Read The Life and Legacy of Annie Oakley Online

Authors: Glenda Riley

Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Women, #History, #United States, #19th Century, #test

The Life and Legacy of Annie Oakley (9 page)

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did he take a stand regarding Annie's escapade with Jerry the moose. One snowy afternoon, Annie hitched Jerry to a sled for a joyride. They both enjoyed the outing until they turned a corner, and "Jerry's beadlike eyes espied a push cart laden with nice, juicy, red apples." Jerry headed straight for the cart and upset it with a nosedive. Annie said that the "vendor's hair stood straight on end" at the sight of the gigantic moose and apples careening all over the street. Jerry ate the apples, and Annie forked out a five-dollar bill to cover the damages.

Buffalo Bill must have been pleased, however, when Lillian Smith silenced Doc Carver, who continued to plague Cody. After Lillian's father challenged Carver to a match with his daughter in a St. Louis theater, Smith showed at the appointed time, but Carver failed to appear. Press agent John Burke immediately issued a statement. "The young lady has every right to say that she frightened off the Evil Spirit of the Plains," as Carver called himself

Early that spring of 1887, Annie returned to Ohio to visit Susan and her now-blind stepfather, Joseph Shaw. Annie spent time practicing, but she also renewed herself by immersing herself in the female culture that had succored her through childhood. She spent hours with her mother and her sisters and visited neighbors.

In the meantime, Frank prepared for their impending departure to Europe. The Wild West would soon sail to London to help celebrate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee, the fiftieth anniversary of her coronation. In preparation, Cody and Salsbury had offered the Wild West as Nebraska's official representative at the queen's celebration. They also took the eventful step on February 26 of incorporating the Wild West and turning themselves into international entrepreneurs. Cody also sent press agent John Burke ahead to London. Burke carried letters from such reputed generals as William Tecumseh Sherman, Philip Henry Sheridan, George Crook, and Nelson Miles, who described Cody's military service, as well as a letter from Governor John M. Thayer of Nebraska, who stressed that Cody had been his "aide-de'camp . . . with the rank of colonel."

Whether or not he intended to, Cody, now known as "Colonel," prepared the way for his show, himself, and Annie Oakley to become living legends, symbols of an era passing rapidly into

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history. In particular, Cody became a master at attracting and pleasing audiences. He frequently promised to give his audiences "a visit West in three hours to see scenes that have cost thousands their lives to view." In an era when almost every American, as well as many Europeans, had a relative or friend living in the American West, this theme provided a sure-fire attraction. Because personal correspondence was slow and newspaper reports inflated, people wanted to know what really occurred in the nineteenth-century West, which many looked on as the greatest "frontier" in world history.

By the time cowboys and other personnel filed onto the steamship with the appropriate name
State of Nebraska
on March 31, 1887, a huge crowd, apparently oblivious to the chill in the air, jostled its way close to the ship for a view of the proceedings. The performers boarded hesitantly, especially the Native Americans, many of whom believed that a water venture spelled certain disaster and that they would never again see their homes. The stock followed; the animals loaded that day included 180 horses, 18 buffalo, 10 elk, 10 mules, 5 Texas steers, 4 donkeys, and 2 deer. Even the "Old Deadwood Stage," safely stowed in a nailed box, found its way into the ship's hold.

Despite the auspicious beginning, during the journey the ship experienced a violent storm, then a smashed rudder. Seasick Indians sang their death songs, but Annie seems to have ridden it out without incident. As the ship drifted rudderless for forty-eight hours, Annie spent ten hours "wrapped in an oilskin . . . strapped to the captain's deck." She remembered that the captain never left the deck during the troubled hours before he gained control of his craft and turned it toward England at last.

Unfortunately, little is known about the relations between Cody, Oakley, and Smith while on board, but these must have been stormy as well. Both women practiced from the deck of the ship, which would have brought them into contact and competition. Cody also would have taken the opportunity to shoot. Surely in such confined quarters, members of the troupe and the crew would have watched, and commented on, the relative merits of these performances.

