Customer Reviews

Buffalo Bill's America: William Cody and the Wild West Show

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An entertaining combination of history and biography Louis Warren's book manages to capture the elusive spirit of William Cody aka Buffalo Bill. Bill was a combination of hero, poser and entertainer as he frequently told tall tales linking him to the archetypical western hero Wild Bill Hickock. He dressed like Wild Bill, claimed to be his cousin (although the two weren't related Cody did meet Wild Bill at a young age and did travel with him later). Cody would variously claim that he was the youngest pony express rider (he neve rode for the pony express), was a spy during the Civil War (he wasn't) and was at many of Wild Bill's most famous exploits (he wasn't). It's ironic then that Bill Cody felt the need to embelish an already heroic career as a tracker and guide during the infamous Indian Wars. Cody lived during an uncertain time in the west and his role as a "white" Indian scout made people more comfortable that he was one of "us" who could fight and befriend one of "them" (i.e., the Indians whatever group they belonged to) unlike Wild Bill or other well known scouts who had reputations for violence and/or consorting (meaning marrying an Native American Indian)with the "enemy". Warren provides a fair balanced account of these troubled prejudiced times and what those on the frontier did to survive.

Why did Bill Cody feel the need to tell tall tales about his career when he wasn't the charlatan that many trackers and guides were? Cody had that need to be larger than life and learned by observing people like P. T. Barnum that a little bit of truth and a lot of hokum go a long way. As Maxwell Scott (Carleton Young) states in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance",
"When the Legend Becomes fact, Print the Legend". Perhaps Cody felt the facts weren't enough and that he needed to become a legend so that he might be recognized as such during his life time and after he died. Either way, this man who was an odd combination of hero and entertainer entered the the realm of legends. Interestingly, Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill Hickock were frequently confused as the same person by people of the time.

This marvelous book covers Cody's youth, his stretch as a scout, entertainer with his Wild West Show (which did feature Wild Bill Hickock at one time although Hickock supposedly became annoyed at one point by Cody's attempts to be like him)and later as a popular celebrity who embodied the lost days of the wild west. Featuring illustrations, Warren's book brings to life a lost era in America when heroism and legends became far more than stories to be told by camp fires late into the night.

William Cody was the most famous American of his times, renowned as a Pony Express rider, soldier, buffalo hunter and overall hero - but his creation of the Wild West show, a traveling company of cowboys and Indians which toured North American and Europe for over thirty years, solidified his importance and his name. BUFFALO BILL'S AMERICA: WILLIAM CODY AND THE WILD WEST SHOW provides the most detailed critical biography of Cody to appear in over forty years, considering his showmanship, his achievements, and the controversies which swirled around his life, both during time and into modern times. Chapters use source material references and quotes but maintain a lively style which lends to appeal by leisure audiences as well as students of American history.

Great book from a great professor. Reading this was like sitting in Dr. Warren's class again. He can totally make history come alive and this book is no exception.

The Historians of today, especially those who have a different perspective of America instead of the "Good versus Evil" themes that folks like I grew up with like to shatter legends and myths.

Not that a bit of reality is wrong. For example it is good to know what a virulent racist Nathan Bedford Forrest was, or how wrong it was to label the entire Abraham Lincoln Battalion as a bunch of "Commie Rats" (although with the release of much of the Moscow archives, it can be verified that up to almost 90% of them were either Communist Party or Young Communist League members - not the 40-60% as stated in past histories).

It is however suspect when a Davey Crockett, long believed to have died swinging "Old Betsy" at the advancing Mexican soldiers at the Alamo, died, shot down as a captured prisoner, by Santa Anna's orders; or that the gallant Custer was a reckless fool.

Which leads me to Dr. Warren's interesting biography of Buffalo Bill. Having got it as a holiday present I was at first enthralled by the depth and detail of this work which covered practically every aspect of this simple yet complex American hero.

Then Dr. Warren had to spoil it all.

