Legends of the Old West - TEXAS JACK Ep. 2 | “Scouts of the Prairie”

Episode Date: March 22, 2023

Texas Jack and his good friend Buffalo Bill prepare for the most terrifying adventure of their lives: performing on stage in front of live audiences. They are savaged by the critics for their horrible acting abilities, but the audiences love the production … which is due more to the leading lady than the heroes of the plains. Italian ballerina Giuseppina Morlacchi graces the production with her talent, and she captures the heart of America’s first cowboy star. For the full story of Texas Jack, check out Matthew Kerns’ book! Texas Jack: America’s First Cowboy Star Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join Apple users join Noiser+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial. For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. On YouTube, subscribe to LEGENDS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: hit “Join” on the Legends YouTube homepage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It was bitterly cold in Chicago in December of 1872. For two weeks, the temperature didn't rise above freezing, For two weeks, the temperature didn't rise above freezing, and a record low of negative 24 degrees Fahrenheit was set that lasted more than 100 years. Temperatures like that usually meant the people stayed in their homes by a warm fire. But on December 16th, a large crowd waited in the cold outside Nixon's Theater. Inside the theater, it was warm and bustling. The place was filled well beyond capacity, and more than 2,000 men, women, and children filled the floors and balconies. Just offstage, two men waited in the wings to make their entrance. On the stage, a famous writer named Ned Buntline warned the audience about the dangers that lurked behind every tree and every hill on the frontier lands of the American West.

There were rattlesnakes, he told them. There were thieves. And worst of all, he said, there were bullets, arrows, and tomahawks of savage warriors who could only be defeated by the best and bravest of men. Ned was supposed to bang the butt of his rifle on the stage as the cue for the other two men to step out and join him. But just before he could do it, he was interrupted. A drunk from the audience wandered down the aisle and jumped onto the stage. The audience didn't know if this was part of the show or not. Buttline threw the drunk into the orchestra pit

and warned the crowd about the dangers of what he called fire water. The audience listened as he lectured them on the benefits of temperance as the intruder was dragged away by the police. Buttline finally banged his rifle on the stage, and the pair of waiting men walked nervously out in front of the stage lights. They were dressed in fringed buckskin coats, leather pants, tall cavalry boots, and wide-brimmed Stetsons. The audience cheered.

Eventually, the cheers died down and the theater grew quiet. Neither man spoke. Nervous laughter came from the crowd. Every second felt like an eternity as it became apparent to each man that the other had forgotten his lines. They weren't trained actors, and even their friends wondered if their appearance on stage was a huge mistake. Those two men were the cowboy, Texas Jack Omohundro, and his best friend, the scout, Buffalo Bill Cody. That night, they weren't much more than bad actors, a subject of laughter instead of wild applause. But soon they would play to sold-out crowds and become the biggest stars on stage and two of the biggest legends of the Old West. From Black Barrel Media, this is Legends of the Old West.

I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this season we're telling a six-part anthology about the famous cowboy, scout, and stage performer, Texas Jack Omohundro. This is Episode 2, Scouts of the Prairie. When the train carrying Texas Jack and Buffalo Bill got to Chicago on December 12, 1872, they had no idea what to expect. They had both achieved notoriety for their adventures in the American West and in Ned Buntline's widely read dime novels. They had both fought in the Civil War, Jack as a scout and spy for the Confederate Cavalry and Bill as a soldier in the Union Army. They had each earned a nickname, Texas Jack as an open-range cowboy and Buffalo

Bill as a hunter, and they had both proven themselves as scouts for the government out of Fort McPherson on the Nebraska frontier. But neither of them knew how to act. By the time they actually stood in front of an audience, neither was really sure if he even wanted to. They had been convinced by Ned Buntline that they could step off the prairies and onto a stage and trade the hard work and meager pay of scouting for fame and fortune. and trade the hard work and meager pay of scouting for fame and fortune. One of Buntline's Buffalo Bill stories had been turned into a successful play in New York,

and the writer figured if an actor playing the part of Buffalo Bill was a success, the real deal and his cowboy friend would be even better. The day their train arrived in Chicago, Ned Buntline took them to the theater and introduced them to a man named Jim Nixon. The show was scheduled to premiere in four days, so Nixon asked Buntline if they would be rehearsing that evening. Buntline replied that they couldn't rehearse because he hadn't written the play. Nixon asked, where are the Indian warriors you had me advertise? Bunline lied and told the man that the Pawnee were on the warpath and unable to make the trip to Chicago. Mr. Nixon was understandably anxious about paying to support a show that hadn't been written and therefore hadn't been rehearsed by the two stars who had never acted,

