Long before the name Annie Oakley was on the lips of every man, woman, child, and newspaper editor in America, the sight of the demure woman, whether in a courtroom or on stage, seldom failed to inspire enthusiastic approval.
From the beginning of her career with Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show in 1885, audiences were captivated by the petite sure shot. Her entrance into the arena of the western show was always graceful. She never walked. She tripped in, bowing, waving, and wafting kisses. The first few shots she delivered with her twelve gauge shotgun brought forth a few screams of fright from spectators, but they were soon lost in cheers and applause. Annie set audiences at ease and prepared them for the continuous cracks of firearms which followed.
Annie posed with her guns for a variety of advertisements from festivals and circuses to weapons and ammunition. The armed woman had been a fixture of American life for several years prior to Annie Oakley’s image being used in posters promoting firearms for females. The firearms industry directed its first major ad campaign to women in the 1880s and Annie was a living, breathing promotion for shotguns and revolvers. By making shooting appear like something even a lady could comfortably do, Annie helped make the sport of shooting popular with women everywhere.
By 1904, women were being featured in ads with weapons less and less as regulations against guns were being drafted. The 1911 Sullivan Law, a band to prohibit the act of carrying and concealing firearms prompted antigun activists to request further ordinances to be placed upon weapons. Soon, licenses were required to possess firearms. Possession of certain weapons without a license was a misdemeanor and carrying them was a felony. Those opposed to such regulations, Annie Oakley being one of them, maintained that disarming good citizens put them at the mercy of thugs and crooks. Suffragists such as Alice Paul were outraged by what was perceived to be an impediment that would keep women from being able to protect themselves. “Not only did women not have the right to vote, but if they weren’t free to defend themselves they weren’t free at all,” Paul announced.
“God intended women to be outside as well as men, and they do not know what they are missing when they stay cooped up in the house.”
“I am, indeed, very grateful for your many kind words in my obituary. How such a report started I do not know. I am thankful to say I am in the best of health.”
“After traveling through fourteen foreign countries and appearing before all the royalty and nobility I have only one wish today. That is that when my eyes are closed in death that they will bury me back in that quiet little farm land where I was born.”
“Aim at a high mark and you will hit it. No, not the first time, not the second time and maybe not the third. But keep on aiming and keep on shooting for only practice will make you perfect.
Finally you’ll hit the bull’s-eye of success.”
“My mother and sisters thought my prowess with the gun was just a little tomboyish”
“I would like to see every woman know how to handle [firearms] as naturally as they know how to handle babies.”
“My mother…was perfectly horrified when I began shooting and tried to keep me in school, but I would run away and go quail shooting in the woods or trim my dresses with wreaths of wildflowers.”
On August 8, 1903, a drifter named Charles Curtis made his way to the Harrison Street Police Station in Chicago and filed a complaint to Justice of the Peace John R. Caverly about a woman named Little Cody. Curtis had befriended the woman he supposed was down on her luck and provided her a place to stay for a few days. During her visit with Charles, she stole a pair of pants and generally made herself a nuisance. The complaint charged her with having “made an improper noise, riot, and disturbance.” A warrant for the woman’s arrest was issued, and “Little Cody” was arrested and escorted to jail. The fee she was to pay was $100. She didn’t have the money to give the court and was to be held until she came up with the funds.
The prisoner did not give the clerks or the jail matrons a difficult time. She was chatty during the intake process, but polite. Her appearance was slovenly, clothes were torn and unwashed, and she was obviously under the influence of drugs. She told officials at the facility about her work as a crack rifle shot and of the days she spent with Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show. The curious matron couldn’t help but pursue the matter further. “You are the noted Annie Oakley, I guess.” The woman proudly announced that she was indeed the famed sure shot.
Charles Curtis came to visit the woman once she was behind bars and seeing her distressed state decided not to press charges.
