Wild Bill

by Tom Clavin

  Notes

  2. Bloody Kansas

  1.  The unfortunate casualty, Thomas Barber, at least had his demise memorialized in “Burial of Barber,” a poem composed by John Greenleaf Whittier.

  3. Death at Rock Creek Station

  1.  Slade would appear in several screen projects, including being played by Mark Stevens in the 1953 feature film Jack Slade, with Barton MacLane as Jules Beni, and an episode two years later on the TV series Stories of the Century, with Gregg Palmer as Slade and Paul Newman as Beni.

  4. Behind Enemy Lines

  1.  Those concerned about General McCulloch’s soul no doubt hoped his exclamation was not a greeting.

  2.  Brown was found guilty of murder, conspiracy, and treason stemming from the raid on Harpers Ferry. He was executed in December 1859.

  3.  Custer aficionados will recognize Benteen as one of the officers who served with the Seventh Cavalry at the Battle of Little Bighorn in June 1876.

  9. Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill

  1.  If this sounds familiar, it is because there are actually several reports from different times of Hickok and Cody bringing prisoners to jail. However, no more than two of the tales are likely accurate.

  2.  The Tenth Cavalry Regiment would continue as an African American unit until deactivated during World War II in 1944.

  10. “They Killed Me”

  1.  James Butler is the only member of the Hickok family not buried in Troy Grove, Illinois. Perhaps one indication of how close the family was is that three of James’s siblings died within months of each other in 1916, a full forty years after Wild Bill’s violent death.

  2.  Readers of Dodge City will recall that Webster would relocate to Dodge City, serve four terms as mayor there, and become a central figure in the Dodge City War of 1883.

  3.  This is just one of several variations of his name, with Strayhun and Strawhim being used frequently, too.

  11. The Man-Killer

  1.  He was also known as Sam Young or Harry “Sam” Young.

  12. The Two-Fisted Marshal

  1.  Aside from Hickok, Abilene’s most famous resident was Dwight D. Eisenhower. Though born in Denison, Texas, the thirty-fourth president grew up in Abilene and worked at the Belle Springs Creamery, the site of the former Drovers Cottage. Eisenhower’s connection to Abilene continues in that he and his wife, Mamie, and their firstborn son, Doud Dwight, are buried on the grounds of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum, and Boyhood Home.

  2.  Also known as “Texas fever” in Kansas, this was a tick-borne scourge that could be transmitted to Kansas livestock and prompted some communities to ban cattle coming from Texas altogether.

  3.  Edwards would claim to be the last man alive who had known Tom Smith and Wild Bill Hickok personally. For an obvious reason, no one stepped or was wheeled forward to challenge him.

  4.  Presidential historians might be interested in this connection: In one of his last roles as an actor, Ronald Reagan played Tom Smith in “No Gun Behind His Badge,” an episode in the Death Valley Days TV series. The following year, 1966, Reagan ran for and was elected governor of California.

  15. The Running of the Bulls

  1.  As will be seen in various accounts, Charley and Charlie were used interchangeably to refer to him.

  16. The Reluctant Thespian

  1.  Sadly, Cody and his wife would outlive three of their children—Arta, who died at thirty-eight; Kit, who died at six; and Orra, who died at eleven. Their fourth child, Irma Louise, died at thirty-five, in 1918, a year after Cody died and three years before a heartbroken Louisa passed away.

  2.  The Whole Foods and Sprouts marketing executive Joe Dobrow paid $3,100 for the headstone. The April 12, 2017, ceremony, the one hundredth anniversary of Burke’s death, was live-streamed on Facebook and included mountain stones placed on the grave and the headstone dedication. The epithet carved on it was HOT AIR AND KIND WORDS DISPENSER.

  3.  By the end of the tour of Scouts of the Plains, for Arizona John Burke, there was a loss in addition to Hickok’s departure. His amorous attentions were spurned by Mlle Morlacchi. She decided to stick with Texas Jack, and the couple rode off into the sunset together. Texas Jack alternated between being a correspondent for The New York Herald, writing about frontier events, and accompanying his wife on tours with other stage productions. It was during one of their tour stops, in Leadville, Colorado, in June 1880 that Texas Jack contracted pneumonia and died, one month shy of his thirty-fourth birthday. A grieving Morlacchi quit the stage, went to live with a sister, and died in 1886 at thirty-nine.

