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Omaha Daily News
May 10th/93
NEBRASKA DAY AT CHICAGO.
Indications that the Occasion Will Be an interesting Feature of the Fair.
CHICAGO, Ill., May 9.- [Special Telegram to THE BEE.]- Complete details have not yet been perfected for the celebration of June 8, Nebraska day. Commissioner General Garneau has already commenced preparations and for the past few days has been in Omaha to perfect the plans for a rejoicing such as will impress upon the representatives of every nation in Christendom, as well as Chicago, the fact that there is such a state as Nebraska and that it can whoop things up at this Columbian exposition in real western style.
Colonel Cody and his Wild West will be conspicuous participants in the fete. Major Burke, Buffalo Bill's general manager, told THE BEE'S correspondent this afternoon that he was going into the Nebraska celebration with a whole heart, and remarked that he felt certain the state day would be the day of all days during the whole fair season.
The arrangements have been left to Mr. Garneau. As at present mapped out the plan is for the whole Wild West collection of riders from all parts of the world to act as an escort to Governor Crounse. There will be the Cossacks, Gouchas, Indians, English troopers, Arabian warriors, in fact, nearly every nation's fighters will be uniformed and mounted. It has not yet been so decided, but a parade from down town is contemplated. Colonel Cody has already begun advertising Nebraska day with big colored lithographs, showing himself mounted and escorted by a federal cavalryman bearing the United States flag, and a state trooper carrying the standard of Nebraska.
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Chicago Herald May 14th /93
Two of Buffalo Bill's Indians daubed their faces with fresh paint yesterday morning and started out to see the world's fair without a guide. They took the trail that runs due east from the Sixty second street entrance, and finding that it ended in the lake they turned into the manufactures building. They wandered aimlessly through the labyrinth of exhibits until they reached the British section, and halted before a big glass case containing a choice assortment of wigs, whiskers, frizzes and other articles in false hair. They grunted their satisfaction at the exhibit and were preparing to seek other sources of enjoyment when the wig that covered the waxen image of an English swell raised in the air and revealed a shiny, bald head. The sight was too much for Indian flesh and blood to stand. A smothered whoop came from the mouth of one of the braves and the other instinctively slapped his hand to his belt to feel for his knife. They looked at each other in amazement, and then turned away. Before they reached the nearest door they were going in a lope, and once outside they never slackened their speed until they were inside the high board fence that surrounds Colonel Cody's show.
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Fought Until Killed.
On one occasion two scouts, Wheeler and Moore, were sent with dispatches for Gen. Sheridan. They made the trip to a point near Fort Sill, I. T., in safety, and faithfully delivered their papers. A package of official documents was given them in return, with orders to deliver the same to Col. McKeever at Fort Hays. The papers never reached their destination. Guided by Indians, a detachment of soldiers found on Beaver Creek, in the summer of 1869, a human skull, pelvis, and other bones which had been picked clean of flesh by the wolves and coyotes. The Indians said that the preceding year they had caught sight of the scouts making their way northward through the pan-handle portion of Texas, south of the Adobe walls, on the Canadian, and surmised that the couriers had purposely made a long detour westward in order to avoid the region the hostiles infested. The savages alleged that they intercepted the two men near Beaver Creek and first killed their horses. Thus dismounted and more than a hudnred miles from friendly aid moore and Wheeler were killed after a resistance desperate enough to impress the Cheyennes with respect for their bravery.
Another of the scouts was a man named Ransome, alias Ledford. He claimed to have been captured by rebel forces during the war while engaged as a spy. According to his own story, Ransome was bound to the back of a horse behind the leader of the guerrillas, with a view of execution as soon as a camping place was found. He had a small pistol hidden below his arm-pit, and succeeded in killing his captor and making his escape in half-Mazeppa wise. Ledford was an apparently frank, cheery, handsome fellow, of splendid physical proportions, and a magnificent shot. He owned a black horse, docile to him, but a fiend incarnate to others. The man was a great favorite with army officers whom he often bantered for friendly shooting matches, and was rarely beaten in contests of skill in that line. He took more chances and more often volunteered for dangerous service than any other scout; was never derelict, but was killed in 1872 at Witchita, Kas., by Lieut. Hargous, an officer of the Fifth Infantry, who was on duty with a posse aiding a Deputy United States Sheriff named Bridges to arrest him on a charge of horse stealing. When arrested by Lieut. Hargous, Ledford fired first at the army officer, who dropped as if killed. Lieut. Hargous was not hit, however. Ledford was maddened by liquor and strode over the prostrate body of the officer, firing at Jack Bridges as he advanced and wounding him in the arm. The scout then made a rush at a soldier who had accompanied as a member of the posse, when his further shooting was prevented by a bullet through the heart. Like Hickok, the original "Wild Bill," Ledford respected the army [blue], and the affray in which he was killed was the only occasion that he was ever known to shoot at any person in the permanent military establishment.