When arraigned before the justice on Monday morning August 10, the police officer who had booked her into jail stated she was the famous Annie Oakley who had exhibited with Buffalo Bill Cody. The officer informed the court that if she was allowed to go free she would only spread disease and implored the judge to send her to a women’s asylum where she could be taken care of. The judge agreed and instructed the court to send the woman to Bridewell Prison Farm. Her fine was reduced to $25.
After her day in court, she was taken downstairs to the lock up again. A number of people were waiting for her to arrive so they could talk with her. One of those individuals was George W. Pratt, a reporter for the Chicago American. Pratt had visited Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show many times and was acquainted with several acts associated with the program. He wanted to get the woman’s full story and spent hours with her asking questions about what brought her to such a lowly state. Her answers contained specific information about who performed in Cody’s shows with her, when, and the exhilarating experience she had at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. Pratt and other reporters were convinced this woman was the real Annie Oakley. Pratt wrote a story about his first-hand experience with the accused. As many reporters did at that time, he elaborated and sensationalized the account.
It was three o’clock in the morning when Southern Railway Engine 75 collided with western legend and showman Buffalo Bill Cody’s train outside Lexington, North Carolina, on October 29, 1901. The rumble of the trains hurrying toward one another sounded like the gathering of a cyclone. Whistles blew and brakes scrapped hard against the rails in a desperate attempt to prevent the crash, but the impact was unavoidable.
The force of the engines smacking into one another caused the derailment of the cars in tow, and all at once the air was filled with flying missiles of iron and wood. Smoke poured in great black streaks from the steam funnels, and the popping of steam rose high in the air. A veritable hell of fire erupted. Members of the cast and crew of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show fought madly in their attempt to crawl out the doors and windows of the overturned cars. Horses trapped in the twisted, mangled debris whinnied and brayed frantically.
People rushed to the scene from nearby farmhouses and stood helplessly around the wreckage holding their hands to their ears in order to shut out the frightful screams of the injured passengers and animals. Gathering their composure, they fought to rescue the hurt from the coaches scattered about the landscape. Slowly the suffering were lifted from the destruction and carried to a grassy field. Many cried and groaned in pain, their heads and hands cut and blood streaming from their wounds.
Annie Oakley, world famous exhibition sharpshooter was one of the unfortunate victims of the train wreck. She was lying unconscious somewhere among the rubble. The car where Annie and her husband Frank had been sleeping was turned upside down. When the engines slammed into one another and their car tumbled over, the petite entertainer was thrown from her berth onto a trunk. Before hitting the trunk with her back, she tried to break the fall by putting her hand out. Both her hand and back were injured. Frank suffered only minor cuts and bruises. He carried his wife out of the wreckage to the spot where the other hurt passengers had been taken. Annie’s eyes fluttered open long enough to see the severely damaged vehicle. What once had been a speeding marvel was now a broken scrap heap.
Western Writers of America is sponsoring a micro-western contest. Micro-westerns are original Western fiction, nonfiction, or poetry stories 280 characters in length (the equivalent of two tweets). Participants have the opportunity to win $500 in cash prizes and have their work recognized and electronically published by WWA. First prize is $300, second is $125, and third prize is $75.
Interested writers with the gift of brevity can post their Westerns on the Western Writers of America’s Twitter account (@Western_Writers) as a private message between September 1, 2017 and November 30, 2017. Winners will be announced on December 15, 2017.
For more information about the micro-western contest including the contest rules visit Western Writers of America’s Facebook page, the WWA website www.westernwriters.org, and of course on Twitter @Western_Writers.
Say the name Annie Oakley and the image of a young woman who could shoot targets out of the sky without a miss and rode across the frontier with Wild West showman Buffalo Bill Cody comes to mind. Annie Oakley was a champion rifle shot and did perform alongside well-known riders, ropers, and Indian chiefs in Colonel Cody’s vaudevillian tour, but there was more to Annie Oakley’s fame than her skill with a gun. The diminutive weapons wonder was a strong proponent of the right to bear arms, a noted philanthropist, and warrior against libel who fought the most powerful man in publishing and won.
