Buffalo Bill Forgets His Lines

The story as it is told

By 1872 William F. Cody, Buffalo Bill, was already a legend: a real buffalo hunter and army scout whom the dime novels had made famous across the country. And when he stepped onto a stage, the story goes, he knew just what to do.

A born showman, he took the crowd in his hand, and the Wild West show followed. Buffalo Bill had invented it.

What we can confirm

William F. Cody was a known buffalo hunter and army scout when the dime novelist Edward Zane Carroll Judson, writing as Ned Buntline, met him at Fort McPherson, Nebraska (University of Virginia's Mark Twain in His Times). The result was "Buffalo Bill: The King of Border Men!" in Street & Smith's New York Weekly, starting Dec 23, 1869. Its subtitle promised "The Wildest and Truest Story I Ever Wrote" (Dime Novel Bibliography). The UVA site counts it as the first of more than 550 dime novels about Buffalo Bill.

A stage version by Fred G. Maeder followed in early 1872. Cody went to see it on a trip east and was called on for a speech when the audience learned the real Buffalo Bill was there. In his 1879 autobiography he recalled standing on that stage "unable to utter a word above a whisper." (He places it at the Bowery Theatre; the UVA page says the play opened at Niblo's Garden.)

Buntline kept writing to him: "There's money in it, and you will prove a big card, as your character is a novelty on the stage." Late in 1872 Cody gave in and came to Chicago with fellow scout Texas Jack Omohundro. As Cody tells it, on a Wednesday Buntline met the theater manager Nixon with no company and no script for a Monday opening. Nixon threatened to cancel, so Buntline rented the theater for the week for $600, put $300 down, recruited the hotel clerks as copyists, and at the end of four hours shouted "Hurrah for 'The Scouts of the Plains!'" Jack asked Cody how long it would take him to learn his part. "About six months, as near as I can calculate," Cody answered.

The play opened Monday, Dec 16, 1872, at Nixon's Amphitheatre (Legends of America; UVA). The Chicago Evening Journal counted "not less than 2,500 boys and young men." Cody walked on, got his cue from Buntline, and "could not remember a single word." Buntline improvised: "Where have you been, Bill? What has kept you so long?" Cody spotted his Chicago host, William Milligan, in the crowd and said he'd been "out on a hunt with Milligan." The audience knew Milligan's story and roared. For fifteen minutes Cody told it, and by his own account "nor did I speak a word of it during the whole evening."

The reviews were brutal. Cody remembered the Chicago Times saying that if Buntline had really spent four hours writing the play, it was hard to see what he'd been doing all that time. The Times review as Legends of America quotes it: "On the whole it is not probable that Chicago will ever look upon the like again." The show still sold out on tour. The Boston week grossed $16,200, Cody wrote, and when the tour closed at Port Jervis on June 16, 1873, his share came to about $6,000.

Texas Jack married his co-star, the Italian dancer Giuseppina Morlacchi, on Aug 31, 1873. The script hasn't survived (Legends of America). Cody founded Buffalo Bill's Wild West in 1883.

The facts

• Buntline letters ("There's money in it..."); the Bowery Theatre speech; the Wednesday meeting with Nixon; $600 rent with $300 down; hotel clerks as copyists; four hours; "The Scouts of the Plains"; the Milligan ad-lib; fifteen minutes; Chicago Times and Inter-Ocean jokes; $16,200 Boston week; tour closed June 16, 1873 at Port Jervis; about $6,000 profit. William F. Cody, The Life of Hon. William F. Cody (1879), chapter "An Actor," transcribed at Kansas Patriot, kspatriot.org
• Serial begins Dec 23, 1869, New York Weekly v. 25 no. 6, chapters I-IV; subtitle "The Wildest and Truest Story I Ever Wrote"; full text at Villanova and NIU. Dime Novel Bibliography, dimenovels.org
• Met at Fort McPherson; more than 550 Buffalo Bill dime novels; the Maeder play in early 1872; Chicago opening Dec 16, 1872; Chicago Evening Journal review quote. UVA, Mark Twain in His Times, "Buffalo Bill as Western Hero," twain.lib.virginia.edu
• Dec 16, 1872 opening; Chicago Times quote; Cody's Bowery quote; the script is lost; Morlacchi and Omohundro married Aug 31, 1873; Wild West organized 1883; Buntline arrested in St. Louis during the run over a 20-year-old bail matter. Daniel R. Seligman, "Scouts of the Prairie: A Glorious Disaster," Legends of America, legendsofamerica.com
• The Chicago Tribune's pre-show warning about the smell; Milligan's earlier hunt; Louisa Cody's memoir quote. Matthew Kerns, "The Scouts of the Prairie," Dime Library, Dec 16, 2019, dimelibrary.com

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