THE 
 
 Life and Adventures 
 
 OF 
 
 "NED BUNTLINE" 
 
 By 
 FRED E. POND 
 
 ("Will Wildwood") 
 
^ 
 
COL. EDWARD Z. C. JUDSON 
 ("NED BUNTLINE") 
 
LIFE AND ADVENTURES 
 OF "NED BUNTLINE" 
 
 WITH 
 
 Ned Buntline s Anecdote of " Frank Forester " 
 And Chapter of Angling Sketches 
 
 By FRED E. POND 
 
 ("Will Wildwood") 
 
 Editor of " Frank Forester s Fugitive Sporting Sketches," 
 " Sporting Scenes and Characters," etc. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE CADMUS BOOK SHOP 
 1919 
 
.-"": 
 
 - -. .-. 
 
OF THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 NED BUNTLINE 
 
 TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY COPIES 
 HAVE BEEN PRINTED FROM TYPE 
 AND THE TYPE DISTRIBUTED. . 
 
Table of Contents 
 
 Introduction 1 
 
 Anecdote of Frank Forester 4 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 Boyhood, Early Adventures, and First Story f 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 In the Seminole War and in Gotham 24 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 The Novelist s Intense Patriotism "Ned Buntline s 
 Own" 45 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 Life in the Adirondacks A Hunter s Home 55 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 Ned Buntline in the Civil War 6S 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 Unjust Imprisonment of Ned Buntline 74 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 With "Scouts of the Plains," and at Home 84 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 Later Years Personal Reminiscences 100 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 Ned Buntline as An Angling Writer 109 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 Ned Buntline as a Writer of Verse 1 19 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 Closing Years of a Remarkable Career 126 
 
 Books by Ned Buntline 139 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Portrait of Col. Judson "Ned Buntline" Frontispiece 
 
 Portrait of H. W. Herbert "Frank Forester. . .Facing Page 4 
 Portrait of Seth Green Facing Page 111 
 
I 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 The life history of Col. Edward Zane Carroll 
 Judson ("Ned Buntline") is more thrilling than 
 romance, as his career, from boyhood to middle 
 age, was a succession of adventures by land and sea; 
 as a sportsman and angler in the then primitive wil 
 derness and lake region of the Adirondacks, as a 
 midshipman in the navy, a soldier in the Seminole 
 war, the Mexican war, the four years of warfare 
 between the North and South, and finally in the In 
 dian wars of the wild west. 
 
 Colonel Judson s record should have lasting fame 
 first, for his unfaltering Americanism and his in 
 fluence for loyalty in the times that literally tried 
 men s souls; then, on account of his really remark 
 able literary achievements in the line of realistic 
 romance, bringing into world-wide fame the last if 
 not the most notable of American scouts and fron 
 tiersman "Buffalo Bill," "Wild Bill," "Texas 
 Jack," and other fearless scouts of the plains, whose 
 deeds of daring were no less thrilling than those of 
 Daniel Boone and Kit Carson in an earlier era; and 
 last, but of equal interest to all lovers of out-door 
 
: : 
 
 2 
 
 sports, his graphic, delightful sketches relating to 
 shooting and fishing, with his personal reminiscences 
 of some of the pioneers of American sporting litera 
 ture. 
 
 Considered in the light of realistic fiction, Ned 
 Buntline s sea tales and border romances will com 
 pare favorably with the best of J. Fenimore 
 Cooper s celebrated novels in fact it is safe to state 
 that in the remarkable series descriptive of the ad 
 ventures of the scouts of the plains the popular 
 stories written by Ned Buntline had far greater de 
 gree of accuracy as to depicting real scenes and in 
 cidents than any of Cooper s tales. Priority, 
 rather than preciseness of work; studious care in 
 preparation, in place of a hastily written and volum 
 inous amount of fiction, to meet the demand of 
 press and public these conditions combine to give 
 the earlier novelist more enduring fame. 
 
 The series entitled "Life and Adventures of Ned 
 Buntline" first appeared in fPildwood s Magazine, 
 and the limited edition now published in book form 
 with some additional reminiscences and an enter 
 taining "Anecdote of Frank Forester, by Ned Bunt- 
 line" may serve to interest the enthusiastic col 
 lectors of personal memoirs of noteworthy men; 
 writers who have not only put forth a liberal amount 
 of stirring fiction, but have led adventurous lives 
 similar to those represented in their novels. If con 
 sidered from this viewpoint alone, Colonel Judson 
 would stand at the head of American novelists, as 
 
3 
 
 no other has shown such a wonderful career of real, 
 often reckless daring as he whose name was known 
 to comparatively few while his nom de plume ( u Ned 
 Buntline") at the height of his success, was known 
 to millions; but fame is fleeting, and the man of 
 phenomenal energy, of dauntless courage, of once 
 national reputation, now rests almost unknown to 
 the younger generation in the shadow of his loved 
 home "The Eagle s Nest," in the Highlands of the 
 Hudson. 
 
ANECDOTE OF FRANK FORESTER 
 
 By NED BUNTLINE 
 (Col. Edward Z. C. Judson) 
 
 Y EARLY association with Henry William 
 Herbert ("Frank Forester") is indelibly 
 impressed upon the tablets of memory. I 
 remember the sporting author as a digni 
 fied, scholarly gentleman, warm-hearted, a 
 brilliant conversationalist, full of anecdote and 
 sporting reminiscences. Snobs were his aversion. 
 Generous to a fault, he would give, not share, his 
 last dollar, when any worthy person was in need 
 and came under his notice. His cosy country seat, 
 "The Cedars," on the Passaic River, near Newark, 
 N. J., was the retreat for not only many wealthy 
 and distinguished friends, but also for more than 
 one unfortunate or unlucky man of letters, whose 
 literary efforts had been poorly rewarded. Though 
 English, and aristocratically so by birth, he was 
 much attached to America as the home of his adop 
 tion. All his works show this. Yet he was very 
 
HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT 
 ("FRANK FORESTER ) 
 
5 
 
 sensitive, and any apparent slight or laek of courtesy 
 on the part of others was not lightly or easily for 
 given. His over-sensitive nature often involved him 
 in heated controversies, and even quarrels, in regard 
 to his native land, England. The writer found this 
 out in a strange way. At a dinner party given by 
 William T. Porter, of the Spirit of the Times, at the 
 Carlton House, New York, where Herbert boarded, 
 there were present, if I remember correctly, Pap 
 Richards, of the Spirit; Charles Elliott, the great 
 portrait painter; Lewis Gaylord Clarke, editor of 
 the Knickerbocker Magazine; Dempster, the com 
 poser and balladist; "Frank Forester," and the 
 writer hereof. 
 
 The dinner, strictly game, was profuse and ele 
 gant, and after the cloth was removed songs and 
 stories were called for. Dempster sang, Clarke told 
 some of his inimitable anecdotes and then called on 
 the writer for a French story he had once heard him 
 tell. Not for an instant thinking of giving Herbert 
 offense, the story was told. It was of a French 
 man who had been captured by the British frigate 
 Guerriere, telling of the capture of the latter by the 
 American frigate Constitution, in the war of 1812. 
 It ran thus : 
 
 "Shentilmens ! Wen ze Yankee Doodle natione 
 was ave ze war wiz ze John Bull natione, I was in 
 Havre wiz my leetle breeg, La Belle Julie. And I 
 sink I will make one grand speculatione. I load my 
 breeg wiz a beautiful cargo of ze wine, ze brandy 
 
6 
 
 and ze sausage de Bologna; and I make sail for 
 Amerique to sell zem. Four, five days I sail along 
 finely, zen along come one John Bull freegat, and 
 she go boom wiz her big gun and I stop my leetle 
 breeg. Zen a John Bull officiare he come on board 
 my breeg and he say: 
 
 "Sare ! I ave ze onare to take possessione in ze 
 name of his Brittanic Majesty. 
 
 "I reply: Sare! I very much oblige to heez Brit 
 tanic Majesty. Mon Dieu ! I was not oblige at all. 
 
 "Zen he remove plenty of ze brandy and wine to 
 ze John Bull freegat, and he remove me and my 
 men and make fire to my breeg, and send her to 
 Davy Jones lockare. Mon Dieu I was more mad 
 az I can speak. I look at my poor breeg, and I 
 swear and tear my hair and weep like as one foun- 
 taine! 
 
 "Zen ze John Bull capitan he come to me and 
 say: Nevare mind zis is but ze fortune of war! 
 
 " Aha ! I reply to heem it is one bad for 
 tune ! 
 
 "Then he say: Cheer up! Come in ze cabin and 
 take some brandy wiz me. 
 
 "I sank him, I sink I will. Zen I go in ze cabin 
 and he pour for me and for heem each a glass of 
 brandy. Zen I say to him : 
 
 Sare your varee goo t hel t! (good health) 
 and he say to me ze same. 
 
 "I taste of zat brandy. Sacre ! I throw it on ze 
 floor. I spit it from my mouth. Zat John Bull 
 
capitan have ask me zare to drink my own brandy. 
 
 "At zat moment a John Bull sailare cry out 
 Sail ho. 
 
 "Capitan Dacre zat was his name he go out 
 and wiz his glass see one Yankee Doodle freegat 
 come zat way. He cry out : 
 
 " Clear ze sheep for actione! Give ze men 
 some of zat Frenchmen s brandy, for to make zem 
 brave. In ten minutes from ze first gun I shall 
 wheep zat Yankee Doodle. 
 
 "I no say nothing, but I pray ze Bon Dieu ze boot 
 go on ze ozzare leg. 
 
 "By and by ze freegat came close, and boom! 
 boom ! go ze guns. I ave some business away down 
 to ze bottom of ze freegat right away. I ave no 
 business where come ze shot like hail no sare! 
 After a leetle while I hear no more ze boom of ze 
 big guns, and zen I go on ze deck. Oh! Mon Dieu ! 
 what a beautiful sight. Ze deck it was covare wiz 
 dead John Bull mens. Ze masts zey were all gone ! 
 Ze John Bull flag was pull down, and a Yankee 
 Doodle officaire come in one boat and say: 
 
 " I have ze honare to receive possessione of your 
 sword, Capitan Dacre. 
 
 "He look very mad, and I say: 
 
 Nevare mind, Capitan Dacre zis is ze for 
 tune of war. 
 
 One curseed bad fortune, he reply." 
 
 "I say to heem: Capitan, drink a leetle of my 
 brandy. It will cheer you up. 
 
8 
 
 "He say to me: Go to ze d // 
 
 "I say: No sare! I will go to ze Yankee Doodle 
 freegat wiz you, for your old f reegat is full of holes, 
 and soon she will go down to Davy Jones lockare to 
 look for my leetle breeg. 
 
 This was all the story, and it brought laughter 
 from every one but Herbert. He was silent, and 
 looked very grim. The party broke up soon after, 
 and I was astonished the next morning by a note 
 from Herbert to this effect: 
 
 "If I thought Englishmen needed brandy to make 
 them brave, I could be convinced to the contrary by 
 naming a friend to arrange preliminaries, etc." 
 
 I was never more surprised in my life, and I went 
 right over to the "Spirit of the Times" office to see 
 Porter. While he and I were laughing over the 
 matter, Herbert himself dropped in. I walked up to 
 him with the note in my hand and told him sincerely 
 that I had no thought of reflecting on English cour 
 age, and that the story was only an old one dressed 
 over to show the amusing side of the broken French 
 idiom. 
 
 Herbert was all right in a second, and four of us 
 adjourned next door to smile over what could have 
 been made a serious affair had either party been 
 foolishly punctilious. 
 
CHAPTER^ ONE 
 
 BOYHOOD, EARLY ADVENTURES, AND 
 FIRST STORY 
 
 N a picturesque vale among the mountains 
 of the Catskill range, near the head 
 waters of the Delaware river, lies the quiet 
 village of Stamford, noted for its health 
 ful location, and the lovely scenery of the 
 surrounding country, but more widely celebrated as 
 the birth-place and home of "Ned Buntline. n 
 
 Mr. L. Carroll Judson, a sturdy, intellectual rep 
 resentative of an old and honored family tracing 
 descent from "the Puritan forefathers" came to 
 Stamford in an early day and made his home in the 
 highlands. Like the rigid stock of old Plymouth, 
 he was a stern and unyielding man, cold and me 
 thodical, with intense energy, a will of iron. His 
 household was regulated by rules which were 
 deemed as immutable as the laws of the ancient 
 Medes and Persians, and this strict discipline was 
 held to be highly commendable by the ultra-moral 
 ists of that day. At times he would exhibit the 
 
10 
 
 warmer impulses of his nature by generous deeds 
 and kind words, genial as the glimpses of sunshine 
 that break through threatening clouds. A lawyer by 
 profession, he was a man of literary taste, and gave 
 evidence of considerable talent in this direction by 
 the publication of several books chiefly historical 
 and practical works. One of these, entitled "The 
 Sages and Heroes of the American Revolution/* has 
 been widely read and is still frequently quoted. The 
 taste for literature and scholarship may be men 
 tioned as a family characteristic, reaching in indi 
 vidual instances a high degree of merit as evinced 
 in the career of Adoniram Judson, the famous mis 
 sionary. Mr. L. Carroll Judson s work in the line 
 of authorship was undertaken as a diversion or re 
 laxation from his legal pursuits in which he at 
 tained a high reputation. 
 
 Amid such surroundings and influences Edward 
 Zane Carroll Judson the "Ned Buntline" of later 
 years was born March 20, 1823. A terrible storm 
 prevailed on the night of his birth. Dr. Howard, 
 who was present on the occasion, relates that it was 
 a wild, dark and fearful night, the flood-gates of 
 Heaven appeared wide open, the wind swept over 
 the mountains and along the valley with the fury of 
 a tempest, while the vivid flashes of lightning and re 
 verberations of thunder made the spectators tremble. 
 This circumstance was impressed upon the mind of 
 young Judson, who often heard the incident men 
 tioned, and it caused a foreboding that his journey 
 
II 
 
 of life would be equally turbulent and tempestuous; 
 a prediction that was fully verified. At a later period 
 he gave a vivid description, in verse, of the memora 
 ble night and his stormy career. The little poem is 
 entitled "March-Born," and the first stanza runs as 
 follows : 
 
 Born when tempests wild were raging 
 
 O er the earth, athwart the sky, 
 When mad spirits seemed as waging 
 
 Battle fierce for mast ry ; 
 Born when thunder loudly booming 
 Shook the roof above my head 
 When red lightning lit the gloaming 
 Which o er land and sea was spread. 
 
 In 1826 his father removed to Wayne county, 
 Pa., then almost a wilderness, and young Judson 
 learned his first lessons from the glowing leaves of 
 the grand old book of Nature. He was a born 
 hunter and angler. The trout streams of that sec 
 tion were abundant, and Ned loved nothing better 
 than to drop an occasional line to his finny friends 
 in the depths, while the fish responded to his kind at 
 tentions by coming out of the wet. Ned s pro 
 pensity for playing truant sometimes led to a rather 
 severe chastisement, as his father believed firmly in 
 the old creed: "Spare the rod and spoil the child." 
 The son was a convert to the same belief, but pre 
 ferred to use the rod himself in whipping the 
 streams for trout. 
 
 The lad inherited the same spirit of determina 
 tion that was displayed by his sire, and to this was 
 
12 
 
 added Spartan courage and endurance. He did not 
 rebel against paternal authority, but continued by 
 hook or crook to go a-fishing. His skill with the 
 rod and gun finally won his father s admiration. 
 Before he was six years of age he learned to shoot 
 well with a heavy rifle which he could not hold at 
 arm s length, and therefore fired it at rest over a 
 log or fence rail. When eight years of age his dis 
 play of markmanship so pleased the elder Judson 
 that he purchased a seven-pound rifle for Ned, who 
 went out at dawn the next morning and killed a fine 
 doe in a field near the house. "From that time to 
 the present day," said Ned Buntline in writing to a 
 friend, in 1878, "I have been a hunter." These 
 hunting exploits and fishing jaunts awakened in the 
 lad all the latent love of adventure that was to form 
 the more thrilling and romantic portion of his life s 
 record. 
 
 The wild, roving life of a young woodsman had 
 become so thoroughly congenial to young Judson 
 that he had mentally decided to follow the illustrious 
 example of Daniel Boone, when all his anticipations 
 were dashed to the ground by removal of the family 
 to Philadelphia. Here his father found a wider 
 field for the practice of law, and as Ned progressed 
 rapidly in his studies the proud sire resolved that 
 the boy should be put through a course to prepare 
 him for the legal profession. The dry tomes of 
 Blackstone and Coke proved utterly distasteful to 
 Ned, and he finally refused to continue the obnox- 
 
13 
 
 ious studies. His father, indignant at this defiance 
 of paternal authority, gave the lad a severe flogging, 
 and told him the studies must be at once resumed. 
 Ned had firmly resolved never to become a lawyer, 
 and the severe punishment caused him to run away 
 to sea for the purpose of becoming "a sailor on the 
 high seas." He had for some time secretly cher 
 ished an ambition to visit distant lands, and he now 
 embraced the opportunity to ship as cabin boy on a 
 vessel about to sail around Cape Horn. At this 
 time he was but eleven years of age, though remark 
 ably strong, active and self-reliant. The voyage was 
 rough and much of the romance of sea-life was 
 found to be "the baseless fabric of a dream;" yet 
 the scenes and adventures of a life on the ocean 
 wave proved irresistible to one of his stirring tem 
 perament. Upon returning to Philadelphia he was 
 met by his father, who coldly said: 
 
 * "So, sir! you have returned? I suppose you are 
 sick of the sea, and are willing to ask my forgive 
 ness; and if I permit you to come home, to do as / 
 wish, not as you will, eh?" 
 
 "No, sir," answered Ned, calmly but proudly; 
 "no, sir; I ask no home from you. I have found a 
 dearer home on the breast of the glorious ocean; 
 cordial friends and honest men share with me my 
 oaken dwelling; and, sir, here none dare strike me; 
 no one would strike me; they all love me too 
 dearly." 
 
 *The incident, as here given, appears in "Ned Buntline s Life 
 Yarn," a serial story. F. E. P. 
 
14 
 
 "Is this your choice, degenerate boy! A life of 
 hardship and peril, shared with such associates; is 
 this the life which you choose in preference to one 
 of luxury and ease, where you would have nothing 
 to do but to study?" 
 
 "Father, a life of honor with these rough men, 
 a life of peril and hardship, in preference to a life 
 of luxury, where in a fit of hasty anger I may be 
 struck to the earth like a refractory slave; any life, 
 sir, but that!" 
 
 "Boy, do you know my power and my rightful 
 authority? Do you know that I could drag you 
 home tied like a felon and lock you there?" 
 
 "Sir, do so! bind and bar me; but remember, no 
 locks, bonds or bars can bind my spirit. It is free; 
 free as the glad albatross that shines far and wide 
 over the ocean, and sleeps when it will on the bosom 
 of the wave that feeds it. Exercise your rightful 
 authority/ sir, if you choose; but bind me strong 
 and bar me well. I love the ocean! The sea is my 
 home; and beware, sir, lest I seek it again, in spite 
 of bolts and bars. Love like mine defies both." 
 
 "Boy, it is well ! You have chosen ! Never enter 
 my house again. From this moment I disinherit you 
 forever! Not one farthing of mine shall ever cross 
 your palm! Now, sir, enjoy your prospects; en 
 joy your association ! 
 
 "It 15 well, my father father no longer. I have 
 anticipated your kind disinheritance. Since you dis 
 graced me with a blow, I have not borne your name. 
 
My energies, my hopes, my ambition, and all of the 
 man which God has given me, will carry me alone 
 through the world. Resurgam is my motto in 
 dependence my character! Farewell, sir; you might 
 have made me all you could have wished now I 
 will make myself! 
 
 The father turned sternly away and strode up the 
 wharf. The son turned tearfully around toward the 
 captain, who met him with open arms. 
 
 "Ned, cheer up, my boy!" said he; "I ll be your 
 father now. Cheer up ! We sail to-morrow, with a 
 load of flour for Rio de Janeiro. If you want any 
 thing, run down to my locker and get some money, 
 and go ashore and buy it; there s the key. Come, 
 boy, don t be down-hearted. Grief is like an anchor 
 in the hold, where it can t be got at; it only weighs 
 down the ship, without being of any use !" 
 
 Ned brightened up; he felt that he was friendless, 
 but he did so long to see his sister and mother. 
 
