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BUFFALO BILL RIDES AGAIN AT CODY OLD WEST AUCTION |
Buffalo Bill Cody’s handwritten story of what happened at Yellow Hand fight; includes photo; sold for $17,250. Photo courtesy of Cody Old West Show & Auction.
When the Indian Wars broke out in 1876, Buffalo Bill Cody left the high drama of the eastern stage for the high drama of the Western frontier.
Cody was so eager to join the Indian campaign he was still dressed in a black velvet Mexican stage costume when he arrived in Cheyenne. He looked more like a character from one of his Wild West Shows than a real scout.
Not so surprising really. Cody was famous for his battlefield theatrics and the tall tales that grew up around them.
One story began when Cody joined his command at Fort Russell, where the famous Fifth Cavalry Regiment camped out. When he arrived, he got a rowdy welcome from his old regiment.
With Cody as chief of scouts, how could they lose?
No long after, news came of Custer's fatal fight with Sitting Bull at Little Big Horn, 150 miles to the northwest. Humiliated and vengeful, the cavalrymen wanted blood.
Cody left to warn couriers about another potential ambush and on his way ran into Cheyenne chief, Yellow Hair (mistranslated as Yellow Hand). The two men fought to the death at War Bonnet Gorge, South Dakota.
The scuffle lasted a few minutes. Both men fired simultaneously. The chief used his rifle, Cody his revolver.
Their horses went down. The Cheyenne’s took a bullet. Cody’s stepped in a prairie dog hole. Both men stopped one final time, took aim and fired. Yellow Hair missed. Cody didn’t.
“My usual luck did not desert me,” Cody said in his autobiography. “Mine stuck him in the breast. He reeled and fell, but before he had fairly touched the ground I was upon him, knife in hand, and had driven the keen-edged weapon to its hilt in his heart.”
“Jerking his war bonnet off, I scientifically scalped him in about five seconds,” Cody allegedly said. “The first scalp for Custer,” he added.
The story Cody told changed each time he told it.
In fact, Cody commissioned a stage play based on the event called “The Red Right Hand,” or “First Scalp for Custer.” In Cody’s fictionalized story, the two men dueled to the death.
There seems to be little question that Cody killed Yellow Hair. Exactly how it happened is the question.
The story remains one of the great tales of the 19th century American west. With his stage play, Cody was feeding a myth that matched popular fantasies of the day about Indian fighters. At the same time, he was also building one of the greatest theatrical careers in Western history.
On June 22, Cody Old West Auction, Cody, Wyo., featured Buffalo Bill Cody’s handwritten story of what happened that day. Written in response to a question, the 6 inch by 4 inch letter along with a photo of Cody sold for $17,250.
Here are some current values for other Cody lots sold in the auction.
Buffalo Bill Cody
Stevensgraph; silk bookmark; Buffalo Bill; by Stevens, Coventry; 4 3/8 inches by 6 1/4 inches; $518.
The Game of Buffalo Bill; copyright 1898; colorful lithograph cover; complete with markers and spinner; 9 inches by 15 inches; $633.
Cabinet Card; Buffalo Bill; in Brig. General uniform of Nebraska National Guard; by Sauvy of Manchester; overall fine; 6 1/2 inches by 4 inches; $805.
Photograph; Buffalo Bill with Little Iron Trail and Idaho Kid; signed; inscribed; 8 inches by 10 inches; $1,725.
Cabinet Card; Buffalo Bill; circa 1880s; condition problems; 6 1/2 inches by 4 inches; $2,588.
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