontier review William had initially conceived. With the assistance of publicist John Burke, fifty cowboys, a large company of Indians, Mexican vaqueros, bucking horses, and a herd of buffalo, the troupe prepared to dazzle audiences.25
Louisa attended the show’s debut in Chicago, the next stop on the tour after Omaha. She and William both felt that success there meant the world. “Our every cent was in that show,” Louisa recalled years later. It cost thousands and thousands to purchase the equipment, to hire the actors, and to transport the big organization across the country. Other thousands were tied up in printing and the salaries of men going on in advance to make the arrangements for the show’s coming. And if we failed we knew that failure would follow us everywhere.”26
William and Louisa were anxious about whether there would be an audience for the event. Their concerns were laid to rest once they learned that every seat in the house had been sold out. William’s first entrance brought sustained cheers and applause. “Time after time Will was called forth, mounted on his big, sleek horse, to receive the approval of the tremendous crowds,” Louisa noted in her biography. “There was no worriment after that—our fortunes were made.”27
Neither the elation over the initial success of the show nor the children they shared could make the Codys any better suited for each other. Adding to the strain in their marriage was the fact that their ten-year-old daughter Orra was sickly and their oldest child, Arta, was away at boarding school and refused to answer her father’s letters. William suspected that Louisa had helped drive a wedge between the two. By September 1883 William wanted out of the marriage again and was writing Julia about his intentions. “I am working my way home or at least west,” he told her. “Will close in Omaha in October. Well, I have got out my petition for divorce with that woman…. She has tried to ruin me financially…. Oh I could tell you lots of funny things how she has tried to bust up the horse ranch and buy more property. I get the deeds in her name.”28
Before William had a chance to fully act on his decision to file for divorce, Orra died in October 1883. The tragedy temporarily improved the situation between Louisa and William. They buried their daughter at the same cemetery in New York where Kit was laid to rest.
It was with a heavy heart that William rejoined the Wild West troupe to complete the theatrical season, and the remainder of the year was fraught with problems. The riverboat used to haul the show down the Mississippi crashed into another vessel, a mishap that eventually prevented the program from going on. A valued cast member died from injuries sustained in the accident as well.29
William survived the trying times of the 1884 season with great help from his sisters. They encouraged him to continue on and showered him with praise for his perseverance. Helen bragged about his strength of character in her 1899 biography. “Buffalo Bill … enters under the flash of the limelight, and sweeping off his sombrero, holds his head high, and with a ring of pride in his voice, advances before his great audience,” she wrote. “He sits his horse with a natural grace much better suited to the saddle than to the Presidential chair.”30
FIVEThe Dear Favorite
Women on the plains have prayed for him, have called that name as the one thing between them and suicide.
–CHAUNCEY THOMAS, OUTDOOR LIFE MAGAZINE, ABOUT WILLIAM CODY (1917)
Mollie Moses, a disheveled woman in her mid-forties, sat alone in her run-down Kentucky home, crying. She wiped her eyes with the hem of her tattered black dress and glanced up at a portrait of William Cody hanging over a cold fireplace. On the dusty coffee table in front of her lay a number of letters carefully bound together with faded ribbon. The woman’s feeble finger loosened the tie and slowly unfolded one of the correspondences. Tears slid down her cheeks as she read aloud:
My Dear Little Favorite … I know if I had a dear little someone whom you can guess, to play and sing for me it would drive away the blues who knows but what some day I may have her eh! … I am not very well, have a very bad cold and I have ever so much to do. With love and kiss to my little girl—From her big boy, Bill.1
Mollie closed her eyes and pressed the letter to her chest, remembering. From the moment she first saw Buffalo Bill Cody at a Wild West performance, she had been captivated by him. He was fascinating—a scout, hunter, soldier, showman, and rancher. Mollie was swept away by his accomplishments, reputation, and physical stature. In September 1885 the enamored young woman from Morganfield, Kentucky, set about to win the heart of the most colorful figure of the era.2
