Legends of the Old West - NED BUNTLINE Ep. 3 | “Whiskey, Women and War”

Episode Date: July 29, 2020

Buntline wears out his welcome in New York and heads west to St. Louis. He finds a city primed to explode, and he leads another whiskey-fueled riot. He moves to upstate New York in an attempt to quit drinking, but it’s an uphill battle. He marries, divorces or abandons several wives. And in 1861, he feels the pull of the ultimate adventure: war. Join Black Barrel+ for bingeable seasons with no commercials: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Fortnite created to give players of all ages, including kids and families, a safe digital space to play in. Download Fortnite on consoles, PC, cloud services, or Android and play Lego Fortnite for free. Rated ESRB E10+. In late 1851, writer Ned Buntline arrived in St. Louis.

He'd recently been on the East Coast, where he'd written a ton of popular stories and had a successful newspaper. But he'd also spent a year in prison. Buntline was convicted of leading one of the bloodiest riots in New York history. Unbelievably, over the next ten years, Buntline started two more riots and several duels, most of them fueled by booze, anger, and maybe even a little bit of insanity. He also married at least five other women and had children with four of them. In spite of his hard-drinking, hard-charging lifestyle, Buntline never stopped writing and selling stories.

People loved to buy his novels about the thrills and pitfalls of living in big cities. loved to buy his novels about the thrills and pitfalls of living in big cities. And in the decade leading up to the Civil War, Bundline started writing adventure stories based on America's latest obsession, westward expansion, and conflicts with Native Americans. All the while, Ned Bundline led a real life that often rivaled the most outrageous stories he could write. life that often rivaled the most outrageous stories he could write. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell and grow at every stage of your business. From the launch your online shop stage all the way to the did we just hit a million orders stage. Whether you're selling scented soap or offering outdoor outfits, Shopify helps you sell everywhere. They have an all-in-one e-commerce platform and in-person POS system. So wherever and whatever you're selling,

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all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash r-e-a-l-m now to grow your business, no matter what stage you're in. Shopify.com slash realm. From Black Barrel Media, this is Legends of the Old West. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this is a four-part anthology about one of the greatest scoundrels in American history, Ned Buntline, the man who discovered Buffalo Bill Cody and turned him into a celebrity. This is Episode 3, Whiskey, Wives, and War. In New York, before Ned Buntline headed west, his third wife divorced him. She took their newborn baby to England to avoid the taint of his name.

It mattered little to him, or at least he didn't show it, because Ned Buntline always had a plan. After his stint in prison for starting the Astor Place riot, Bundlein chartered a steamboat and headed west. Like always, he used the political tensions of the day to make money. Cuba was a hot topic in 1851. It was in the middle of a revolution. Factions on the island wanted to free it from Spanish rule. They also wanted to unite Cuba with the United States and make it a new slave state. Buntline sold stock in this potential new U.S. territory, and he kept the money when it didn't come to pass. With this new infusion of cash, he rented a room in a St. Louis boarding house and got to work. Besides publishing stories, Buntline wanted to solidify his position as a leader of the Know-Nothing Party.

In the early 1850s, this political party thought it could rival Democrats, Republicans, and a couple others that existed at the time. The goal of the Know-Nothing Party was to organize Protestant, native-born men. It played on anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic sentiment. In 1852, St. Louis was a city in flux. It was the gateway to the West. It was teeming with industry and newly arrived German and Irish immigrants. Several political parties wanted control of the city. When city elections arrived in April 1852, Buntline knew he had an opportunity to pull people toward his

know-nothing party, or at least divide all the others. When the polls opened on April 5th, rumors circulated that a German man had attacked a carriage full of Whig voters and beaten its driver. The mayor was a member of the Whig party, and he hurried to the scene of the supposed crime. But the mayor found himself cornered by a handful of angry constituents, and he raced back to the safety of his office. Before long, about 400 angry constituents surrounded his office building. When the mayor looked out his window, he saw one man ride to the front of the mob on a big horse. That man was, of course, Ned Buntline. Soon after Ned rode up, another man followed in a buggy, and on top of the buggy rode a keg of whiskey.

in a buggy, and on top of the buggy rode a keg of whiskey. Fueled by anger, liquor, and curiosity, men of all ages followed Buntline toward the German side of town. As Buntline rode down the streets of St. Louis, he yelled insults and provocative speech. The group of 400 who'd been with him in the beginning swelled to several thousand. They trotted along behind Buntline as if he were leading a parade. Scared and angry residents threw rocks and stones at them in an effort to disperse the mob. And just like the Astor Place riot, it didn't take long for the rocks and stones to be replaced with pistols and fire. A large rock hit Buntline and knocked him off his horse.

