Buffalo Bill Statue in Scotland!

[Diane Merkel]

Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show ran from ... November 16 until February 27 the following year at the East End Exhibition Building off Duke Street.

It featured performances from several stars of the time, including Annie Oakley and George C Crager.

Crager, a Lakota Sioux interpreter, sold and donated a number of Native American objects to the Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow, one of which was the Ghost Dance Shirt.

The shirt is thought to have been worn in the Wounded Knee massacre of 1890, in which American soldiers massacred a group of Lakota Sioux.

Article: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west/6157590.stm

[elisabeth]

Great statue!

That reminded me: we never did hear any more about the Sioux of Salford, did we. (For those who weren't around here when the story first came up, a researcher had discovered that when Buffalo Bill's show went to Salford -- an industrial town in the North of England -- a number of the warriors stayed on and settled there.) Had a quick look to see if any more had emerged onto the web, and there's this:

tinyurl.com/y6mrks

[Diane Merkel]

That's an interesting page, Elisabeth. Thank you.

I'm tempted to contact them about their Charging Thunder bio. The Pony Express ran for 18 months in 1860-61 which, if he was 27 in 1903, has him riding the trail 17 years before he was born!

[elisabeth]

Have just stumbled upon this very sweet account of Buffalo Bill's appearances in Italy:

tinyurl.com/uj5cm

It's nice; good info on the Indians' living conditions, and so on.

Found it while trying and failing to find an answer to something, so I'll throw the question open. Does anyone happen to know the date of Buffalo Bill's famous buffalo-shooting contest with Will Comstock -- the one that secured Cody the "Buffalo Bill" title? Some sources say 1868; the biography written by Cody's daughter implies it was shortly after "the fall of Rome" (Rome, Kansas), which would make it 1867. It's not remotely important, just idle curiosity ... The story goes that it was Comstock's army friends at Fort Wallace, indignant at Cody hijacking what they thought to be Comstock's rightful title, who insisted on the match. Wondering (surprise) whether Keogh was involved or not. (If it was 1867, he could have been; if 1868, unlikely, as he was only at Fort Wallace very briefly in May of that year.) If it was indeed 1868, poor Comstock didn't have to live long with his defeat, as he was killed in August '68 -- leaving the field clear for Cody in any case. Of course, Cody might just have made the whole thing up ...!

[markland]

Elisabeth, as you noted, Comstock was killed in August, 1868. Looking through Wellman's "Some Famous Kansas Frontier Scouts" I could not find anything that stated when the contest occurred. However, it did point out the fact that Comstock was at loose ends during the winter of 1867 and since the plains were relatively quiet during that year, it may have been that year the contest took place. Have you looked through Wheeler's book to see if it mentions anything? If you don't have it, let me know and I will dig it out (and place in the "To be read" stack.)

Merry Christmas,

Billy

P.S. The URL for the Wellman article is:

www.kancoll.org/khq/1932/32_4_wellman.htm

[elisabeth]

Thanks, Billy! In fact it was browsing through the Wellman article that set me off on this quest ... Good thought about Wheeler. I'll have a look. I don't remember him saying anything about Comstock, but then my memory's like the proverbial sieve!

From Cody's own description of the contest, it must have taken place at a time of year when there was plenty of grazing; he describes three large herds coming along in succession, one of which had many cows with young calves -- which sounds like mid to late summer, I'd guess? Can't have been very late summer if '68, for the obvious Comstock reasons stated above; late summer '67 is attractive, as everyone was fairly idle once the Hancock campaign had petered out and the cholera epidemic was over. Easy to imagine people keen to get up a bit of amusement then ... Come to think of it, there might be further clues in Cody's account, and in his daughter's, with regard to how far the railroad had then got. (They mention railroad excursionists coming out from St. Louis to watch.) Will check that, as well as Wheeler.

[elisabeth]

Wheeler says he went went in June 1868, arriving at Fort Wallace on July 4th. At that time, he says, Sheridan was the terminus of the railroad -- and I think Cody says the contest took place near Sheridan. Wheeler seems to know nothing of it, however; he knows Cody only as "Buffalo Bill", so the title must have been settled well before he went out there. He claims to have spent quite a bit of time with Comstock, yet Comstock never told him the story -- but then I suppose only the victor would brag about it!

Wheeler's grasp of events at Fort Wallace before his own arrival is somewhat shaky; he seems to believe the post was established by Colonel Bankhead in 1867, when in reality it was officially established in 1866, and it was under Keogh's command that most of the building work was done. By the time Bankhead took over, it was practically finished. So -- who knows. Could have been late-ish in 1867, or could have been the first half of 1868, for all that Wheeler can tell us ...

[elisabeth]

A bit more to add, perhaps. Searching in Amazon's online reader facility established (1) that no-one, even biographers of Buffalo Biil, seems to have a date for this; and (2) that many suspect he made it up! One writer, however, says remnants of champagne bottles have been found at the likely site (Cody mentions copious supples of champagne being on hand), which might support its being a real rather than an imaginary event. And there is mention of the railroad reaching Sheridan early in May 1868 -- May 8th, I think it said.

So we have a gap of almost two months between the railroad reaching Sheridan and Wheeler reaching Fort Wallace in which it could have happened. According to these assorted sources, Comstock was under contract to scout for Sheridan from March of that year, so in theory shouldn't have been playing games; on the other hand, he was reporting to Lt. Beecher, and thus working out of his home base of Fort Wallace, so he's in the right place at the right time.

As for any possible involvement on Keogh's part: I'm finding it a bit difficult to work out the chronology from the Langellier/Cox/Pohanka book. It says he returned to Fort Wallace from sick leave on May 2nd -- but was then sick in quarters. It's not quite clear for how long, as the book says he "returned to duty" on June 17th ... yet by then he and his company had travelled first to Ellis Station and then to Camp Alfred Gibbs (leaving Ellis on June 15th), so he can't have been exactly incapacitated. Baffling. However, if we're looking at mid to late May for the contest -- which would be about right for buffalo to have calved? -- he's there at Wallace at that time. Cody says the contest is sparked by Comstock's "friends at Fort Wallace"; Beecher, Dr. Turner et al would no doubt count among those, but it's Keogh who's on record as being Comstock's greatest fan. ("An eccentric genius" ... "an unusually intelligent, temperate, and trustworthy man" ... etc., etc.) So I'd be inclined to guess he might have had something to do with it ...