William was receptive to Molly’s pursuit. His all-too-frequent absences from home continued to add to the trouble he had with his wife. Louisa was critical of his actions and demanding of his time. The more she complained about the escalation in his drinking as well as his inability to manage their finances, the more distance he sought to put between them. The deaths of two of their four children, Kit in 1876 and Orra in 1883, had further strained their relationship. Louisa resented William for not being around more to help care for their children, and William was offended that she was using the funds he sent home to support his family for buying property in North Platte solely in her name.3
William contemplated divorce in September 1883 but reconsidered the severe act after Orra died the following month. The Codys were cordial to each other, but the marriage was void of romance. William was preoccupied with the development of the Wild West show, which he hoped to take on a multicity tour in late 1885. The undertaking was hugely expensive, and Louisa was concerned about the debts they were amassing. William predicted that the show, which would feature Annie Oakley and the famous Indian scout Sitting Bull, would leave them financially sound. The outlook on his relationship with Louisa wasn’t as hopeful.4
Buffalo Bill was hundreds of miles from home and emotionally vulnerable when he met Mollie Moses in November 1885. She had attended one of the opening performances of the Wild West show in Shawnee Town, Illinois, and introduced herself to the star. She was an attractive widow, intelligent and sophisticated. Their encounter left a lasting impression on William, and they made arrangements to meet the following evening. Time and propriety kept them from seeing each other again before he left the area. Mollie sent William a letter expressing her delight in having made his acquaintance.
The letter she wrote to William in early November 1885 reflected her maturity and sincere interest in him. Her correspondence read like that of an experienced woman, not a love-struck girl. The death of her husband and only child many years prior had transformed the once impetuous girl into a driven, determined woman. Mollie was educated and well-read as well as an accomplished artist and seamstress.5
William found those aspects of her character appealing. On November 11, 1885, he responded to her letter, forwarding his itinerary to her as well as his hope that they could meet in the future.
Your kind letter received. Also the beautiful little flag which I will keep and carry as my mascot, and every day I wave it to my audiences I will think of the fair donor. I tried to find you after the performances yesterday for I really wished to see you again…. It is impossible for me to visit you at your home much as I would like to have done so. Many thanks for the very kind invitation. I really hope we’ll meet again. Do you anticipate visiting the World’s Fair at New Orleans if you do will you please let me know when you are there…. Enclosed please find my route. I remain yours.6
As the romance between Mollie and William blossomed, she expressed concerns about Louisa. In one of William’s letters to Mollie, he tried to put her mind at ease on the subject.
My Dear Little Favorite … Now don’t fear about my better half. I will tell you a secret. My bette
r half and I have separated. Someday I will tell you all about it. Now do you think any the less of me? I wish I had time to write you a long letter to answer all your questions and tell you of myself, but I have not the time and perhaps it might not interest you…. With love and a kiss to my little girl from her big boy.7
Hero worship and love flared into a twin flame in Mollie’s heart. She ached to be with William, and when she wasn’t able to be with him at various stops on the tour, she extended invitations for him to visit her at her home. Managing the Wild West show demanded a lot of his time, and he was unable to get away as often as Mollie hoped.
My Dear … You say you are not my little favorite or I would take the time to come to see you. My dear don’t you know that it is impossible for me to leave my show. My expenses are $1,000 a day and I can’t. I would come if it were possible and I can’t say when I can come either but I hope to some day.8
William could not break free from his business, but Mollie persisted. She requested that some of his personal mementos be sent in his stead. “If you cannot be, I must have something of you near me,” she wrote him. In April 1886 he answered her letter: “My Dear Little Favorite … Don’t fear I will send a locket and picture soon. Little Pet, it’s impossible for me to write from every place. I have so much to do, but will think of you from every place. Will that do? With Fond Love … Will.”9
In spite of his constant reassuring, Mollie was not convinced that William and his wife were destined for divorce. When it became clear to her that William could not, or would not, fully commit to her, she requested a spot in his show. She reasoned that this was the only way she would be able to be with him all the time. Mollie was not without talent. She was a fine horsewoman and that, along with her romantic involvement with William, helped persuade him to invite her to join his troupe.10