Bleeding and furious, he urged his mob to attack the German population. He and his friends stormed the polling station. They replaced Whig ballots with Democrat ballots and handed out liquor. To keep the crowd whipped up, Buntline got back on his horse and recited Revolutionary War speeches that his father had taught him. Before long, fights broke out all along the streets, and then people began shooting from their windows to protect themselves and their property. began shooting from their windows to protect themselves and their property. At least four rioters were hit with bullets. One was shot in the face. Buntline began to think his work was successful, and he looked like he was taking a kind of victory lap. He and his collaborators moved on to try to destroy the German Athletic Club.

But news of Buntline's troublemaking traveled faster than he could. The neighborhood had placed guards with rifles on the street corners surrounding the club, and snipers on top of nearby homes. When Buntline and his mob approached, one of the snipers fired a shot. Someone in Buntline's party pointed to a saloon and yelled that the shot had originated there. The mob descended on the saloon, which was also the living space for the family of the German immigrants who owned it. The crowd pounded against the closed shutters and doors until a wood panel gave way. A young fireman made his way to the opening, probably to help the residents and not the mob,

but someone in the tavern fired a gun in self-defense. There was a brief moment of quiet while the smoke cleared, and then the firemen staggered down the steps and across the street and fell dead. At the sight of the firemen's death, Buntline's mob lost any semblance of reason or control. The mob burst into the saloon and started smashing furniture. Several rioters overturned the stove and piled wood on top of it. A couple rioters stopped vandalizing the tavern when they heard crying and moaning from above. They found the horrified tavern keeper and his wife in an upstairs bedroom, huddled in a corner. The wife had given birth

a couple days earlier, and she held her crying baby. Huddled with them was a neighbor who had a broken leg from being trampled. People managed to get these victims outside to safety, but the rest of the mobs set fire to the tavern. And then, when the fire department arrived, rioters cut the fire hose. A fireman later testified that it was Buntline who ordered men to set fire to the tavern and the house and although the firemen belonged to the Know-Nothing Party, he drew the line at setting a man's house on fire. He aimed his rifle at Buntline and shot him in the leg and watched him fall off his horse. his rifle at Buntline and shot him in the leg and watched him fall off his horse.

By morning, Buntline's riot had fizzled out under the weight of its own energy. No one really understood how Buntline's actions were supposed to help any political party, but the Whig Party ended up winning the elections. In the riot, several homes and businesses were looted, vandalized, or burned to the ground. 35 people were wounded, 10 very severely. Over the next few weeks, two of those people died from their wounds, in addition to the firemen who'd been shot and killed during the riot when he tried to enter the German tavern. One of the wounded was Ned Buntline, but he lived to riot another day. He fled to a small town in Illinois.

There he married for the fourth time. His new wife was a teenage girl, and he lived with their family. Authorities caught up with him in late May 1852 and arrested him for his role in the St. Louis riot. But as always, his friends put up the $1,000 to bail him out of jail and he was free to be with his wife until his trial the following year. But he didn't stay with that wife either. He traveled to Memphis and New Orleans and other river cities. He tried to drum up support for a know-nothing presidential candidate to run in 1854. If someone had nominated him, he wouldn't have turned it down. At the beginning of 1853, Buntline was called to court for his role in the St. Louis riot. He decided not to show up, and his friends had to

forfeit their bail money. This action would get Buntline in a lot of trouble 20 years later when he returned to St. Louis to promote a fledgling celebrity with the catchy name of Buffalo Bill. But for now, Buntline was on the move again. Unbelievably, he sailed back to New York City, where he'd burned nearly every bridge. From there, he went to Boston. He married women in both cities and abandoned them both. He continued to try to raise support for the Know-Nothings, and he made his way up to Maine in late 1854. As if he was writing the same chapter of one of his books over and over again,

Buntline participated in an anti-Irish riot in Bath. The evidence isn't clear, but he may have started it. A Catholic church was burned to the ground, and the city's Irish residents were so terrified they camped out for days in the woods about two miles away. Shortly after that episode, Buntline almost ran down some men who were walking on a road at night. When he was about 20 yards past them, Buntline stopped his coach and asked the men if they wanted a ride. When they got close, he shot one of them twice in the leg and then rode away. When they got close, he shot one of them twice in the leg and then rode away. The man Buntline shot was a freed slave who had made his way north and was a respected resident of the town.

The man survived and complained to the authorities. They arrested Buntline and ordered him to appear in court the next day. Buntline convinced the judge and the jury that he thought he was being attacked by Irishmen who wanted revenge because of his Know Nothing membership. He claimed self-defense. As usual, Buntline was free to go. But by 1855, Buntline was a man without a political party. The Know Nothings had evaporated. The issue of slavery had overtaken

the nation's concern about immigration. And so, Ned Bundline went back to the life of a wandering writer. For a few years, Bundline traveled around various northeastern states, writing stories about the things he saw and the people he met. His personal fortune rose once again when the New York Mercury hired him to write weekly stories. The Mercury boasted a large subscribership.

