The Great Hunt of Grand Duke Alexei and Buffalo Bill Cody

An Exclusive Tour

Come with me and let’s take an Exclusive Tour into the Buffalo Bill Museum here at the Center of the West, Cody Wyoming. The hometown folks, and even many more across the country and abroad, know our William F. Cody more familiarly by his moniker “Buffalo Bill.”  Let’s walk into the museum named for our town father.  Past the iconic full-size photos of Cody and into the Frontier Section,  here – the first gallery alcove on the right – to get the behind-the-scenes story of some unique artifacts attached to a little-known heist.

Let’s stop first in front of the gallery case housing Cody’s buffalo skin coat (we saw him wearing the very same coat in a lifesize photograph as we entered this museum – doesn’t he look dashing?).  This particular coat is brain-tanned buffalo hide, with beaver fur trimming not only the neck, but the wrists, and front breast to just-below-the-knee including the back vent which added warmth all the way around for our noble scout.  However, the ochre colored coat is not the object of our interest.

A Lakota Chief and Duke

Behind the large glass case with the coat, and hanging on the wall to our right, is Louis Maurer’s oil on canvas The Great Royal Hunt (1894) commemorating a bison hunt orchestrated by General Philip Sheridan, accompanied by Major General George Custer, and led by our Buffalo Bill Cody with Brule` Lakota Chief Spotted Tail for Russian Grand Duke Alexei in 1872 (Phew! That’s a mouthful!).  In Maurer’s painting, Cody is front and center with  Spotted Tail to his back right, Alexei at the back left of Cody, and to the far left of Cody is Custer and what may be presumed as one of Spotted Tail’s warriors.

About the Hunt

The hunt took place in Nebraska in January 1872. General Philip Sheridan (1831-1888), a career army officer, and Union General in the American Civil War (he’s an Exclusive Tour unto himself – trust me),  organized the event to host and entertain Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich Romanov (1850-1908), the fourth son of Alexander II of Russia. Sent by his father to the United States as a “good will ambassador” to improve relations between US and Russia,  Alexander II may have had other reasons for sending his son overseas as there was some hubbub back in Russia of the young Grand Duke’s romantic involvement with a woman considered of lower class, but that is a story for another tour.

In America, the hunt was considered part of a good will event. The Grand Duke was received with great fanfare and national fervor by the U.S. and great crowds came to see him during his extended tour. The young man, on the cusp of turning 22 years old, was described as “lively” and “jovial.” The pitched fervor for Alexei’s international visit was so intense that it was claimed family cows in farms across the country were being named Alexei.

Camp Alexei

As Alexei set sail for America  in September 1871,  in the interim until the grand hunt, Cody suggested a site 40 miles south of Fort McPherson at Red Willow Creek (near present day Hayes Center, Nebraska) to Sheridan and the others.  Here a site was established as “Camp Alexei.” Major General George Armstrong Custer was part of a contingent of five generals, two companies of cavalry, two companies of infantry, the 2nd Cavalry regimental band – along with Cody – with conservative numbers estimating  the hunting party upwards of 500 persons, if not more.

As preparations began for Grand Duke Alexei’s arrival, securing the hunting grounds for the bison hunt fell to Buffalo Bill. Cody sought out Spotted Tail, Brule`Lakota Principal Chief and his band of warriors to gain permission to hunt the bison in the Republican River region. Also proposed by Sheridan was for Cody to ask, and collectively the Brule` Lakota agreed, to participate in the buffalo hunt and perform a war dance for the international retinue.

The Hunt Begins

The hunt began on Alexei’s 22nd birthday: January 14th, 1872.  William F. Cody, himself not much older at  25 years of age at the time of the hunt, carefully questioned Alexei about hunting bison on the great plains. Alexei was an accomplished hunter in his own right, but unfamiliar with bison.  Cody allowed Alexei to have use of his own horse, Buckskin Joe, and he also told Alexei that he could “use either a pistol or gun.” Alexei  twice emptied a revolver, both his and Cody’s at close range, failing to bring down a bison.  With continued careful instruction by Cody of how to control Buckskin Joe, Alexei made use of Cody’s 1866 Springfield trapdoor, “old reliable Lucretia,” as Cody referred to his firearm. Armed with new knowledge of both horse and gun,  Alexei brought down his first bison, at Cody’s close instruction, with the 1866 Springfield trapdoor.