  17. The Cheyenne Loafer

  1.  The Sioux name for the brutal engagement was the Battle of the Hundred-in-the-Hands, based on a dream a medicine man had in advance of the battle.

  2.  One account of the Gold Room incident was written by Alfred E. Lewis and published in the Marsh 12, 1904, issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Lewis claimed it was reported to him by Bat Masterson, who was gambling in Cheyenne at the time. This is highly unlikely. In the summer of 1874, Masterson was only twenty and busy as both a buffalo hunter and a scout in Kansas and Texas, and was not the debonair gambler he would later become.

  18. A Woman Called Calamity

  1.  There is not much doubt about where Calamity Jane was born, but there are varying accounts of when and what her last name was. “Canary” seems to be the twenty-first-century consensus among biographers.

  2.  Sadly, she would spend her last days doing the same thing.

  3.  Gibbon had an especially strong Civil War résumé. He commanded the “Iron Brigade” that fought with distinction at the Battles of Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville, and he commanded the defensive position that repelled Pickett’s Charge during the Battle of Gettysburg.

  19. A Married Man

  1.  The escrow account continues to exist. With interest, today the initial six million dollars offered has grown to over one billion dollars. The Lakota Sioux have steadfastly refused to take it, demanding instead that the Black Hills be returned to them.

  2.  This Hunton did, but he was apparently in no hurry to deliver it to Deadwood. Hunton wound up keeping the cane until 1921, when he donated it to the Wyoming Historical Society.

  20. Deadwood Days

  1.  The cost of sending a letter was twenty-five cents, and the employees of the mail service, often traveling in groups for protection against hostiles, could carry up to two thousand letters per trip.

  2.  It was not until the following year that Swearengen opened the Gem Theater, a much larger business portrayed in the HBO series Deadwood. Until it burned down in September 1879, it is believed to have earned at least five thousand dollars a night from alcohol, gambling, and prostitution, a huge take for the time.

  3.  He was a second cousin of Charles Ingalls, whose daughter Laura Ingalls Wilder would write the frontier classic Little House on the Prairie.

  21. The Premonition

  1.  The actual scalp and Yellow Hair’s quirt and weapons were sent by Cody to his friend Moses Kerngood in Rochester, New York, who displayed them in his cigar store. The scalp can now be found at the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, Wyoming.

  2.  According to a document housed in the National Archives, on the way to Deadwood, Hickok visited the doctor at Fort Laramie, who noted that the gunfighter was “going blind from glaucoma.” If Hickok was indeed given this blunt assessment, and the fact didn’t put a stop to his plans, it probably made him all the more desperate to push on with the gold-seeking expedition.

  3.  Storms may have been mostly a good-for-nothing gunman, but he contributed to the creation of the bulletproof vest. Dr. George Goodfellow noted that though a bullet struck Storms in the heart, not a drop of blood had exited the wound. The Tombstone physician extracted the intact bullet and found it wrapped in silk from the victim’s handkerchief. Dr. Goodfellow began e
xperimenting with bullet-resistant clothing, beginning with layers of silk, then moving on to other materials.

  22. Dead Man’s Hand

  1.  Massie never had one of the most infamous bullets of the American West removed. Over the years during his travels, when he arrived somewhere he announced that “the bullet that had killed Wild Bill Hickok had come to town.” It was buried with William Massie after he died in St. Louis in 1910.

  2.  In his coroner’s report, Peirce included that Hickok’s corpse, when laid out, looked like a wax figure and that “Wild Bill was the prettiest corpse I have ever seen.”

  3.  One of the witnesses was Captain Massie, who displayed the bullet wound in his wrist.

  4.  Its journey not yet completed, sometime after Agnes’s death, the lock of Hickok’s hair was on the move again, eventually becoming part of the Wilstach Collection at the New York Public Library.

  Selected Bibliography

  BOOKS

  Ames, John. The Real Deadwood: True Life Histories of Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Outlaw Towns, and Other Characters of the Lawless West. New York: Chamberlain Bros., 2004.