It showcased new and popular writers. It was the first publication to feature the work of a writer by the name of Mark Twain. But even though Bundline's stories were selling well, and he had lots of money, his personal demons were getting the better of him. His drinking was completely out of control. He turned in his stories late, or not at all. He thought if he could isolate himself, he might be able to kick the habit. He was already familiar with an area of northeastern New York called the Adirondacks.

He bought 50 acres on a lake in pristine wilderness. He was an accomplished hunter and fisherman, and he thought he'd found paradise. The plan seemed to work. There were few temptations or distractions in the Adirondacks. He wrote story after story about pirates and Mormons and Revolutionary War spies. The New York Mercury was making so much money off Ned Buntline that it hired illustrators for his stories. It was an expensive undertaking reserved for only the most popular writers. Some reviewers compared him to James Fenimore Cooper, who had just passed away but was still famous for writing The Last of the Mohicans.

But as that first winter in his little hunting cabin turned to spring, Buntline's loneliness overpowered his desire for sobriety. He wandered to nearby villages, where he drank at hotel taverns and harassed the patrons and bartenders. He wandered as far away as the village of Troy, about a hundred miles away. According to legend, he became obsessed with a young beer maiden named Eva at a local saloon. She immediately agreed to be his wife, so the story goes.

In reality, Eva needed a housekeeping job to help support her impoverished family. At first, she was reluctant to travel back to Buntline's cabin. But he offered her $5 a week and enough gifts that she didn't think she could refuse. She was 17, and he was 38. By all accounts, they worked well together. They kept the lake property running well and livable while Ned wrote his stories, sometimes for 48 straight hours. But the horror of what happened the following spring derailed Buntline's experiment with isolation.

On March 4, 1860, Eva gave birth to a baby boy. They named him William. But just ten days later, both mom and baby died, most likely of infection. By choice, or because of his isolated condition, Buntline buried Eva and the baby together behind the cabin. Soon after, he burned the cabin to the ground. Despite the tragic loss, Ned Buntline kept his routine. He built a new cabin that was slightly more comfortable and married again, this time to a 15-year-old local girl. And he kept writing. He wrote what some consider precursors to the Western format he would later perfect.

He wrote stories about the Texas Rangers and Comanche raids and helpless white maidens who got rescued just in the nick of time. Down in New York City, Buntline's editors were thrilled. But Buntline was just as restless as the adventurous characters in his stories. Ironically, as his tales of wilderness became more popular in the city, he wanted to move out of the wilderness and back into the city. He took the long train rides to Manhattan whenever he could, and started losing interest in his young bride, who was now pregnant.

Soon enough, the young woman had no choice but to move back to her father's home. In November of 1860, on one of his trips to New York, Buntline married Kate Myers. She was 25, refined, religious, and absolutely did not tolerate alcohol. As crazy as the match seemed, Buntline was completely in love with his new bride. For her part, Kate seemed to love Ned well enough, but she did not love his home in the mountains. Ned tried to make her happy. He planted all kinds of flower gardens and invited musicians and other authors up from the city to be their guests and to entertain her. But Kate soon tired of pretending to enjoy the rustic life and its brutal winters. Soon after giving birth to their

daughter, she moved back to her family's home in a suburb of Manhattan. Kate didn't want to care for a baby in the isolated wilderness of the Adirondacks. The move back to the city would help with that problem, but then a new problem began growing. In the spring of 1861, Ned Buntline felt the lure of the ultimate adventure, a real war. On May 11th, one month after Confederate artillery fired the first shots of the Civil War at Fort Sumter, Ned took trains all the way down to Washington, D.C. He met with the U.S. Secretary of War, Simon Cameron. The two men knew each other from their former membership in the Know-Nothing Party. Buntline threw his support firmly behind President Abraham Lincoln and the Republican cause.

All the newspapers reported on the meeting between the writer and the war secretary, in which Buntline offered to raise a militia of sharpshooters. In return, he expected to receive an officer's commission. Unfortunately, Ned's offer did not pass muster at the presidential level. He returned home to the Adirondacks, but he was determined to enter the war one way or another. In the late summer of 1862, Ned Buntline enlisted as a private in a company of the New York Mounted Rifles. One newspaper joked that his literary talent would soon be used to manufacture thrilling army tales.

And that's exactly what happened. Buntline's company was sent to Suffolk, Virginia in the fall of 1862. Its mission was to choke off the supply roads around the Great Dismal Swamp, a coveted transportation route for Confederates. Within a month, Bundline was promoted, probably because his commander was a little starstruck by the author. But Ned was also an exceptionally good shooter, and he pitched himself as a good scout and guide because of his life in the Adirondacks. Buntline arrived in Virginia already heavily armed.

