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| From L-R: Wild Bill, Texas Jack, Buffalo Bill |
I get these
two mixed up. Even as they are different, they look sort of alike, maybe
because of their long hair and similar beards. They both lived life to extreme,
and they were friends.
Nine years
difference in their ages, their lives paralleled in many ways. The two Bills
were born in the same neck of the woods; James Butler Hickok (Wild Bill) in Illinois in 1837, and William
Frederick Cody (Buffalo Bill) in
Iowa in 1846.
Both came
from religious families, Wild Bill-Baptist; Buffalo Bill-Quaker. Both families
disagreed with slavery. Wild Bill’s parents worked in the Underground Railroad,
helping slaves escape from the South. Buffalo Bill’s father was stabbed to
death during an anti-slavery rally.
Both Bills
rode for the Pony Express (at different times), and fought on the same side
during the Civil War, where Wild Bill and Custer became fast friends. During
the Indian Wars, Buffalo Bill guided a wagon train with Custer.
Both worked
for the same stagecoach company in Fort Leavenworth, KS. During one trip, the
stagecoach broke down, and Wild Bill, waiting for the repair crew, slept in the
bushes while the passengers remained in the coach. During the night, Wild Bill
was attacked by a bear. The passengers found him the next morning critically
wounded, the bear dead with a stab wound.
Our daring
Bills performed in the same stage play where they showed their prowess shooting
at targets, thrilling the audience.
After the Civil War his life
and Wild Bill's found separate paths, although they were lifelong
friends.
 |
| Wild Bill Hickok |
Captain Jack
Crawford summed up Wild Bill as one
fraught with faults but carried a gentleness about him until riled by insults.
He was a good friend and generous to a flaw, but he had no qualms killing a man
who did him an injustice. Toward the end of his life, Wild Bill spent most of
his time wandering saloons, & playing cards.
He usually
sat in a far corner with his back to the wall, but on one particular day, someone
sat in his usual seat. Wild Bill reluctantly found a chair at the corner table,
and sat with his back to the door. That’s
where Jack McCall found him, and shot him point blank in the back of the head.
Buried in
Deadwood SD, everyone who knew Wild Bill mourned his death. He was only 39
years of age.
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| Buffalo Bill Cody |
Charismatic Buffalo Bill’s moniker came when he
worked for the Kansas Pacific Railroad, hired to provide buffalo meat for the
workers. Over a period of 18 months, he killed more than 4000 buffalo.
From Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Bill):
"Cody and another hunter, Bill
Comstock, competed in an eight-hour
buffalo-shooting match over the exclusive right to use the name [Buffalo Bill],
which Cody won by killing 68 animals to Comstock's 48."
Buffalo
Bill was a restless man and entrepreneur. He went on to tour with his Wild West Show in Europe and America, where most of the audience knew the names of his headliners, both American Indians and gunslingers. They showed the world how crazy was the wild west. It ran successfully until its final show in 1906.
Buffalo Bill
died in 1917 while visiting his sister in Denver, CO. He requested to be buried
on a mountain overlooking the Great Plains, but rumor has it his body was
spirited away and now rests in the hills above Cody, WY. He was 70 years old.
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Many thanks
to:
Wikipedia,
& Wiki Commons, Public Domain
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