 But a truce to sadness, and ho ! for the merry 
 sea. 
 
 The next year he enlisted as an apprentice on 
 board a man-of-war, says an intimate friend and fel 
 low-midshipman, who thus describes young Judson s 
 courage and coolness in the face of danger: "He 
 was large for his age, strong as a horse, and preco 
 cious. One day a boat of which he was coxswain 
 was run over by a Fulton ferry-boat on the East 
 river, and upset in floating ice. She drifted down 
 
toward Governor s Island, in New York bay, and 
 Judson managed to get ashore with the whole crew. 
 Then he fainted under his injuries and was taken 
 back to the Macedonian unconscious. The crew 
 were so loud in their praises for rescuing a couple of 
 them, that the officers united in a request to have 
 him made a midshipman, and President Van Buren 
 sent on the commission within a fortnight. 
 
 "Then we young middies whose appointments was 
 due to influence refused to mess with him, because 
 he had been a common sailor before the mast. On 
 the way to the Gulf squadron, on the ship of war 
 Levant, where our refusal was made known to him, 
 young Judson challenged thirteen of us in a day. 
 Some withdrew their refusals and associated with 
 him, but seven of the midshipmen fought him, one 
 after the other, in Florida, in New Orleans, and in 
 Havana. He didn t get a scratch, I believe, but 
 four of his adversaries were marked for life. To 
 the satisfaction of everybody in the navy he estab 
 lished the presumption that he was as good as any 
 body. Perhaps one circumstance that reduced the 
 number of midshipmen that he had to fight was a 
 little exhibition on the way down. The captain, who 
 made a kind of pet of the boy, hung a bottle out on 
 the yard arm, and Judson, at the word of command, 
 broke the bottle with one bullet and cut the string 
 above it with another. That was the first intimation 
 we had that he was even at that age, one of the best 
 shots in the United States. He was at this time 
 
17-- 
 
 only fifteen years of age, a fact that I can vouch 
 for, being one of the seven who fought him on the 
 way down to the gulf." 
 
 Two years later an incident occurred which, 
 though trivial in itself, changed the whole of Ed 
 ward Judson s after life transforming him from a 
 seaman to a novelist. A change had been made in 
 the command of the ship, and the new captain, un 
 like his predecessor, was a severe disciplinarian, and 
 disliked young Judson for his independent manner 
 and the influence he had gained among his fellow 
 midshipmen. The serio-comic incident referred to 
 may be best told in Ned Buntline s own graphic 
 words, as related to a friend who asked him concern 
 ing the origin of his literary career. The anecdote 
 is as follows: 
 
 U THE CAPTAIN S PIG" 
 
 At the time I wrote the first letter or word for 
 the press I was a midshipman in our navy. I en 
 tered the navy when I was little more than a child. 
 I had sailed round the world when I was eleven 
 years old, was promoted to midshipman when I was 
 thirteen. I never got promoted by act of Congress 
 or Congressmen. My naval academy was hard ex 
 perience in storms on deck and aloft, or as they call 
 it, "before the mast." I was thrown in the com 
 pany of a sort of naval aristocracy sons of rich 
 men who had won their shoulder-straps by paper 
 
iS 
 
 certificates. They oftentimes insulted me and re 
 fused to mess with me because I had worked my way 
 up. I never was a man disposed to command re 
 spect through love and fawning. If one, two or 
 three insulted me, I would knock them down. If 
 they kept out of my way I would challenge them to 
 fight in the first harbor we landed. Often the very 
 fact of the challenge commanded their respect and 
 they would take measures to apologize before we 
 reached a port. I have, however, been forced to 
 command the respect of seven of my equals by meet 
 ing them in mortal combat four of whom I 
 wounded; with the three others I exchanged shots, 
 unharming or unharmed, but in every case receiving 
 their apology. 
 
 I have thus been particular in stating the manner 
 in which I obtained the respect of my associates, be 
 cause it was on their account that my future trouble 
 arose which resulted in exchanging the pistol for the 
 pen. While these officers became my warmest 
 friends an event took place which proved that I had 
 an enemy in the after part of the ship in the person 
 of the captain. We were at the time cruising in the 
 Gulf, and although only fifteen years of age I was 
 commissary of that department of the man- 
 of-war that included all the midshipmen. Our 
 ship entered the port of Vera Cruz in Mexico, 
 and while there the chief commissary, whose 
 duty it was to provide for the officers of the 
 ship above the rank of midshipmen, and my- 
 
19 
 
 self went ashore to purchase supplies. Among other 
 necessaries that we purchased were six pigs of the 
 same age, the offspring of the same mother. They 
 were of the same size and as white as snow, except 
 that one had a small black spot on one leg. We 
 divided them, then and there, each taking three and 
 each paying a half of the purchase price. They 
 were put into separate boxes and put with our other 
 purchases on board of the ship. I noticed in the 
 division that the one with the small black spot came 
 to my share. I was very proud of them, and gave 
 charge that they be well taken care of. I often 
 visited them and took satisfaction in pointing them 
 out as beauties to some of my associate middies. 
 On our return to Havana a terrible squall sprang 
 on us in the night time. The deck was swept. 
 When morning came it was discovered that one box 
 with its three pigs had been swept overboard, that a 
 slat of the other box had been broken off and two 
 of the pigs had got out and had followed the other 
 three. The only pig left from the deck wreck was 
 the one with the black spot on the leg. I ordered 
 the box to be repaired and the pig to be taken care 
 of as before. To my surprise the chief commissary 
 claimed the pig. I pointed out the black spot on 
 the leg. He claimed never to have noticed it be 
 fore. I pointed out the difference between the 
 boxes, and that mine was on deck and his was not. 
 He was as obstinate as he was dishonest, and noth 
 ing but that pig would satisfy him. I was just as 
 
2O 
 
 determined that he should not have it. Another 
 squall seemed inevitable, for I would have fought 
 for that pig, and was getting ready for the fray, 
 when a proposition was made to leave our dispute 
 to the captain, who was approaching, having heard 
 something of our altercation. I acquiesced. With 
 pretended sincerity he wished to hear the evidence. 
 On my part it was overwhelming. I proved by a 
 number of middies that before the storm I was in 
 possession of the pig with the black spot on the leg. 
 That the box was the same in which my three had 
 been kept. I also proved the same by the scullion 
 who fed them. Against all this positive evidence the 
 chief commissary could only interpose a claim that 
 the pig was his, without the least proof to substan 
 tiate it. Nevertheless, the captain decided against 
 me. If he decided in my favor, no part of that pig 
 would go to the saloon tables, and he would get none 
 of it. I claimed that the decision proceeded from 
 his belly, not from his head or heart. I made a 
 show of full surrender ; still I determined to keep my 
 eyes on the pig with the design of ultimately getting 
 my hand upon it. Fearing another storm, or some 
 surreptitious act on my part, or at least on my part 
 of the ship, it was cunningly devised at a conspiracy 
 in the saloon among the chief officers, including the 
 captain, that the pig should be disposed of that day. 
 Accordingly the butcher was ordered to kill and 
 dress it. A banquet was to be held in the saloon 
 that night. I also determined that a banquet should 
 
21 
 
 be held in the forward cabin, and that if roast pig 
 did not form the principal viand I should be the per 
 son to be held accountable. I made every prepara 
 tion that the occasion should be a success. I had all 
 necessary luxuries except wine, and this I begged, 
 borrowed or bought from the chief steward, with 
 the full intention of never paying for it, for I was 
 determined that the luxuries of the banquet should 
 be drawn from the captain s and chief commissary s 
 larder and wine-room. I purposely passed and re- 
 passed that galley while that pig was roasting. I 
 knew the progress that it was making as well as the 
 cook did. I had my guests at the table in good sea 
 son, several of whom I had fought against, all of 
 whom I was now fighting for. I had a number of 
 the most expert middies to act as carvers. The time 
 of our banquet was Kalf an hour earlier than the one 
 in the saloon. I again patrolled the deck. Pass 
 ing the galley, I saw the cook try the pig, and leave 
 the oven door open, with a half-suppressed expres 
 sion of satisfaction that the roasting was ended. I 
 had only to watch my opportunity for the cook to 
 absent himself to assist in the preparation of the 
 saloon table. I had not long to wait then with a 
 large fork I whipped the pig from the hot pan into 
 a cold one and instantly placed it on a side table in 
 the cabin. I gave the watchword, "Root hog, or 
 die." A neater or cleaner, and to me a more 
 satisfactory job never was accomplished. Half 
 an hour was passed before the pig was missed, 
 
22 
 
 another half in search for it in every place but the 
 right one. A report was then made to the chief 
 commissary and to the captain. To say that they 
 were exasperated is putting it light. A search was 
 made for bones, but they had joined their kindred 
 in the gulf. The captain offered $100 for evidence 
 that would convict the person that took the pig. In 
 due time we reached Havana. The captain had 
 kept up a good deal of growling, and was especially 
 surly when I was near him. It was my duty here 
 also to go on shore and provide for my department. 
 When I approached the gangway I was stopped by 
 the guard. I demanded by whose authority I was 
 stopped; he said by the captain s. I replied: "I get 
 my authority from the commander, not the captain/ 
 and drawing my sword, I said: "If you raise your 
 musket to my breast again I ll cut you down as I 
 would a piece of old junk." I passed on, went on 
 shore, did my marketing, and returned. In due time 
 we reached Savannah. I had, during shore hours, 
 written a full account of the adventure with the pig. 
 I entitled it the "Captain s Pig," by "Ned Buntline." 
 The story made a pretty good-sized pamphlet. It 
 was printed privately, as publishers were afraid of 
 libel suits. Neither the author nor the publisher 
 was known. When the captain saw the pamphlet 
 he was madder than when he didn t see the pig on 
 his table. He again offered a reward of $100 for 
 the name of either the author or publisher. He 
 found neither. The book is now out of print, and 
 
23 
 
 I would myself give Sioo for a copy of it. This is 
 the story of my first venture in writing, and this is 
 why I am called "Xed Buntline." 
 
 The first literary production of young Judson 
 brought him at once into popularity, as it was repub- 
 lished in many periodicals, and finally appeared in 
 the old Knickerbocker Magazine, then conducted by 
 Lewis Gaylord Clarke, who at the first opportunity 
 engaged "Xed Buntline" as a regular contributor. 
 Whether ashore or afloat, he thenceforth found time 
 to prepare thrilling romances principally tales of 
 the sea, during the early portion of his literary ca 
 reer and these novels were read by a host of warm 
 admirers, who found the scenes as realistic as any 
 ever portrayed by Captain Marryatt or Fenimore 
 Cooper. 
 
 At the outbreak of the Seminole War, in Florida, 
 the adventurous spirit of young Judson carried him 
 enthusiastically into the strife. Although only six 
 teen years of age he served with valor and distinc 
 tion under Jessup, Gaines, Armistead and Worth. 
 He recorded, subsequently, the delight with which he 
 engaged in the field sports of that section, on every 
 possible occasion, and mentioned particularly the 
 killing of a very large jaguar, or Southern panther, 
 on Key Sargo an achievement that was alike the 
 envy and admiration of his associates. 
 
CHAPTER^ TWO 
 
 IN THE SEMINOLE WAR AND 
 IN GOTHAM 
 
 URING the progress of the Seminole War 
 young Judson found ample opportunities, 
 to indulge his love of wild sport and ad 
 venture, both on land and sea. The "deep, 
 tangled wildwoods" of Florida furnished a 
 great variety of game, and Ned Buntline reveled 
 in the glorious field-sports of that region, so vividly 
 described in Whitehead s "Camp Fires of the Ever 
 glades." To one of young Judson s active, adven 
 turous nature the land appeared to be a veritable 
 "happy hunting ground," and his pen in after years 
 recorded the incidents of many sporting tours among 
 everglades and along shore. Under the title of 
 "Ducking by Wholesale" he gave the following 
 spirited description of a foray among the wildfowl : 
 In 1 840 I was an Acting Lieutenant on board the 
 U. S. Schooner Otsego, then belonging to what was 
 known as McLaughlin s Mosquito Fleet, engaged in 
 co-operating with the army in subduing the Semi- 
 
noles in Florida. The flag schooner, Lieut. Comdg. 
 McLaughlin, was the Flirt; the Wave, formerly 
 Stevens 1 yacht, was commanded by Lieutenant now 
 Admiral John Rogers, and the Otsego by passed 
 midshipman, Actg. Lieut. Comdg. Edmund Templar 
 Shubrick. Though only a young middy, I was Exe 
 cutive Officer of the Otsego, wore the swab and got 
 the pay of a Lieutenant. 
 
 And now for the ducks. Being of light draught, 
 Baltimore flat-sharp build, the Otsego was ordered 
 to skirt the coast closely from Cape Sable to the 
 mouth of the Suwanee, to attack any Indian party 
 seen on shore and to look out for some Spanish 
 fishing boats that had been reported as furnishing 
 powder and lead to the redskins. 
 
 It was midwinter when we anchored late one aft 
 ernoon off the eastern side of the cape near an island 
 not then named in our charts, but known ever after 
 that night to us as Duck Key. The water and air 
 were literally dark with ducks of all kinds and sizes. 
 They were so thick that looking to port or star 
 board, far and near, flying in vast flocks or swim 
 ming about, you saw ducks, ducks everywhere. I 
 owned a double-barreled Manton as good a gun in 
 those days as money could buy. I just ached to take 
 a boat and go for those ducks, and I said so. 
 
 But Jim Eagan, our coast pilot, an old Floridian 
 said: "Leftenant, the moon will be full to-night, and 
 if you ll hearken to me, we ll have ducks enough in 
 one hour to-night to last the whole crew longer than 
 
26 
 
 they ll keep, and have a hundred or two to give 
 away, over and above. 
 
 "As soon as it gets fairly night, thousands and 
 thousands of these ducks will waddle up on that little 
 low island there to lay over till morning. All weVe 
 got to do is to take our biggest boat, the one with a 
 swivel in the bow, let every man of the crew have his 
 musket well charged with duck shot; you with your 
 gun and I with old Betsey Ann she carries a quar 
 ter of a pound of shot if she takes an ounce and 
 sail in. We ll take cover on the island just at night 
 fall, load the swivel, too, for the boat-keeper to 
 handle, and when the ducks come up as thick as flies 
 on a carcass, we ll all shoot at the same time and 
 I ll bet we pick up a boat load." 
 
 The plan seemed good, and it was adopted. Six 
 teen muskets, Eagan s cannon, as we called his 
 Betsey Ann, and a swivel with three pounds of shot 
 to half a pound of powder for a load, were added to 
 my Manton, loaded for the occasion with near two 
 ounces of shot to each barrel, and about four or 
 four and a half drachms of powder. 
 
 Leaving the schooner at anchor about half-a-mile 
 away we reached the island just as the moon showed 
 her great round face above the horizon. Hiding in 
 a clump of sea grapes, leaving only a boat-keeper to 
 tend the boat and fire the swivel, we waited. 
 
 Not long for inside of an hour the white sand 
 of the island could not be seen, bright and clear, 
 though the moon shone upon it. It was literally cov- 
 
27 
 
 ered with ducks; and the water all around the island 
 was literally and truly alive with them. 
 
 Guided by Eagan, every man now leveled his mus 
 ket in a direction a little wide from that of the next 
 man; the word was passed to the boat-keeper to 
 stand by with his swivel, and the order was given: 
 
 "Ready, FIRE!" 
 
 Eagan and I were to shoot on the rise. 
 
 Every musket and the swivel exploded at the same 
 moment. Oh, heaven what a fluttering what a 
 thunder-burst of flapping wings as we sent in our 
 charges ! 
 
 Then, in the bright moonlight, pushing off in our 
 boat, we went to picking up game. On shore and in 
 the water we found wild fowl enough to load that 
 barge s gunwale down to the water with ducks. 
 Mallard, teal, canvas back every kind of migra 
 tory duck was there represented, and not by hun 
 dreds but apparently by thousands. 
 
 Never before or since have I seen such slaughter. 
 It was "pot-hunting" with a vengeance. We had 
 ducks every day three times a day for a week, 
 and General Taylor, with the Third Artillery and 
 his own regiment, the Sixth Infantry, being at 
 Tampa Bay, we ran in there and left them nearly a 
 cartload of birds. 
 
 It is not a very sportsmanlike scene to boast of, I 
 know, but we wanted meat or fowl rather and 
 we got it. 
 
28 
 
 At the close of the war Lieutenant Judson re 
 signed from the service, and went up the Yellow 
 stone River in the employ of the Northwest Fur 
 Company. He now had a chance such as he had 
 long desired to test the wild sports of the West, 
 and he improved the opportunity by a vigorous cru 
 sade against the large game of the Rocky Moun 
 tains. At that time the plains were covered with 
 vast herds of bison, or buffalo, affording a seemingly 
 inexhaustible supply, and large bands of elk were 
 encountered daily in the foothills. The fleet and 
 wary Rocky Mountain sheep, now nearly exterm 
 inated, peopled the crags and cliffs gazing down 
 with intermingled fear and surprise at the unusual 
 invaders of the wild region. The antelope could be 
 seen dotting the prairie below in all directions and 
 the hardy adventurers when penetrating the dense 
 thickets occasionally found it necessary to hunt or 
 be hunted by the grizzly bear. Ned Buntline here 
 found his early dream of border life in the groove 
 so nobly filled by Daniel Boone, well-nigh realized. 
 Frequent exploring tours into the more remote sec 
 tions, "where man had ne er or rarely trod," gave 
 variety and zest to the work. 
 
 After several months the restless nature of the 
 young frontiersman led him to seek new scenes and 
 perils, and he turned toward the great Southwest as 
 a suitable field. About this time he wedded a lovely 
 and intellectual young lady whom he met in the 
 sunny South, and stimulated anew to the exercise of 
 
29 
 
 his literary talent he established a bright journal en 
 titled Ned Runtime s Own. The new publication at 
 tracted much attention, as the editor boldly criticised 
 the tricks and traps of gamblers and lawless char 
 acters, whom he exposed without fear or favor, 
 thereby incurring the deadly enmity of a dangerous 
 class. 
 
 As an indication of the invincible courage and dar 
 ing of Ned Buntline, the following incident, pub 
 lished in the columns of the old Knickerbocker 
 Magazine, may be appropriately given. 
 
 "Apropos of Ned Buntline : a new contributor 
 writing from Natchez on the 25th of November, 
 1843, says: By the way, Ned passed through here 
 this morning, on his way to Gallatin, thirty miles 
 distant. Being on a visit to Eddyville, Ky., a few 
 days since, he heard that three persons, charged with 
 having committed an atrocious murder near Gallatin 
 some time since, were in the woods in the neighbor 
 hood. Arming himself, Ned put out in pursuit of 
 them alone. He soon overtook them, when two of 
 them surrendered, after a short resistance. These 
 he tied to trees, and then went on in pursuit of the 
 other, who had absconded in the meantime. But the 
 fellow had too good a start; and Ned, after firing 
 one or two shots after him, gave up the chase. He 
 arrived here with his two captives last night in the 
 steamer, and as I said before went on to Gallatin 
 with them this morning. He has entitled himself 
 to the reward of six hundred dollars offered for 
 their apprehension. Just like Ned. 
 
30 
 
 "The foregoing was crowded out of our last num 
 ber; since the publication of which we have heard 
 with deep regret of the death of the young and 
 lovely wife of our correspondent. Such a loss will 
 make him feel the impotency of consolation, yet we 
 cannot withhold the expression of our sympathy with 
 him in his great bereavement. The Life Yarn will 
 be resumed in a subsequent number." 
 
 At this time a stirring serial entitled "Ned Bunt- 
 line s Life Yarn," combining the autobiography of 
 our hero, with a thread of romance interwoven, was 
 running through the pages of the magazine, as in 
 dicated by the editorial comment. At Nashville, 
 Tenn., his southern home, he toiled steadily in his 
 chosen profession, and his reputation as a writer of 
 fiction soon became extensive. But the darkest hour 
 of his life was close at hand. The busy tongue of 
 malicious gossip was the cause of creating a deadly 
 enemy in one who had been a close friend, and this 
 led to the fatal affray so widely published at the 
 time, and known as the Porterfield affair. The cir 
 cumstances of the sad occurrence were briefly re 
 corded as follows, in the Knickerbocker Magazine, 
 April, 1846: 
 
 "There is great reason to fear that before the 
 sentences which are now running from our pen shall 
 have been placed in type, we shall have heard of 
 the death of our frequent and always entertaining 
 contributor, Ned Buntline, late Midshipman E. Z. 
 
