Dakota Diary -4 - The Wild West Show

We had a sound sleep, after all our long day of traveling, and after a hearty breakfast, went outside
to await the first aspect of the Wild West show - which was to be a parade - going through town and featuring all the special acts. Tickets were not cheap - 50 cents for adults and 25 cents for children, but of course, our tickets were free, compliments of Mr. Cody.

When 2 o’clock finally came, we made our way to the enclosure. We were each given a free copy of
one of the dime comics about Buffalo Bill - which had made him already famous in the country. The cowboys on their horses rode around and around the ring, firing their pistols into the air (I was
assured that they were firing blanks) and the buffalo were driven around too, looking huge and dangerous.

 The "grand entrance" claimed the interest of all the onlookers. The furious galloping of
the Indian braves - Sioux, Arapaho, Brule, and Cheyenne, all in war paint and feathers; the free dash of the Mexicans and cowboys, as they follow the Indians into line at break-neck speed; frontiersmen, rough riders, Texas rangers - all plunging with dash and spirit into the open, each company followed by its chieftain and its flag; forming into a solid square, tremulous with color; then a quicker note to the music; the galloping hoofs of another horse, the finest of them all, and Buffalo Bill, riding with the wonderful ease and stately grace which only he who is born to the saddle can ever attain, enters under the flash of the lime-light, and sweeping off his sombrero, holds his head high, and with a ring of pride in his voice, advances before his great audience and exclaims:

"Ladies and gentlemen, permit me to introduce to you a congress of the rough riders of the
world."

The first act was Dr. W.F. Carver, who apparently was a part time dentist but also a marksman
who billed himself as an “Evil Spirit of the Plains” the “champion Rifle shot of the World” the “Wizard Rifleman of the West, conqueror of all American and Cynosure of People, Princes, Writers and Kings” and boasted that he played a vital role in wining the West despite any supporting evidence for this claim in the program.

The next star was Captain A. H. Bogardus, a trap shooter who billed himself as the Champion Pigeon Shot of America. He did some tricks with some younger boys who it said were his sons.

Then came a “Staring and Soul-Stirring Attack upon the Deadwood Mail Coach.” This was supposedly a true reenactment of an event that happened in Deadwood in the Summer of
1876 when several attempts were made to reach Deadwood by stage from Cheyenne but were turned back due to the danger of marauding Indians following their defeat of Custer at the Little Big Horn. On September 25, however, Dave Dickey brought the first stage into Deadwood. In this show, it was Buffalo Bill who rescues the stage coach after it has been surrounded by Indians. 

There were those who questioned the veracity of the acts. But Buffalo Bill insisted that when he
advertised pony express riders that they had actually been pony express riders, and that his Deadwood stage had actually seen service on that route. Buffalo Bill said that nobody in his troop was allowed to impersonate Indians, and he himself, only played himself.

The center piece of the show was the “Duel and Custer's Last Stand.” The Last Stand starred Buck
Taylor as Custer. In the production, the circle of soldiers under attack by the Indians gradually became smaller and smaller. At the end when all had been killed, Buffalo Bill dramatically appeared,
while a sign brought in said, "Too Late!"

Bill wore a gaudy vaquero outfit and another act in the show was him shooting and scalping Yellow
Head, which was actually what had happened, partly in retribution for the Little Big Horn travesty. Both Cora Sue and I were dreading this part of the performance, as our Pa had been scalped too,  but it was handled well, we thought, and not as bloodthirsty as we had been led to expect.

After the show, we made our way back to the hotel. “I have an idea,” I said to Cora Sue. “Why
don't we each interview one of the stars of the show, and write them up for Mr. Bennett. I could do Buffalo Bill, and you could do Captain Bogardus, who is his partner.”

“I couldn't do an interview,” said Cora Sue.

“Well, you wouldn't tell them it was an interview. You would just ask questions, and remember what
they said, and then tomorrow on the way home, we can use our time on the train to write the articles up.”

“Isn't that dishonest, pretending that you are just talking to someone, but really interviewing them?”

“We couldn't write anything that we felt they told us in confidence. But they will be pleased for
publicity. Remember Mr. Barnum said, 'Any publicity is good publicity.'”

“Well, I will only do it if I can do Buffalo Bill. That other man frightens me. He is so big.”

“All right, but make a list of the questions you want to ask before we go down to supper, and make sure you ask him something that we don't already know.”

