Decoration Day By Matthew Kerns

  Photo courtesy of Matthew Kerns Buffalo Bill Cody

 at the grave of best friend and partner Texas Jack in Leadville, 1908.

Before it was made a federal holiday, the day we celebrate as "Memorial Day" was called "Decoration Day," and was a chance for towns across the United States to remember those who had fallen in the Civil War, as well as those veterans who had passed in the years since.  

The tradition began on June 3, 1861, with the decoration of the grave of Captain John Quincy Marr, the first Confederate officer killed during the war, but traditions soon became established across both the North and South. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln and his subsequent burial, combined with the deaths of more than 600,000 soldiers during the war, left a lasting impact on the country and the way it viewed those who had sacrificed fighting for it.

Texas Jack was one of the most famous men buried in Leadville, and his grave was often visited in the pioneer days of that city. Jack fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War, but scouted for the United States Army both in Nebraska from 1869 to 1872, and in Montana and Wyoming for General Alfred Terry following the defeat of George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.  

This article from the St. Louis Globe-Democrat talks about Leadville and the grave of Texas Jack.

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LEADVILLE'S DEAD

LEADVILLE, COL - The Rio Grande train climbs a long hill and steams into Leadville upon a ridge. To the east of the track is spread out the city of the living. On the slope to the west is the city of the dead. Leadville started a graveyard early, and patronized it well. For a time the headboards were planted almost as rapidly on one side of the hill as the claim stakes were driven on the other. There are 33,000 restless money-seekers up here among the clouds and the snow-drifts of mid-July. There are 3.300 graves in the gravel, among the bright green pines.

The mortality of the early history of this ten-years old city was frightful. Men lay down at night to sleep off a drunk and never awoke. Nature plays queer freaks with vital organs at an altitude of 10,055 feet. Health was neglected in the wild mad rush for carbonates. Men ate when they could get time, slept anywhere, and never refused an invitation to drink. Under such conditions Leadville acquired the name of "The Pneumonia City," and graves were in great demand.

More people between the ages of 20 and 35 are buried here than in any other cemetery in the world, that is in proportion to the whole number, and such a strange assortment of histories the sod nowhere else covers. In what other burial place can the visitor stand and moralize beside the grave of a man who was given twenty hours by the Vigilance Committee to leave town, and who died of pneumonia before the time was up?

To the credit of Leadville, let it be said, her dead are not forgotten. Decoration Day means more here than the remembrance of those who fell in battle. This city did not come into existence until twelve years after the war was over, but there are few places where Decoration Day is so generally observed in a literal sense.

TEXAS JACK

The most striking monument of all is that which marks the resting place of Texas Jack, as he was better known than by his name of J. B. Omohundro. Texas Jack entered the show business about the same time that Buffalo Bill did, and he was only second to Cody in promise. He had married a famous ballet dancer, and was filling an engagement here when pneumonia carried him off. His grave is in a well-cared-for lot, and is marked by a slab bearing the inscription:

Sacred to the Memory of

TEXAS JACK

(J.B. Omohundro)

Died June 29, 1880.

33. Pneumonia.

The inscription occupies but a small place on the slab, which is fairly covered with artistic work. First, there is a good representation of a cartridge belt, with pistols crossed and bowie-knife sheathed. Below is sketched the trusty Winchester, and then the head of Texas Jack's favorite horse, Yellow Chief.

On the reverse of the slab are fingers pointing heavenward, and the inscription, "Rest in peace. Remembered by his young friends, J.J. Levy and M.C. Levy" If Texas Jack had designed his own head-board he could not have done better. His wife, in respect for his memory, retired from the stage.

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Unfortunately, this grave marker, like the one that his wife inscribed by hand in Italian that preceded it, was eventually taken by some passing collector. 

Eventually, only a plain white board with Jack's name and dates of his birth and death marked the spot. In 1908, Buffalo Bill and John M. Burke brought the Wild West to Leadville. Seeing Jack's grave in a sad state of disrepair, they immediately offered to fund a new permanent marker that still marks their friend's final resting place.

