John M. Burke

“ He was their friend in peace, not their foe always because once upon their trail; and he brought the red man before the public in a way never witnessed before.
Buffalo Bill never was a man-killer, and there was nothing of bravado in his nature and not a tinge of the desperado.
Brought face to face with the stern reality that either his foe or himself must die, when it was in the discharge of duty or self-defense William Cody never quailed in the face of death, and acted, as his conscience dictated, for the right. ”

“ The grandeur of the spectacle, the heavenly music, the entrancing singing, and impressive adjuncts produced a most profound impression on the astonished children of the prairie. The Wild West in the Vatican!
The company were photographed in the Coliseum, which stately ruin seemed silently and solemnly to regret that its famed ancient arena was too small for this modern exhibition of the mimic struggle between that civilization born and emanating from ’neath its very walls, and a primitive people who were ne’er dreamed of in Rome’s world-conquering creators’ wildest flights of vivid imaginings. ”

“ I fully, and with pleasure, indorse you as the veritable Buffalo Bill, United States scout, serving with the troops operating against hostile Indians, with whom you secured renown by your services as a scout and successful hunter. Your sojourn on the frontier at a time when it was a wild and sparsely settled section of the continent fully enables you to portray that in which you have personally participated—the pioneer, Indian fighter, and frontiersman. ”

“ Ordinarily so clumsy and stupid-looking, a thousand beef-steers can rise like a flock of quail on the roof of an exploding powder-mill, and will scud away like a tumble-weed before a high wind, with a noise like a receding earthquake. Then comes fun and frolic for the boys. Many a cowboy has lost his life in one of these wild stampedes of cattle, which would put an army of men to flight in a mad charge down upon them. ”

“ All this in anticipation of the spoils of conquest to be brought back by the victor—human prisoners, coffers of gold, or blood-bought titles to war-won territory. How different in spirit, in action, and in expression was the assemblage that bade “God speed” to Gen. W. F. Cody on his departure as commander of the little heterogeneous army that sailed from Columbia’s shores. Yet no leader ever started on a mission possible of such rich achievement; none ever embarked upon a voyage destined to be so thoroughly and completely a tour of conquest and of glory. ”

“ To the Bedouin of the Arabian Desert, the Cossack, the Vacquero, the Gaucho, and last, but the peers of any of these, our native Indian and our own cowboy, the horse is a necessity; and woe be unto that man who by fraud, stealth, or force attempts to despoil the owner of his animal, his pet. Pleasures, comforts, necessities, aye, living itself, would be impossible to either of these if his horse was not part of his worldly possessions. The desert, the pampas, the llanos, and the prairie without horses would, for the uses of man, be as an ocean without ships or boats. ”

“ There, upon the soil of the mother country, before tens of thousands of Britishers, the Wild West held sway for months, while the hero of the plains, the prairie boy, found himself honored by royalty, a welcome visitor across the threshold of palaces, fêted by men whose names were known the wide world over.
Bearing the stars and stripes in his hand, mounted upon his finest charger, Buffalo Bill saluted the queen, who rose, and bowed in salutation to the American flag, borne by so fit a representative of his country. ”

“ The discovery that a new world existed on the western shores of the Atlantic was scarcely more a surprise to the grandees of the Old World, than the realization that far beyond the great Father of Waters there existed a country whose inhabitants were hunting buffaloes and living in rude tents on prairies and amid rugged mountains, which needed but the plow and the miner’s pick for keys to unlock treasuries filled with richer products and rarer gems than the bright gleam of the mythical Aladdin’s lamp e’er shone upon. ”

“ Each of the component quantities is to be watched, to be measured, to be just to. In fact it is a war with a most wily and savage people, yet the whites are restrained by a humane and peaceful desire to prevent bloodshed and save a people from themselves. It is like cooling and calming a volcano. Ordinary warfare shows no parallel. General Miles seems to hold a firm grip on the situation. The Indians know him, express confidence in his honor, truth, and justice to them, and they fear his power and valor as well. ”

“ Civilization has crowned that terra incognita with seven States and built large122 and beautiful cities. Peace has spread her halo of beauty over the savage haunts and churches have supplanted the horrible orgies of Indian massacre. The mountains have yielded their treasures to the steady hand of industry—richer by far than the fabled Ophir—and the pactolian streams have gladdened the hearts of toiling thousands. All honor to the pioneers who blazed the way for this civilization.
With this page of frontier history—the days of the Pony Express—will forever be associated the name of Billy Cody. ”

“ THE PRAIRIE HOME OF BUFFALO BILL.
How appropriate that such an army, under such a leader, and on such a peaceful and glorious invasion, should carry into and plant in sturdy England, sunny France, historic Spain, mighty Germany, and poetic Italy the flag that proclaims to all the world that “all men are, and by right ought to be, free and equal.” ”

