Who Is Buffalo Bill Cody?

William Cody's father, Isaac Cody, believed that Kansas should be a free state, but many settlers in the area were pro-slavery. While giving an anti-slavery speech at the local trading post, he so outraged the supporters of slavery in the audience that they formed a mob and stabbed him. The young Cody helped to drag his father to safety, although he never fully recovered from his injuries. The family was constantly persecuted by the supporters of slavery, forcing Isaac Cody to spend much of his time away from home. His enemies learned of a planned visit to his family and plotted to kill him on the way. Cody, despite his youth and the fact that he was ill, rode 30 miles to warn his father. William Cody's father died in 1857 from complications from his stabbing.

After Isaac Cody's death, the Cody family suffered financial difficulties, and William Cody, aged 11, took a job with a freight carrier as a "boy extra," riding up and down the length of a wagon train, delivering messages. From there, he joined Johnston's Army as an unofficial member of the scouts assigned to guide the Army to Utah to put down a falsely-reported rebellion by the Mormon population of Salt Lake City. According to Cody's account in Buffalo Bill's Own Story, the Utah War was where he first began his career as an "Indian fighter."

At the age of 14, Cody was struck by gold fever, but on his way to the gold fields, he met an agent for the Pony Express. He signed with them and after building several way stations and corrals was given a job as rider, which he kept until he was called home to his sick mother's bedside.

His mother recovered, and Cody, who wished to enlist as a soldier, but was refused for his age, began working with a United States freight caravan which delivered supplies to Fort Laramie.

While stationed at a military camp in St. Louis, Cody met Louisa Frederici (1843-1921). He returned after his discharge from the army and they were married on March 6, 1866.

Their marriage was not a happy one and Bill unsuccessfully attempted to divorce Louisa. They had four children, two of which died young: his beloved son, Kit died of scarlet fever in April, 1876, and his daughter Orra died in 1880.

From 1868 until 1872 Cody was employed as a scout by the United States Army. Part of this time he spent scouting for Indians, and the remainder was spent gathering and killing bison (which is how he got his nickname) for the Army and the Kansas Pacific Railroad.

He received the Medal of Honor in 1872 for "Gallantry in Action" while serving as a civilian scout for the 3rd Cavalry Regiment. The medal was revoked on February 5, 1917, 24 days after his death due to new guidelines, which made civilians ineligible for the award. The medal was restored to him by the army in 1989.

It was the age of great showman and traveling entertainers. Cody put together a new traveling show based on both of those forms of entertainment. In 1883 in the area of North Platte, Nebraska he founded "Buffalo Bill's Wild West," a circus-like attraction that toured annually.

In 1893 the title was changed to "Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World". The show began with a parade on horseback, with participants from horse-culture groups that included US and other military, American Indians, and performers from all over the world in their best attire. There were Turks, Gauchos, Arabs, Mongols and Cossacks, among others, each showing their own distinctive horses and colorful costumes. Visitors to this spectacle could see main events, feats of skill, staged races, and sideshows. Many authentic western personalities were part of the show. For example Sitting Bull and a band of twenty braves appeared. Cody's headline performers were well known in their own right. People like Annie Oakley and her husband Frank Butler put on shooting exhibitions along with the likes of Gabriel Dumont. Buffalo Bill and his performers would re-enact the riding of the Pony Express, Indian attacks on wagon trains, and stagecoach robberies. The show typically ended with a melodramatic re-enactment of Custer's Last Stand in which Cody himself portrayed General Custer.

The profits from his show enabled him to purchase a 4,000-acre ranch near North Platte, Nebraska in 1886. Scout's Rest Ranch included an eighteen-room mansion and a large barn for winter storage of the show's livestock.

In 1887 he took the show to England in celebration of the Jubilee year of Queen Victoria. The show was staged in London before going on to Birmingham and then Salford near Manchester, where it stayed for five months. In 1889 the show toured Europe. In 1890 he met Pope Leo XIII. He set up an exhibition near the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, which greatly contributed to his popularity, and also vexed the promoters of the fair. As noted in The Devil in the White City, he had been rebuffed in his request to be part of the fair, so he set up shop just to the west of the fairgrounds, drawing many of their patrons away. Since his show was not part of the fair, he was not obligated to pay the promoters any royalties, which they could have used to temper their financial problems.

Cody died of kidney failure on January 10, 1917, surrounded by family and friends at his sister's house in Denver. On his deathbed William F. Cody was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church the day before his death, by Father Christopher Walsh of the Denver Cathedral. Upon the news of his death he received tributes from the King George V of the United Kingdom, the German Kaiser, and President Woodrow Wilson. His funeral was in Denver at the Elks Lodge Hall. Wyoming Governor John B. Kendrick, a friend of Cody's, led the funeral procession to the Elks Lodge.

Contrary to popular belief Cody was not destitute, but his once great fortune had dwindled to under $100,000. Despite his request in an early will to be buried in Cody, Wyoming, a later will left his burial arrangements up to his wife Louisa.

On June 3, 1917, Cody was buried on Colorado's Lookout Mountain, in Golden, Colorado, west of the city of Denver, on the edge of the Rocky Mountains and overlooking the Great Plains.