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Texas Jack: America's First Cowboy Star is available now at:

                         Amazon - https://amzn.to/4bEy7Gv

Texas Jack's Smith & Wesson Model 3 American: By Matthew Kerns

 

Photo Courtesy of Matthew Kerns

Texas Jack's (Omohundro) Smith & Wesson Model 3 American. This gun, inscribed to Jack in 1869 while he was living at Cottonwood Springs and working out of Fort McPherson, Nebraska, was once owned by Jack's biographer, the talented woodcut artist Herschel Logan. It is now part of the collection of Mike Harvey, president of Cimarron Firearms.

Even though the Colt Peacemaker has a reputation as the revolver that won the west, Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson's Model 3 was carried by many of the most well known men of the period. Popular with both lawmen and outlaws in the American West, Model 3s were reportedly used by Jesse James and Bob Ford (who used one to kill James), John Wesley Hardin, Billy the Kid and his killer Pat Garrett, Theodore Roosevelt, Virgil Earp, and many others. The Smith & Wesson No. 3 revolver was famously used by Wyatt Earp during the OK Corral Gunfight with the Clanton Gang. The "Buntline Special," an extremely long-barreled Colt that featured in Stuart Lake's largely fictionalized Wyatt Earp biography, was probably a myth, as Buntline never met or knew Wyatt and never wrote about any of the peace officers in Dodge City. Jack's Model 3 is stamped U. S. and the serial number is 2008. No one is sure if the four lines on the grip are part of the normal wear of the weapon or tally marks denoting something more significant.

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Texas Jack: America's First Cowboy Star by Matthew Kerns, is available at:

Amazon - https://amzn.to/48fQdix

Tin Jesus on Horse-back, Buffalo Bills Bitter Business: By Matthew Kerns

Buffalo Bill and Nate Salsbury displayed on Buffalo Bill's Wild West, promotional poster

Photo courtesy of Matthew Kerns

 Tin Jesus on Horseback:

 Buffalo Bill’s Bitter Business and Personal Feuds: 

By Matthew Kerns

Buffalo Bill Cody was a legend, but legends are not built alone. His rise to fame depended on key business partnerships, yet those partnerships were often fraught with conflict. Cody’s inability to manage money, his loyalty to problematic associates, and his drinking habits created tensions that led to dramatic fallouts with some of his closest allies. Nowhere was this more evident than in his feuds with two of his most notable partners—Nate Salsbury and Dr. William “Doc” Carver.

                                          Nate Salsbury, Photo courtesy of Matthew Kerns

Nate Salsbury was the driving business force behind Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, handling logistics, finances, and promotion. Without Salsbury, the show might not have achieved its enormous success, but the partnership was strained. Salsbury grew frustrated with Cody’s reckless spending and poor financial decisions, particularly when Buffalo Bill invested heavily in the irrigation project that founded the town of Cody, Wyoming. Their relationship was further tested by Cody’s drinking and his tendency to surround himself with friends who drained money from the operation. Before his death in 1902, Salsbury documented his grievances in a memoir he never published, referring to his years working with Buffalo Bill as “Sixteen Years in Hell.” He derisively described Cody as a “Tin Jesus on Horseback,” a man with a grand vision but little control over his affairs.

Buffalo Bill and Doc Carver, photo courtesy of Matthew Kerns

Salsbury’s unpublished manuscript was filled with venom. “Buffalo Bill makes a virtue of keeping sober most of the time during the summer season, and when he does so for an entire season, he looks on himself as a paragon of virtue,” he wrote. “But when the fever gets into his brain, he forgets honor, reputation, friend, and obligation in his mad eagerness to fill his hide with rotgut of any kind.” He went on to accuse Cody of breaking promises, saying, “He becomes so utterly lost to all sense of decency and shame that he will break his plighted word and sully his most solemn obligation.” Even in death, Salsbury’s words remained a testament to the bitter dissolution of their once-lucrative partnership.

As Salsbury’s health failed, he became increasingly paranoid that Buffalo Bill would find a way to cut his family out of the profits of the Wild West show. “All the brutal things that Cody is capable of are well known to me,” he wrote. “I want this record to stand so that when he starts in to malign me, as he will do, my friends will have my answer.” The mistrust between them had become irreparable, yet Salsbury remained with the Wild West show until his dying day, unwilling—or perhaps unable—to sever ties completely. His family, however, did not share his attachment. When he passed in 1902, his heirs moved quickly to protect what was left of his legacy, selling off his interests in the show and ensuring that Buffalo Bill would no longer have control over Salsbury’s share of the profits.