“ Looking at expert shooting as a pastime, a science, or a means of protection or self-preservation, the awakening of the manhood of the country and the up-growing youth to its possibilities is surely to be commended and encouraged. No man is more to be credited with the accomplishment of this than Gen. W. F. Cody. His romantic and picturesque history and his wonderful accomplishments have attracted to him the attention of America and Europe, and no one man is more capable of exemplifying the science of shooting than he. ”

“ Here the little community of Americans spent the winter comfortably, being feasted and fêted by the inhabitants, whose esteem they gained to such an extent that their departure was marked by a general holiday, assisting hands, and such public demonstrations of regret that many a rude cowboy when once again careering o’er the pampas of Texas will rest his weary steed while memory reverts to the pleasant days and whole-souled friendships cemented at the foot of the Vosges Mountains in disputed Alsace-Lorraine. ”

“ The Wild West was irresistible. Colonel Cody suddenly found himself the hero of the London season. Notwithstanding his daily engagements and his punctual fulfillment of them, he found time to go everywhere, to see everything, and to be seen by all the world. All London contributed to his triumph, and now the close of his show is selected as the occasion for promoting a great international movement, with Mr. Bright, Lord Granville, Lord Wolseley, and Lord Lorne for its sponsors. Civilization itself consents to march onward in the train of “Buffalo Bill.” ”

“ It is certainly a novel idea for one nation to give an exhibition devoted exclusively to its own frontier history, or the story enacted by genuine characters of the dangers and hardships of its settlement, upon the soil of another country 3,000 miles away. Yet this is exactly what the Americans will do this year in London, and it is an idea worthy of that thorough-going and enterprising people. ”

“ General Sheridan often asserted that Buffalo Bill had “slain as many Indians as any white man that ever lived.” It would be no credit to this daring scout if these Indians had fallen without justification; but since they were the victims of legitimate warfare and were slain in the performance of a sworn duty, Buffalo Bill may properly wear the laurels and deserve the plaudits of civilization—whose effective instrument he has been—for the friendship he has displayed for the red man in times of peace. ”

“ Cody is a great lover of man’s best friend among the animal kingdom—the horse. The peculiar career he has followed has made his equine friend such a sterling necessity as a companion, an assistant, a confidant, that he admits, as every frontiersman and scout does, a great deal depends, even life itself in innumerable emergencies, on the general sagacity of this noble brute. ”

“ Thus it will be seen that notwithstanding it will sometimes be thought his fame rests upon the pen of the romancer, had they never been attracted to him—and they were solely by his sterling worth—W. F. Cody would none the less have been a remarkable character in American history.
The history of such a man, attractive as it has already been to the most distinguished officers and fighters in the United States Army, must prove doubly so to men, women, and children who have heretofore found only in novels the hero of rare exploits, on which imagination so loves to dwell. ”

“ The vast, comparatively unknown, even called great, American Desert of twenty-five and thirty years ago was peopled only by the descendants of the sturdy pioneers of the then far West—Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, etc.—born, raised, and used to hardships and danger; and attracted only the resolute, determined adventurers of the rest of the world, seeking an outlet for pent-up natures imbued with love of daring adventure. ”

“ A temporary boat has to be made of the wagon-box by tacking the canvas cover over the bottom, with which the ammunition and grub is ferried across, and the running-gear and ponies are swum over afterward. Indian fights and horse-thief troubles are part of the regular rations. Mixing with other herds and cutting them out, again avoiding too much water at times and hunting for a drop at others, belongs to the regular routine.
Such is the cowboy of the wild West, who, if not without faults, has virtues to compensate for the little eccentricities that cling to men of the frontier. ”

“ Though nearly a score of years have gone by since the battle of the Little Big Horn, where the gallant Custer and his brave band were slain, the name of Sitting Bull is recalled by all; and a sigh of relief went up all along the border when the news came that the noted chief had started upon the trail for the happy hunting-grounds.
171 Those who condemn the Indian for his red deeds should remember that it is his education to be a savage, to kill and to burn and pillage; that the greatest slayer of mankind, in the opinion of the red men, is the greatest hero. ”

“ A soldier, scout, and spy during the Civil War, Wild Bill returned to scouting at its close, the frontier becoming his home.
Constantly he was thrown in the company of Buffalo Bill, and when the latter decided to go upon the stage he determined that his companions in the enterprise should be Wild Bill and Texas Jack, and they accompanied him to the East.
A dead shot, an enemy to fear, Wild Bill was as brave as a lion and as tender-hearted as a woman, and he will go down in history as a true hero of the border. ”

“ But then again the practical view of the non-industrious use of nature’s cornucopia of world-needed resources and the inevitable law of the survival of the fittest must bring the “flattering unction to the soul” of those to whom the music of light, work, and progress is the charm, the gauge of existence’s worth, and to which the listless must hearken, the indolent attend, the weak imbibe strength from—whose ranks the red man must join, and advancing with whose steps march cheerily to the tune of honest toil, industrious peace, and placid fireside prosperity. ”