C. Judson, of the United States Navy. We gather 
 from the public journals that a difficulty recently 
 occurred at Nashville (Tenn.) between our corre 
 spondent and Mr. Robert Porterfield, which led to 
 a hostile meeting, in which, after three shots, the 
 latter was killed, having been pierced with his an 
 tagonist s bullet in his forehead, just above the eye. 
 The events which succeeded are very revolting: 
 Judson was arrested, but the excitement was so great 
 against him, that when he was taken before the jus 
 tice for examination, it became evident that he would 
 be summarily dealt with. Some cried shoot him! 1 
 others hang him! and a brother of the deceased 
 shot at him several times; a number of shots were 
 fired at him by others, and strange to say, he escaped 
 all unhurt, ran off and hid himself in the City Hotel. 
 Hundreds of excited persons collected around and 
 in the hotel, and after searching some time he was 
 found, and endeavoring to escape, he fell from the 
 third story to the porch without serious injury. 
 
 "The sheriff then took charge of him and con 
 veyed him to prison, the people now seeming willing 
 that the law should take its course. After he had 
 been committed to jail, adds another and in some 
 particulars different account, in an almost dying con 
 dition from his fall, at about ten o clock at night the 
 mob, finding he was still alive, broke into the jail; 
 maimed and almost naked they threw him into the 
 street to be hung. He asked for a minister, which 
 was denied him; he feared not death, but requested 
 
-> ^ ~^u+ 
 
 to be shot, and begged if there was any gentleman 
 present he would shoot him. They took him to the 
 square, and ran him up over the rail of an awning 
 post ; the rope broke and he fell ; when he was taken 
 back to the jail, where he lies to die some time dur 
 ing the night. And this horrible, infamous out 
 rage, adds the Courier and Enquirer with signifi 
 cant emphasis, occurred in the streets and was per 
 formed by the people of Nashville. We have been 
 for many months in intimate correspondence with 
 Mr. Judson, whom, however, we never met person 
 ally. We have been made the repository of all the 
 circumstances of his checkered and eventful life, up 
 almost to the time of the occurrence above narrated. 
 Of these it will be our province to speak hereafter." 
 
 In the next issue of the magazine the rumor of 
 Ned Buntline s death was declared unfounded, and 
 the editor published an extract from his letter giving 
 a few important details of the affray: 
 
 "We are glad to be able to state that our appre 
 hensions in regard to the death of Mr. Judson (our 
 Ned Buntline ) had not at the last advices been 
 realized. He writes us himself, under date of 
 Nashville, April ioth, although in a faltering hand, 
 as follows : Your April number has just reached me, 
 and I hasten to tell you that I am worth ten dead 
 men yet, and hope to be ready in two or three 
 months, to go it for the whole of Oregon. I ex 
 pect to leave here for the East in three or four days. 
 I cannot yet rise from my bed; my left arm and leg 
 
33 
 
 are helpless, and my whole left side is sadly bruised. 
 Out of twenty-three shots, all within ten steps, I was 
 slightly hit by three only. I fell forty-seven feet 
 three inches (measured) on hard, rocky ground, and 
 not a bone cracked. Thus GOD told them I was in 
 nocent. As GOD is my judge, / never wronged Rob 
 ert Porterfeld. My enemies poisoned his ears, and 
 foully belied me. I tried to avoid harming him, and 
 calmly talked with him while he fired three shots at 
 me, each shot grazing my person. I did not fire till 
 I saw he was determined to kill me, and then I fired 
 but once. Gross injustice has been done me in the 
 published descriptions of the affair. As soon as I 
 can sit up I shall publish a full account of the entire 
 affray. I shall not be tried; the grand jury have set, 
 and no bill has been found against me. The mob 
 was raised and composed of men who were my ene 
 mies on other accounts than the death of Porterfield. 
 They were the persons whom I used to score in my 
 little paper, Ned Buntline s Own. I saw but one 
 respectable man among them. The rope did not 
 break; it was cut by a friend. I believe I acted 
 calmly and bravely through the whole scene; my 
 enemies say so, at least. Mr. Porterfield was a 
 brave, good, but rash and hasty man; and deeply, 
 deeply, do I regret the necessity of his death. . . . 
 I am faint and weak from this exertion in writing 
 you. and must close. We have given the foregoing 
 to the public without request, and without the per 
 mission of the writer. It seems but just that one 
 
who so conspicuous an actor in the sad events here 
 tofore recorded, should have the opportunity of as 
 serting his innocence. It could hardly be denied 
 him by an enemy." 
 
 Soon after recovering from the effects of this ter 
 rible ordeal, Ned Buntline removed to New York, 
 as affording a wider field for his literary labors, and 
 he soon became a notable figure in the "Old Guard," 
 a term affectionately applied to the corps of gifted 
 contributors who rallied to the support of old Spirit 
 in its palmiest days. Among the bright lights of 
 this coterie was Dr. Alban S. Payne, who has since 
 become famous under the nom de plume of "Nicho 
 las Spicer." Dr. Payne and Ned Buntline formed 
 a warm mutual friendship, which lasted through life, 
 and when together during their early years were 
 ever ready for any adventure requiring nerve and 
 daring. "Nicholas Spicer" one of the noblest 
 membres of the Old Guard has another claim to 
 distinction aside from his literary talent and high 
 reputation as a physician. He is the identical man 
 
 "WHO STRUCK BILLY PATTERSON" 
 
 As the writer of this has been favored with the 
 true version, from the gallant Spicer himself, the 
 history of the famous encounter is worth repeating. 
 
 The quaint and genial "Nicholas Spicer" was at 
 that time in the prime of manhood, one of the finest 
 amateur athletes of the day, and his feats of 
 
35 
 
 strength and agility commanded the admiration of 
 his associates. 
 
 After graduating with honors, Dr. Alban S. 
 Payne joined the American Medical Association, 
 where his humor and powers of oratory made him a 
 warm favorite. About the year 1848 the Medical 
 Association convened at Richmond, Va., and 
 "Spicer" attended as was his custom. One night, 
 during the "wee sma hours," the members were re 
 turning from a late session, in solid column to the 
 number of twenty-five or thirty; and upon reaching 
 the foot of Capital Hill, the door of a well-known 
 restaurant flew open, as the redoubtable Billy Pat 
 terson emerged therefrom and sprang out upon the 
 pavement. Patterson, a very Hercules in size and 
 strength, appeared more formidable than usual, hav 
 ing indulged heavily in "the cup that inebriates" and 
 being in one of his worst moods. He evidently re 
 garded the company as a posse of police bent upon 
 his arrest, and made a bold stand. 
 
 Pausing an instant to collect his energies, Billy 
 Patterson dashed at the head of the column, and by 
 sheer strength and weight hurled the disciples of 
 ^Esculapius in either direction as he advanced. The 
 streets were almost impassable, the result of heavy 
 rains, and the members of the profession nearest the 
 outer edge of the pavement were sent reeling into 
 the gutter. Patterson had utterly routed the front, 
 when "Spicer," who was bringing up the rear, re 
 leased his arms from his companion, on either side 
 and prepared to meet the burly antagonist. 
 
-36- 
 
 As Patterson, filled with exultation at his appar 
 ent triumph, found only one man of the rear guard 
 to confront him, he aimed a terrific blow at that 
 individual; but to his great surprise this was readily 
 parried, and the counter blow, a la Yankee Sullivan, 
 fell upon his left eye with such force, that, followed 
 by a second, the desperado was thrown heavily into 
 the street. More dead than alive, he was carried 
 into the restaurant, where he was restored to con 
 sciousness, while the interrupted company resumed 
 its line of march. 
 
 The next morning "Nicholas Spicer" learned that 
 two policemen were on the lookout for the man who 
 struck Billy Patterson, and while clear in conscience, 
 his distaste for legal proceedings caused him to lay 
 the case before a friend at the hotel. Assuring him 
 of a speedy cessation of hostilities, this gentleman 
 engaged two newsboys to traverse the streets of the 
 city, asking every person old or young, "Who struck 
 Billy Patterson?" The policemen soon retired, but 
 the question was caught up by hundreds of lips, and 
 the query soon found a place in the daily journals, 
 whence it spread with electric rapidity through all 
 parts of the Union. 
 
 This is believed to have been the only fistic en 
 counter in which Billy Patterson was vanquished, but 
 it utterly subdued the bravo. It was the first and 
 last one, in all probability, of Dr. Payne ; yet so fa 
 mous has it been rendered that many will no doubt 
 
37 
 
 be pleased to learn who struck Billy Patterson. 
 
 Having given the reader an idea of "Nicholas 
 Spicer s" courage and skill, it may be seen that he 
 was a right royal companion for the gallant young 
 sailor, adventurer and novelist. In response to a 
 request from the writer, Nicholas Spicer has given 
 the following personal recollections of Ned Bunt- 
 line: 
 
 A MEMOIR, BY "NICHOLAS SPICER." 
 
 I can clearly remember the circumstances attend 
 ing my first meeting and subsequent acquaintance 
 with the distinguished novelist, sportsman and trav 
 eler, Col. E. Z. C. Judson "Ned Buntline." The 
 whole world knows he was chivalric, and intellectual, 
 but few knew as well as does the writer of this, his 
 intrinsic worth, his generosity, his goodness of heart, 
 and his undying attachment to his friends. He was 
 a grand type of the true sportsman in every accep 
 tation of the term. 
 
 He loved his friends dearly, tenderly, and was 
 ever ready to lend them a helping hand. He was 
 fearless, generous, magnanimous. At times he was 
 bold as a lion, at others capable of being "gentle as 
 a lamb." In his composition the boldness of true 
 manhood was happily blended with the gentleness 
 of woman. 
 
 A soul in which the manlier traits 
 
 And gentler, were so blended, 
 
 That none could say where these began, 
 
-38- 
 
 Or where the others ended 
 Alas ! to fitly speak his worth 
 
 All words seem poor and common 
 In whose large spirit Nature fused 
 The tenderness of a woman." 
 
 In the fall of 1844, I had written a sketch a 
 humorous article for the old Spirit of the Times, 
 giving a glimpse of New York life as seen by a ver 
 dant young countryman. The article was mentioned 
 in very complimentary terms by the genial editor, 
 William T. Porter ("York s Tall Son"), and in the 
 notice to correspondents there was an invitation to 
 call at the office next day. I was then sojourning at 
 531 Broadway, corner of Spring street, and was oc 
 cupying, through courtesy, the same office with New 
 York s great surgeon, Prof. Lewis A. Sayre, then a 
 young but rising man. I dressed myself carefully, 
 and with palpitating heart and trembling step pro 
 ceeded to the sanctum of the Spirit of the Times, 
 then located in Barclay street. As I entered the 
 door I asked: 
 
 "Is Col. Bill Porter at home?" 
 
 "Yes, sir, always at home to my friends," re 
 sponded a full, hearty voice, as the "Tall Spirit" 
 six foot four in stature advanced to welcome me. 
 Within the rare old sanctum I found a glorious gath 
 ering of talent Henry William Herbert ("Frank 
 Forester"); Lewis Gaylord Clark, of the Knicker 
 bocker; Lieut. Dick Meade, father of Gen. Meade 
 of Gettysburg fame; Henry Inman, the artist; En 
 sign Edward Z. C. Judson, lately returned from a 
 
39 
 
 sea voyage; Dr. T. O. Porter, and Elliott, the por 
 trait painter all of whom were introduced, and the 
 acquaintance duly cemented at "Frank s" next door, 
 in the usual manner. Just as we were about to take a 
 sherry cobbler, Gen. George P. Morris, N. P. Wil 
 lis, of the Mirror, and E. E. Jones, entered and 
 joined us. Among them all, York s Tall Son was 
 "the center of magnetic attraction." His personal 
 popularity and genial magnetism exceeded that of 
 any man I ever knew. Before I left I had a long 
 talk with Edw. Judson, and he inquired of me all 
 about Gen. Walker K. Armistead and family, of 
 Virginia, saying he had served in Florida during the 
 Seminole War, under Armistead. Just before we 
 parted, Judson said, handing me a card: "Should 
 you ever need a friend, call on E. Z. C. Judson, and 
 your draft shall be honored." This was the first, 
 but not the last time I ever met the noble old Roman 
 so well known to the reading public in later years 
 under the nom de plume of "Ned Buntline." 
 
 Our next meettng and a most opportune one it 
 proved to be was in September, 1845, when the 
 political horizon was all aglow, and the annexation 
 project seemed ripe for consummation in Canada. 
 At the solicitation of my friend, George Wallace 
 McCrae, of Warrenton, Va., I had joined him on a 
 romantic expedition up the St. Lawrence, to Mon 
 treal, the object of the trip being unknown to me 
 until well under way. I then learned that the elo 
 quent and eccentric McCrae was bent upon impress- 
 
40 
 
 ing upon our Canadian cousins the superiority of 
 "Benton s mint drops" over the copper coins of the 
 British Provinces, and the mutual benefits to accrue 
 from annexation with the United States. 
 
 At Montreal he made many enthusiastic converts, 
 and left the city in high spirits, bound for Quebec, 
 but on board the steamer, while en route, we formed 
 the acquaintance of two British officers with whom 
 the gallant McCrae became convivial, and finally a 
 quarrel seemed imminent over the relative merits 
 of English and American soldiers. Several times I 
 quieted the conflicting elements, curbing my own 
 temper meanwhile, until finally, as McCrae stepped 
 out of the room, in response to a call from a friend, 
 one of the officers, Capt. A., sneeringly said, sotto 
 voce: "See, the Yankee coward is sneaking away." 
 
 McCrae did not overhear the remark, but this 
 final insult, following close upon a reflection on Gen. 
 Jackson s courage, stung me to frenzy, and I offered 
 to meet the boastful Britishers, one or both, with 
 any weapons, there or elsewhere. They were taken 
 aback at this, but handed me their cards and went 
 up on deck. Upon arriving at Quebec McCrae and 
 myself stopped at the Albion Hotel, and after a ride 
 during the day over the historic plains of Abraham, 
 we returned and found two mutual friends awaiting 
 us Wm. Henry Tyler, of West Point, and E. Z. C. 
 Judson, who, as correspondent of the Knicker 
 bocker, was visiting Canada to witness her grand 
 scenery. Just as I passed in to supper a most elab- 
 
41 
 
 orately dressed officer handed me a voluminous chal 
 lenge from Capt. A , of the Royal Guards, and 
 
 I wrote a prompt acceptance, referring the doughty 
 soldier to my friend Judson, for arranging all pre 
 liminaries. At my earnest request my friends prom 
 ised, in event of my falling by my antagonist s bullet, 
 that my parents should not be informed I had been 
 killed in a duel, but that the report should be: 
 "Drowned in the St. Lawrence River." All were 
 pledged to secrecy, and no word or rumor of the 
 event ever reached my family. The following let 
 ter, written by Dr. Sewall to his friend Dr. Carman, 
 of Jamaica, L. I., explains the affair better than I 
 can possibly do : 
 
 QUEBEC, Nov. 4, 1845. 
 
 MY DEAR DOCTOR: I was surgeon to Dr. Payne in his 
 
 meeting with Capt. A , Royal Guards, on the 17th day 
 
 of last September. This fight occurred in a secluded spot, 
 not far from Falls of Montmorency. The American party 
 consisted of the principal, Payne; second, E. Z. C. Judson, 
 Hon. G. W. McCrae, Lieut. Wm. H. Tyler and myself, 
 acting as surgeon. We found the English party on the 
 ground, having arrived, however, only a few moments ahead 
 of us. They consisted of five officers with their valet. 
 
 Imagine Payne, slight, graceful, but tall and erect a man 
 ner so unassuming and modest that he might have been mis 
 taken for a fifteen-year-old boy yet cool, calm, serene, with 
 stern determination in his eyes, carelessly toying with his 
 pistol (although to the observer it was evident he had 
 handled a pistol before), confronted by a large, powerfully 
 built man, apparently fifty years of age, dressed in full uni 
 form. He is in manner theatrical, and handles his weapo .1 
 
42 
 
 in that style. Stern determination can be seen on the coun 
 tenances of both these men. Neither is going to yield until 
 badly hurt. They are both waiting for the word the try 
 ing moment has come. E. Z. C. Judson steps forward, and 
 in a clear, manly tone says: 
 
 "Gentlemen, are you ready? One, two, " but at the 
 word "two" there is a simultaneous report, a moment of in 
 tense suspense; the smoke rolls away, and there stands our 
 
 friend, apparently unhurt, while Capt. A is seen to 
 
 stagger back, and is caught in the arms of his second, and 
 carried to the rear, where he is laid in the shade of a group 
 of trees. 
 
 A few moments pass, Payne still standing in his tracks, 
 
 and he says: "Judson, ask if Capt. A desires another 
 
 fire." The question is asked, and the answer comes back, 
 "He does not." 
 
 Then, said Judson : "Is there any gentleman on the ground 
 who doubts Gen. Jackson s courage?" 
 
 "There is none," was the reply. 
 
 Said Lieut. Tyler: "Is there any gentleman who doubts 
 the courage of the officers of the American army?" 
 
 "None," replied the officers. 
 
 McCrae then inquired: "Is there any gentleman present 
 who doubts the courage of the Yankee nation ?" 
 
 "None," was the response. 
 
 "Then," said Judson, "the sport will have to stop from 
 want of material and we had better get away from here." 
 
 I acted as surgeon for both parties the Englishman not 
 thinking one necessary. The ball struck the fifth rib on the 
 left side of the Captain, glanced, and I cut it out from un 
 der the latissimus dorsi muscle. Capt. A never knew 
 
 Payne was hit at all, but the Captain s ball struck his right 
 thigh, ranged upward and outward, and I cut it out over 
 the trochauls major. I can say in truth the conduct of your 
 friend under fire was capital, superb. I never saw more 
 
43 
 
 courteous behavior, or a stronger desire to fight than the 
 Americans evinced that day. Indeed, their gentlemanly con 
 duct and desire to fight seemed to strike the English officers 
 so forcibly that their feelings became those of admiration in 
 place of resentment. 
 
 I applied a strong, hot poultice to Payne s wound that 
 night, which took all the soreness out, and the next day he 
 was walking around as if nothing had happened. Not so 
 the Captain. He was laid up three weeks for repairs. A 
 reconciliation took place before we left the grounds, and we 
 all returned to Quebec together. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 WILLIAM SEWALL, M. D. 
 
 My third memorable meeting with Ned Bunt- 
 line not to mention the many social ones of minor 
 importance was in the winter of 1845. At this 
 period it was dangerous after nightfall to pass 
 through that notorious portion of Gotham known as 
 the "Five Points," unless protected by policemen. 
 Not only robbery, but foul murders were frequent, 
 and the locality was carefully avoided by belated 
 citizens. One evening I decided to attend a main, 
 or "battle royal," on the Bowery, and not wishing 
 to go alone I walked down to the Broadway House, 
 near Mitchell s Olympic Theater, thinking I would 
 meet some of the Spirit family at this popular hos 
 telry. As I entered the door the first man I met 
 was Ned Buntline, who, ever ready for an adven 
 ture, gladly consented to go with me. After enjoy 
 ing the sport to a very late hour, we set out on our 
 return. As we neared the Five Points we could see a 
 
44 
 
 crowd gathering on the right-hand sidewalk. They 
 seemed to gather from the sound of our steps on 
 the pavement, and from their movements it was evi 
 dent they were bent on stopping us. I proposed to 
 cross over on the left-hand side, walk fast, and flank 
 them, but Ned said: "No! let us advance rapidly 
 and boldly right toward them. If they make any 
 hostile demonstration we must fire right into them/* 
 When within fifteen feet of them, the rascals 
 made a rush at us. Simultaneously our pistols were 
 fired, three men were seen to fall, and the rest scat 
 tered in every direction. We reached Broadway, 
 and there separated, the lion-hearted Ned going to 
 the Broadway House, and I to my lodgings farther 
 up town 531 Broadway. About 12 M. next day I 
 was in Dr. Sayre s office when a messenger arrived 
 asking him to come to see a wounded man at the 
 Five Points. He invited me to go with him, and I 
 helped to dress the wounds of one of the miserable 
 rascals that sought to take my life the night before. 
 I have always thought that Ned Buntline and myself 
 did as much to reform the Five Points as any of the 
 home missionaries in that section. 
 