The native Ohioan astonished the world with her almost unbelievable feats of rifle marksmanship. She could pepper a playing card sailing through the air, puncture dimes tossed into the sky, and break flying balls with her rifle held high above her head. She once shot steadily for nine hours, using three sixteen-gauge hammer shotguns which she loaded herself, breaking 4,772 out of 5,000 balls.
Annie Oakley fell in love with and married the first man she defeated in a rifle match. Frank E. Butler was one of the most noted marksmen in the West and he and Annie were married for more than fifty years. The couple never had any children of their own. The reasons they were childless are varied and speculative at best. What is not without question is how Annie helped fund the care and education of orphaned children from coast to coast.
Annie Oakley was a combination of dainty, feminine charm and lead bullets, adorned in fringed handmade fineries and topped with a halo of powder blue smoke. She had a reputation for being humble, true, and law abiding and was careful with her character at all times. When powerful, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst challenged her honor and questioned her respectability in his publication in 1903, Annie filed a lawsuit against him that’s still discussed at universities today.
Western Writers of America is sponsoring a micro-western contest. Micro-westerns are original Western fiction, nonfiction, or poetry stories 280 characters in length (the equivalent of two tweets). Participants have the opportunity to win $500 in cash prizes and have their work recognized and electronically published by WWA. First prize is $300, second is $125, and third prize is $75.
Interested writers with the gift of brevity can post their Westerns on the Western Writers of America’s Twitter account (@Western_Writers) as a private message between September 1, 2017 and November 30, 2017. Winners will be announced on December 15, 2017.
For more information about the micro-western contest including the contest rules visit Western Writers of America’s Facebook page, the WWA website www.westernwriters.org, and of course on Twitter @Western_Writers.
Blood spattered across the front of the dark-eyed, brunette gambler Belle Siddons, as she peered into the open wound of a bandit stretched in front of her. Biting down hard on a rag, the man winched in pain as she gently probed his abdomen with a wire loop. She mopped up a stream of blood inching its way to the crude wooden table where he was lying.
Two men on either side of the injured patient struggled to keep his arms and legs still as the stern-faced Belle plunged the loop further into his entrails. “How do you know about gunshots,” one of the rough looking assistants asked? “My late husband was a doctor and I worked with him,” Belle replied. “Is he going to die,” the other man inquired? “Not if I can help it,” Belle said as she removed the wire loop. She shifted through the tissue and blood attached to the instrument until she uncovered a bullet. She smiled to herself as she tossed it into a pan sitting next to her and then set about stitching the man‘s wound closed.
When Belled decided to go west in 1862, she envisioned a comfortable frontier home, a life-long husband and several children. But fate had other plans for the head-strong woman many cowhands admitted was a “startling beauty.”
Belle’s story began in Jefferson City, Missouri where she was born sometime in the late 1830s. Her parents were wealthy land owners who made sure their daughter was well educated. She attended and graduated from the Missouri Female Seminary at Lexingtion, Missouri. Belle’s uncle was the state’s Governor, Claibourne Fox Jackson. She spent a great deal of time with him traveling in elite circles that elevated the charming teenage to the toast of society.
When the war between the states erupted, Missouri residents were divided between support for North and South. Belle and her family were Southern sympathizers, actively seeking ways to crush the Union’s agenda. The attractive, young Ms. Siddons, fraternized with troops training in the area, hoping to glean valuable information from them. They were enamored with her and in their zeal to impress her, shared too much about military plans and the position of soldiers. Belle passed those secrets along to rebel intelligence.
Her deceptive actions were found out by General Newton M. Curtis of the Union Brigade from New York. A warrant was issued for Belle’s arrest in 1862 and she was apprehended 50 miles south of St. Genevieve on the Mississippi. When Belle was captured she was found with proof of her duplicitous behavior in her possession. She had detailed plans of the stops of the Memphis and Mobile Railroad. The rail line was being used by the Union Army to transport supplies and weapons. When questioned about the crime Belle proudly admitted being a spy. She was tried, found guilty and sentenced to a year in prison. She was released after having only served 4 months.
