13 - Chapter 13. Annie Oakley, Woman at Arms by Courtney Ryley Cooper.

13 - Chapter 13. Annie Oakley, Woman at Arms by Courtney Ryley Cooper.  
Annie Oakley was without a doubt the greatest markswomen who ever lived. She was christened Phoebe Ann Mosey but was called Annie from childhood. Oakley was the stage name that she assumed when she first started to perform with Frank Butler. From obscure and impoverished beginnings, she made herself into the best known woman of her time, propelled by an indomitable spirit and an uncanny shooting ability. We learn of her enduring marriage to Frank Butler and their first meeting — a shooting match in which the seemingly delicate young girl defeated the professional marksman; her association with Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show and its triumphal tour through Europe and America; the train crash that nearly took her life and her years as an actress and teacher. Yet with all her many successes she preserved her warmth, dedication and integrity. Her story remains to this day one of the grandest to have come out of the Old West.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter thirteen of Annie Oakley, Woman at Arms by Courtney
Rileigh Cooper. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
Read by Barry Eads, Chapter thirteen. It was a rather
lonely company which saw the end of the season of
eighteen ninety at Strasbourg. For with their farewell to the

(00:21):
performances of the year, they were giving a farewell also
to their chief, Colonel William Frederick Cody was going back
to America and to what might be the battlefield. There
are those who have called Buffalo Bill an eternal showman.
But Buffalo Bill was something more than that. He was
an intense patriot with the showmanship instinct. Indian affairs had

(00:45):
not been good at home. There had been ill treatment
of the Sioux on the Pine Ridge Reservation, with the
accompanying objections of the various tribes to what they termed starvation.
Sitting Bull had been making his demands at Washington for
better treatment of his peace people. The Indian question had
arisen again to occupy the front pages of the newspapers,

(01:06):
and accordingly to be the subject of conversation at many gatherings.
Then a mistaken zealot, who he was never has been
determined sent forth word to the various tribes that he
was Christ come to Earth again, and that if the
various tribes would send their representatives to a meeting place
at Pyramid Lake, Nevada, he would outline a plan by

(01:28):
which all could be peace again. How those representatives made
the long journey is almost beyond comprehension. Short bull for instance,
the representative of the Oglala Sioux traveled from a spot
near Manderson, South Dakota, across what was then a country
with but few roads and no rail transportation, making a

(01:50):
part of the distance on horseback and part of it
on foot. Other representatives accomplished the journey in the same fashion.
Christ had come back to Earth to aid the Indian,
and the Indian, suffering and destitute, was willing to believe
almost anything. Christ as he existed at Pyramid Lake, Nevada
was different, indeed, from the being described in the scriptures.

(02:14):
This Messiah was much older and possessed a son, which
he presented to the Indian chiefs without explanation. A demented
white man with a knowledge of magic and evidently a
store of electric batteries. He performed various feats for the
Indians and appeared and disappeared by the simple routine of
jumping from behind a large rock and retiring in the

(02:35):
same way. His message was that the Indians should adopt religion,
and to this end he passed forth a queerly marked
white shirt, which he called the ghost shirt, and which
was to be worn at religious ceremonial dances. Then, having
adopted religion, the Indian was to intermingle with the whites, marry,
and bring pale faced husbands and wives into the tribes.

(02:59):
If this were done, he said, the grass of the
prairie once more would grow green, and the buffalo would
again roam the plains. Of course, he was speaking figuratively,
with the meaning that if his idea were followed, prosperity
would come to the Indian. But while the red Man
has a habit of talking in figures of speech, he
also has an intense literal inclination. The representatives went back

(03:23):
and reported what had been told them by the Messiah.
What followed afterwards was a little piece of Indian politics.
The writer is one of the few white persons to
whom short Bull blamed for the ghost Shirt war. Ever,
told his story that recital given during a blizzard in
a weaving tent on the South Dakota Prairies. Was one

(03:45):
of the Indian politics in which Short Bull aveered that
his report had been twisted into one demanding war against
the whites, and in which the Ghost Shirts, instead of
being merely part of a religious rite, after having been
blessed by him, became bulletproof in the eye of the
Sioux Warriors. War was looming when Buffalo Bill closed his

(04:07):
show hurriedly, he set sail for America to take his
position as Brigadier General of the State Troops of Nebraska,
operating under the guidance of General Miles, then in command
of the Department of the Missouri Orders had gone forth
to arrest Sitting Bull. Colonel Cody started from Chicago in
an effort to reach the old Indian chieftain before the police,

(04:30):
but he failed. Sitting Bull, he who had given Annie
Oakley her first real prestige, was killed in his tent
by Indian police before Buffalo Bill could reach him and
induce him to surrender. Buffalo Bill served under General Miles
throughout the campaign, which ended with the Battle of Wounded Knee.
While at Standing Rock, North Dakota, he received some disconcerting news.