He wore a belt around his waist with two Colt revolvers and a bowie knife prominently displayed. He often wore a buckskin suit he brought with him. It had fringes and feathers on the sides. The garment foreshadowed a time when he would share a stage with William Buffalo Bill Cody. In one of the stories he sent home from the war, Buntline wrote a semi-autobiographical tale about a cavalry scout who often had to hide in swampy terrain. Ned's fellow soldiers either loved him or hated him. He was very entertaining. He could make a good story out of the dullest everyday event. He was tough, talkative, and full of mischief. Even his biggest detractors conceded he had moments of bravery. Once, he took over a gunboat whose

driver had been shot. He managed to get it past rebel batteries and back to camp. Another soldier remembered that Buntline had pulled a lieutenant's body off the field when all his other comrades had fallen back under enemy fire. But as the weather turned cold in November and Confederates raided Union lines, Bundlein's drinking and bragging wore on the nerves of the men in his unit. In fact, it endangered them. He would leave for a day or two at a time, allegedly on a scout. He would come back saying he'd found an enemy camp.

Then his regiment would spend valuable time creeping up to these camps, only to find no one was ever there. In January of 1863, Bundline got a week's furlough to get medical treatment in New York for an illness. He overstayed his furlough by more than a month. Bundline was arrested for desertion, and his rank was knocked back down to private He did, however, achieve two things during his leave He bigamously remarried one of his former wives And he managed to spend enough time with his current wife, Kate To produce another child nine months later

Ned returned to Virginia in despair His patriotism was perhaps more important to him than anything, and he was ashamed about his demotion. Worse, he contracted a serious illness of some sort that landed him in the infirmary. By April of 1863, he'd recovered enough to fight, and he participated in the Siege of Suffolk when the Confederate Army moved its troops toward Richmond. But by the end of the month, he was back in the hospital. This time, he was sent to what was called the Invalid Corps in Scranton, Pennsylvania. In addition to being genuinely sick, Bundline was, like so many others,

exasperated with the whole experience of war. He wanted to go back to his farm in the Adirondacks and to see his young children with Kate. He was released from service in 1864. He briefly returned to his lake home, but abandoned it and moved in with Kate in Westchester, New York. And if his time at war hadn't quite been the adventure he'd hoped for, it still proved valuable. Buntline witnessed the popularity among soldiers of a certain style of paperback book.

The books were printed by a company called Beadle and Adams. They were pocket-sized and very thin. Soldiers exchanged them and collected them like modern-day baseball cards. The little books were similar to the ones he'd seen years before that were carried by soldiers going to the Mexican-American War. But the new versions were better. The printing was sharper, the text was more clear, and there were illustrations. Bundlein recognized that a market existed for the kinds of stories he'd written a decade earlier.

Only now, the railroads had opened up even more markets. He thought he could write Civil War adventure stories that had the same appeal as his seafaring stories. war adventure stories that had the same appeal as his seafaring stories. But he also recognized that people were curious about things happening in new states and territories that were added to the Union after the war ended. They heard wild tales of atrocities committed by Native Americans. So Buntline thought his stories could feature brave men who made it safe for people to move to Kansas or Nebraska or Dakota territory. Placing himself in the strict care of his wife Kate, Buntline's writing was more prolific than ever. He would go into a sort of trance, barely stopping to eat or sleep for days at a time. His readers didn't mind the haste with which he wrote his stories. They bought them as fast as the Mercury or other papers could print them.

And Ned was still Ned. He occasionally went off on a bender, so Kate insisted his publishers give his money directly to her. She also forced her husband to attend temperance meetings, where men and women praised the virtues of a new political party trying to gain national prominence. It involved fighting the evils of alcohol. And so it didn't take Buntline long to realize that this could be his ticket to go west again. On his trip west, fate brought together Buntline's endless talent for storytelling with a young scout who had Adonis looks.

talent for storytelling with a young scout who had Adonis looks. The result of this accidental meeting was perhaps the most enduring celebrity ever to come from the United States, Buffalo Bill Cody. Next time on Legends of the Old West, Ned Bundline heads to California in an attempt to stay sober and to have some more adventures to write about. In typical Bundline fashion, he creates more trouble than he can handle and heads east again. But this time, he stumbles onto the greatest story of his life when he meets William Buffalo Bill Cody.

That's next week on Legends of the Old West. And members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week. They already receive early access and the entire season to binge all at once. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. Memberships begin at just $5 per month. This season was written by Julia Bricklin, author of The Notorious Life of Ned Buntline, a tale of murder, betrayal, and the creation of Buffalo Bill. Audio editing and sound design by Dave Harrison.

I'm your host and producer, Chris Wimmer. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. Check out our website, blackbarrelmedia.com, for more details, and join us on social media. We're at Old West Podcast on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Thanks for listening.

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