Ledford's Devil-Dare Bravery.
The winter before his death Ledford, then in government service, accompanied a detachment of the Third Infantry, acting as escort for Maj. Rodney Smith, paymaster United States Army, on a pay trip from Fort Dodge, Kas., to Camp Supply, Indian Territory, and return. The route for about 200 miles was over a broken and undulating region so covered with snow as to appear level. Thus a ravine, snow-filled, appeared at a distance no different from an elevation, snow covered. There were no trees or bushes above the dead level of the snow. Buffalo were numerous and were often seen floundering in a ravine, struggling to get away from the soldiers. The soldiers were intent only on making their way through the drifts to their point of designation and could not afford to lose time in shooting buffalo, but Ledford would urge his horse up to and into the herd, fire both revolvers in order to further frighten the buffalo, and then throw himself astride the nearest bull buffalo and stab him. The steam from the animals, the snow swirls, the whoops of the scout, the red gouts from
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that gleaming knife made a strange exciting tableau.
Another ex-scout, known as Curly Walker, was killed near Dodge by a resident of Salina, Kas., in an encounter resulting from an effort on the part of Walker to sell a lot of cattle stolen and runoff by him from their lawful owner. This man Walker has cowed once when drunk and disorderly at Fort Dodge in a way that Lieut.-Col. John R. Brooke is too modest to tell about. Bob Wright was present when he was killed. He was pierced by several bullets from a Winchester rifle whilst dismounting from his horse, and died with one hand on his revolver vainly struggling to release it from the holster in the stitching of which the hammer was caught. In the other hand "Curly" Walker had a revolver, which, in his death throes, he used as a knife, repeatedly thrusting it into the prairie sod, discharging it and bursting the weapon by the act.
Another of the scouts was a man of education from Philadelphia and the nephew of an ex-Union soldier, at one time the postmaster of St. Louis. His fate is unknown.
Scout O. J. Whitman was found dead on the plains, his head resting in his saddle, used as a pillow, his horse and arms gone--scalped --an arrow through his heart. He was killed while asleep.
If these lines are read by any survivors of the fight of Aug. 17, 18, 19, and 20, 1868, on the Arrickeree Fork of the Republican River, Kansas, the place where Lieut. Beecher was killed, he or they will remember Malcolm Graham as one of the men who ran the gantlet of the Indians surrounding that island in the river and made his way unwounded to Gen. Bankhead at Fort Wallace, thus securing relief for the Forsyth party. Graham was one of the scouts under John Austin at Fort Dodge and did good service in that capacity.
Capt. Harry Reade, who for eighteen years was an officer of the Twenty-fifth United States Infantry, was formerly a scout in government service upon the Western plains. He never wore a buckskin suit or affected long hair, however, and in the quiet retirement of his Massachusetts home knows not the perils of the days when he, with only a single companion scout, carried dispatches through a region populous with Kiowa, Arapahoe, and Cheyenne Indians, who ambushed the watering places, fired the river bottoms, and whose keen-eyed abilities sought by every artifice and skillful device to intercept, chase down, and kill the government scouts.
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Chicago Inter Ocean May 14 /93
WILD WEST.
The completeness of detail and the genuine historic and educational realism of Buffalo Bill's Wild West have made the exhibition a pronounced success. It is now no uncommon thing to see the vast covered grand stand, which seats 18,000 people, taxed to its capacity to accommodate the enthusiastic audiences which attend the picturesque performances. Every day, Sundays included, and rain or shine, two performances are given, afternoon and evening. The Wild West is a most exhilarating and enjoyable exhibition. Led by the famous scout, Colonel W. F. Cody (Buffalo Bill) in person, the representatives of the rough riders of the world, the most celebrated cavalry detachments, and the picturesque Indians combine to give a performance as novel as it is gratifying to pleasure-seekers.