First, he cast doubts on whether or not William Cody ever rode with the Pony Express. He cites available records, but admits Cody did ride for the Express parent company - Russell, Majors and Waddell.

Secondly, he then claims Cody rode with Jennison's Jayhawkers instead of working as a Scout for the Union Army. In other words, Cody was involved in some of the ugliest savagery on the frontier as Unionists retaliated for the depravations of Quantrill, the James-Younger boys, Bloody Bill Anderson, and other Confederates. Yet, if that was the case, and with rosters of the 7th Kansas being available, why haven't Civil War historians made light of this in the past? Warren seems to imply that Cody was one of the 7th Kansas boys who faced down Bedford Forrest at Tupelo and Brice's Crossroads, but where is the evidence? (note: I do stand corrected as I have found another source on Cody's experiences in the 7th, and indeed they did fight Forrest in Tennessee and Mississippi, but were recalled to Missouri in time to help stop Sterling Price in the fall of 1864, a campaign where Cody and Bill Hickok fought practically side by side)

Third, Warren also seems to claim that there was an almost unfriendly rivalry between George Custer and William Cody, and that outside of the celebrated Buffalo hunt with the Grand Duke Alexis of Russia, the two men rarely met or studiously avoided each other. Why? Because Libbie Custer only named Wild Bill Hickok as a Custer intimate, not Buffalo Bill. Furthermore, Warren also describes the Custer marriage as being as troubled as that of the Codys. He has even suggested that Libbie Custer had an affair with another (unnamed) cavalry officer - that's news to me as I'm sure it is to others who have read extensively of the Custers and their marriage. Custer jealous of Bill Cody? Hmmm. And why would Bill Cody present Custer as an all-hero in his future shows if he didn't feel a regard for the late soldier's heroism on the American Frontier?

He then describes Cody as being benevolent and more open-minded towards Native Americans, yet almost a cruel overseer to those Indians who rode and worked with the Wild West Shows - try suggesting that to Sitting Bull. Oops, you can't because he's long dead. But then again, so is Buffalo Bill Cody.

What is even more troublesome is Warren's wanting to put a societal spin to the life and times of Buffalo Bill. He pictures America of the late 19th Century as being a nation split between the "haves and have-nots" with another Civil War looming in the distance. He brings up the Haymarket Square Riots, and calls Albert Parsons, the former Confederate Soldier turned Radical leader the William Cody of the Confederacy, yet offers no evidence to prove this. For me, that was a major disappointment, because I would have liked to have seen where a young Confederate hero, having risked his life for the reactionary South, could change so drastically to push for the violent overthrow of bourgeois America. He also brings in the Johnson County War as if to suggest that Cody could easily play both sides down the middle - lionized by the proletariat Cowboy and loved by the intolerant landowners.

In the end, with little or no commentary about those final, almost destitute years of Cody's life - including that poignant final year when after riding in a Wild West Show he had virtually no say in, with his kidneys shutting down, and being in constant pain, helped by his "son" Johnny Baker, Cody went home to die. Warren surprisingly makes little comment about this sad history, which is even more surprising when one sees how much he placed detail on irrelevances or suggested things that never have been proven before.

Maybe it is because I like my biographies to be straightforward -and my Western History to be not simplistic but not mired down in complex issues either that this once promising work turned me off towards the end. That, and another unfortunate debunking of another real American hero. After all, Mr. Cody isn't around to say whether or not he exaggerated his life and\or career, or to refute or not some of Dr. Warren's more damaging charges.

This book is a bore with minimal facts and an author with a wild imagination. Tries to tie many outside events whether real or imaginary to the theme and because of this he has been able to add 200 maybe 300 plus pages of fantasy.

Don't waste your time like I did and try to find something a lot better.

Sorry, I don't like to belittle authors but this was one of the worse books I have read in many years.

I was quite pleased witht the speed of delivery on this book and it's excellent condtion. It was all I could have hoped for. 5 Stars!

Don Gilmore