CHAPTER^ THREE 
 
 THE NOVELIST S INTENSE PATRIOTISM 
 "NED BUNTLINE OWN" 
 
 ED BUNTLINE S career in Gotham was a 
 succession of stirring incidents, for his rest 
 less and daring nature could never be con 
 tent with the steady routine that marks the 
 life of ordinary mortals. The excitement 
 of the chase or the "clamorous crowd" was as nec 
 essary to him as food to the famished. He was es 
 sentially a man of action and impulse. Through the 
 medium of Ned Buntline s Own he scourged the law 
 less element of the metropolis, and was the means 
 directly and indirectly of bringing to justice many 
 of the cunning rascals of the city. The breezy jour 
 nal was the talk of the town, and the editor was 
 often in danger of "asault with intent to kill," on 
 the part of the shrewdest members at large repre 
 sented in the rogue s gallery. Ned Buntline was 
 aware that his life was eagerly sought by scores of 
 miscreants, but as the danger increased his spirits 
 rose, for he believed that 
 
- 4 6- 
 
 A single hour of honest strife 
 Is worth a year of peaceful life. 
 
 He possessed an untamable and dauntless spirit 
 that would have been more in keeping with the age 
 of chivalry than the prosaic era in which he lived. 
 He was a modern knight errant, hedged in with cus 
 toms uncongenial and formal, yet warring vigor 
 ously against the code of the u unco guid and rigidly 
 righteous," while assailing the vices of the metrop 
 olis on the other hand. Thus he was often between 
 two fires, and cared no more for the assailants on 
 one side than the other. It has been said of him, 
 and with justice, that he never feared a foe nor for 
 sook a friend. 
 
 One of his most intimate acquaintances, Mr. E. 
 Locke Mason, who was associate editor of Ned 
 Buntline s Own, and who, in 1888, married Col. 
 Judson s widow thus alludes to the characteristics 
 and eccentricities of the novelist: u Ned s life was 
 one continuous series of sensations, almost from the 
 cradle to the grave, and I verily believe he kicked 
 off the coverlets from his little cradle, and fought 
 against the rigid rules of decorum with all the ear 
 nestness of a baby monarch. Sensations upon sen 
 sations, riots, shootings, speeches, duels, prisons 
 north and south travels, dramas, yachts, wars, ad 
 ventures and a thousand condiments of this char 
 acter, go together to spice a life that will furnish a 
 dish for lovers of wild scenes among Indians, rough 
 experiences at sea and startling episodes ashore. I 
 am familiar with Ned s early history, and more par- 
 
47 
 
 ticularly his private life, if he had any, which I 
 doubt. He was the hero of a hundred fights and 
 the victim of a hundred wrongs. The world, always 
 coldly critical, judges of results and does not ana 
 lyze the motives of men. Ned s follies and foibles 
 were not concealed by any mask of hypocrisy, but 
 were all on the surface, to be seen and criticised, 
 while his inherent goodness and tenderness of heart 
 could be appreciated by the favored few. He was, 
 as all knew, careless and reckless in his habits. He 
 never saved a book, a sketch, a scrap or a story of 
 his own composition as long as I was his companion 
 and correspondent. Moving constantly in war or 
 peace new homes romantic abodes; fishing or hunt 
 ing orating on temperance with a sad experience of 
 the opposite extreme, fighting Mexicans, Indians or 
 rebels" on the plains, among the miners on the 
 Golden Shores; anywhere, everywhere leaving all 
 articles identified with his every movement, when 
 ever he happened to move. The mementoes of 
 friends, loved pictures of relatives, camp tools and 
 equipage, guns, pistols, swords, clothes trunks and 
 boxes innumerable all, all dropped behind or left 
 with a friend, or where he last plied his pen, shot 
 his gun, or spent his eloquence. Flags, banners, let 
 ters, gifts from institutions he had originated and 
 individuals he had benefited; household effects, in 
 fact every personal effect, of whatever name or na 
 ture, left to fate, while he pushed on in the restless 
 manner of one who had a mission to perform, an I 
 
- 4 8- 
 
 would accomplish it at all hazards, if he came out 
 naked in the end. Thus was lost to us, to his 
 friends, to history, to posterity all or nearly all of 
 the data and incidents of his sensational life; which, 
 added to what is of public record, would have made 
 a remarkable book." The foregoing may be re 
 garded as a graphic pen-picture, in miniature, from a 
 master hand. 
 
 Perhaps the most intense and unalterable of Ned 
 Buntline s sentiments was his radical Americanism. 
 This ruling passion at one time overshadowed all 
 others, and the outcome was the organization of the 
 true American party, more generally known as the 
 "Know Nothings," of which the irrepressible Ned 
 was one of the leading spirits and prime movers. 
 The party was an important factor in politics, and 
 faction fights of the most bitter and relentless char 
 acter were common during its ascendancy. The for 
 eign element assailed the new party vigorously, and 
 the radical Americans retaliated in like spirit. Ned 
 Buntline was the lion of the day. His pen and 
 tongue exercised a potent influence in the cause. Al 
 ways a ready speaker, he rose to the height of im 
 passioned eloquence when advocating the principle 
 "America for Americans," and his services were in 
 constant demand as the orator of his party. Upon 
 such occasions he was frequently interrupted and de 
 nounced by the foreign element, and bloodshed 
 seemed almost unavoidable at times, yet the speaker 
 never wavered for an instant. 
 
49 
 
 While making a speech at Portland, during this 
 exciting period, he had a ludicrous encounter with a 
 huge foreigner, who, backed by a shouting mob of 
 followers, seemed bent on silencing him by intimida 
 tion or by force. Jumping upon the platform, with 
 an axe-helve in hand, the leader approached Judson 
 and told him he could not go on. Mr. Judson very 
 coolly asked his name, which was given. Then he 
 asked : 
 
 "Have you been naturalized?" 
 
 "Yes, I ve been naturalized," shouted the dis 
 turber. 
 
 "Well, I don t believe you have been baptized," 
 said Judson; "in the name of the stars and stripes, 
 take water" and before the astonished Bombastes 
 Furioso could resist he was thrown headlong in the 
 river which flowed beneath the rear of the platform. 
 It was such a surprise to the crowd that it com 
 pletely demoralized them, giving the speaker s 
 friends a chance to rally to his assistance. The 
 speech was finished without further disturbance. 
 
 In 1848 the strife reached its climax, when Ned 
 Buntline was indicted and convicted as one of the 
 principals in the celebrated Astor Place riot, grow 
 ing out of the bitter feud between the foreigners 
 and the Know Nothings. Judge Charles P. Daly 
 sentenced him to one year in the penitentiary, where 
 he cheerfully served his term, while still keeping up 
 his crusade against Judge Daly and other anti- 
 American opponents, through the columns of his 
 
newspaper. His release from imprisonment on 
 Blackwell s Island was celebrated by an enthusiastic 
 ovation on the part of his friends and admirers. Six 
 white horses, harnessed to a gorgeous open bar 
 ouche, drew him to his home near Abingdon Square, 
 and the streets were thonged with men and boys who 
 cheered him vociferously, while a cannon thundered 
 forth welcome, and a mighty brass band played 
 "Hail to the Chief" as the cortege drew up to the 
 square. A number of eulogistic speeches rounded 
 out the long to be remembered reception to Ned 
 Buntline the idol of young America, then as in 
 later years. 
 
 Contemporary with the so-called Know Nothing 
 party though entirely distinct as an organization, 
 and having no political significance or affiliation 
 was the Patriotic Order Sons of America, later rec 
 ognized as a society of vast influence and increasing 
 strength. This patriotic order, having for its pri 
 mary objects "the inculcation of pure American prin 
 ciples; the opposition to foreign interference with 
 state interests in the United States of America ; the 
 cultivation of a fraternal love; the preservation of 
 the Constitution of the United States, and the propa 
 gation of free education," was first organized in 
 Philadelphia, in 1847, an< ^ Ned Buntline was one of 
 the founders. The progress of the order was slow, 
 and prior to the late war the Camps were confined 
 principally if not wholly to the Middle States. At 
 the outbreak of the war a general enlistment of the 
 
members compelled temporary suspension; but in 
 1866 it was reorganized upon a more substantial 
 basis, and its development has since been phenom 
 enal. To this organization the chivalrous Ned 
 Buntline gave his heart and energies, and was ever a 
 most devoted believer in its cardinal principles, as 
 set forth in the preamble : 
 
 Whereas, The experiences of all ages and all countries dis 
 tinctly showeth, that popular liberty born amid the din of 
 battle, baptized in patriot blood, and rocked by the rude 
 storms of civil strife demands for its preservation, against 
 the rage of party spirit, the wiles of ambition, and the stern 
 arm of power, the undivided love of all its votaries and the 
 firm determination of all its friends, in an internal struggle 
 with all its foes. 
 
 The history of the world most plainly proves that it is 
 the business of one generation to sow the seed of which an 
 other reaps the harvest, be it of grain or taxes, of good or 
 evil. 
 
 Now, therefore, we, the undersigned, Sons of America 
 children of its soil, reared beneath the shadow of its flag, 
 loving it as none other can love, and having an interest in 
 its future welfare, nearer, truer, deeper than all mankind 
 beside, do hereby associate ourselves into an Order for the 
 purpose of maturing ourselves in the knowledge and encour 
 aging each other in the practice of our rights and duties as 
 citizens of a country in which we are called to exercise 
 among our fellow men the common rights of sovereignty. In 
 which act of association we severally pledge ourselves to the 
 observance and support of the laws of the land, and regu 
 lations of this body, as becomes the sons of freemen, willing 
 to submit to the restraints of social order, and acknowledg 
 ing no other bonds but those of duty to our God, our coun 
 try, and ourselves. 
 
52 
 
 While engaged in editing Ned Buntline s Own, in 
 the South and East; and amid the other occupations 
 of divers kinds to which he turned his attention, Mr. 
 Judson continued to publish, from time to time, stirr 
 ing novels of the kind that first made his nom de 
 plume a familiar household word to all lovers of ex 
 citing fiction. To one unfamiliar with his methods 
 of literary labor, and his capacity for continuous 
 work, the prolific character of his writings must be 
 little short of marvelous. When engrossed in writ 
 ing a new story for the press, he plied his pen with 
 astonishing rapidity, and scarcely knew any rest until 
 his task was completed. 
 
 A friend once inquired how he managed to do 
 such an amount of literary work, and asked if his 
 plots were carefully prepared in advance. He re 
 plied, "I once wrote a book of 610 pages in sixty-two 
 hours, but during that time I scarcely ate or slept. 
 As to my method I never lay out a plot in ad 
 vance. I shouldn t know how to do it, for how can 
 I know what my people may take it into their heads 
 to do? First I invent a title, and when I hit on a 
 good one I consider the story about half finished. It 
 is the thing of prime importance. Then I take a 
 bound book of blank paper, set my title at the head 
 of it, and begin to write about the fictitious charac 
 ter who is to be the hero of it. I push ahead as fast 
 as I can write, never blotting out anything I have 
 once written, and never making a correction or 
 modification. If you will examine the leaves of 
 
53 
 
 manuscript you will see that the pages are clean, 
 with no erasures no interlineations. If a book 
 does not suit me when I have finished it, or at any 
 stage of its progress, I simply throw it in the fire, 
 and begin again without any reference to the dis 
 carded text. When I speak, as I frequently do on 
 political topics, temperance, or any other subject, I 
 talk straight on, as I write, without notes or any 
 previous preparation." 
 
 Many of his romances appeared in the columns 
 of the New York Mercury, the Knickerbocker 
 Magazine, and his own periodical, and the greater 
 portion of these were afterward published in book 
 form, to meet the demand of the public always 
 eager to read Ned Buntline s charming sea tales, and 
 equally thrilling novels of border life. One of his 
 friends, Commodore L. A. Beardslee better known 
 to the sportsmen of America over his signature of 
 "Piseco" says of the influence and impressive nat 
 ure of these faithful pictures of life at sea: "Time 
 after time, when passing through some of the vicissi 
 tudes of sea-life, I have recalled, by a flash of mem 
 ory as though I myself had been there before 
 some of his descriptions which fitted. I have re 
 called, in gales at sea, in the rivers and jungles of 
 Africa, of Central and South America, and when 
 cruising in the Caribbean Sea, along the Isle of 
 Pines, Tortugas, and other buccaneering resorts 
 made famous by him, the adventures and scenes of 
 his creation." 
 
54 
 
 Another gentleman, now a prominent patron of 
 literature and art, relates that in early youth, having 
 read nearly all the sensational tales of the prolific 
 writer, he once enjoyed the inexpressible pleasure of 
 gazing upon the novelist, and on informing his 
 school-mates that he "had seen Ned Buntline," the 
 awe and admiration of his fellows for one thus fav 
 ored by a passing glimpse of their hero and idol, 
 knew no bounds. For many days after he was the 
 acknowledged leader among his playmates, who re 
 garded him as one that had seen a supernatural be 
 ing the great and only Ned Buntline. 
 
CHAPTER^ FOUR 
 
 LIFE IN THE ADIRONDACKS- 
 A HUNTER S HOME 
 
 THE EAGLE S NEST 
 
 Where the silvery gleam of the rushing stream 
 Is so brightly seen o er the rocks dark green, 
 Where the white pink grows by the wild red rose 
 And the blue bird sings till the welkin rings. 
 
 Where the red deer leaps and the panther creeps, 
 And the eagles scream over cliff and stream, 
 Where the lilies bow their heads of snow, 
 And the hemlocks tall throw a shade o er all. 
 Where the rolling surf laves the emerald turf, 
 Where the trout leaps high at the hovering fly, 
 Where the sportive fawn crops the soft green lawn, 
 And the crows shrill cry bodes a tempest nigh 
 There is my home my wildwood home. 
 
 Where no step intrudes in the dense dark woods, 
 Where no song is heard but of breeze and bird; 
 Where the world s foul scum can never come; 
 Where friends are so few that all are true 
 There is my home my wildwood home. 
 
 Ned Buntline. 
 
-56- 
 
 HE so-called charms of civilization were 
 literally chains to one of Ned Buntline s 
 roving nature, and it is not surprising that 
 after a sojourn of a few years in New 
 York, he began to chafe under the restraint 
 and formality of city life, and to cast about for an 
 opportunity to return to the wilderness. In a letter 
 to the writer, several years ago, he remarked that he 
 had no love for cities, but was always happiest 
 when far removed from civilization, surrounded by 
 woods and waters, where the carol of birds, the 
 whisper of the breeze, and the roar of the cascade, 
 awoke sweeter music to his ear than all the sym 
 phonies of Beethoven. His natural distaste for 
 city life became intensified during his residence in 
 New York and Philadelphia, as the convivial habits 
 there formed came near wrecking the stalwart 
 woodsman, and he determined to break away from 
 the dangerous surroundings and influences. 
 
 To think was to act with Ned Buntline, and he 
 quietly "folded his tent like the Arab, and as silently 
 stole away," to the wilds of the Adirondack region, 
 then known to the public under the name of John 
 Brown s tract. The region was famous only as the 
 retreat of the visionary "old man of Ossawatomie," 
 and few were aware of the fact that it was a para 
 dise of fish and game. Upon reaching this wild 
 locality Ned was once more in his element, and di 
 vided his time pretty equally between the enjoyment 
 of field sports and the writing of sensational stories 
 
57 
 
 for the press. The spot selected for his hermitage 
 in the wilderness, which he christened "The Eagle s 
 Nest," a romantic retreat, glowingly described in 
 his little poem of that title was near the bank of 
 Eagle Lake, one of the three now known as the Blue 
 Mountain lakes. He gave the place and many of 
 the lakes and streams in that region the names they 
 now bear, and in his humble cabin lived as happy as 
 a prince, entertaining his friends who visited the 
 wilderness, with the proverbial hospitality of a true 
 knight of the trigger. 
 
 Mr. Chauncey )Hathorn, who has long been fami 
 liar with almost every phase of Adirondack life, fur 
 nishes the following brief description of Ned Bunt- 
 line s first appearance in that region, and the circum 
 stances which led him to make it his home : 
 
 "In the fall of 1856, I, with a party of friends 
 from Saratoga, visited the woods for a hunting ex 
 cursion, intending to remain some time, and located 
 at what is now Eagle Lake. Finding there a log 
 house and clearing which had been made for lumber 
 ing purposes, we occupied it by permission. The 
 party returned home about New Years day, and I 
 remained with two woodsmen, one of whom had been 
 a guide for Ned at Lake Piseco some time before. 
 On our return to camp one day we found Ned, with 
 a party he had picked up at Glens Falls. They had 
 made their way in with a team on the rude road. 
 When we come in Ned made himself known, and I 
 said to him: 4 I am glad to meet you. I know you 
 
-SB- 
 well, having read all your books, and was also a 
 subscriber to Ned Buntline s Own. From this time 
 ever after he was a firm and genial friend. 
 
 "The place where we were was soon after offered 
 for sale, and he lost no time in finding the owner, 
 who sold it to him at a moderate price. His party 
 remained a week and then went out, Ned leaving me 
 in charge of the place until he should return in the 
 spring, to make it his literary and mountain home. 
 After his return I was called home, and Ned ac 
 companied me to the outskirts of the woods, urg 
 ing me to soon return and live with him and be 
 his guest as long as I wished. {He desired a 
 housekeeper, and I recommended to him a bright, 
 comely girl, Marie Gardiner, whom he employed 
 and soon afterward married. Before I returned she 
 died. A few evergreens mark the resting place of 
 the mother and child at the Eagle s Nest. 
 
 "My health being poor, from close confinement to 
 business, I decided to go again to the woods, and in 
 the spring of 1859 I made my way up to the Lakes, 
 where Ned gave me a cordial greeting. There were 
 two eagles that made their nest each year opposite 
 the house on the lake, and we never disturbed them. 
 Their close proximity pleased him, and he named his 
 home the Eagle s Nest, and the sheet of water, 
 Eagle Lake. It is about one mile long, and a lovely 
 lake. The one below, and the last of the chain, he 
 named, Utawanna, which signifies sunshine. Upon 
 
59 
 
 naming this lake he composed some beautiful lines, 
 only a portion of which I now remember, namely : 
 
 Where the swift trout leapeth freely, 
 Where the wild rose blushing blossoms 
 Where the red deer stoops to drink, 
 On its mossy covered brink; 
 Not a human dwelling near it 
 Tis a gem in living green 
 Utawanna, Queen of waters, 
 In thy heavenly silver sheen. 
 
 u At this time Ned was writing stories for the 
 New York Mercury, and Mr. Cauldwell, the senior; 
 editor, made us a visit, and I became well acquainted 
 with him. The editor and publisher was a warm ad 
 mirer of Ned Buntline, and paid him liberally, as the 
 public demand for his wild and fanciful stories made 
 a great circulation for the Mercury. He wrote 
 short stories for other papers, under various signa 
 tures, one of his pseudonyms being "Ethelbert, the 
 Wanderer." His income from his writings, when he 
 was faithful to his work, would amount to several 
 thousand dollars per year, but after completing a 
 long serial story or fulfilling a literary engagement, 
 he would often indulge in a period of dissipation 
 though he would strive vigorously to conquer the 
 besetting weakness, and finally succeeded in doing 
 so, I believe, and became a strong temperance ad 
 vocate. 
 
 "The natives of the country looked upon him as a 
 wonderful man. His scars and wounds attested the 
 desperate encounters he had engaged in, and won- 
 
6o 
 
 derful stories were told of his courage and prowess 
 which were in truth remarkable. He was very 
 fond of shooting and fishing. Wild deer were very 
 abundant, and might often be seen from his door, 
 feeding in day time. He wrote but little during the 
 day, but at night, after a drink of strong coffee, 
 would do his writing when all was quiet. He had a 
 post office established at his Eagle s Nest, and he 
 employed a mail carrier to come in on foot each 
 week, a distance of twenty-eight miles, and change 
 the mails. 
 
 "In 1860 Ned made a trip to New York, leaving 
 me to look after his home, and not long after a 
 messenger came to ask me to meet the irrepressible 
 Ned, and assist him in bringing home a wife he had 
 just married. I met them, and it fell to my lot to 
 take the bride to her home in a boat, while Ned 
 went with the teamster around the road. The lady 
 at once began to question me in regard to her future 
 home of which she had formed a somewhat roman 
 tic idea apparently expecting a find a mansion in 
 the wilderness. As mildly as possible I gave a 
 clearer view of the cabin home, taking especial care 
 to describe the beautiful scenery, and the woman 
 gracefully accepted the situation. She was good 
 looking and intelligent, but the marriage proved an 
 unhappy one, and trouble soon commenced which 
 only ended when Ned left for the war. 
 