Finally, at the end of April, the Wild West settled into its

Page 39

twenty-three-acre grounds near London. When the show opened on May 9, 1887, Londoners flocked to what they called "The Yankeeries." The Wild West drew half a million visitors during the first three weeks of May. According to newspaper reviews, Oakley grabbed most of the attention given to the women shooters, but at least one critic raved about Smith's shooting. In May, a typical review, which appeared in the
Metropolitan
, called Annie a "genius" and mentioned in passing that Lillian "also" exhibited skill. Then, on May 21, a reporter for the
Topical Times
committed the error of confusing the two women with each other. "As I pass her tent I see Miss Lilian [
sic
] Oakley, the 'shootist,' sitting composedly at the entrance of her canvas dwelling house, thinking probably of her Western home, and the folks she left behind her." Another described Oakley and Smith as ''a couple of fine young Califorianesses.''

By June, a number of newspapers had begun to concentrate on Annie more than on Lillian and to embroider Annie's emerging myth. A story in the
Dramatic Review
, for example, added a bit of drama to Oakley's life story: a trapped wolf had bit young Annie on the arm so badly that she fell in a swoon on her mother's doorstep; as a young woman, she had whipped a pistol out of her purse to dislodge a would-be robber from the Greenville mail train; and, as a performer, she had encountered notorious desperadoes during her early tours of Texas, a state she supposedly ranked as the "worst" of the "queer places" she had visited.

This and other romanticized publicity helped draw viewers to Wild West performances. From May through October, the troupe played to the thirty or forty thousand people who daily thronged to Earl's Court. The Wild West piqued the interest of VIP's as well. For instance, both William Gladstone, the former prime minister, and Edward, prince of Wales, commanded performances. Edward, a rather pompous-looking, chubby man, leaned out of the royal box to watch the show, especially Annie's stunts. "We all worked like little hound pups at a rabbit hole," Annie remembered. "As the last gun I had used lay smoking hot on the table, the Prince of Wales, who, with Alexandra, occupied the lower center box, asked if I might be presented." Annie remembered what she had heard about Edward's tendency to flirt, even as his attractive

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and long-suffering wife, Alexandra, sat nearby, so she turned to Alexandra, and then, instead of kissing the princess's hand, she shook it. "What a wonderful little girl!" Alexandra responded. Annie later claimed that she turned to Edward and said, "You'll have to excuse me, please, because I am an American and in America, ladies come first." Edward, who did not appear in the least offended, replied, "What a pity there are not more women in the world like that little one.''

The
London News
of May 6 carried a favorable report of Annie's actions. "Annie Oakley, the champion shot, put out her hand to shake hand with the Princess, on the Republican principle of ladies first." Unfortunately, the
London Daily Chronicle
interpreted Annie's actions as a gaffe that revealed "charming naivete." Because Lillian Smith had also shaken hands, this remark must have infuriated Annie. The
Chronicle
inadvertently aggravated matters further by adding that Lillian Smith had also received a summons to the royal box, where she "proceeded with perfect self-possession to explain and show the working of the weapon in her hand."

If Annie was disgruntled over this, she could console herself with the numerous invitations she received to teas, receptions, dinner parties, and balls, as well as an invitation from Prince Edward to shoot a match against the Grand Duke Michael of Russia. In addition, what Annie called "tons of beautiful flowers" crammed her tent. Oakley's gifts, which Annie later described as "books, dainty handkerchiefs, pretty lace, ties, gloves, fans, [and] silk for a dress," also outnumbered Smith's. On Annie's birthday, supposedly her twenty-first but actually her twenty-seventh, more than sixty presents crowded her quarters, including a clock, an English horse, a St. Bernard puppy, a carriage, and a photograph of Princess Alexandra from Alexandra herself.

Oakley also achieved more widespread public recognition than Smith. People commented as Annie rode her horse in Hyde Park, and a shoeblack who recognized her exclaimed, "There goes the boss shooter." Perhaps most telling of all was the judgment of the
Sportsman
and other papers that Annie Oakley of Ohio, rather than Lillian Smith of California, was a charming "Western girl" and a "frontier girl." Not one reviewer had negative comments to

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offer regarding Annie. Codymania may have been sweeping England, but Oakleymania followed closely behind.