and which didn't include the advertised tribe of Pawnee Warriors, and which was supposed to open in four days. Bundline tried to calm him by promising to hire Chicago actors to play the Indians. When that failed to persuade Nixon, Bundline handed him $300, half the rent for the theater, and headed to a hotel with Buffalo Bill and Texas Jack to write the play. While Ned worked furiously, Jack and Bill retired to their room, ordered drinks, and grew more and more nervous as they discussed their dramatic debut. Four hours later, Buntline burst in and exclaimed, Hurrah for the Scouts of the Prairie! Who are they? asked Texas Jack.

They're you, replied Buntline. You're the Scouts of the Prairie. Now memorize these parts. Buntline handed them their scripts and left to hire the additional actors he would need to fill the rest of the parts. He needed Indian warriors for the scouts to fight, a Mormon antagonist for them to oppose with comical Irish, Italian, and Dutch lackeys. And most importantly, he needed a leading lady to play an Indian maiden with a weakness for the brave scouts. Bill and Jack set to rehearsing, though both were dismayed by the prospect of memorizing Buntline's words, especially given that they now had only three days to accomplish the task.

Bill Cody's wife wrote, From outside the room, it sounded like the mutterings of a den of wild animals. Now and then, Bill's voice would sound high and strident, then low and bellowing, with Texas Jacks chiming in with a rumbling bass. Every few minutes, bellboys would rush up the hall with ice clinking in the pitchers, hand the refreshments through the door, then hurry away again, with a sort of dazed, non-understanding expression on their faces. All the while, the rumbling of the prairie thunder, verbal flashes of lightning,

and crashing of mountainous speeches continued, and the guests in the adjoining rooms were none too happy. There were three days left until the premiere, but before they could rehearse in earnest, a Chicago police officer showed up to ask for the assistance of the famous frontiersmen Texas Jack and Buffalo Bill. A pair of bears had escaped from their cages and fled into Lincoln Park, where they were running wild. No one on the Chicago police force was able to, or willing to, capture the animals. Texas Jack put down his script and took up his lasso, and he and Buffalo Bill went out to take care of Chicago's bear problem. While his scouts were tracking the Bruin, Ned Buntline was talking to a ballerina. He knew that neither of his show's stars was a

trained actor, and he was worried that they wouldn't be able to carry a show and convince patrons to shell out their hard-earned money for tickets. So, he approached one of the most famous and in-demand entertainers in the world to see if she would join the cast. Giuseppina Morlachi was an Italian ballerina. She had just wrapped up a series of shows in the Chicago area and was open to the novelty of acting alongside two untrained planesmen. She had trained at the prestigious La Scala in her hometown of Milan. Before she arrived in America, she was showcased in France, Portugal, and England, where she danced at Her Majesty's Royal Theater. When she came to America in 1867, she immediately created a sensation by introducing the can-can.

She was the most famous dancer in the world and one of the highest-paid entertainers in America. No one is sure how Ned Buntline convinced her to join his show. Maybe she liked the idea of having a speaking part after so many years of dancing silently. Maybe she was intrigued by the concept of real Western men appearing as themselves on stage. Maybe she was just bored. Either way, she agreed to star as Dove Eye, an Indian maiden who comes to the rescue of the scouts in their moment of need, only to find herself swept

off her feet by one of the brave heroes. Buntline augmented the cast with Chicago actors to play the parts of Mormon Ben, the show's villain, and his three sidekicks. He hired extras to play the scores of warriors who would rush the scouts and fall in a hail of gunfire over and over again in the show. He hired a photographer to provide patrons with photographs of his stars and then hired that photographer's adopted Yavapai Apache son to appear in the show as well. Bill and Jack rejoined the cast after what was presumably a successful bear capture. Unfortunately for modern listeners and readers, the Chicago Tribune never reported an ending to the story of the bears that were on the loose in Lincoln Park. More than