I thought we looked very smart as we made our way down to the dining room that evening in our new blouses.  I knew, as soon as we entered the room, that all the eyes turned to us were approving.

Cora Sue took the seat which had been kept free next to Buffalo Bill, and he stood up and helped her into it. Rather than sitting on the other side of him, I indicated that I wished to sit next to Captain Bogardus – and he seemed very pleased by this change in plan. He also stood and helped me into my seat. “How much we enjoyed the show,” I started out with. “Your shooing ability, Captain Bogardus is unbelievable. How did you ever get to be that good?”

“Been shooting all my life, ma'am.”

“Oh, please call me Mattie. Everyone does. My real name is Martha, but I prefer Mattie.”

“And you better call me Adam, although most people call me Captain,” he said, blushing.

Cora Sue said she was frightened of him because he was so big – and he certainly was big. He musthave measured well over six feet tall and weighted about 250 lbs, with muscles bulging in his arms that attested to his strength in places other than his trigger finger.

“Do you come from these parts, Adam?”

“No, Ma-am, I mean, Mattie. I come from New York originally, but the folks moved to Illinois when I
was 20. But I was a good shot before that. Back in Albany, I started shooting a Brown Bess – that's a musket – when I was fifteen, and I was the best hunter in the area, if I do say so myself.”

“So, where abouts in Illinois did you settle?”

“A little town called Petersbury but it didn't suit me – too quiet – so I moved to Elkhart, Indiana, where there was more game around.”

“But you didn't make your livelihood just by hunting, surely.”

“No, Mattie. I am a trained carpenter, but I can tell you for a fact that I have made much more
money from shooting than any carpenter could.”

“How did you become a Captain, Adam? Were you in the war?”

“In 1863, as General Robert Lee moved his army of Northern Virginia closer to Washington, I
became concerned that the Union was losing the war, so I recruited a volunteer company of Elkhart soldiers and was named their captain. I did two 90-day enlistments and returned home for more pressing obligations, namely getting married and having a family.”

“Do you have children Adam?”

“Yes, Ma'am, I mean Mattie. We have thirteen all together.”

“My goodness. And when you got back to Elkhart and to having all those children, were you a
carpenter or a hunter?”

“I couldn’t make enough carpentering around Elkhart so started to earn my living by hunting.
Chicago had an eager taste for wild game, and I could get from five to 25 cents for birds. My daughters complained and one said you couldn't move for the dead meat. The back porch of our home was always piled high with game - pinnated grouse, ducks, turkeys, quail and snipe - all waiting for shipment."

“When did you start shootingin tournaments?”

“Those were the days of the great live pigeon tournaments. Local matches were held in nearly
every village, county matches were numerous, and once every summer the states held their championships. A good shooter could earn thousands of dollars a year.”

“And you won them all.”

“Near enough. But it is interesting how I got into pigeon shooting. A fellow from Detroit named Cough Stanton got boasting one day about just how good he really was. One of my friends heard him and told Stanton there was a shooter around Elkhart who was just as good as he was so he challenged him. When he told me about it, I wasn’t so happy. I had never shot a trapped pigeon or even seen a pigeon trap in my life, and I wasn’t eager to shoot against a man I had never met.”

“But you did it.”

“A week or so later, the one train a day through Elkhart delivered Mr. Stanton, looking to collect
'some of that easy money.'

“The match was set up with the usual rule: gun down, distance 21 yards, 50 birds and a stake of
$200. Two hundred dollars was a fair amount when you earned it by shooting game at about 15 cents a head, and I was nervous I might lose the money. But luckily he was nervous too, and I beat him 46-40. So that started my new career.”

“Did lots of people come to try to beat you?”

“I often had several matches within a week. Three brothers from Illinois named Kleinman gave me
plenty of tough competition. Abraham was the best and champion of Illinois. He agreed to meet meat Elkhart for a 50-bird match, $200 to the winner. I bet him I would drop at least 46 of the 50
birds and an additional $200 was wagered.”

“Did you win?”

“I won my bet but lost the match. I killed 46, Kleinman 49. A month later I challenged him again
for the Championship of Illinois. The match was to be held in Chicago for $200 and the right to wear the State Championship badge. We agreed to shoot at 100 birds, 50 singles and 25 pair of doubles. The singles were to be released from a normal ground collapsible trap, the doubles from a slung trap that pushed the birds into the air.”

“So this would have had everybody watching, with it being for the State Championship.”