 "Ned Buntline had some excellent traits of char 
 acter. His friendship was fervid and sincere, he 
 
6i 
 
 despised gambling and profane language, and 
 would never employ any one who would use it in 
 his presence." 
 
 Although generous and hospitable almost to a 
 fault, he required due respect should be shown on 
 the part of his guests, and certain simple rules must 
 be complied with. There must be no hounding of 
 deer on or across his premises, and no game butcher 
 would be entertained at the Eagle s Nest. It is said 
 that one of the guides, Alvah Dunning, boasted that 
 he should set his hounds after deer in the vicinity of 
 Ned Runtime s home at the first opportunity, and 
 made the threat that in case of interference he 
 would shoot the man who should attempt to stop 
 him. This threat was repeated to Ned, who soon 
 after detected Alvah crossing the little domain, and 
 at once intercepted him. Two of the guide s hounds 
 accompanied him, and foreseeing danger, he called 
 them to heel. Ned very coolly raised his rifle and 
 shot one of the dogs so close to Alvah that the bullet 
 whistled uncomfortably near, then warned the in 
 truder that another bullet would be ready for him 
 if he were not out of sight in five minutes. Alvah 
 disappeared from view within one minute, running 
 at a rate of speed never before equalled by man in 
 that region, and he was never again known to set 
 foot on the domain of "Ned Runtime, the terrible." 
 
 Another incident, related by an intimate friend, 
 indicates the spirit of true sportsmanship and love 
 
62 
 
 of fair play, on the part of the rare old woodsman. 
 One evening two skiffs were rowed up to his land 
 ing, and the occupants two wealthy young sports 
 men, accompanied by their guides, put their shoot 
 ing accoutrements on shore, depending upon putting 
 in a pleasant night at the Eagle s Nest. The owner 
 of the cabin came down and welcomed the belated 
 hunters. From the bow of each boajt protruded the 
 saddles of a deer, and espying them Ned Buntline 
 asked where they were shot. With a glow of con 
 scious pride the young sportsmen informed him, and 
 added that a few more deer had been killed the day 
 previous, all by floating. "Where are they?" asked 
 Ned. "Oh! they were does and a fawn and we 
 left them on the bank as we had no " "Hold on," 
 cried the veteran woodsman at this point, interrupt 
 ing the speaker, and directing the guides to reload 
 the boat he compelled the game butchers to seek 
 other quarters. Entreaties were in vain, and as the 
 boats were pushed off he delivered a lecture to the 
 occupants on the enormity of their offence against 
 fair sportsmanship which they doubtless remem 
 bered ever after. 
 
 The novelist had no cause to complain of monot 
 ony while living in the great North Woods of New 
 York. Adventures seemed to follow each other 
 with surprising frequency, and he found his rifle con 
 venient for almost daily use. One of his exploits 
 he recorded as follows, under the title of 
 
63 
 
 A WOLF MASSACRE 
 
 It was the winter of 1858. I was up in my hunter s cabin 
 on Eagle Lake, the second of the Blue Mountain trio of 
 crystal beauties. Cold was no name for the weather. The ice 
 froze to over two feet thickness in November. By the first 
 of January it was near four feet through, as we found when 
 we cut holes through which to fish for salmon trout. Thirty 
 to forty degrees below zero was the average. 
 
 Yet there came a sudden thaw in January it only lasted 
 a couple of days, but it left the deep snow crusted heavily 
 and the lakes a glare of smooth ice as soon as the cold was 
 renewed. 
 
 The settlers were few and far between in those days 
 most of them trappers and guides by profession, and such a 
 thing as "crusting" deer or moose was unheard of. The 
 backwoodsmen were as honest and manly as they were brave 
 and true. 
 
 One day in January, my hounds, chained up in their warm 
 dog-house, made a great fuss, and looking out on Eagle Lake 
 in front of my log dwelling I saw a noble buck, a regal 
 giant of the forest, attempting to cross its glittering surface. 
 He was over half way across, slipping, falling and sliding 
 on, when I went out. He did not seem to fear me, though 
 he must have seen me. I believe the old fellow knew no 
 white man would shoot him out of season, and was actually 
 coming in for protection. For as I looked at him I heard a 
 series of howls across the lake, and knew that a big gang of 
 wolves was on the trail of the deer. 
 
 I hurried in and got my rifle, an Ogden double-barrel, 
 made in Oswego, carrying a 32 to the pound conical ball. 
 By the time I had got it and my ammunition ready, and 
 rushed down to a clump of cedars on the lake-side, the 
 noble buck was within two hundred yards of the shore and 
 doing his uttermost to get there, for the wolves were al 
 most up to him. 
 
-6 4 - 
 
 Two or three tremendous leaps brought him within easy 
 rifle range, one hundred yards, but the accursed wolves, at 
 least twenty in number, were on him, and in a second he 
 was down, with every jaw fastened in him that could find a 
 place to bite. 
 
 Oh! if I had then had the glorious "Old Reliable" that 
 now stands in one corner of my sanctum, I believe I could 
 have killed every wolf in the gang before they knew what I 
 was doing, while, they, half-starved, were gorging on their 
 prey. 
 
 As it was, while they were plunging, growling and tear 
 ing the poor animal to pieces, I sent in shot after shot, as 
 fast as I could load and fire. 
 
 It was not until nine of their number were dead or dis 
 abled that the wolves found out they were in an unhealthy 
 neighborhood, and several of these limped away when they 
 went at last, leaving a bloody trail on the glittering ice. 
 
 In that brief time that deer was so nearly devoured that 
 you couldn t find a bone that was not broken or a bit of 
 meat big enough for a bulldog s swallow. And some of the 
 dead wolves had their hides torn so badly they were almost 
 worthless by the numerous jaws of their mates in the blind, 
 mad struggle for a feast. 
 
 I did not make much on my wolf hunt besides the fun of 
 killing them and avenging the noble buck. There was no 
 bounty on wolves, though I got ten dollars a head on three 
 panthers shot a little later. 
 
 Ah, what a change from then and now ! The woods were 
 full of deer ; moose, though not plenty, were often seen, and 
 trout, speckled and salmon, were so plenty that twenty min 
 utes fishing any time, and almost anywhere, would feed a 
 half dozen hearty men for the day. 
 
 Shot-guns were never heard of rifles were our only 
 weapons, and a red rag or a bit of venison just as good as 
 a whole book of flies, for all practical purposes, in trouting. 
 
-6 S - 
 
 It makes me sick to go there now. A lover of Nature and 
 
 Nature s gifts shudders at the advance of dudes and their 
 
 fancy accessories. Hunters and anglers go beyond civiliza 
 tion, if they know themselves. 
 
 On another occasion he very narrowly escaped 
 with his life, when his cabin burned to the ground 
 one bitter a Id winter s night, as related in a com 
 munication to one of the *sporting journals a few 
 years later. Of this experience he gives a very vivid 
 description, entitled, 
 
 BURNED OUT 
 
 I had gone up for my Fall deer shooting, and finding a 
 hunter s cabin, evidently long unused, near the head of In 
 dian River, I made up my mind to test a Winter there or 
 as much of it as I could stand. I had an old guide who could 
 pack his hundred and twenty pounds at a time, and by his 
 aid I had such stores as I needed packed in before the snows 
 were deep. The cabin, built against and partly under a 
 rocky ledge, was made of spruce logs, covered with hem 
 lock bark, and had a door, rude, but sufficient, made of a 
 couple of split slabs, standing upright. Windows were not 
 needed there were air holes enough between the logs de 
 spite the moss stuffing we put in. 
 
 Inside I had a small sheet-iron camp-stove, which could 
 be made red-hot with a double handful of birch bark. Out 
 side, old Birch, my guide, cut and piled about twelve or fif 
 teen cords of birch, beech and maple wood of large size for a 
 camp-fire when I wanted it. There was plenty of dead tim 
 ber lying around loose on the banks of the little lake near 
 
 *The Turf, Field and Farm (1882), when the offices of the 
 well-known sportsmen s journal were burned in the fire which 
 consumed the old World building on Park Row, New York. 
 
66 
 
 camp, so I had no danger of a freeze-out. I had snow-shoes 
 to travel with when I desired, and when he left Birch was 
 to come in every two weeks to bring my mail and carry out 
 manuscript, for I worked there, as I always do wherever I 
 am, penfully. 
 
 For the first six weeks after Winter set in I had a glor 
 ious time. Hermit life just suited me. I had plenty to eat 
 and drink, good reading matter, and all of out-doors to my 
 self when I wanted exercise. Writing sketches and stories 
 filled up the intervals. 
 
 Almost every night I had a concert. A gang of wolves 
 played the principal part. A panther solo made the varia 
 tion. I was happy. No temptation to deviate from the 
 rules of health and morality appeared. I was at church every 
 day. The blue arch of heaven was its dome, the great pines 
 and maples and birch trees formed its columns, the lofty 
 hills, the voiceless lake, the singing rills which never froze, 
 its lessons the contemplation of the God-created forest its 
 sermons. 
 
 But I went to sleep and pleasant dreams one night at an 
 early hour to wake at or near midnight under a light as 
 brilliant as a salamander could desire. Some spark from 
 my slender stove pipe must have fallen on the half rotten 
 roof back of the straw covering in front, under the rocks. A 
 fierce north wind that was blowing most likely fanned it to 
 life, and when I woke fire was above and all around me, 
 for fire had dropped from above on my bedding, and it was 
 ablaze as I sprung to the door. 
 
 I had only time to snatch my rifle, ammunition, clothes 
 and snow-shoes from a corner not yet afire and get outside, 
 when the hut was all ablaze. 
 
 I dressed out on the crust, with the themometer away be 
 low zero, but did not feel the cold in the excitement. After 
 I was in my thick woolen clothes, and my moose-skin mocca 
 sins on, I began to think of many things inside that I might 
 
-67- 
 
 have got out and needed. But it was too late. They had 
 gone where your noble library has gone, to ashes. 
 
 Sadly I looked on the fire till it smouldered down, keeping 
 warm as I sat on my unconsumed wood-pile, and then by the 
 early light of the morning star I laid my course for the little 
 hamlet of Lake Pleasant, about thirty miles away. I was 
 traveling "light" on an empty stomach, snow-shoeing was 
 fair, and I got there to dinner. 
 
 I never tried complete hermit life since. I was then and 
 there cured of all desire for it. 
 
CHAPTER^ FIVE 
 
 NED BUNTLINE IN THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 OON after the outbreak of the late Civil 
 War, the gallant Ned Buntline, whose love 
 for the stars and stripes had been tested on 
 the battlefields of Mexico, and the earlier 
 Seminole war, again enlisted under the 
 Union flag, and served with credit and distinction in 
 the hotly-contested battles of the terrible, and, as it 
 has been termed, "irrepressible conflict." His for 
 mer experience in border warfare, his intrepid cour 
 age, coolness and daring combined to fit^him admira 
 bly for the position which was soon assigned to him 
 that of "chief of scouts," with the rank of colonel. 
 The dashing spirit and manner of Colonel Judson 
 inspired his soldiers with confidence and admiration, 
 and it is recorded that his nerve and gallantry, 
 backed by the brave bordermen under his command, 
 proved victorious by unexpected assaults against 
 superior numbers. He was essentially a fighter of 
 the hurricane order, and re-enacted on several oc 
 casions, though on a smaller scale, the impetuous, 
 
-69- 
 
 resistless charges so characteristic of Sheridan and 
 Custer. On the other hand, where caution and 
 strategy were required, Colonel Judson was equal to 
 the emergency, and his knowledge of the Indian and 
 guerilla mode of warfare often enabled him to check 
 the ravages of the vindictive fighters of the frontier. 
 During the terrible strife Colonel Judson was un 
 consciously laying the foundation for greater fame 
 and fortune as a writer of fiction. It was during 
 this period, and at the close of the war, that he 
 formed the intimate acquaintance of the brave scouts 
 of the border, James B. Hickock, "Wild Bill;" Wil 
 liam F. Cody, "Buffalo Bill;" Capt. Jack Crawford; 
 J. B. Omohundra, "Texas Jack," and other daring 
 heroes of the West, who afterward figured promi 
 nently in his most successful novels. In his spirited 
 reminiscences of the war, scattered through the 
 pages of many periodicals of the day, Ned Buntline 
 has given graphic pen pictures of the times that lit 
 erally tried men s souls. The following sketch, orig 
 inally contributed by our hero to the columns of the 
 Turf, Field and Farm, gives a glimpse of the grim 
 glory of war: 
 
 A WAR-TIME REMINISCENCE 
 
 Meeting, not long ago, to my great delight, one of your 
 old subscribers and best friends, Major Schieffelin, of the 
 great drug firm of W. H. Schieffelin & Co., recalled an 
 incident very memorable in his life and mine. He was the 
 third major in Gen. Charles C. Dodge s First N. Y. 
 Mounted Rifles, and joined the regiment about the same 
 
70 
 
 time that I had the honor of taking saddle with as fine a 
 body of men as ever touched spur to flank. 
 
 The day I reached the regiment, early in 1862, there was 
 a reconnoisance ordered to feel of the enemy on the lines of 
 the Blackwater, and to make a push toward Petersburg to 
 see what his strength was. There was a brigade of infantry 
 under General Wessels; a section of Battery L, regular 
 United States artillery, under Lieut. Beecher; the howitzer 
 battery of First Mounted Rifles under Fairgraves, and the 
 First Mounted Rifles under Col. Dodge, afterward a general 
 when only twenty-three years of age, and the finest-looking 
 man that I ever saw in the saddle. Six feet two in height, 
 elegantly formed, with a classic, fearless face, a splendid 
 horseman, he looked every inch the soldier. He had already 
 served abroad in the Queen s Light Guards, the finest cav 
 alry in England. 
 
 When within half a mile of Blackwater Bridge the com 
 mand was halted in a depression near a stream, scouts sent 
 ahead and the enemy discovered in force across the Black- 
 water, with a long range of masked rifle pits beyond the 
 abutments of the bridge, which, with the steam saw mill at 
 that point, they had burned. 
 
 The undersigned volunteered alone to find where the en 
 emy was, and did find them, rather suddenly. They were so 
 well masked that he gained the river bank above the ruins 
 of the mill, rode down to the water s edge and skirted along 
 the shore to the east abutment of the bridge, without seeing 
 a man, or anything but a thick growth of bushes on the 
 high bank just beyond the river there very deep and about 
 100 or 130 feet wide. The bridge had been a wooden struc 
 ture, single span. 
 
 Just as the rider reached the foot of the abutments, a 
 single confederate officer rose among the bushes and 
 shouted : 
 
 "Halt, you d d Yank! Halt and surrender!" 
 
"Not much!" I replied. We were almost in pistol shot, 
 and all was so still an ordinary tone of voice was audible. 
 "Not quite ready!" 
 
 "Fire!" he yelled. 
 
 And at that every bush seemed to have covered a man, for 
 full two hundred riflemen poured a concentrated volley on 
 me. The depression from the high bank to where I sat in 
 my saddle was full thirty degrees, and every shot went over 
 my head. The air seemed hot with bullets; but nary a 
 scratch to me or my horse. But the way that horse went 
 over the bank and out of range was a caution to those who 
 practice electric locomotion. 
 
 To ride back, report to the commanding officer, and get 
 to the mounted rifles was quick work. 
 
 The Thirty-ninth Illinois and Twenty-sixth Ohio were 
 ordered forward as a skirmish line, two companies of the 
 Mounted Rifles dismounted, with their Sharpe s carbines, 
 and Beecher s section of Battery L, two guns, sent forward. 
 
 The writer was given a special squad of sharp shooters 
 from the Rifles to feel the way, place the artillery and do 
 about as he pleased. 
 
 He gave Beecher his points, showed him by two tall trees 
 the limits, so far as he had seen, of the enemy s line, and 
 while the battery galloped to a spot masked by bushes not 
 four hundred yards from the enemy, the infantry named ad 
 vanced in treble skirmish line, cautiously, under cover. 
 
 When I had ridden back I had seen close to the east abut 
 ment of the bridge, near a rail fence, a huge sycamore tree, 
 a splendid cover. With six men from Company C, I think, 
 and two from A, I made a rush for that tree, and we reached 
 it unharmed, I made the men lie down and hand me up a 
 loaded rifle when mine was emptied. They were hidden by 
 the large trunk entirely. The opposite bank was now al 
 most a sheet of fire, though few men could be seen, they 
 were so well masked. Our skirmishers were sending in 
 lead hot and fast. 
 
72 
 
 Beecher opened fire with his two rifled guns, but his shot 
 (shrapnel he was using) went forty feet too high. 
 
 One of my men, Corporal Kane, now, I think, in New 
 York, crept back and told Beecher from me how much de 
 pression was needed to reach their works. 
 
 Meanwhile Lieutenant Wheelan, brother of our then 
 Major Wheelan, who is now a senior captain in the Second 
 regular United States cavalry, Gen. Augur s old regiment, 
 tried to creep through the rail fence to reach my tree, from 
 behind which I was firing as often as I could see a man on 
 the other side. 
 
 Poor Wheelan was shot through the throat as he raised 
 his head to speak to me. 
 
 Amid a shower of bullets two of the heroes, who had 
 held the tree with me all this time, caught him, dragged him 
 through the fence and keeping in the tree line, carried him 
 to the rear, where he died in a few minutes. And now I 
 saw Schieffelin for the first time under fire. 
 
 He had ridden up on hearing that Wheelan was shot, and 
 there he sat in his saddle, his plumed hat over his fair young 
 face, a blue cloak with its red lining, thrown back over his 
 shoulder, curiously looking at the enemy s works, just as 
 Beecher s battery got in its work at the right elevation. A 
 soldier myself, of two long, hard wars, used to fire, knowing 
 that he was for the first time under fire, I watched him 
 with a curiosity that made me forget any danger myself, 
 though several bullets grazed me where I stood. Bullet 
 after bullet whistled over and about him, and he did not 
 seem to mind them a bit, until an officer in the Thirty-ninth 
 Illinois gave him a caution, and was hit himself a second 
 after. 
 
 "This is war, is it? rather hot, but they don t kill every 
 shot." was his cool remark, made within ten feet of me as 
 he turned his horse and rode back slowly to the battalion. 
 
73 
 
 Ten minutes later the battery had shelled the enemy back, 
 and the Eleventh Pennsylvania cavalry, Col. Spear, having 
 come up, a regular cavalry charge was ordered, and both 
 commands, the rifles leading, swam the river, captured the 
 enemy s works, chased the force, superior to our own, nearly 
 to Ivor, a large intrenched camp, and then turning to the 
 right captured the picket guards at Joiner s Ford, seven miles 
 above, and rejoined the infantry at the Isle of Wight court 
 house. 
 
 Surgeon Boyd, of the One Hundred and Twelfth New 
 York was along as a volunteer, and his horse wouldn t swim 
 worth a cent. If he is living perhaps he will tell your readers 
 who pulled him from his saddle and landed him on the right 
 side of Jordan, where he found his horse in time to keep 
 up with the command. 
 
 I d like to see that old sycamore. I ll bet, if it yet stands, 
 and has not been hacked at, that twenty pounds of bullets, 
 shot at the head and shoulders of the writer that was all 
 the target they had can be found in that tree. 
 
 I have never ceased to regret that Gen. Dodge and Major 
 Schieffelin did not remain in the service. They would have 
 held their own and more they were all dash and courage. 
 But business calls, matrimony, and an aversion to the politi 
 cal promotions they had to wince under men whose service 
 as ward politicians gave them political preference did the 
 work, and both resigned, with glory waiting to crown their 
 brows. They were idolized by the men under them, who 
 would have followed them to death without drawing rein. 
 
 This is but a desultory sketch, a pleasant memory of hot 
 work, but it is yours. If the major would only give it he 
 could describe the affair far better than tis here recorded. 
 
