Scout And Showman

Varied Career.

William Frederick Cody, known as "Buffalo Bill," was born in LeClaire, Iowa, but moved with his family to the Kansas Territory in 1854. He was a Pony Express rider (1860), served in the Union army with the Ninth Kansas Cavalry (1863), and joined federal forces in Tennessee and Missouri (1864—1865) as a teamster. After the war he tried various jobs in the West until he became a buffalo hunter (1867-1868) to supply meat to the Kansas Pacific Railroad. Cody claimed he killed 4,280 buffalo by his own count and thus earned the nickname "Buffalo Bill." He scouted for the U.S. Cavalry (1868-1872), fighting against the Sioux and the Cheyenne. E. Z. C. Judson (Ned Buntline) soon began to write about Cody in a series of dime novels. Judson also encouraged him to appear in the author's popular play, The Scouts of the Prairie...