likely, Bill and Jack resolved the problem without much drama, which didn't warrant a follow-up article. So, with the ragtag cast of the show assembled, the Scouts had just one day to rehearse. the ragtag cast of the show assembled, the scouts had just one day to rehearse. Texas Jack and Buffalo Bill had done a fair job of memorizing their lines, but they had memorized staged cues as well. When one of the men yelled out a stage direction as if it was a line of dialogue, Bunline told him that they didn't need to recite the cues. Cue? asked Buffalo Bill. What mischief do you mean by the cue? I never saw a cue except in a billiard room. Even when they weren't reciting stage directions, the scouts were far from stage ready. They nervously put their hands in their pockets, spoke their lines too fast,

and turned their backs to the audience. After a full day of rehearsals, Texas Jack and Buffalo Bill were convinced that the whole venture was a huge mistake. I'd rather be tied at the stake right now, said Texas Jack, but if I say I'll do a thing, I'll do her. Time was up, rehearsals were over, and the premiere was imminent. Buntline continued to insist that everything would be fine. He had written a part for himself, and he would be on stage with the men if they needed a nudge or two in the right direction. But there was nothing Buntline could do to help the painful performances that followed. Even though they would all learn a very valuable lesson,

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stood staring out into the sea of faces that packed the theater, both were struck by severe stage fright. Ned Buntline tried to get them talking. He forlornly hoped that if words were coming out of their mouths, at least some of those words would be the ones he wrote. Buntline tried to prompt Buffalo Bill. Bill, where you been?

Cody continued to stare without responding. Buntline raised his voice. Buffalo Bill, have you been out hunting buffalo again? Just then, Cody spied a familiar face in the crowd. Yeah, he slowly replied, with Milligan. The audience started to laugh. William Milligan was a Chicago merchant and a wealthy man. He had gone to Nebraska earlier that year to hunt bison, where he met Bill and Jack.

He told them that he hoped to get a chance to face a Sioux brave in combat, and he had maintained that desire right up until a band of Sioux were spotted in the distance. At that moment, Milligan suddenly remembered that he had urgent business in camp, much to the amusement of his guides and fellow hunters. Buffalo Bill told that story to the audience. It wasn't in the script, but it was better than standing in silence. Texas Jack listened to Buffalo Bill talk about the hunt with Milligan for a while and then remembered that the first act of the play was supposed to end with an Indian attack.

Engines, he yelled at the top of his lungs, as on cue, a dozen Chicago actors in war paint swarmed the stage. It was at this moment, Buffalo Bill's wife would later write, that her husband and his cowboy friend stopped being amateur actors and became stars. He was back at home now, she said, with Texas Jack at his side, pulling the triggers of his six-shooter until the stage was filled with smoke and until the hammers only clicked on exploded cartridges. They yelled, they shouted, they roared and banged away. They yelled, they shouted, they roared and banged away.

The rest of the night played out pretty much the same way. Ned Buntline tried to prompt his scouts, they forgot their lines, and stage warriors repeatedly attacked, only to meet their maker at the smoking end of Texas Jack's revolvers or Buffalo Bill's rifle. In one scene, Texas Jack demonstrated his skill with the lasso, showing the audience tricks he had picked up in his years running longhorns on cattle drives out of Texas. He was the first man to do what would soon be called a lasso act, which would become a mainstay of cowboy entertainment. Both men choked on the melodramatic dialogue. They could face down enemies and talk to anyone, but the stilted words they were meant to spit out on the stage

proved to be a bigger challenge than a band of warriors. Cody's wife put it this way, Many a time I heard Texas Jack call a square dance. Many a time I saw him swing off his horse, tired and dusty from miles in the saddle, worn from days and nights without sleep, when perhaps the lives of hundreds depended on his nerve, his skill with the rifle, his knowledge of the prairie. But I don't believe I ever heard him say, at any of those times,

Yet I know not where she is. It definitely wasn't the dialogue the audiences cheered for after every scene. It wasn't the music or the scenery, and it especially wasn't the acting. It was the real-life heroes Texas Jack and Buffalo Bill. In some ways, they were the first reality stars, and people were more interested in seeing the actors than the play. and people were more interested in seeing the actors than the play. Critics lambasted the show from the beginning.