Still, Lillian Smith occasionally grabbed the spotlight from Annie Oakley. In June, sixty-seven-year-old Queen Victoria broke precedent by leaving Buckingham Palace and venturing to the Wild West arena, where she viewed a special performance from a box draped with crimson velvet. The queen called both Annie and Lillian to her. Lillian curtsied and showed Victoria her rifle. Annie remembered that Victoria turned to her and said, "You are a very clever little girl." According to the
London Daily Telegraph
, Annie "made the prettiest of curtseys before she scampered off." But the
Illustrated London News
ran a large, impressive drawing featuring Smith being introduced to the Queen.

Smith fared less well in London newspapers during a subsequent shooting match at Wimbledon, in which she and Oakley both participated. On July 19, the press reported in detail, Smith showed up wearing a bright yellow silk sash and plug hat and accompanied by a number of cowboys and celebrities. After shooting badly, Smith left the grounds in a huff. The following day Oakley appeared in her usual refined apparel and shot very well. According to the April 21
London News
, "Annie Oakley appears to have been more successful at Wimbledon yesterday than her 'comrade in arms' was on the previous day." She did so well, in fact, that Prince Edward came forward to offer his congratulations to her.

About this time, a Wild West patron, James S. Carter, began to attend Wild West performances with a pair of field glasses and a stopwatch, determined to prove his suspicion that Smith cheated. On June 3, 1887, Carter revealed his findings in a letter to the
Shooting Times
. He claimed that the card she used to cover her rifle sight while shooting at swinging balls had a cutaway section that left the sights uncovered. He had also calculated that the swinging balls actually revolved 362 times a minute rather than 3,000 as she claimed. Meanwhile, back home, the
Sacramento Record Union
laughingly remarked that Smith was incapable of giving an interview in what the
London Topical Times
had referred to as "highly polished language."

The worst debacle in the escalating situation occurred in Au-

Page 42

gust, when the
Breeder and Sportsman
of San Francisco published an anonymous letter that attacked Oakley. Its author, who simply signed himselfor herself"A California," asserted that Lillian Smith "was knocking the English shooters crazy" and left Annie Oakley "out in the cold." The writer also implied that Annie had forgotten her skills with a rifle and could handle only a shotgun and that Frank Butler posed as Annie's brother.

In his rebuttal, which appeared in the
Shooting Times
in late October, Frank Butler retorted that "any lady who distances all competitors and gets to the front, has her enemies." He added: "That letter was written in the camp of 'Wild West.' There was no need of the writer signing his name. All here knew who wrote it. His bad English was as good as his signature." Frank probably had in mind cowboy Joe Kid, whom Lillian Smith had just married. One cannot help wonder, however, if Lillian could have written the letter and referred to herself, as Cody did, as "a California." At any rate, Annie and Frank soon incorporated more rifles into her act and featured Frank more in newspaper publicity.

In the meantime, the American publication
American Field
reprinted London reporters' comments that Annie's marksmanship was "better than Buffalo Bill's" and that her shooting was "phenomenal." This report may or may not have exacerbated the growing breach between Cody and Oakley; after all, Cody had a vested interest in Oakley's success. Moreover, at the same time, another English reviewer had stroked Cody by commenting that if part of the exhibition fizzled, Cody could carry the entire show on his own capable shoulders.

Whatever his reactions to the press, Cody may have aggravated the situation further by continuing Smith's equal billing with Oakley. To Annie, this must have seemed highly unfair. Not only had Smith run off with Joe Kid, but some believed that she lied about her shooting records. Finally, on October 31, 1887, the
Evening News
carried a brief notice. Oakley and Butler would leave the Wild West that evening after its last performance of the season. They planned to rest, visit friends in Shropshire, and tour the Continent. The
News
felt certain that the Wild West would experience a serious loss, whereas Oakley's "personal urbanity" and "wonderful skill" would open many doors for her.

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