Calamity Jane (Part 1)

Unique Character of Old Frontier - - Her Deadwood Romance; “Wild Bill” Hickok was Her Ideal of Man

by Dan R. Conway

(Originally published in the Hysham Echo Oct. 7, 1926)

It was autumn at Fort Laramie, and the year was 1861. The cottonwood trees were dismantled. The quaking asps loomed tall and white. Just a few leaves of gold and white still lingered. On a bend of the river young Sergeant Bassett of Company I, 14th Infantry, and three of his comrades had tarried for a final reconnoitre of the country surrounding the fort. Down along the bottom lands stretched dense a long forest of cottonwoods, whose swaying branches kept up a continual warfare with the wind. The rushing water rumbled ominous over boulder and bar, and a hazy horizon foretold an approaching November storm.

While they were admiring this enchanting scene, these troopers heard a cry, long and pitiful, as though a lost child was near. Up from the timbered low lands it came, first loud and then fainter, gradually dying away, but repeated at intervals. Could it be possible that a child had been lost in this desolate region? Or, was it the weird call of the cougar, summoning his mate to the kill? No, the plaintiff wail of that wild denizen of the hills is one that can never be mistaken by the westerner who once has heard it. This was unmistakably a human voice.

The Mother and Child

Down the bank the soldiers rode, listening closely for a repetition of the cry, following alert toward its source. Louder and nearer it grew, until presently, the soft earth of the forest disclosed fresh tracks - the footprints of a woman. Not far from here and down close to the river’s bank, lay a woman, exhausted, famished, wounded; and, at her side was a small girl.

At the fort, her wounds dressed, the mother, in her few short moments of consciousness unfolded a most harrowing story. She was the wife of a former soldier at Fort Laramie. After her husband’s discharge from the service, they had gone into the wilderness and on a stream called La Bontie, settled on a hay ranch.

A Sioux Massacre

During the year, Indians had become quite troublesome, and finally these Sioux had raided the entire country, killing every white settler and traveler who happened in their path. The savages had reached La Bontie creek, and in the skirmish that followed, the husband had been killed and the mother shot in the eye with an arrow. With her own hand, she had extracted the missile. Bandaging the wound as best she could, and placing the child on her back, she managed to escape to the timber. She had traveled by night and rested by day. Subsisting on roots, herbs and barks, and following the creek and river valleys, in eight days, she had covered the 120 miles to Fort Laramie. Her clothing torn and her body emaciated from hunger and exposure, she was far beyond all human aid, and shortly after her arrival at the military post, she died.

“Calamity Jane”

The child, little the worse for her terrible experiences, was adopted by one of the married officers and became the pet of the fort, which was her home for a number or years. Of her experiences during these early years of her career, little is known, other than that this orphaned girl in later years, became famous in the role of a character never before nor since duplicated. She became the notorious “Calamity Jane.”

A half a century ago, in the frontier days of Indian warfare, when “Buffalo Bill” was in his prime as a plainsman and scout, and when the famous “Wild Bill” Hickok was the fastest man on the trigger along the route of the Overland Stage Line, there was no more noted or more unique character on the plains than “Calamity Jane.”

There is a difference of opinion as to the real name of this woman. She left very little of record as to her early life; but, the more generally accepted version is that her real name was Martha Canary, and that she was born at Princeton, Mo., May 1, 1852. She is quoted by one writer as having stated that her parents were natives of Ohio and that she was the eldest of a family of three.

Thrown, as she was, an orphan in the heart of the wildest country that America ever knew, it is little to be wondered at that the young woman drifted into the rough life of western army posts, mining camps and cow towns.

Character of the Woman

True it is, that today the woman would be classed merely as a woman of the street - an undesirable character. But, in her time, by nature, she was a great deal more than that. In her makeup there was, beside her abandon and apparent scorn for the good life, a certain nobility of character that earned for her general admiration, if not respect, of the rough men of the trail and camp with whom she associated. Her fearlessness and coolness in the face of danger commanded for her the esteem of Generals George Crook and George A. Custer, as well as the other military leaders under whom she served from time to time in the capacity of scout.

It seemed that fate had decreed that Calamity Jane should lead a life of adventure amid scenes where oftentimes her gun was her best friend. The early death of her parents, her rugged life on the frontier, her experiences with traveling bands of scouts and the many dangers of the open prairie and the uninhabited hills, all combined to make of her a woman who feared neither man, beast nor spirit.

Since her career reveals many acts of kindness and a heart that was charitable and considerate of the sufferer, the question often arises: “Was Calamity Jane a good woman?” This we cannot answer squarely. It all depends upon what “goodness” in its broadest interpretation, means - whether character and morals are the same thing. If character and morals are the same, then Calamity Jane was a paradox. On the one hand, it can only be said of her that she drank, swore, stole, gambled and associated with desperadoes. On the other hand, it was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that she thought straight and shot straight; she never turned down a friend or anyone in need. She lived according to the code of the plains. She left no personal history. Consequently, no one can explain her. She was simply “Calamity Jane.”

A Teamstress at 18 Years

It is said of her by one writer that at the age of 18 she had run the scale of all the human emotions, and her rough life had left its stamp indelibly upon her. At this age she could fill a can tossed in the air with lead bullets from her six-shooter, and could fleck a fly from the back of a mule with a sixteen-foot whiplash.

Early in life Calamity Jane donned the male garb; and, although, she is quoted as having admitted that “at first the new duds were awkward,” she remained thus attired, and passed as a man among men with no difficulty.

In the early seventies, she joined the command of General George A. Custer as a teamaster, and while working in this capacity, gained the distinction of being the first white woman to enter the Black Hills country of South Dakota.

How She Got Her Name

Different stories have told of the manner in which “Calamity” got her peculiar name. However, the one which seems to have been given more general credence is that this resulted from an episode of the Custer campaign. It was an incident most characteristic of the woman, and transpired while Calamity was attached to the forces of Captain Egan, commander of the army post on Goose Creek.

There was a skirmish with the Indians during which the commander was shot and severely wounded. It was Calamity Jane who saved him from a worse fate. She rode into the melee where Captain Egan lay unprotected, on the ground with a circle of grinning savages around him, waiting for the sign from their leader to finish the business they had begun. Calamity began action by killing the leader and any others who remained within reach of her gun. At the same time, she managed to place Captain Egan, weak and helpless, before her, on her saddle and horse’s neck; and, as she had, for a time, subdued the Indians, took her charge in haste to the post. There his life was saved.

When the wounded captain was recovering, he called the scout in to thank her. “You’re a mighty good person to have around in time of calamity,” he told her, “and so I hereby christen you Calamity Jane, the heroine of the plains.”

An Indian Fighter

Perhaps it was the memory of the fare of her own parents remained long with Calamity, prompting many a daring and heroic deed. At least she made many rescues of people who would have otherwise been killed by hostile Indians. Many of the pioneers who crossed the plains in the seventies may, perhaps, have Calamity to thank in that their families did not suffer a bloody fate. In this connection, Dr. William A. Allen, in his “Adventures with Indians and Game,” makes the following reference to Calamity Jane: Print this post