Another significant rift occurred between Cody and Doc Carver, a sharpshooter and showman who initially partnered with him to launch the Wild West spectacle. Carver’s ego matched Cody’s, and their differing visions for the show led to an early split. While Carver saw himself as an equal partner, Cody ultimately sought a larger spotlight. Carver, embittered, went on to create his own show, claiming that he was the true mastermind behind the Wild West performance. The rivalry between the two became personal, with Carver challenging Cody’s version of events and attempting to outdo him in the show circuit. Carver’s bitterness persisted long after their partnership dissolved, and he spent years trying to compete with the Wild West’s enduring popularity.

Despite these conflicts, Buffalo Bill’s charisma kept his name at the forefront of entertainment. However, his poor business sense and fractured relationships left him vulnerable. After Salsbury’s death, Cody’s financial troubles worsened, forcing him into questionable business deals that led to the eventual loss of control over his own show. He had once been the undisputed star of a global phenomenon, but by the twilight of his career, he was a performer in another man’s circus, haunted by the ghosts of his past feuds and failures.

Buffalo Bill's Legacy, By Matthew Kerns

 

 Photo and article courtesy of Matthew Kerns. 

On January 10, 1917, 108 years ago today, died.  The shadow his life and legacy cast over the popular understanding of the American West is immense. Westerns aren't set in the American West; they're set in Buffalo Bill's Wild West.

Cody’s life took him from message delivery boy for the parent company of the Pony Express to jayhawker, Union soldier, hotel owner, buffalo hunter, and scout. He was the fictional hero of a series of dime novels written by Ned Buntline, who convinced Cody and his friend and fellow scout John "Texas Jack" Omohundro to join him on a stage tour called "The Scouts of the Prairie" in the winter of 1872.  From the moment he rose to prominence in 1869 until his death nearly fifty years later, Bill Cody exemplified and embodied the American West.

Though initially referred to as a melodrama or a "blood and thunder" production, his initial play with Texas Jack was the very first Western, the antecedent of the many plays, movies, and shows that would follow. The following season, Cody and Omohundro parted ways with Ned Buntline and added to their dramatic company their mutual friend James "Wild Bill" Hickok, though his refusal to take his dramatic career as seriously as his friends did led to his departure from the stage before the end of a full season. Cody and Omohundro spent the next several years touring together in the winter and hunting together in the summer before General Custer's death at the Little Bighorn sent both men to Montana to once again serve as scouts under the auspices of the United States Army. They parted dramatic ways after their tour of 1876 but remained friends until Texas Jack's death in Leadville, Colorado, in 1880.

After a few more years touring stages, Cody began what he came to call his Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World. Touring the nation by train, Cody brought the West to all of America, planting his version of the American frontier indelibly into the minds of citizens in the more than 1,400 cities the show visited. 

Traveling to Europe, Cody became the first American superstar and perhaps the most well-known man in the world by the end of his life. Throughout this time, he extolled and showed to the world the virtues of the cowboy, first popularized by his old friend Texas Jack and now acted out on the world stage by the cadre of entertainers in Buffalo Bill’s entourage.

In late 1916, Cody traveled to Glenwood Springs to recuperate from a bronchial infection. Realizing that his health was not improving, Cody boarded a train to Denver to return to his family.  On the return ride home, he made a stop at the Leadville station on January 6th, 1917. 

As the train pulled in, he told his daughter and his nurse about his old friend Texas Jack, buried across town.  Thirty-seven years after his best friend's death, Buffalo Bill Cody still teared up talking about Texas Jack. Not well enough to leave the train due to his declining health, Cody was unable to walk across town to Evergreen Cemetery and the grave he had generously erected for his friend. As the train pulled out of the station, Cody waved goodbye for the last time to the people of Leadville and to his old pard Texas Jack.

Four days later, Buffalo Bill was dead.

If you have never taken the opportunity, I urge you to visit the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming, and the Buffalo Bill Grave and Museum on Lookout Mountain, Colorado. The lasting legacy of the man is immense.  There really is an American West—prairies and plains and canyons and deserts—but the version of it in John Wayne and Clint Eastwood movies, in Louis L’amour and Johnny Boggs books, in shows like Bonanza and the Lone Ranger is the one William F. Cody created—Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.

This is the last picture of William F. Cody, known to the world as Buffalo Bill, taken as he left Glenwood Springs the week before his death.

-Matthew Kerns 

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