Alexei killed somewhere between two to eight bison during the five-day hunt according to Cody, but sources vary as to the exact number. It seems it was unanimously recorded for posterity of the celebratory baskets of champagne which were opened every time The Grand Duke made a quick dispatch of his quarry.

Frontier Glamping

According to gazettes and periodicals of the day which covered the story, the hunting troop ate in grand style with a purported number of wagons between twenty and thirty to attend to The Grand Duke’s needs including furniture, bedding, china table settings, fine linens, and several wagons toting ice for the champagne, wine, and meats. Others in attendance felt the meals were substantial fare that included different varieties of game to be procured from the plains such as prairie dog, elk, antelope, deer, turkey, and of course, bison. These meats were supplemented with the staples of sugar, flour, potatoes, canned vegetables, and of course, the liquor. It may be surmised that Cody’s epicurean palate, he was famed for in later life,  was awakened here with The Grand Duke and his palette for finery.

The Grand Duke gifted to Cody a leather pouch filled with gold coins. Also a gold stickpin was presented to both Cody and Custer (This Grand Hunt took place five years before The Battle of Greasy Grass/Little Bighorn. Custer and Alexei continued a strong friendship in the years that followed the hunt, and that ended with Custer’s death at Little Bighorn.) On his return trip to New York City, Alexei commissioned from the flagship store and famed jeweler, Tiffany & Co., a large diamond and ruby studded bison head pin and shirt-cuff buttons to be made and sent back to Cody.

The Bison Stick Pin

Keeping this treasured royal gift in mind,  I would like to direct your attention towards the smaller case lying in front of the case housing Cody’s buffalo skin coat.  Within this smaller case lies the gold, silver, and diamond bison stick-pin, and bison-head rings (originally rendered as cuff-links) gifted to Cody from the Grand Duke Alexei. These Tiffany jewelry items were prized by Cody, and you may see them frequently in photographs and paintings of Cody hereafter.

What I discovered in Cody-family archival papers of our McCracken Research Library is that on June 17th, 1903, William F. Cody was summoned to his tent within the fairgrounds of the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show before the 4pm arena show in Dudley, UK (in the West Midlands of England) by Johnny Baker, show sharp-shooter, manager, and foster son to Cody. Baker was notified of the discovery of purloined goods, by someone only identified in the newspapers as a “witness,” and that Cody’s buffalo head cufflinks, and other valuables, were stolen directly from his tent during the early afternoon performance of the Wild West Show.  Along with some gold coins, the missing jewelry, all of which was recovered the next day, included:

•  the pair of gold and diamond buffalo-head cuff links, given by the Grand Duke of Alexei of Russia ( received in 1872),
•  a gold watch and gold chain, with a gold and diamond horse-shoe pendant gifted to Cody by the Prince of Wales (received in 1887),
• a large gold, diamond, and ruby Masonic pendant (received in 1894), and
•  a gold scarf pin, studded with diamonds, surmounted by a crown was presented to Cody by his Majesty the King Edward VII in December 1902.

At the time of the theft, Cody, at age 67, had already outlived Custer, Spotted Tail,  and Sheridan. The Grand Duke Alexei would also predecease Cody, in 1908, and as would King Edward VII in 1910.  However, at the time of the theft Alexei and Edward VII were still very much alive and the loss of such lifetime mementoes from these noted historical persons and of his days of early manhood – iconic in themselves –  must have been gut-wrenching to Cody.

A Thief Under Arrest

With the aid of Besse Isbill, press secretary and promotions manager to Cody (and more depending on what source you read),  wrote a letter to photographer Noel Greenwell for either the photographic plate, or photographic proof, which showed Cody, Isbill, and perpetrator William Puzey in Cody’s tent the week before the theft. The photograph aided in the arrest of Puzey.  Upon his arrest, an air of remorse must have settled onto Puzey for he told Louis Decker, Cody’s personal secretary who made the arrest and was the “witness” named in the press, that he had planned to send everything back to Cody, and handed Decker a letter addressed to Cody saying the same.

And here we have it: a spectacular hunt punctuated years later by a surprising theft. The accounts of this theft are only sparsely mentioned in the subsequent biographies, periodical accounts of William Cody’s life and exploits. I hope that you’ve enjoyed your tour behind the scenes, and behind the history, of a few key items here in the Buffalo Bill Museum at the Center of the West, in, of course, Cody, Wyoming.