“An estimated crowd of some 2,000 gathered at Dexter Park and lots of newspapermen. The match was close, very close. In singles, I won by a bird, 43 to 42. Each of us dropped 43 of the doubles, giving me the state championship title by a single bird.”

“After you defeated him, you were quite famous, I expect.”

“I became a full-fledged professional and began traveling the country competing in all the big tournaments. Generally, minor challenges were conducted as side bets during the course of a normal race with up to $2,000 to the winner. I won the great majority of the time but after awhile I experienced difficulty finding competition. No one wanted to take me on. So I decided to get the Chicago Tribune to help me out and in September, 1869, printed the following challenge:
'I hereby challenge any man in America to shoot a pigeon match, 50 single, and 50 double rises for
from $500 to $5,000 a side, according to the rules of the New York Sportsmen’s Association. I to use my breech-loading shotgun, my opponent to use any breech-loading gun of any manufacturer he may choose. The match to be shot in Chicago. Man and money ready at my place of business, No. 72 Madison St., Chicago. A. H. Bogardus.'”

“Did you get many takers?”

“Enough to keep my family fed. And I kept trying for new stunts to keep the newspapers' interest up.
For instance I challenged Kleinman with me shooting from a buggy with a horse at full trot. Single and double birds were released at 21 yards. Kleinman shot from 25 yards in a stationary stop. I won. I could go on and on telling you about stuff like that, but here I am talking about myself all the time. Tell me about yourself.”

“I'd much rather talk about you. I am just an ordinary teacher, or will be in the fall. Did you ever get really hurt?”

“About ten years ago, I had an accident that almost cost me my life. I was hunting prairie chicken
from a buggy, and the weather was cold. The birds were wild, and the gun lay across my knees with both hammers cocked. As I stooped to draw a lap robe over my legs, a rear wheel hit a rut, the gun canted, hit the other wheel, and a hammer fell. Five drains of black powder drove an ounce and a half of No. 9 shot through my thigh. Fortunately, most of the shot missed the bone, but I was bedridden
for four months and never walked well again. You probably noticed my limp.”

“It sure doesn't seem to have slowed you down.”

“Well, about this same time, we had another problem. It was the growing sentiment against the use
of live birds in shooting matches. Humane societies were stirred up; women’s organizations were on the rampage. Laws were finally passed in most states prohibiting the use of live birds for any kind of
trapshooting. So I was out of work.

“But before long we started shooting glass balls with feathers in. They were hurled in the air by
a contraption called a sling device, but they only went about 30 feet or so.”

“So you got some new matches then, did you?”

“First I developed a lighter ball, and came up with a stronger trap, and then I sold them, giving
me another string to my bow, so to speak. To promote my new products, I went to New York and at Madison Square Garden and put on two strenuous matches against time. In March of 1877, I agreed to break 1,000 balls in two hours and 40 minutes, and did it with an hour to spare. So I had lots of well publicized challenges after that, and most of them I won.”

“How did you get to meet Buffalo Bill?”

“It was Doc Craven who I shot against that introduced us. He was in the show today too. About three
years ago, they introduced the flat clay targets which scale, spin, and rise, behaving very much like a bird. Ligowsky, the inventor, immediately hired me and Doc Carver at $2,500 each to tour the country and introduce his new 'birds' to shooters. But, now that I'm 50, I decided to retire from competitive shooting and I purchased part ownership in Bill's show. We shall have to see how it all pans out.”

“What do your wife and kids think about all this?”

“Oh, I get some of them in on the act. Eugene, who's 18, was an expert by the time he was 11. WhenI went to England in 1878, he came with me and shot his first match with a gentleman at Woolwich Gardens, London. He won the Boy's Champion Medal with his .44 Winchester. Then there's Edward, who's 11, and he has been shooting for a year or so; and eight-year-old Adam Henry Jr. has just started, and he shoots a .32 caliber rifle, and hits glass balls out of my fingers.”

The meal had finished and everyone was standing up, getting ready to leave.

“I certainly enjoyed talking to you Adam. And I wish you every bit of luck with the show. I'll
certainly tell all my friends to go and see it.”

“Nice meeting you too, Mattie. And good luck with that teaching of yours. I'm sure you will make a
good teacher. Look at all that talking you made me do.”

So Cora Sue, who looked as if she had accomplished her goal as well, and I made our way up to bed, eager to write up our notes before we forgot all the interesting things we had learned.