CHAPTER^ SIX 
 
 UNJUST IMPRISONMENT OF 
 NED BUNTLINE 
 
 NOTHER episode in the war record of 
 Colonel Judson, which has been incorrectly, 
 if not maliciously, distorted, was the period 
 of temporary incarceration at Fort Hamil 
 ton. The true version of this affair has 
 been recently given by Major T. P. McElrath, the 
 popular writer of war stories, as follows : 
 
 Happening to encounter recently a newspaper account of 
 the exploits of the late Edward Z. C. Judson more popu 
 larly known to the past generation by his nom de plume of 
 "Ned Buntline" the author of some of the most blood-curd 
 ling, hair-raising novels in American literature, it flashed 
 upon my memory that the novelist had once been a prisoner 
 in my special custody at Fort Hamilton, New York Harbor. 
 The post was not utilized during the war as a military pris 
 on, nor is its history associated with the records of captives, 
 famous or infamous, as military or civilian opponents of 
 the nation s integrity as are those of Forts Lafayette, Mon 
 roe, Warren, McHenry and Jefferson. Nevertheless, within 
 an interval of a few months three men were incarcerated in 
 Fort Hamilton, all of them soldiers, and all three arrested 
 
75 
 
 by the unusual exercise of arbitrary power without the pre 
 ferment of charges against them which would have insured 
 them the benefit of trial by court martial. As the whole cir 
 cumstances of these cases have never found their way into 
 public print, many of their attendant facts being known only 
 to myself, it occurred to me that their recital might consti 
 tute an interesting contribution to the history of that period. 
 
 The first of the three individuals referred to was an officer 
 of high rank whose ability in both military and civilian, 
 branches of service prior to and since the war of the rebel 
 lion earned for him world-wide distinction. In the second 
 Army Register of 1861, issued after the first reorganization 
 of the regular army, the name of Charles P. Stone appears 
 seventh in rank in the list of brigadier generals of volun 
 teers, Generals Porter, Franklin and W. T. Sherman being 
 his immediate predecessors and U. S. Grant being ten "files" 
 below him. General Stone s career, including his still unex 
 plained imprisonment of over six months duration, is too 
 familiar to the American people to require detailed relation 
 in this sketch. I have felt constrained, however, to make this 
 brief allusion to him from the circumstance that after having 
 been the first man, who, in January, 1861, was mustered 
 into service for the defense of the national capital, he be 
 came a few months later the first military prisoner confined 
 during the war in Fort Hamilton. He was arrested at mid 
 night on the 8th of February, 1862, while commanding a 
 corps of 12,000 men in Virginia, and was placed in close 
 captivity and a cold ear turned to his demands for an ex 
 planation of the outrage. 
 
 Fort Lafayette was the prison to which he was consigned 
 and his custodian was the sturdy Martin Burke, lieutenant 
 colonel of the Third United States artillery, a strict military 
 constructionist, who earned for himself a wide-spread fame 
 by the grim literalness which he displayed in managing the 
 hospitalities of that isolated and dreaded "bastile." No 
 
- 7 6- 
 
 charges were ever preferred against General Stone, and about 
 the middle of July, 1862, he received permission to take 
 quarters at Fort Hamilton on the neighboring main land, 
 which his wife and daughter were allowed to share with 
 him. Finally, on August 16th, he was abruptly turned 
 loose, being fully released from arrest, though nearly another 
 year elapsed before Secretary Stanton permitted him to again 
 assume command in the field. During his few weeks resi 
 dence at Fort Hamilton he was very popular with the officers 
 of the garrison whose sympathies were naturally brought into 
 play by the mysterious irregularity of his captivity. To the 
 youngsters of the "mess" it was a treat to witness the genial 
 courtesy which uniformly marked his association with them, 
 while his soldier s dignity furnished them a desirable model 
 for imitation. The subsequent distinguished career of Gen 
 eral Stone has recently been exhaustively related in the news 
 papers, through the interest excited by his sudden and unex 
 pected death in New York during the last week of Janu 
 ary, 1887. 
 
 The two successors of General Stone as prisoners in Fort 
 Hamilton were men of a wholly different type. My recol 
 lection of them was revived by the newspaper paragraphs 
 referred to above, which contained an inaccurate and inade 
 quate statement regarding an episode in Mr. Judson s career 
 that has never to this writing been related. The writer of 
 that article summed up his subject s war record in the fol 
 lowing words: "During the war he was arrested and con 
 fined in Fort Lafayette for overstaying his parole." That 
 is rather too scanty a recognition of his services in the army, 
 and moreover it is not true. As a matter of fact Judson 
 was never confined in Fort Lafayette. His single experience 
 as a prisoner of consequence during his military career re 
 lated solely to a captivity in Fort Hamilton during the sum 
 mer of 1863. At that time the "military post of the city 
 and harbor of New York," with headquarters at Fort Ham- 
 
77 
 
 ilton, was commanded by Brevet Brigadier General Harvey 
 Brown, Colonel of the Fifth United States artillery the 
 brave and skillful officer, who, a few weeks subsequent to 
 the occurrences related in this sketch rescued the city of New 
 York from the hands of the largest and most evil-disposed 
 mob that has ever come to the surface in the United States. 
 The "post" comprised all the forts and military commands 
 in the vicinity of New York, excepting Governor s Island 
 and Fort Lafayette, besides the hospital and convalescent de 
 pots at David s, Hart s and Riker s Islands. The garrison 
 of this "post," exclusive of the New York headquarters and 
 staff of Gen. Wall, who commanded the department of the 
 East, was composed of the headquarters and two mounted 
 batteries of the Fifth United States artillery, battalions of 
 several regiments of regular infantry which had been sent 
 North to replenish their forces decimated in McClellan s 
 peninsular campaign, and some volunteer regiments recently 
 reorganized after having been mustered out at the end of 
 their original two years enlistment. General Brown had 
 an office in Grand street, in New York, and had organized a 
 military patrol for the city in the shape of a volunteer com 
 pany which he designated the invalid corps, and which w r as 
 the object of his special and affectionate solicitude. 
 
 One fine afternoon in the early summer of 1863 a corporal 
 of the invalid corps, with a file of men escorting a prisoner, 
 reported to me at Fort Hamilton, where I was serving as 
 post quartermaster. The captive was a tall, broad-shoul 
 dered handsome man, wearing a combination of civilian s and 
 soldier s costume, and bearing himself with the air of a 
 man accustomed to command rather than obey. With him 
 I received a note from Gen. Brown, in New York, directing 
 me briefly to lock the prisoner in a casemate and to keep 
 the key carefully in my own pocket. An empty casemate 
 recently vacated by a departing officer of the garrison was 
 selected for the purpose, and was hastily furnished with an 
 
- 7 8- 
 
 iron bedstead, a couple of chairs and a few other conveni 
 ences from my own quarters, furnished apartments for stran 
 gers not being provided at that post. Shortly after leaving 
 the prisoner to his reflections, I was handed a note which 
 he had passed through a window to a passing soldier. The 
 missive, the original of which lies before me as I write, 
 reads as follows: 
 
 "If Lieutenant McElrath will have the kindness to loan 
 me a book or two I shall be sincerely obliged. 
 Respectfully, etc., 
 
 "EDWARD Z. C. JUDSON. 
 
 Recognizing the name at once I knew my prisoner to be 
 the redoubtable "Ned Buntline." The great sensational nov 
 elist was reluctantly contributing his share toward a minor 
 chapter of the history of the war in the same hurried and 
 peremptory manner in which doubtless the heroes of his own 
 lurid fiction were unexpectedly caused to encounter the 
 shocks of adverse fate. I sent the messenger back with an 
 armful of literature and arranged matters so that a fresh 
 supply could be provided at the captive s will. 
 
 On General Brown s arrival at Fort Hamilton in~"the 
 evening I learned that Mr. or rather Sergeant Judson 
 had been placed in durance at the special request of his wife. 
 He had come North from "the field" on furlough, and had 
 not only overstayed his allotted time a circumstance which 
 of itself might not have provoked connubial dissension but 
 he had become irritable in his days of inactivity, being em 
 phatically one of that restless class who "prey upon high ad 
 venture, nor can tire of aught but rest." His spouse, ac 
 cordingly thought the easiest way to restore peace in the 
 family would be to pack its head off to the regiment. That, 
 however, was not a thing that could be at once accomplished, 
 as his command was somewhere in the distant South, and it 
 was necessary to wait until the quartermaster s department 
 should despatch a vessel in that direction. In all likelihood 
 
- 7 9- 
 
 the mere overstaying of his furlough would not under the 
 circumstances of the period have subjected him to General 
 Brown s special displeasure. New York at that time was 
 crowded with volunteer soldiers stiiving to return to their 
 commands from furlough or sick leave, and in addition to 
 extensive barracks erected for their accommodation in the 
 Battery, and the City Hall Park, large numbers were con 
 stantly encamped on the Fort Hamilton reservation. The 
 tide was incessantly ebbing and flowing. Detachments were 
 shipped Southward several times a week, but their disap 
 pearance was unnoticed, their places being instantly filled 
 by new arrivals from the interior. But General Brown, albeit 
 he was famous in the army as a rigid martinet which in 
 truth means simply an officer who respects his calling suffi 
 ciently to do his duty conscientiously was in addition a 
 humane man, with profound and delicate respect for the fair 
 sex. And this woman s complaint of ill-treatment excited 
 his ire against the luckless chevroned scribe, and impelled 
 him to order the latter to be locked up as I have said, in a 
 brick archway in the bowels of Fort Hamilton s granite walls. 
 His captivity, however, was not particularly galling. On 
 the following day Mrs. Judson presented herself at the fort 
 and was at once allowed to visit her husband. She brought 
 him a supply of stationery, and he at once betook himself to 
 novel writing. Each forenoon she made her appearance at 
 the post, and it was rumored in the garrison that in the 
 few days that his confinement lasted he had written three 
 blood-curdling novels, which his wife found a market for in 
 the city. I regret that in the pressure of more important 
 business I had not sufficient curiosity at the time to ascer 
 tain their titles. 
 
 A few days after Judson s incarceration Gen. Brown sent 
 me another prisoner, with similar injunctions as to his safe 
 keeping. This captive was a young man dressed in the fa 
 tigue uniform of a commissioned officer, and presenting on 
 
8o 
 
 his countenance and in his general appearance, evidence of 
 recent over-indulgence in drink. He was a German, with a 
 very imperfect knowledge of the English language. My in 
 structions with regard to him were very plain, and I clapped 
 him into the same apartment with Judson and left him to 
 cool off, without at the time inquiring his name or the cause 
 of the singularly disgraceful manner in which he had been 
 projected upon my notice. 
 
 When I reported the new arrival to General Brown on 
 his return at the point that evening I found the latter highly 
 incensed over the circumstances which had led to his arrest. 
 It appeared that the German, after loading himself with 
 beer in some East Side saloon, had become engaged in a 
 dispute with the people of the establishment which resulted 
 in a lively fight. The military man succeeded in worsting 
 his opponents and in clearing the apartment of both visitors 
 and attendants. Then hastily closing the front door, he 
 armed himself with the piece of scantling with which it was 
 barred at night when shut to exclude the outside world, and 
 stood ready to repel an assault. This was not long delayed. 
 Planted by the door the hero of the evening made such a 
 vigorous defense with his formidable weapon that the assail 
 ing party were twice repelled with considerable effusion of 
 blood and some severe bruises. Then, taking advantage of 
 their discomfiture, he made a sudden sortie, brandishing his 
 club, and before the astonished host divined his purpose, he 
 rushed past them and was quickly out of sight. As he was 
 hastening in the direction of Broadway he met a party be 
 longing to Gen. Brown s Veteran Reserves patrolling the 
 streets in search of wandering and dilatory soldiers. Slack 
 ing his pace, he ordered the detachment to halt, and the ser 
 geant in command, impressed by his authoritative manner 
 and his uniform, reiterated the order. Hastily informing the 
 sergeant that a party of volunteers had been maltreated in a 
 beer saloon in the vicinity, the stranger took command of 
 
8i 
 
 the detachment himself and marched them to the place wf 
 his recent conflict. The door was found open and the room 
 was filled with people drinking beer and discussing vocifer 
 ously the apparition before which they had given way a few 
 moments previously. Wheeling his column into line, the 
 self-appointed commander gave the order to charge. 
 
 An indescribable tumult ensued. The affrighted occupants 
 of the saloon, seeing their redoubtable adversary approaching 
 with reinforcements, had no time to rally for resistance, but 
 fled incontinently, making their exits promiscuously through 
 the rear windows of the hall and scaling the fences of the 
 back yard with eager haste. Finding himself again the mas 
 ter of the situation, the stranger discreetly marched his 
 command from the scene of the double victory, and when 
 he had gone a few blocks from the place he relinquished the 
 command again to the sergeant and disappeared in the dark 
 ness. The idea gradually penetrated the mind of the ser 
 geant that he had been imposed upon. Accordingly the next 
 morning on General Brown s arrival at the New York 
 office the disgusted non-commissioned officer reported the oc 
 currence, and mighty was the General s wrath at hearing 
 the rueful story. The appearance of an intoxicated officer 
 was not a phenomenal thing in those days, but that anyone 
 should have the audacity to take possession of his pet patrol 
 and use it for the subjugation of a lager beer saloon was an 
 indignity not to be ignored. Detectives were employed to 
 ferret out the mysterious brawler, and on the following day 
 they arrested him in his room in the St. Nicholas hotel and 
 carried him triumphantly to the general. The latter wasted 
 no words over him but sent him at once under guard to 
 Fort Hamilton, as I have related. On the following morning 
 he was brought before the general at headquarters immedi 
 ately after guard mounting, when he declared himself to be 
 long to the staff of General Doster, then provost marshal 
 of the District of Columbia, recreating himself in New York 
 
82 
 
 on a brief leave of absence. He was remanded to his case 
 mate and a communication was despatched to General Dos- 
 ter inquiring as to the truth of the story. 
 
 The two worthies bore their confinement with praise 
 worthy good nature. Their meals were furnished them from 
 the bachelor officers mess, which at that time was conducted 
 in handsome style under the stewardship of one of the Flou- 
 quets of the famous Plattsburg family of caterers, who had 
 been enticed from the shores of Lake Champlain for that 
 special purpose, and both were permitted to receive visitors 
 during the day time. Finally a steamer was despatched to 
 some Southern port from which Judson could receive trans 
 portation to his regiment, and I never saw him again. Rum 
 ors, however, reached us of his having distinguished himself 
 by gallant conduct shortly after his liberation. A Federal 
 command somewhere in the interior stood in need of sup 
 plies, but the master of the vessel transporting them was re 
 luctant to run the gauntlet of rebel troops occupying the 
 banks of the river, by which alone the command could be 
 reached. Pilots were not obtainable, as the shores were 
 known to teem with confederate sharpshooters. In the 
 emergency Judson stepped nobly to the front and volun 
 teered to pilot the steamer. Bullets rattled along unceas 
 ingly against the iron clad pilot house which he occupied 
 during the trip up the river, but happily none of them were 
 billeted for Judson, who stood calm and unflinching at the 
 wheel until he had conveyed his charge to his destination. 
 For this gallant act, the story ran, he was publicly thanked 
 in general orders besides receiving more substantial reward 
 in the shape of promotion. 
 
 Meanwhile my German captive remained in durance vile, 
 nearly a fortnight elapsing before the receipt of General 
 Poster s response to General Brown s letter. The answer 
 fully corroborated the prisoner s statements in regard to him 
 self. He proved to be a subaltern officer of the Prussian 
 
-8 3 - 
 
 cavalry, a baron by title, and the son of one of the most 
 prominent officials of the Prussian government. He had re 
 ceived leave of absence to enable him to visit the United 
 States and attach himself to our service in order to gain a 
 practical familiarity with grand tactics, and the New York 
 episode which I have related was possibly a private rehearsal 
 of some tactical principle he had picked up during a resi 
 dence of several months in the national capital. Of course, 
 he was immediately restored to liberty, with a spicy repri 
 mand from General Brown, who had him kept under sur 
 veillance until he had departed in the cars for Philadelphia. 
 Some months afterward I encountered him at the St. Nicho 
 las hotel, in New York, and found him a very sociable com 
 panion. I understood that he returned to his own country 
 early in 1864. I have thought it best not to reveal his 
 identity, foreign though he was, inasmuch as an official rep 
 resenting his government and bearing his name and title, has 
 figured somewhat largely and creditably in the higher dip 
 lomatic circles in Washington during the past few years 
 and I have a serious suspicion that he is the same person 
 who as an unknown lieutenant nearly twenty-four years 
 ago was the reluctant recipient of the enforced hospitalities 
 of Fort Hamilton and the fellow prisoner of Ned Buntline. 
 
CHAPTER^ SEVEN 
 
 J 
 
 WITH "SCOUTS OF THE PLAINS^ 
 AND AT HOME 
 
 THE HILLS OF DELAWARE 
 
 Once more, dear hills of Delaware, 
 
 I look upon your leafy pines 
 Once more upon your mossy slopes 
 
 My wearied form at ease reclines, 
 And up into the pictured clouds 
 
 I gaze with glad contented eyes, 
 And feel myself in bliss at home, 
 
 Beneath my boyhood s native skies. 
 
 I ve stood on fair Nevada s peaks, 
 
 And thought the picture grand and fair 
 I ve sighed in bright Yosemite, 
 
 And thought twas almost Heaven there; 
 I ve wandered far in every clime, 
 
 And met with beauties strange and rare, 
 But ever still my heart looked back 
 
 To these the hills of Delaware! 
 
 No matter where my footsteps tread 
 
 By fortune s wayward changes led 
 No matter how those fortunes shine, 
 
 Or where I rest my weary head 
 In dreams by night, in thoughts by day, 
 
 Before me pictured everywhere, 
 I see my home, and those I love, 
 
 Upon the hills of Delaware. 
 
 Ned Buntline. 
 
-8 5 - 
 
 T the close of the late Civil War, Colonel 
 Judson retired from military service, cov 
 ered with wounds and broken in health, but 
 retaining his indomitable will and courage 
 the resistless force that had carried him 
 through perils and adventures bordering upon the 
 marvellous. That he survived the numerous wounds 
 from bullet and shell and sabre, inflicted during his 
 military career and desperate encounters with In 
 dians, outlaws, etc., is evidence of a wonderful vi 
 tality. 
 
 With a few congenial spirits notably "Buffalo 
 Bill" (William F. Cody), u Wild Bill" (James B. 
 Hickox), Texas Jack" (J. B. Omohundro) and 
 Captain Jack Crawford all well-known scouts and 
 frontiersmen, Ned Buntline rambled over the West 
 ern plains, where he reveled in hunting and Indian 
 fighting, while gathering abundant material for the 
 thrilling romances of the border with which his 
 name and fame have been since so closely identified. 
 His coolness and courage, no less than his remark 
 able skill as a crack shot with the rifle and pistol, 
 made him an acknowledged leader among the wild 
 bordermen of the West, and if the record of his life 
 on the plains could be carefully gathered, it would 
 form a bright chapter in his life history. Without 
 seeking for fame in this direction, he was ever one 
 of the boldest defenders of the defenseless, and 
 often an avenger of the cruel wrongs perpetrated by 
 the lawless Indian tribes. 
 
86 
 
 In public or private life Ned Buntline was not 
 the wild man of the woods he was often supposed 
 to be. He was a man of culture and dignity, an 
 eloquent orator and clever conversationalist "the 
 center of magnetic attraction" in an assemblage, and 
 few would surmise from his appearance that he was 
 the hero of a hundred battles. In 1867 an d 1868 
 he made a regular tour in California and along the 
 Pacific coast, in the temperance work, and gained 
 the reputation of a vigorous and effective advocate. 
 He also appeared frequently as a lecturer, in inci 
 dents and scenes of the war, but his great theme, a? 
 a friend once remarked, was radical Americanism, 
 and from first to last he believed and practiced in 
 the principle that Americans should rule America. 
 