One reporter wrote, If it took Ned Buntline four hours to write the thing, we wonder what he was doing during all that time. The headlining actors couldn't act, the show seemed to have no plot, and the same stage Indians were killed over and over again and came back to life between every scene. But when the theater curtains rose for the second performance, the floors and balconies were just as packed as they had been the night before. It wasn't that audiences didn't know that Texas Jack and Buffalo Bill were bad

actors. They did. They just didn't care. They weren't handing over their hard-earned money to see great actors. They were doing so to see real heroes. So, newspaper advertisements for the show listed Ned Buntline as Kale Derg and Jessapina Morlocki as Doveye, with Texas Jack and Buffalo Bill played by the real heroes. The heroes decided they didn't want to be embarrassed again by forgetting their lines. Ned Buntline and Jim Nixon gave them impromptu acting lessons. They told Texas Jack that on the second night, he should greet Buffalo Bill on stage as if he hadn't seen him in a long time. Texas Jack took the lesson to heart and walked out on stage that night saying,

Jesus Christ, how the hell are you, Bill? The audience laughed, and Buffalo Bill responded, Jack, you damned fool, don't you know we're before an audience? The mix of acting for the audience and interacting with the audience was priceless. A few nights later, Cody leaned over the footlights to ask his wife, does this look as awful out there as it feels up here? Again, the audience roared, but the acting lessons continued. Ned Buntline worked with Buffalo Bill, and Buntline asked Jessupina Morlocki if she would do the same for Texas Jack. Buffalo Bill's wife described the formal

introduction between Jack and Jessupina. Texas Jack put out his hand in a hesitating, wavering way. His usual heavy bass voice cracked and broke. There were more difficulties than ever now, for Jack had fallen in love at sight and never did a pupil work harder than Texas Jack from that moment. No matter how hard they worked, the play failed to impress critics. One wrote that the show was a merciless reflection upon the intellect of any person that willingly witnesses it. Another wrote, Buntline represents the part as badly as it is possible for any human

being to represent it, and the part is as bad as it was possible to make it. The scouts weren't free from criticism either. According to one critic, Bill was bad and Jack was only a little better. Buffalo Bill is a good-looking fellow, tall and straight as an arrow, but ridiculous as an actor. Texas Jack is not quite so good-looking, not so tall, not so straight, and not so ridiculous. But as the entertainment industry has always known, critics rarely determine the outcome of a show. Performances of Scouts of the Prairie sold out in cities throughout the Northeast. In a single night, the show made $2,800. That would be somewhere around $100,000 in today's money.

$100,000 in one night for a poorly written, poorly acted stage play. Critics were scathing, but theaters were packed in Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Baltimore, New York, and Washington, D.C. When critics did praise the show, most of it was reserved for the leading lady, though several reviewers wondered how Morlocki had allowed herself to appear in such a spectacle. It was a bit of a bad omen, because she didn't stay with the play for long. Halfway through the tour, after four months of performances, her part had to be recast when she left the show. She was booked for a series of ballet performances that couldn't be rescheduled. Texas Jack didn't want her to leave, and she didn't want to go.

Life had imitated art. In their play, the beautiful Indian maiden fell for the handsome scout. In reality, the sophisticated ballerina had fallen for the dashing cowboy. Texas Jack put Jessapina on a train to Boston, the sophisticated ballerina had fallen for the dashing cowboy. Texas Jack put Jessapina on a train to Boston, promising to visit her when the tour ended. The Scouts of the Prairie continued for another eight weeks with performances in 30 more cities. The critics never relented, but audiences always filled the theaters. When Texas Jack and Buffalo Bill played the last show of the tour with Ned Buntline in Port Jervis, Maine, they had come a long way from their start in Chicago.

When they walked on stage for the first time on December 16, 1872, they were amateurs. When they closed the tour on June 28, 1873, they were veterans of more than 150 performances. As they finished the tour, a reporter asked them if they were leaving acting behind to return to their lives as frontier scouts. Buffalo Bill spoke for both men when he answered, We're no damned scouts now. We're first-class stars. first-class stars. On the tour, Texas Jack and Buffalo Bill earned and spent like kings. Cody's wife said, they made more money than any of us had ever dreamed of before. Unheard extravagances became ours. They believed that an inexhaustible supply of wealth had become theirs forever. Newspapers said Ned Buntline cleared more than $30,000 over the course of the tour,