(04:54):
It was that Annie Oakley was dead. Hastily he cabled England,
where Miss Oakley and her husband had gone to fill
some shooting engagements during the interim in which the members
of the Buffalo Bill Show wandered Europe without much knowledge
of whether they ever again would appear with the Scout
of the Plains. Back came the answer. Just finished big

(05:16):
Christmas dinner and feel fine. Mistake and name person who
died was an opera singer. Then Buffalo Bill did a
typical thing. He hurried to a telegraph office and wrote
a cable to London. Just received your message that you're
all right, awful glad, ain't you? When spring came again,
Buffalo Bill was back with his show, enturing Germany. It

(05:39):
is rather a coincidence that this man returned from a
tiny war which ended with one battle, should give to
another man ideas which would be used in the greatest
war of all time. Wilhelm Hollenzaalen was Emperor of Germany.
Now when the Buffalo Bill Show came to this country,
it afforded him a chance for study, but not concerned

(06:00):
the history of the winning of America's West. It was
an object lesson in the moving and feeding of armies.
The Kaiser's interest was renewed in the Buffalo bill Show
and in the shooting of Annie Oakley when the aggregation
started through Germany and several performances were attended by him.
This was followed by another private exhibition in which Frank

(06:21):
Butler and Miss Oakley used some of their old rifle tricks,
among them that of shooting the ashes from a cigarette.
This accomplished. The Kaiser showed great interest in the trick,
asked how it was performed, and then, with his almost
mad enthusiasm for guns and shooting of all kinds, inquired
if Annie Oakley could repeat the feat with him holding

(06:42):
the target. Annie Oakley said she could and did. The
ashes toppled from the cigarette, and a proud young ruler
tucked away the holder in which he had encased the
tube of tobacco, that he might save it for a
souvenir for years. Afterward, Annie Oakley congratulated herself on her
good aim and the fact that she hadn't missed her mark.

(07:03):
Then suddenly she changed her mind and wished that she had.
She even sat down, and, in typical Annie Oakley style,
wrote to the war mad monarch stating her sorrow at
having hit only a cigarette and asking for another shot,
But the Kaiser did not reply. That, however, was in
nineteen seventeen. As for the war plans made while the

(07:25):
Buffalo Bill show toured Germany, we saw the Kaiser five
or six times during our stay in Germany, says her diary.
His thoughts were bent upon military efficiency to a degree
almost inconceivable to us at that time. He did not
care about the show as an exhibition, but centered his
entire interest upon the mechanical aspect of it and the

(07:48):
lessons which could be learned from us for use in
the handling of his military. We never moved without at
least forty officers of the Prussian Guard standing all about
with note books, taking down every detail of the performance.
They made minute notes of how we pitched camp, the
exact number of men needed, every man's position, how long

(08:09):
it took, how we boarded the trains and packed the
horses and broke camp. Every rope and bundle and kit
was inspected and mapped. But most of all they took
interest in our kitchen. The traveling ranges were inspected and
enumerated in those endless note books. The chefs were interviewed,
the methods of storing food, of preparing it, of having

(08:31):
necessities ready for use at a minute's notice. All these
things were jotted down. Naturally, we were curious as to
why they were doing all this, and had our own
ideas about how it would be used in some way
for the army. One could not travel in Germany even
in those days, without feeling sure that sooner or later
the Kaiser would throw his nation into war. But we

(08:53):
had no idea, of course, that the world was to
listen mouth open twenty five years later to the story
of the marvelous traveling kitchens of the two Tin Army,
serving meals piping hot on the road to Brussels, an
idea gained from the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show when
we toured Germany. Two years more were left for Annie