 An amusing episode occurred in connection with 
 his brief yet sensational career as playwright and 
 actor. He had prepared a Western drama, entitled, 
 "The Scouts of the Plains," adapted to the histrionic 
 abilities of the bold scouts Buffalo Bill and Texas 
 Jack, who agreed to meet him in Chicago, where 
 they were to make their first appearance on any 
 stage aside from the stage-coach of the far West. 
 Ned Buntline thus relates his experience in introduc 
 ing Buffalo Bill to the public as one of the hunters 
 of the wild west: 
 
 "I shall never forget the time I had putting him 
 on his feet as a showman twelve or fourteen years 
 ago. We had corresponded and I had agreed to 
 run the show. We were to meet in Chicago. I got 
 
-8 7 - 
 
 there Thursday morning, and Buffalo Bill and Texas 
 Jack arrived in the evening. They were to bring 
 twenty Indian bucks for the show. Judge of my 
 consternation when they came without an Indian. 
 What were we to do? The biggest theater in Chi 
 cago was hired for the next Monday night at a 
 heavy cost. We had no Indians, and it was to be 
 an Indian show. We must now have a play, I 
 said. I went out and hired ten actors who were 
 waiting around for something to do, and set Bill 
 and Jack to making Indians of them. Then I went 
 to writing a play. It was a blood-curdling and gory 
 tragedy of the plains. Buffalo Bill was made the 
 hero, but I was cast in a part where there was more 
 talking to do, lest he might not be up to it. I wrote 
 the play as rapidly as possible, handing the sheets to 
 copyers as fast as finished, so that all could have 
 their parts. We had three rehearsals one on Fri 
 day and two on Saturday. My own part was not 
 written at all; I merely had a cue at the end, and 
 led up to it with any sort of talk I pleased. The 
 eventful evening came. The curtain rose on an audi 
 ence of perhaps three thousand. I had a rambling 
 soliloquy about frontier life and my old pards Buf 
 falo Bill and Texas Jack, when, at the cue, in they 
 stalked. The audience rose and howled a welcome 
 to them. The cheer was prolonged and embarrass 
 ing. At last it subsided and the time came for Buf 
 falo Bill to speak. He had forgotten his part and 
 stood like a statue. The prompter gave him the 
 

 88 
 
 words. I told him to say something anything. 
 He was speechless! I said: Why, you ve been off 
 buffalo-hunting with Milligan, haven t you? That 
 woke up him. He looked at Milligan and his 
 friends in a box, and told in plain language the story 
 of his last buffalo hunt. Then we all got warmed 
 up, and the Scouts of the Plains went off in a lively 
 manner. It was a highly successful show, financially, 
 and has introduced many other similar wild west 
 combinations, which the public seem to appreciate 
 judging from the vast assemblages drawn together 
 to see the same. 
 
 Later another western scout, James B. Hickox 
 ("Wild Bill") was added to Ned Buntline s unique 
 company, and this dauntless man the bravest of the 
 brave, as proven in many deadly fights to maintain 
 law and order was a bright star in the little galaxy. 
 While holding the position of sheriff or marshal at 
 Hays City, and afterward at Abilene, Kansas, "Wild 
 Bill" maintained the reputation for cool courage 
 which he had shown in earlier years, through meet 
 ing, single-handed, and killing or desperately wound 
 ing all the members of the notorious McCandless 
 gang of desperadoes. Wild Bill, however, was 
 never given to seeking notoriety, and it was with 
 difficulty that he had been induced to remain for 
 even a short time with the traveling company. He 
 had always been a real actor in life s wild drama, 
 and the presentation of this on the stage did not ap 
 peal to him, therefore it is not surprising that the 
 
-8 9 - 
 
 call of the wild had been an irresistible one to him. 
 Of all the American frontiersmen not even except 
 ing Kit Carson it is believed that Wild Bill met 
 with a greater number of deadly encounters against 
 apparently hopeless odds than any other in history. 
 His murder was a most cowardly act, and thousands 
 of friends and admirers of the brave scout mourned 
 the loss of a man who had often been tried and never 
 found wanting; a man sometimes misjudged, but one 
 whose kindness of heart was known to those most 
 intimately acquainted with him. No other westerner 
 of recent years can be named to bear comparison as 
 a daring frontier sheriff, a perfect marksman and 
 ever reliable maintainer of law against all odds, with 
 the possible exception of the late Seth Bullock, 
 friend and companion of Theodore Roosevelt. 
 
 The following tribute to Wild Bill appeared not 
 long after his death, in the New York Clipper: 
 
 UNDER THE SOD 
 
 BURIAL OF WILD BILL 
 
 WRITTEN FOR THE NEW YORK CLIPPER (jAN. 13, 1877) 
 
 AND DEDICATED TO CHARLEY UTTER (COLORADO 
 
 CHARLEY), BY CAPT. JACK 
 
 [Capt. J. W. Crawford, otherwise "Capt. Jack," is also 
 known west of the Missouri as the Poet-scout of the Black 
 Hills, and last winter his extempore songs and poetic de 
 clamations were the life of the mining-camps in that sec 
 tion. As guide to an expedition in search of gold, he was 
 one of the first to explore the Black Hills country, and 
 credited to him are some of the quickest and most daring 
 
rides on record. Last August, in response to a telegram 
 from Buffalo Bill (W. F. Cody), he started on horseback, 
 and alone, to join General Crook, whose command he found 
 in five days, after a ride of five hundred miles through the 
 Big Horn country. On another occasion he carried dis 
 patches for a leading New York newspaper from Owl Creek 
 to Fort Laramie, a distance of over four hundred miles, in 
 side of four days, beating five fresh couriers and getting in 
 five hours ahead of all others. The dispatch cost $250, and 
 a supplementary dispatch descriptive of Capt. Jack s remark 
 able ride cost $150 more, which, with $500 paid Capt. Jack 
 for his services as courier, made The Herald s outlay $900. 
 These costly dispatches appeared in that paper on Sept. 17, 
 1876, the day on which Capt. Jack wrote the poem given 
 below, which now appears in print for the first time. After 
 Buffalo Bill left General Merritt s cavalry on the Yellow 
 stone River, Capt. Jack was appointed chief of scouts with 
 that command. At present he is a character-actor with Buf 
 falo Bill s traveling company. Verses from his pen have 
 from time to time appeared in these columns; and accom 
 panying his present contribution is a personal narration that 
 could not possibly be couched in more expressive language 
 than the simple words he himself has chosen: "A word or 
 two of my former history. I am twenty-eight years of age, 
 stand five feet eleven inches high, and weigh 178 pounds. I 
 entered the army in 1863, and at that time could not write 
 my own name. I scouted for General Hartranft, and was 
 wounded at Spottsylvania, Va., May 12, 1864. While in 
 the Saterlee Hospital, Philadelphia, one of the Sisters of 
 Charity taught me to read and to write (and may she be an 
 angel for it!). After five months spent in the hospital, I 
 returned to the field and was again wounded, this time at 
 Petersburg, Va., April 2, 1865, after which I was discharged. 
 Since then I have led a wandering life, mostly on the plains. 
 I have written many poems after the style of Bret Harte. 
 
91 
 
 Gen. Ouster s death was first put into rhyme by me." James 
 B. Hickox ("Wild Bill"), who was killed at Deadwood, 
 Wy. Ten, on Aug. 2 last, was, we believe, the husband of 
 Mrs. Agnes Lake, widow of the widely-known circus man 
 ager William Lake, who was murdered at Granby, Mo., 
 Aug. 21, 1869, by a man whom he had ejected from his show 
 for attempting to see it without paying. The murderer of 
 "Wild Bill" was last week sentenced to be hanged next 
 March. Ed. Clipper.] 
 
 Under the sod in the prairie-land 
 
 We have laid him down to rest, 
 With many a tear from the sad, rough throng 
 
 And the friends he loved the best; 
 And many a heartfelt sigh was heard 
 
 As over the sward we trod, 
 And many an eye was filled with tears 
 
 As we covered him with the sod. 
 
 Under the sod in the prairie-land 
 
 We have laid the good and true 
 An honest heart and a noble scout 
 
 Has bade us a last adieu. 
 No more his silvery voice will ring. 
 
 His spirit has gone to God; 
 Around his faults let Charity cling, 
 
 While we cover him with the sod. 
 
 Under the sod in the land of gold 
 
 We have laid the fearless Bill; 
 We called him Wild, yet a little child 
 
 Could bend his iron will. 
 With generous heart he freely gave 
 
 To the poorly clad, unshod 
 Think of it, pards of his noble traits 
 
 While you cover him with the sod. 
 
92 
 
 Under the sod in Deadwood Gulch 
 
 You have laid his last remains; 
 No more his manly form will hail 
 
 The red-man on the plains. 
 And Charley, may Heaven bless you! 
 
 You gave him a "bully good send ;" 
 Bill was a friend to you, pard, 
 
 And you were his last, best friend. 
 
 You buried him neath the old pine-tree, 
 
 In that little world of ours, 
 His trusty rifle by his side 
 
 His grave all strewn with flowers; 
 His manly form in sweet repose, 
 
 That lovely silken hair 
 I tell you, pard, it was a sight 
 
 That face so white and fair! 
 
 And while he sleeps beneath the sod 
 
 His murderer goes free, 
 Released by a perjured, gaming set 
 
 Who d murder you and me 
 Whose coward hearts dare never meet 
 
 A brave man on the square. 
 Well, pard, they ll find a warmer clime 
 
 Than they ever found out there. 
 
 Hell is full of just such men ; 
 
 And if Bill is above to-day 
 The Almighty will have enough to do 
 
 To keep him from going away 
 That is, from making a little scout 
 
 To the murderer s home below; 
 And if old Peter will let him out, 
 
 He can clean out the ranch, I know. 
 
-93- 
 
 About 1870 Ned Buntline returned to Delaware 
 county, New York, and erected near Stamford, the 
 place of his birth, a handsome residence which he 
 christened the "Eagle s Nest," in remembrance of 
 his hermitage of the same name in the Adirondack 
 wilderness. His home in the highlands of the Hud 
 son was erected upon a picturesque hill-side, over 
 looking many miles of the lovely Delaware valley, 
 and successive ridges of the Catskill range. The 
 residence was built and furnished at an expense of 
 nearly $25,000, and all the surroundings indicated 
 the culture and sporting proclivities of the owner. 
 A tract of twenty acres close at hand was kept as a 
 game preserve, and his favorite room, the armory or 
 curiosity shop, as he was wont to call it, contained a 
 rare collection of guns, pistols, sabres and other im 
 plements of warfare and the chase. His library 
 sanctum, as he remarked, were one, and in this cosy 
 retreat his prolific pen produced the numerous thrill 
 ing tales which brought him wider fame and fortune. 
 He was at this period under contract to contribute 
 exclusively to the columns of the New York Weekly, 
 and it has been stated that he received from the pro 
 prietors, Messrs. Street & Smith, the handsome sum 
 of $20,000 per year for his productions. Through 
 his thrilling and sensational tales many of them 
 possessing the merit almost of historical novels of 
 the frontier "Buffalo Bill" first attained public 
 fame, and his success in later years may be in a great 
 measure traced to this origin, as he was thereby 
 
94 
 
 made the ideal representation of a border scout in 
 the opinion of Young America, and he possessed, 
 fotunately, the sterling qualities that confirmed this 
 impression in his public career a genuine triumphal 
 tour at home and abroad. 
 
 Under Ned Buntline s supervision the mountain 
 streams of Delaware county were liberally stocked 
 with brook trout, and he enjoyed the fishing each 
 season, with a few intimate friends who were ardent 
 lovers of the Waltonian art. In a letter to the 
 writer of this, several years ago, the keen old sports 
 man gave the following graphic description of the 
 last day s sport of the season: 
 
 It has been my habit for years, when no serious hindrance 
 intervened, to spend the last day of the trout season over 
 on the crystal Beaverkill, and the last day of August found 
 me at the famous Tripp cottage, with my cherished Orvis 
 rod, a book of Orvis flies and a big box of genuine grass 
 hoppers, ready to see the season out. 
 
 The stream was very low, consequently rather warm and 
 the fishing poor except where cold springs entered the main 
 stream. There it was superb, and knowing the stream as 
 I do from ten years of experience I skipped all places but 
 these very spring-holes, and the consequence was that I came 
 in with a twenty-pound basket full of speckled beauties, 
 mostly of fine size. 
 
 Approaching the stream cautiously on the Charley Water s 
 clearing, sheltered from view by a clump of willows, I looked 
 over to the mouth of a cold spring brook running from Rob 
 ert Seal s farm. In a shallow pool where the ice-cold water 
 from the spring ran in I counted ten trout that would aver 
 age from ten to twelve inches long and in weight strike a 
 half pound apiece. There they lay, their dorsal fins quiv- 
 
ering with pleasure, in the cool shade, unconscious of dan 
 ger. I changed a much worn leader for a fresh one, took a 
 single black gnat from my book, shortened my line for a 
 clean lift out, and then, all unseen through the leafy screen, 
 lightly dropped an invitation to the lowest trout in the pool. 
 The fly hardly touched water ere it was sprung for, taken, 
 and Mr. Salmo Fontinalis literally lifted out by the tough 
 bamboo, without noise or trouble enough to startle the rest 
 of the little "school." Number one deftly secured and bas 
 keted, I tried the same game with numbers two, three and 
 four successfully. But the fifth was a little more gamey, or 
 else success had made me careless; and, only half-hooked, he 
 tore away and made the water fly with his wild antics, start 
 ling his brethren into other waters and shutting off my rash 
 intention of "cleaning out" the pool. 
 
 You cannot, with every six-ounce bamboo rod, lift out 
 a half pound trout; in fact, I never had one before that was 
 pliant enough for a seventy-foot cast, that would bear such a 
 strain ; but I believe I have as good a rod as ever fell to an 
 angler s lot. With the tip touching the reel plate, I have 
 proved it, holding a three-pounder in a swift current, away 
 from roots and snags, till I tired and drowned him out. 
 
 To me there are two glorious times in the trout season. 
 The first is in the early Spring, when the streams are full 
 and rapid, when the trout seem wild and fresh from a long 
 Winter s rest, and like nature herself, full of beauty, 
 strength and vim! 
 
 The second is the last of the season, when the largest 
 trout emerge from their hiding places under dark ledges, 
 mossy banks and deep, well sheltered pools, to seek the sandy 
 spawning beds far up the stream, where they can carry out 
 the procreative laws which prevent our brooks, lakes and 
 rivers from utter depletion, fished as they are, literally "to 
 death." But friend Wildwood, I fear I am spinning too 
 long a yarn for the limited space accorded in your journal to 
 piscatorial lore. 
 
- 9 6- 
 
 Ere I close let me join the general "boom" in congratula 
 tions that you have come Eastward for light, found it, and 
 are content to give your facile pen play in a field which I 
 trust will add both to your fame and fortune. 
 
 In another communication, at a later date, Ned 
 Buntline alluded to the wild sports of the wilderness 
 in northern New York, and closed with a humorous 
 description of the last bear of the Western Catskill 
 range, thus: 
 
 LAST BEAR IN THE CATSKILL MOUNTAINS 
 
 Until within a very few years, bears have been often seen 
 in the Catskill Mountains near the two heads of the Dela 
 ware River, every Fall, when berries were ripe, and corn in 
 the milk. And occasionally they lost their pelts, for we 
 have some hunters of the old stock left. 
 
 But they are rare visitors now. About Thanksgiving we 
 had a light fall of snow, barely enough to make an excuse to 
 start sleighs to running. 
 
 One crisp morning about that time, young Will Papino, 
 living two miles east of Stamford, and directly under the 
 steepest part of Old Bear Mountain, now misnamed Utsay- 
 anto, came tearing into town to tell the sportsmen that a 
 huge black bear was playing and tumbling about in the snow 
 near the foot of the mountain, just above his father s house. 
 
 Jerusalem ! Such a hurry and a scurry you never saw 
 among the shooters of the town. I had the sciatica and 
 could not go, so Dell Warner, one of our best shots, got my 
 45-calibre Sharps rifle and jumped into his cutter with Billy 
 Ives for driver. Billy carried a tremendous old Queen Anne, 
 with 24 No. 1 buckshot to the load. 
 
 Erskine Seeley, a keen sportsman and the owner of the 
 best dog in the county, doubled in with Aruna Maynard, 
 
97 
 
 and a Mr. Green mated with Harvey Wood, another of our 
 noted shots, and away they started after Bruin. 
 
 There was not much time lost getting there, and sure 
 enough when the party got to Papino s up the hill nearly 
 half a mile, near an old hay barn, the monster was seen. 
 
 The shotgun men were not quite so anxious to close 
 up when they saw the huge black beast slowly walking about 
 near the edge of the woods; it was debated whether shot 
 guns were just the thing for bear hunting. This gave Dell 
 Warner the start. He shouldered the Sharp, and, backed 
 by the valiant Ives, started up the hill. 
 
 He got within about four hundred yards, set his sight 
 for the distance, and as the bear had stopped playing and 
 seemed to watch the party, knelt down, took deliberate aim, 
 and, to use his own classic language, "let sliver!" 
 
 The bullet struck the snow just under Bruin s nose, and 
 must have knocked his eyes full, for he wheeled around and 
 around as if pretty mad. 
 
 Without rising, Warner coolly put in another .45-100 
 cartridge, and allowing for windage, let drive again. This 
 time Bruin got it hot, and as all the sportsmen were on the 
 run up the hill to join Warner, yelling at every jump, the 
 bear limped off toward the woods, turning once in a while as 
 if it thought of fighting it out instead of retreating. 
 
 "Don t let him get away, Dell!" shouted Seeley. 
 
 "No, for goodness sake, no!" cried Maynard. 
 
 "Not if Ned s rifle is worth a snap!" said Dell, and he got 
 a rest over the shoulder of Billy Ives, and as the bear 
 mounted a shelving rock he fired his last and fatal shot. 
 
 The bear rolled over and over down the rock, and when 
 it reached the bottom it was still. 
 
 Just then an old settler, Carlos Van Housen, who was 
 wood chopping on the mountain, came tearing down through 
 the woods with his ax on his shoulder and fire in his eye. 
 
98 
 
 He got to the bear just as Warner and the rest came up, and 
 his voice could have been heard a mile when he yelled : 
 
 "What in shoel have you been shooting my Newfound 
 land dog for?" 
 
 Dell stood like one suddenly struck with lightning. He 
 looked sadly down at his prize and asked the old settler if its 
 life was insured if it was not, he would pay for it. 
 
 And that is the last bear seen in our range. 
 
CHAPTER^ EIGHT 
 
 LATER YEARS - 
 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES 
 
 N 1871 Colonel Judson married an attrac 
 tive and amiable young lady, Miss Anna 
 Fuller, of Stamford, and the picturesque 
 mountain eyrie, the Eagle s Nest, was trans 
 formed from a hermitage to a happy home. 
 The novelist was, if possible, more active than ever 
 before in his literary labors, and under various sig 
 natures supplied a vast amount of highly sensational 
 fiction to the publications of Messrs. Street & Smith. 
 His stirring tales of frontier life and adventure at 
 sea proved to be not only a mine of wealth for him 
 self, but one of the greatest attractions of the New 
 York Weekly as well, and the enterprising publish 
 ers, as before mentioned, gave him a most munificent 
 salary to contribute exclusively to their periodicals. 
 His love of out-door sports did not diminish with 
 the burden of years, and infirmities wrought by shot 
 and shell. Referring to his home and surroundings 
 many years ago in a letter to the writer of these 
 
100 
 
 fragmentary memoirs, Ned Buntline remarked: 
 "This is not much of a game region. We have a 
 few woodcock, plenty of ruffed grouse, squirrels and 
 pigeons, and brook trout. I usually go forty to one 
 hundred and fifty miles for my trout and venison in 
 season. It is a high, cold region here settled long 
 ago. My ancestors came here immediately after 
 the Revolution of 1776. I think I sent you a pic 
 ture of Eagle s Nest. It is beautifully located, and 
 was designed by myself; a conservatory in one wing 
 and a library of the same size forms the other wing. 
 My library contains my books as well as all my 
 hunting and fishing gear, with portraits of friends, 
 etc., etc. I have a good library and take my winter s 
 comfort there. In summer the woods and streams 
 are my haunts almost constantly. Should you come 
 East don t fail to visit me, and I will take you where 
 trout congregate and red deer roam free." 
 
 In a subsequent letter he writes : "Long con 
 tinued sickness, killing all love for the pen, must be 
 my only excuse for not answering you before. A 
 wound received in June, 63, the bullet still remain 
 ing under the spinal column in a place almost or 
 quite impossible to extract, causes me fearful suf 
 fering from sciatica. . . . The winter here has 
 been simply terrible, the thermometer below zero 
 all the time, snow on the level three feet, and in 
 drifts twenty feet deep often. How do you like the 
 picture? God helping me, tis my last winter in 
 the North." 
 
