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The Night Desk
'Buffalo Bill' Story Includes Memphis
Q- Is it true that Buffalo Bill came to Memphis as a Yankee soldier?
A- The current issue of Saga has an account of Buffalo Bill in which he enlisted in 1864, in the Seventh Kansas Volunteers, which was assigned to the command of Gen. A. J. Smith in Memphis. It is asserted that Buffalo Bill solved the Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest problem for the Yankees by disguising himself as a farm boy, locating Forrest, and making it possible for Smith to attack at Tupelo, Miss.
Buffalo Bill was 18 in 1864. His mother had recently died and his father had been dead seven years. He had some experience with wagon trains, pony express riding, gold mining and Army scouting against the Indians but fame was years ahead. At that time he had neither killed the buffaloes that made his name, nor become the hero of Ned Buntline's fiction.
He did scout for General Smith in Tennessee. We know of nothing to contradict the story of young William Cody finding Forest for Smith.
Neither do we know of any reason to take it at face value. Buntline, whose real name was Edward Zane Carroll Judson, had a most enthusiastic imagination. Of what Buffalo Bill said about himself one of his biographers wrote, "Most of his statements are inaccurate; many are preposterous, and he sanctioned on the part of his publicity agents a gross indulgence in fiction."
77
OPERA HOUSE.
One Night Only,
Tuesday Nov. 4th, 1879.
HON. W. F. CODY,
BUFFALO BILL
AND HIS
Mammoth Combination
OF
24 ARTISTS 24
Also, a band of GENUINE INDIANS will on this occasion appear in the Melodrama in Four Acts written for Buffalo Bill by Col. Prentiss Ingraham, entitled
Knight of the Plains
OR
Buffalo Bill's Best Trail.
EDDIE BURGESS, Boy Chief of the Pawnees, and C. A. Burgess, U.S. Scout, and a Band of GENUINE INDIANS in their War and Medicine Dances.
During the Drama, BUFFALO BILL will exhibit his
MARVELOUS SHOOTING
with the Rifle.
A STREET PARADE by the INDIANS ON HORSEBACK headed by
Buffalo Bill's Military Band.
Reserved seats 75 cts,; to be had at SERVICE BROS. & CO.'S. Prices as usual.
78
Buffalo Bill.
As will be seen by advertisement elsewhere Buffalo Bill will tread the boards at the Opera House next Tuesday evening, November 4th. Of him and his performance a late number of the Burlington Hawkeye says:
The melo-drama in which Mr. Cody appeared on Thursday night is properly named, for no one holds a better right to the title "Kight of the Plains: than he does, for he has long been distinguished in the army and on the frontier as the "Prince of the Prairiemen."
Though essentially a border play, Col. Prentiss Ingraham, the author has so interwoven social life with the wild scenes upon the prairie, and introduced into it the refining element of lovely woman that it is toned down from the "blood and thunder" of the stereotyped frontier drama.
Buffalo Bill as "himself" exhibits a fine bit of acting, and the character he impersonates of English nobleman and detectives are exceedingly natural and good.
"Wild Nelli," the border heroine, and a wild, passionate outcast of the plains is strongly taken by Miss Lydia Denier, who also has the advantage of being a handsome woman as well as a good actress.
Miss Nellie Jones, as "Rose Melton," is simply perfect- the refined, lovely, high spirted girl she represents, while Mr. J. J. Louden as the designing villain, sport and outlaw, "Ralph Royston," proves himself a dramatic student who fully grasps the character he has to play.
The other characters are equally well sustained.
79
Buffalo Bill afforded entire satisfaction to a packed gallery, and comfotably seated auditiorium on Tuesday evening. The entertainment was pronounced by some not equal to his former efforts in this place, though the continued applause of the ten cent literature element of the audience attested their appreciation of his efforts to please. There is nothing In the play whatever.
80
FIFTH AVENUE LYCEUM.
Two Nights Only! Wednesday and Thursday, Nov. 5th and 6th,
HON. WM. F. CODY,
BUFFALO BILL!
And his Mammoth Combination of 24 Artists. Also, a band of Genuine Indians.
KNIGHT OF THE PLAINS, OR BUFFALO BILL'S BEST TRAIL.
Eddie Burgess, Boy Chief of the Pawnee, and C. A. Burgess, U. S. Scout. A Street Parade by the Indians on Horseback.