William Fredrick "Buffalo Bill"
Cody: He once rode 250 miles on horseback in less than six hours, wrote Army
General Sheridan, "and such an exhibition of endurance and courage was more
than enough to convince me that his services would be extremely valuable
in the (Indian) campaign; so I retained him at Fort Hayes until the battalion
of Fifth Cavalry arrived and then made him chief of scouts of that
regiment."
Sheridan then ordered Bill to aid the Fifth Cavalry in cutting off 800 Cheyenne warriors enroute to join the Cheyenne and Sioux responsible for annihilating Custer's Seventh. At War Bonnet Creek, 50 to 60 of those 800 Cheyenne rode smack into the Fifth and a fight. After several fell, one Cheyenne, whose decorations identified him as a chief, called to Bill to "Come and fight!"
On foot, the two men advanced on each other firing their rifles, and the Indian, Chief Yellow Hand, fell.
"First scalp for Custer!" Bill shouted, reaching for a knife, and then, according to eyewitnesses, finished the chief.
"It didn't happen that way at all!" detractors far from the scene protested, and went to work denouncing the famous Buffalo Bill as a fraud. Writer Gene Fowler and director William Wellman intended to do the same with this movie they created for Joel McCrea, but after some soul searching (and drinking ) decided they couldn't and changed course. It was the image of the daring American cowboy that Bill created with his traveling wild west show that launched western movies.
Bill's fans had the last word, the estimated 25,000 in Colorado who passed by his flag-draped coffin to pay their last respects, and the over 10,000 mourners who took him to his resting place on Lookout Mountain.
Said one, Saturday matinee hero Tim McCoy: "Cody was the most impressive man I had ever seen, unmatched either before or since."