From Wild Bill
© 1999 ProofmarkPreface
Wild Bill Hickok. A name of legend, a life of mythic proportion.
Born James Butler Hickok in Illinois on May 27, 1837, he lived through the most tumultuous era of American history and died in the Dakota Territory on August 2, 1876 at the age of 39. In between he blazed a path of glory: first in the bloody troubles of Kansas and Missouri, then as Union spy behind Confederate lines during the Civil War, and finally as a gunfighter, peace officer, and gambler in the Old West.
His biographer in Wild Bill describes him thus: "As a fighter, he had no equal; as a pistol shot, none could excel him." While he probably killed far fewer men than he was given credit for, and may not have been able to 'send a bullet through a dime at fifty paces' as he was said to be, his brace of ivory-handled Colt Navy revolvers dealt death to a long list of men, from the backwoods of Missouri to the high plains of the Dakotas. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he is not known to have crossed back and forth from lawman to criminal, but he undoubtedly shot men in circumstances, considered justifiable homicide in his day, that would be murder in more civilized times.
His exploits in the Old West have been the subject of books, movies, and television, but Wild Bill reveals an earlier life of derring-do as a scout and a spy for the Union Army, from 1863 through the end of hostilities. He crossed between the armies repeatedly, often 'enlisting' in the cavalry of the enemy and posing as a Confederate. Recrossing the line, bearing valuable information for General Curtis, commander of Union forces during the Missouri campaign, was the more difficult act, requiring daring and death-defying bravery.
His death at the hands of Jack McCall is the stuff of legend. Less well-known is the play he appeared in within the last six months of his life, written and produced by Ned Buntline and starring Hickok, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Texas Jack Omohundro. It ran in Kansas City for two months, and ended in acrimony between the playwright and his hero.
Heading to Deadwood for the gold rush, Hickok found that getting gold was easier if you let others find it for you and then relieved them of it at the gambling table. Thus, in the Lewis & Mann saloon, uncharacteristically sitting with his back to the door and holding the famous 'Dead Man's Hand' of aces and eights, he passed into history.
While the author, J.W. Buel, insists "that which is herewith given is absolutely true in every particular, without a single shading of fiction or extravagance", it is unlikely that any biography of someone as famous as Wild Bill Hickok, in an era when exaggeration for effect was a common tool of journalists, could be considered the absolute truth. While surely no Ned Buntline, who considered the truth a pallid and lifeless thing requiring large infusions of fantastical invention before it was worthy of publication, Buel was not present for most of the events described. Relying on what the reclusive Hickok was willing to tell him, along with the reminiscences of less-than-impartial witnesses, he has presented a true-to-life {if not absolutely true} history, written within three years of his murder, of the exciting times and 'marvelous adventures' of James Butler Hickok, known to the ages as Wild Bill.
Mark W. Seymour, editor
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