and Texas Jack and Buffalo Bill earned $1,000 every week. If they made that money today, Buntline would have pocketed more than a million dollars, and Jack and Bill would have made more than $30,000 per week. But for Jack and Bill, their money left their pockets as fast as it was earned. In New York City, Jack walked out of Tiffany's with a pair of diamond cufflinks and a $1,000 gold watch and chain that was, one reporter said, the biggest watch that money can buy, as large as a spittoon. One night, when the famous scouts decided that their hotel neighbors were too loud,

the two men paid to rent the entire floor. Bill Cody said that when he counted up his share of the profits at the end of the tour, he was disappointed to discover that he only had $6,000 left. According to Bill's wife, Jack was in even worse shape. She said, Texas Jack's bank book had suffered far more, for Texas Jack was in love. Whatever Jack spent on himself, he doubled in his efforts to prove his affection for Jessupina Morlocki. And when the two men had time to evaluate the whole endeavor, the play, the acting, the non-stop travel, the finances, they agreed the rigors of touring were well worth the reward. They also agreed that their stake in things would be better if they didn't have to share the wealth with Ned Buntline. If Buntline was upset when they told him they would continue to perform without him,

he took it in stride. He had made a small fortune with them and retired to his home in Stanford, New York, with one of his many wives. Texas Jack and Buffalo Bill said their final goodbyes to Ned Buntline and boarded a train bound for Nebraska. Since they had started the tour 194 days earlier, neither man had been on a galloping horse or fired a gun that was loaded with something other than just powder. They invited some of their friends from the tour to join them in North Platte and headed out to hunt. The pair of scouts returned home as heroes. They had conquered the stages of the East, a horror more frightful than a Lakota war party. Now, they visited the local newspapers and their old friends and showered their acquaintances with gifts and drinks.

They set out to hunt buffalo and spent several weeks enjoying the countryside. A local reporter asked if they were planning another dramatic tour, and they responded that a new show about their hunt with the Grand Duke called Alexi in America would soon premiere in New York City and then sail for Europe. Bill Cody also offered a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that he and Jack would turn their talents to serious drama. Cody said, My idea is to go to New York next winter and show the playgoers what real acting is. I propose to play Shakespeare right through, from beginning to end, with Texas Jack there to support me. I shall do Hamlet in a buckskin suit, and when my father's ghost appears, doomed for a certain

time, I shall say to Jack, rope the cuss in, Jack, and unless the lasso breaks, the ghost will have to come. Mercifully for audiences in the East, Bill was joking. But the good humor had to pause for Texas Jack. He went to mourn with his Pawnee friends. While he was on tour, they were sent on their summer buffalo hunt with a much less experienced scout. When they were warned about a large group of Sioux hunters headed their way, the man had been unable or unwilling to keep the enemy tribes apart. The Pawnee were ambushed and forced to retreat to an indefensible position in a shallow depression that is still called Massacre Canyon because of their devastating defeat. Not long after the battle, the Pawnee reluctantly agreed to leave Nebraska forever and move to their new reservation in Oklahoma.

to leave Nebraska forever and move to their new reservation in Oklahoma. If Texas Jack and Buffalo Bill were planning on starring in a play about the Grand Duke and traveling to Europe, those plans were soon abandoned. An old friend had joined them on their buffalo hunt, and the pair convinced him to co-star with them in a new play. Whatever Ned Buntline had brought to the table, Bill and Jack were convinced that they could more than make up for it when people saw these three names appear on the marquee. Buffalo Bill Cody, Texas Jack Omohundro, and Wild Bill Hickok. They agreed to meet in New York to rehearse and kick off the new play. But first, Texas Jack had to race toward a rendezvous with a beautiful brunette ballerina. Next time on Legends of the Old West, Wild Bill Hickok joins Buffalo Bill and Texas Jack

for a revamped version of Scouts of the Prairie. And it turns out, Hickok is even worse at acting than Bill and Jack were in the beginning. They have some high times, experience plenty of bumps in the road, and Jack lays himself on the line to fully win the love of Jessapina Morlocki. That's next week on Legends of the Old West. Members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week to receive new episodes. They receive the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials, and they also receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com.

Memberships begin at just $5 per month. This series was researched and written by Matthew Kearns, the author of Texas Jack, America's First Cowboy Star. Original music by Rob Valliere. 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, Instagram, and Twitter. Visit fightblackbarrelmedia.com for more details and join us on social media. We're at Old West Podcast on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And all our episodes are available on YouTube.

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