  Athearn, Robert G. William Tecumseh Sherman and the Settlement of the West. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1956.

  Barnitz, Albert. The Diary of Major Albert Barnitz (unpublished manuscript). Beinecke Library, Yale University.

  Bell, Bob Boze. Classic Gunfights. Phoenix, AZ: Tri-Star Boze Publications, 2013.

  Brown, Dee. Trail Driving Days. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1952.

  Buel, J. R. Heroes of the Plains. London: Forgotten Books, 2018.

  Burkey, Blaine. Wild Bill Hickok: The Law in Hays City. Hays, KS: Ellis County Historical Society, 1973.

  Carter, Robert A. Buffalo Bill Cody: The Man Behind the Legend. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000.

  Clavin, Tom. Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and the Wickedest Town in the American West. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2017.

  Cody, Louisa Frederici. Memories of Buffalo Bill. New York: D. Appleton, 1919.

  Cody, William F. Buffalo Bill’s Life Story: An Autobiography. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2010.

  Collins, Robert. Kansas Train Tales. N.p.: CreateSpace, 2009.

  Connelley, William E. Wild Bill and His Era: The Life and Adventures of James Butler Hickok. New York: Press of the Pioneers, 1933.

  Custer, Elizabeth Bacon. Following the Guidon. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1976.

  Custer, George Armstrong. My Life on the Plains. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962.

  Dary, David. True Tales of Old-Time Kansas. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1984.

  Dawson, Charles. Tales of the Oregon Trail. Bellevue, WA: Big Byte Books, 2017.

  Dexter, Pete. Deadwood. New York: Random House, 1986.

  Drury, Bob, and Tom Clavin. The Heart of Everything That Is. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013.

  Dykstra, Robert R. The Cattle Towns. New York: Knopf, 1968.

  Ebbutt, Percy G. Emigrant Life in Kansas. London: British Library, 2010.

  Eisele, Wilbert E. The Real Wild Bill Hickok. Denver, CO: William H. Andre, 1931.

  Etulain, Richard W. The Life and Legends of Calamity Jane. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2014.

  Fisher, Linda A., and Carrie Bowers. Agnes Lake Hickok: Queen of the Circus, Wife of a Legend. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2009.

  Hardin, John Wesley. Gunfighter. n.p.: Creation Books, 2000.

  Herring, Hal. Famous Firearms of the Old West. Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot Press, 2011.

  Jackson, Donald. Custer’s Gold: The United States Cavalry Expedition of 1874. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966.

  Jameson, Henry B. Early Days in Abilene, Kansas. Abilene, KS: Reflector-Chronicle Publishing Corp., 1940.

  Jucovy, Linda. Searching for Calamity: The Life and Times of Calamity Jane. Philadelphia: Stampede Books, 2012.

  McCoy, Joseph G. Historic Sketches of the Cattle Trade of the West and Southwest. Middletown, DE: Pantianos Classics, 2017.

  McLaird, James D. Calamity Jane: The Woman and the Legend. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005.

  ________. Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane: Deadwood Legends. Pierre: South Dakota State Historical Society Press, 2008.

  Mersman, Joseph J. The Whiskey Merchant’s Diary: An Urban Life in the Emerging Midwest. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2007.

  Miller, Nyle H., and Joseph W. Snell. Great Gunfighters of the Kansas Cowtowns, 1867–1886. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1963.

  ________. Why the West Was Wild: A Contemporary Look at the Antics of Some Highly Publicized Kansas Cowtown Personalities. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003.

  Monaghan, Jay. The Great Rascal: The Life and Adventures of Ned Buntline. New York: Bonanza Books, 1951.

  Nash, Jay Robert. Encyclopedia of Western Lawmen & Outlaws. New York: Da Capo, 1992.

  North, Luther and Donald F. Danker. Man of the Plains. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1961.

  O’Connor, Richard. Wild Bill Hickok. New York: Doubleday, 1959.

  Otero, Miguel Antonio. My Life on the Frontier 1864–1882. London: Kessinger Publishing, 2010.