(09:14):
Oakley in Europe, a part of which time was consumed
during a tour of Scotland with the show, and the
rest being spent again at Earl's Court as an added
attraction of the Horticultural Exhibit of eighteen ninety two. Then
back to American soil came the aggregation and the beginning
of its present day reputation with its engagement as a

(09:34):
part of the Chicago World's Fair in eighteen ninety three.
For then, in truth did Colonel Cody's show become Buffalo Bills,
Wild West and Congress of rough Riders of the World.
The show was a replete thing now of bolo throwers, cossacks, Arabs,
and a collection of writers and exhibition artists from every
part of the world. As for Annie Oakley, she was

(09:57):
the same sensation at Chicago that she they had been
in London and other parts of Europe. Incidentally, when the
word sensation is used, it is not in the extravagant sense.
To the ordinary mind. The work of the Little Missy
was all but unbelievable. Her name became a household one
in America. No political cartoon, it seemed, could reach the

(10:19):
maximum without depicting some figure of the day in the
dress of a girl marksman shooting an apple from the
head of a shivering adversary. Her name stood for everything
in the world of rifledom. Stage burlesques featured Annie oak Leaf,
and comedy depictions of the Dark County Girl guns were
patterned for her. She added the trick of shooting glass

(10:41):
balls while riding a bicycle, and immediately every bicycle firm.
Cycling was then quite a fad in America, strove to
inveigle her into using their product, that they might advertise
the fact that Annie Oakley deemed a certain make of
cycle the only one to stand the terrific strain of
the arena. The recognition of Annie Oakley upon the street

(11:02):
meant that immediately a crowd would form following in her wake,
just to see the woman who had displayed her prowess
before the Royalty of Europe. Small boys screamed her name
as they attended the wild West. To them, she was
almost as much of a personage as that God of
God's Buffalo Bill outing garment houses copied her dresses. Annie

(11:23):
Oakley was a fixture, or as much of a fixture
as this country can possess, in the minds of the
American populace. For seven years after the World's Fair, she
continued to travel with the Buffalo Bill Show, watching, incidentally,
the processes which gradually led to its disintegration. There was,
of course, the ending of the partnership between Nate Salisbury

(11:46):
and Buffalo Bill, and the beginning of a new one
with James a bailey, the extravagant spending practiced by the Colonel,
the renting of entire floors of hotels, the expenditure of
money which he believed, in his gully way, would continue
to flow to him forever, and while he grew poorer.
Annie Oakley and her husband saving, always working in summer

(12:09):
with the Wild West, and in the winter at trap
shooting events, where inevitably they obtained not only a chance
at the purses, but a share of the gate receipts
as well. Prepared for the day when they would need
travel no more, and when there would be wealth sufficient
to keep them always. At last, they considered that this
time had arrived, and consequently they made known their intention

(12:31):
to end their days as an attraction with the Wild
West Show. With the finish of the season of nineteen
o one, the last performance was held. The band played
its usual farewell music, Old lang Syne. The show train
was loaded and started upon its last journey of the season,
onward onward through North Carolina. It went headed for the

(12:52):
winter quarters. A crash in the night, the screams of injured,
the milling of animals, the rending of steel and wood,
the hiss of escaping steam. The show train had met
head on with another. Several persons had been killed and
more than a hundred injured. Among them was Annie Oakley,
pulled unconscious from the wreckage by her husband and now

(13:14):
in the hospital, unconscious and wavering between life and death.
All that night, the balance was in doubt, while a
watchful husband, stepping at intervals to the bedside of his
unconscious wife, watched a strange transformation. The heavy chestnut hair
was slowly changing. The next day, the doctors gave the
verdict that Annie Oakley would live, but that she might

(13:37):
never be able to move or shoot again. The little
Missy which the show world had known, was gone. In
her place was a mangled, elderly woman with white hair,
hair which had been beautiful chestnut only seventeen hours before.
Five operations followed that accident and years of agony, but
the courage of Annie Oakley predominated always too. Years later,

(14:00):
a woman walked uncertainly to the traps of a gun
club near Nutley, New Jersey. She fondled a shot gun,
lifting it and lowering it, then gazing quizzically along its barrel.
Pull she called, and a target flew forth. There was
a lightning movement as a gun went to a feminine shoulder,
a crackle of yellow blaze, and in the distance a

(14:21):
splintered target. The white haired woman turned and smiled, just
as good as ever, She remarked, Annie Oakley had come back.
End of chapter thirteen.