Nickname and Work
William Frederick Cody ("Buffalo Bill") got his nickname after the American Civil War when he had a contract to supply Kansas Pacific Railroad workers with buffalo meat. Cody earned the nickname by killing 4,280 American bison (commonly known as buffalo) in eighteen months, (1867–1868). Cody and Comstock competed in a buffalo-shooting match over the exclusive right to use the name, which Cody won by killing 69 bison to Comstock's 48.
Cody had documented service as a soldier during the Civil War and as Chief of Scouts for the Third Cavalry during the Plains Wars. He claimed to have had many jobs, including as a trapper, bullwhacker, "Fifty-Niner" in Colorado, a Pony Express rider in 1860, wagonmaster, stagecoach driver, and a hotel manager, but historians have had difficulty documenting them, and he may have fabricated some for publicity.
He became world famous for his Wild West Shows, which toured in Great Britain and Europe. Audiences were enthusiastic about seeing a piece of the American West. The adventure story writer Emilio Salgari met Buffalo Bill in Italy, saw his show, and later featured him as a hero in some of his novels.
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“A nickname is the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man. It is a bugbear to the imagination, and, though we do not believe in it, it still haunts our apprehensions.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
“... my last work is no sooner on the stands than letters come, suggesting a subject. The grandmothers of strangers are crying from the grave, it seems, for literary recognition; it is bewildering, the number of salty grandfathers, aunts and uncles that languish unappreciated.”
—Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897–1973)