  Pierce, Dale. Wild West Characters. Phoenix, AZ: Golden West, 1991.

  Robinson, Gil. Old Wagon Show Days. Cincinnati: Brockwell Company, 1925.

  Root, Frank A., and William Connelley. The Overland Stage to California. London: Forgotten Books, 2016.

  Rosa, Joseph G. Age of the Gunfighter: Men and Weapons on the Frontier 1840–1900. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995.

  ________. They Called Him Wild Bill: The Life and Adventures of James Butler Hickok. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964.

  ________. The West of Wild Bill Hickok. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994.

  Russell, Don. The Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1960.

  Spring, Agnes Wright. Good Little Bad Man: The Life of Colorado Charley Utter. Boulder, CO: Pruett Publishing, 1987.

  Steckmesser, Kent Ladd. The Western Hero in History and Legend. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997.

  Stiles, T. J. Custer’s Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America. New York: Knopf 2015.

  Stillman, Deanne. Blood Brothers: The Story of the Strange Friendship Between Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017.

  Stratton, Joanna L. Pioneer Women: Voices from the Kansas Frontier. New York: Touchstone, 1982.

  Tallent, Annie. The Black Hills. London: Forgotten Books, 2017.

  True West, eds. True Tales and Amazing Legends of the Old West. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2005.

  Verckler, Stewart P. Cowtown Abilene: The Story of Abilene, Kansas, 1867–1875. Whitefish, MT: Literary Licensing, 2011.

  Webb, Dave. Adventures with the Santa Fe Trail. Dodge City: Kansas Heritage Center, 1989.

  Wilstach, Frank J. The Plainsman, Wild Bill Hickok. Garden City, NY: Sun Dial Press, 1937.

  ARTICLES

  “A Trip To the Black Hills.” Scribner’s, February 1877.

  Banks, Leo W. “Gambling, Gold and Women.” True West, September 2017.

  Boardman, Mark. “Buffalo Bill Lies Here—or Here.” True West, December 2016.

  Bommersbach, Jana. “The Ball that Killed Wild Bill.” True West, January 2015.

  ________. “Hot Air & Kind Words.” True West, January 2018.

  Brown, Norman Wayne. “The Birth of a Wicked Son Reimagined.” True West, March 2017.

  “Buffalo Hunt at Niagara Falls.” Nebraska State Historical Society, 2005.

  Cerney, Jan. “Agnes Lake Hickok: Queen of the Circus, Wife of a Legend.” Western American Literature, Spring 2010.

  Cushman, George L. “Abilene, First of the Kansas Cow Towns.” Kansas Historical Quarterly, August 1940.

  Dippie, Brian W. “Its Equal I Have Never Seen: Custer Explores the Black Hills in 1874.” Columbia: The Magazine of Northwest
History, Summer 2005.

  Eastman, Charles A. “Roman Nose—Cheyenne War Chief.” Legends of America, 2017 (reprinted from 1918).

  Flippin, W. B. “The Tutt and Everett War in Marion County.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Summer 1958.

  Garfield, Marvin H. “Defense of the Kansas Frontier 1866–1867.” Kansas Historical Quarterly, August 1932.

  Hough, Emerson. “Joseph Slade—Hanged by Vigilantes.” Legends of America, 2003 (reprinted from 1903).

  Koster, John. “Legendary California Joe.” Wild West, April 2018.

  Landry, Alysa. “Native History: Custer Attacks Peaceful Cheyenne in Oklahoma.” Indian Country Media Network, November 2013.

  “Last Days of a Plainsman.” True West, November/December 1965.

  Lewis, Alfred Henry. “How Mr. Hickok Came to Cheyenne.” Oamaru Mail, April 1904.

  Lyons, Chuck. “Deadwood’s Black Friday Fire.” Wild West, April 2018.

  “Memories of Buffalo Bill.” Ladies’ Home Journal, July 1919.

  Nichols, George Ward. “Wild Bill.” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, February 1867.

  Rosa, Joseph G. “California Joe: Great Scout and Plainsman.” True West, April 2002.

  Spangenberger, Phil. “Colt’s Paterson—the Foaling of a Legend.” True West, May 2017.