IOI 
 
 The following autumn Ned Buntline put into ef 
 fect his proposed plan to go South for the winter, 
 and with characteristic love of out-door life, made 
 the trip in his easy carriage, accompanied by his 
 wife. While en route he was compelled to stop sev 
 eral days at Gettysburg, Pa., and wrote as follows 
 from the historic old battle ground: u We are de 
 tained here by a continuous rain storm of five days, 
 and I have been able to send for and get the Turf, 
 Field and Farm with your kind biographical sketch. 
 I find it in the main correct, only too flattering when 
 speaking of my talents. ... In consequence of 
 severe suffering from old wounds, especially in cold 
 weather, I shall spend the fall and winter in a South 
 ern hunting trip, driving my own team, and follow 
 ing along the base of the Alleghenies and Blue 
 Ridge through Southern Pennsylvania, Maryland, 
 Virginia and North Carolina into Georgia. I pro 
 pose to hunt going and fish the trout streams as I 
 return toward Eagle s Nest in the spring. I wish 
 you were along. I expect a grand old time among 
 the deer, bear and turkeys." 
 
 It may be interesting to know that Mrs. Judson, 
 a keen devotee of angling and out-door recreation, 
 enjoyed the novelty and healthful character of the 
 trip quite as fully as her husband, and in favorable 
 weather could vie with him in fishing for trout and 
 bass. Upon arriving in the Old Dominion, about 
 the holiday season, Colonel Judson wrote as fol 
 lows from Warrenton, Va., under date of December 
 
IO2 
 
 27: "Delightful society, fair hunting for quail and 
 turkey, with fine weather, has kept me here yet. 
 Next week I shall prospect the Blue Ridge and 
 Upper Rappahannock. I have not met any of the 
 old-time sportsmen yet, but may before I get 
 through my trip. I got a twenty-pound wild turkey 
 this morning. Wish you had him for dinner. No 
 news down this way, only a Virginia Christmas is 
 the liveliest fun you ever saw." 
 
 On a subsequent trip to the Sunny South the gal 
 lant old sportsman prepared a series of brief letters 
 for publication in one of the leading sporting jour 
 nals, to which he contributed frequently as a labor 
 of love. The following extracts are given to illus 
 trate his keen delight in the sports of the field. The 
 letters were written from Warrenton, Virginia : 
 
 On the 15th of October our season opens on grouse, quail 
 and wild turkey. They are unusually plenty the game 
 laws and those of trespass being very closely observed. Fine 
 sport will be had in the fields I am confident, and I will 
 keep you posted thereon. 
 
 Fox hunting, with a noble pack of hounds, is indulged in 
 three times a week by a gallant coterie of brave cavaliers, 
 and many fair ladies join in the dashing sport. 
 
 Major Holman, on his famous leaper Talisman, gen 
 erally leads the way, while Charles Payne, the banker, a 
 nephew of our genial friend, "Nicholas Spicer," is never far 
 behind ; that is, unless he is delayed to let down a fence for 
 some obese party who is unused to taking five bars on the 
 fly, as he often does. 
 
 Young James Maddux has a good hunter under him, and 
 only gives in to the gallant major in keeping up to the 
 hounds. 
 
103 
 
 As soon as I get fairly settled to my work I hope to give 
 you a detailed account of some of the "meets" in this vi 
 cinity 
 
 I made a big drive from Eagle s Nest to this place with 
 my Hambletonia team not Amazonian horses, as the Wash 
 ington Post called them. 
 
 I drove 710 miles in nine days and a half in a light buck- 
 board hunting wagon, and brought my team in good con 
 dition to continue the journey had I so desired. 
 
 I send you a record of opening day, Oct. 15, near this 
 place. 
 
 James K. Maddux, of the Warren Green Hotel, twenty 
 quail and one rabbit; Major Holman and friend, nineteen 
 birds the thirty-nine birds being all killed from one cover, 
 within a short drive from the city. Mr. Jeffries, a rising 
 young farmer of this place, killed five wild turkeys, and 
 Dr. Lacey, of New York, got two more out of the same 
 flock. 
 
 As these gentlemen merely wished to initiate the open 
 season they did not seek to make as large bags as they could 
 have done. 
 
 There were other sportsmen out, but they went beyond my 
 immediate outlook, and I do not yet know the result of 
 their shooting. 
 
 Gave is very plentiful here, for it has been protected. 
 
 Have just received a delightful letter from dear old "Nick 
 Spicer" Alban S. Payne from his mountain home in the 
 Blue Ridge, thirty miles away. He met with an accident 
 some time since, which injured his true right hand so he 
 could not write, but he tells me he will soon resume his 
 "spicy" sketches. God grant him long life and a bright sun 
 set with his loved ones ever near to cheer the descent to the 
 golden shore. 
 
 Since my last note to you the fox hunting coterie have 
 made four gallant runs, killing two gray foxes and a red 
 
IO4 
 
 one and running a fourth to earth after a long and exciting 
 chase. 
 
 The hunters have been busy after birds and have met with 
 fair success. "Alic," from Washington, paid us a visit, being 
 a guest at the hospitable home of Charlie Ross. As quail, 
 turkey and grouse abound on Rossmere, he lived gloriously, 
 I am sure. 
 
 Three Philadelphia gentlemen spent a week in the vi 
 cinity very pleasantly, making the Warren Green their head 
 quarters. Their hind-quarters, like Pope s, were in the 
 saddle every day, as they rode out to seek fur and feather. 
 
 The shooting will be far better if we can only get a frost 
 or two to kill the weeds, which have grown rank and thick 
 with so much rain. 
 
 The fox hunters will enjoy the crisp air also and scent 
 will lie all the better when the sun rises on frosted fields. 
 C. E. F. Payne, the Master Huntsman, is receiving many 
 letters from lovers of good hounds and those who enjoy the 
 daring rides the hunters take. Though a very busy man in 
 his bank, he rises before dawn and covers many a mile of 
 copse and forest and field before the opening hour arrives. 
 
 The letter from the noble Colonel of the "Old Guard," 
 the veteran Skinner, roused a thousand pleasant recollec 
 tions in the mind of "yours truly." A week ago last Friday, 
 the coolest day we have yet had in Virginia this year, I 
 drove fifty miles to enjoy a visit with genial, true-hearted 
 "Nick Spicer," Dr. Alban S. Payne. I found him at his de 
 lightful home near Markham, in the foot-hills of the Blue 
 Ridge, surrounded by his good wife and well-loved and 
 lovely daughters, enjoying the comforts of a generous home, 
 but not in as robust health as when last we met. The acci 
 dent I alluded to in my last letter yet troubled him and makes 
 writing painful and laborious. Yet he says he will soon re 
 sume his pen for the sake of us "old-time men" who love him 
 so well. The warmth of my welcome at Crystal Water 
 
Hall made me forget the chill air and the long rough ride, 
 while in the presence of the man who struck Billy Patterson, 
 listening to the music of his accomplished daughters, I felt 
 it was a sin to think of growing old. 
 
 To Colonel Skinner, of whom we talked so much that 
 day, I would say: I will, if health and engagements permit, 
 fulfill his advice in regard to the Daniel and Asshely hunts. 
 The old Colonel has many very warm friends here who al 
 ways ask after him when we meet. Since frost came birds 
 are easier got at, therefore they appear more plenty. 
 
 Mr. Charles Payne, the popular banker, still keeps up 
 his pack of hounds, and hunts them boldly and frequently 
 and with good success. Well mounted, a rather light weight, 
 he generally leads the field. Young Mr. De Lancey, from 
 New York, is never absent at the death ; he is a very fine 
 rider, and has a fast hunter and fine jumper. James K. 
 Maddux rides with the boldest, and with the gun has no 
 superior, in fact no equal in this section. 
 
 With my gun, a Colt choke bore, 12 gauge, 7 l /2 pounds, 
 he missed but one quail in twenty shots, in thick brush, 
 which is far ahead of my best work with the same gun. 
 
 I am invited to a deer and turkey hunt on the Lower 
 Rappahannock next week, and as Major Dowerman and 
 Mr. Yates are to be in the party, some game will have to 
 suffer, "/or sure." 
 
 With the exception of one cold snap last week, the 
 weather has been delightful, real nice weather for an old 
 man s enjoyment. 
 
 Wild turkey, quail, pheasant and rabbit are found on 
 the table of the Warren Green very frequently, and mine 
 host Maddux welcomes his guests in true "Old Dominion" 
 style. 
 
 The sporting sketches from Ned Buntline s pen 
 form an attractive feature of his literary work. Al- 
 
io6 
 
 though written hastily and spontaneously, th>y are 
 filled with the spirit of enthusiasm so characteristic 
 of the author. Leon Mead, an timate friend of 
 the novelist, says of his life work as represented in 
 his voluminous writings: "Ned Buntline accom 
 plished more literary work than Walter Scott and 
 Dickens put together. In book form his serial 
 stories, which he has been almost incessantly penning 
 for over fifty years, would amount perhaps to more 
 than two hundred volumes. It is presumable that 
 much which he wrote he did not very highly prize 
 for intrinsic merit, just as Whittier, the poet, wishes 
 that he had never published his first little volume of 
 verses. But Buntline s tales stand by themselves as 
 a distinct class of literature. They cannot be com 
 pared with the so-called refined novel, except per 
 haps upon points of style. It is certain that his 
 methods of work were inspirational, else how could 
 he have weaved his thrilling plots as he wrote, with 
 out previous deliberation. What Goethe says about 
 literary style is essentially true; style is the man 
 himself. 
 
 "His experience, both military and secular, doubt 
 less caused him to continue in the peculiar field of 
 fiction which he originated and in which he was un 
 surpassed. Upon one occasion when the writer was 
 paying him a visit at his elegant home, which he 
 called Eagle s Nest, in the Catskills, he said: I 
 might have paved for myself a far different career 
 in letters, but my early lot was cast among rough 
 
ID; 
 
 men on the border; they became my comrades, and 
 when I made my name as a teller of stories about 
 Indians, pirates and scouts, it seemed too late to be 
 gin over again. And besides, I made more money 
 than any Bohemian in New York or Boston. I did 
 try writing temperance tracts once for a religious 
 society, but they were altogether too frugal about 
 the compensation, and so I turned over the job to a 
 needy friend, and resumed the spinning of yarns.* 
 
 "This illustrates the fact the Buntline was not 
 without business insight, and a literary man in these 
 times cannot creep into a shell of ideality without 
 coming, sooner or later, to want. 
 
 "Colonel Judson was eccentric in his mode of life, 
 and his career in itself was quite as romantic as any 
 thing he ever penned. His exploits on the plains 
 developed in him a reckless daring and the posses 
 sion of this quality infused strength into the vivid 
 ness of his heroic characters as he described them. 
 He seems never to have been afraid of man or 
 beast, and the many places of imminent danger in 
 which he frequently found himself afforded him 
 chances to play the coward had be been one by na 
 
 ture." 
 
w 
 
 CHAPTER^ NINE 
 
 NED BUNTLINE AS AN ANGLER AND 
 ANGLING WRITER 
 
 F all outdoor sports, Ned Buntline loved 
 best the time honored art of angling, as in 
 dicated clearly in his writings. He was 
 fond of the wilder sports of the wilderness 
 and the plains, but there was a fascination 
 in angling especially in trout fishing that ap 
 pealed to him more irresistibly than any other open 
 air recreation. His entertaining contributions to the 
 sportsmen s periodicals would fill a volume of ab 
 sorbing interest, and it is worthy of note that the 
 greater portion of these sketches, written literally 
 as a labor of love, are on the subject of fishing with 
 rod and line, and the angling companions with whom 
 he enjoyed the sport. A few of these pleasing tales 
 of trouting and of his fishing associates are given 
 to throw a side light on the man of dynamo energy 
 and action, whose chosen pastime was the quiet, con 
 templative art made classic by good old Izaak Wal 
 ton: 
 
FEMALE AGLERS 
 
 It must not be arrogated by man that he is sole lord of 
 the Piscatorial Domain. I have a better-half who can handle 
 her six-ounce fly-rod right skillfully; who has camped with 
 me on the banks of more than one bright trout stream and 
 gently, deftly drawn her share of the speckled beauties from 
 their native element to the shore. 
 
 I remember well, some ten years ago, a Mrs. Pollard, of 
 Jersey City, who in a neat bathing suit took the lead over 
 some of our best fly-fishermen wading in the Beaverkill, and 
 who always took at least two to his one when her husband 
 tried to beat her in the catch. She was graceful, skillful, 
 and, unlike too many of the sterner sex, not a bit given to 
 boasting. 
 
 Female anglers are gaining ground every year, as any one 
 who reads can see for himself. In the salmon waters of 
 Canada, England s fairest Princess made a grand name this 
 year for her skill and success. At this moment I hold a 
 letter written to my wife by one of the fairest married belles 
 of Washington, Mrs. Mattie W., telling of the joy she had 
 experienced with her husband, father, and a select party of 
 ladies and gentlemen from the Old Dominion, while on a 
 fishing tour on the lovely Shenandoah. 
 
 "I caught," said she, "and saved, after a tussel of an 
 hour more or less a four-pound bass. Oh ! how he pulled 
 worse than a mule speeding home at feeding time. But I 
 held on even after he had run out all the line one hundred 
 and fifty feet on my reel, and before I was quite tired out, 
 I pulled him ashore, and sat right down on him, I was so 
 afraid he d take a fresh start and get away again." 
 
 Just fancy that queenly form, which I have watched in 
 many a glorious waltz, seated on a four-pound bass for a 
 throne, while she shouted in glee: 
 
 "Harry! Harry! run here run fast, for I ve got the 
 
no 
 
 King of the Waters in the tightest pen he ever knew! 
 Come and help me save him." 
 
 And well might our fair friend rejoice over such a cap 
 ture. A few months ago she and her happy mate made their 
 bridal trip to the Eagle s Nest, and I am glad to know that 
 to many other accomplishments she has added that of 
 angling. Healthful, noble, and gentle, it will hurt no one 
 to seek color, life and joy in the wilderness and by the 
 side of bright waters. It is "big medicine," as an old 
 Pawnee chief said to me, when I pulled a fifty pound cat 
 fish ashore for him near Grand Island once on a raw-silk 
 fly-line, with a trout reel and ten ounce rod. I used a bit 
 of sage hen for a bait that time. I thought it was "big 
 medicine" myself when he shoved about half of it into an 
 iron pot with some venison, bear fat and hardtack that he 
 had got from the Post near by. But I was hungry and 
 went into the mess cheerfully when it was brought into the 
 tepee. 
 
 But, Lord love me, how I have run on. What I want to 
 see now in the American Angler, is some live, spirited, true 
 sketches from some of our Female Anglers. There are 
 plenty of them so come on, ladies, and blest be who first 
 cries, "Hold, enough!" Twill ne er be me bet your back 
 hair on that. 
 
 NED BUNTLINE. 
 
 Eagles Nest, Oct. 31, 1881. 
 
 SETH GREEN ON THE STREAM 
 
 In 1857, I was fishing on the lower rapids, between Lake 
 Utawana and Marion River, which carries the overflow of 
 the three Blue Mountain Lakes toward Raquette. It was 
 early too early for the fly but I was there with a tin box 
 full of white grubs, chopped out of rotten logs and thawed 
 into life in the genial sun of a frosty May morning. I got 
 
SETH GREEN 
 FAMOUS ANGLER AND FISH CULTURIST 
 
Ill 
 
 a strike about once in two or three minutes on an average, 
 and seldom less than a two-pounder took the Limerick. I 
 had been in the ice-cold water an hour, had a fifteen pound 
 basket full, and a string hanging to my belt with near as 
 many more on it. I had, I thought, enough to go to my 
 cabin on Eagle Lake with. 
 
 Just then I heard a sharp "hallo," and looking over to 
 ward the "carry" I saw Bill Wood since killed in the war 
 of 1861 carrying his boat over, followed by a thick-set man 
 about my own size, but looking near a century older, with 
 his bushy grey beard and hair, and I walked out to join 
 them, for my own boat lay at the upper end of the carry. 
 
 "Got any?" said the stranger curtly, before Bill had a 
 chance to say who he was. 
 
 "Some; more than I can eat for supper, I reckon," was 
 my reply. 
 
 "Yes; pretty fair for this time o year," said the stranger, 
 looking at the basket and string carelessly. 
 
 I was nettled at "pretty fair" only, and yet I had near 
 thirty pounds of trout, caught within less than an hour. 
 
 "Pretty fair. Can you do better?" 
 
 "Yes; Bill set down your boat. I ll show this youngster 
 how to lure the big uns." 
 
 That was all he said, and he took my rod, that I had not 
 yet unjointed, put on a double leader of his own and a single 
 hook at the end of it. I had been using two. Wading into 
 the water just as he was, without rubbers, he cut the red 
 belly fin from one of the best trout and put it on his hook. 
 Casting over into the swiftest water of the rift he drew the 
 line rapidly up stream and we could see the red fin leap 
 every now and then clear of the white water. 
 
 A second more and the largest trout I had ever seen in 
 those waters struck and was fairly hooked. My rod, bought 
 of Conroy as imported lancewood, bent nearly double, and 
 then I saw the prettiest display of science I had then ever 
 
112 
 
 seen. The trout, first up, then down stream, here, there, and 
 everywhere, always on a strain, struggled nobly for life and 
 freedom. But he had a master at the right end of the rod, 
 and in about ten minutes a trout weighing, when we got 
 home, five pounds lacking one ounce, was secured. 
 
 "Shall I keep on, or will this do as a specimen?" asked 
 the stranger. 
 
 "This will do. I couldn t have saved him," I said. "And 
 now, have the kindness to tell me who you are?" 
 
 "Me? Oh, I m only Seth Green." 
 
 Only Seth Green! I had heard genial, gifted, skilful 
 George Dawson, of the Albany Journal, talk of him. Gen 
 eral F. E. Spinner, then I think in Congress, told me of him 
 said he was the best fly fisherman in America. I grasped 
 his broad, honest hand, looked into his clear eye, and a love 
 went out for him then, which in all the years since has never 
 changed. 
 
 Good old Seth Green! He has been old Seth for fifty 
 years, yet he is younger, sturdier in frame and in heart than 
 are two-thirds of the youngsters who talk fishing and ply 
 the rod when they can do it easily in waters reached by rail 
 and stocked for the benefit of lazy boys. 
 
 God bless old Seth Green ! He has done more for fish 
 culture and fish information than all the rest of us scribblers 
 on the theme in the country. Long may his hand be steady, 
 his eye clear and his heart warm in the art he loves so well. 
 His name is sacred to all who know him truly, and what he 
 says about fish or fishing may be depended on faithfully. 
 
 NED BUNTLINE. 
 New York, Feb. 14th, 1882. 
 
 WHERE TO FISH FOR TROUT 
 
 Yearly, Uncle Sam receives much financial benefit in the 
 postage line through letters directed to me, mainly by stran- 
 
gers, asking where I fish or where they can go to fish suc 
 cessfully, with the least trouble and at the least expense. 
 
 Not to rob Uncle Samuel, but to obviate some of this 
 trouble, I pen this article. 
 
 To men ready to rough it and go out of the regular route 
 of tourists men who can tramp through the woods and over 
 the mountains, there are lakes and streams yet in the "North 
 Woods" of Hamilton, Essex and St. Lawrence counties, New 
 York, which are seldom fished at all, being hard to get at. 
 The easily accessible lakes and streams are literally fished 
 out. I can find as good fishing as they afford within forty 
 miles of New York City, in little brooks never thought of 
 by anglers; which run through farms into the Croton Lake, 
 and elsewhere near at hand. 
 
 To get at such streams as I first named write to Chauncey 
 Hathorne or Charlie Bennett at Raquette Lake Hamilton 
 county, or to Lon Wood, at the same place, and you will 
 find guides who know just where to take you. I may strike 
 those waters this spring if health and other things "jibe." 
 
 My favorite stream for the past ten years has been the 
 crystal Beaverkill, in Ulster county, New York. It is clean, 
 contains trout only not a chub or eel in its upper waters; 
 is full of falls, riffs, and deep eddies, and a man who knows 
 how to fish and what to use at all proper seasons, can fill a 
 twenty-pound basket any day, by working faithfully. He ll 
 have to work, though, and the lighter his rod the less his 
 arm will ache at night. I use an Orvis rig out and out 
 the best I can find anywhere. My rod, a split bamboo, is 
 seven ounces, my leaders invisible mist, and looped for the 
 flies, making changes easy and I carry his patent folding-net 
 to land large trout with. 
 
 To reach the Beaverkill, from New York, take the Hud 
 son River road to Rhinebeck, cross there to Rondout, and 
 go up the Delaware & Ulster to Margaretville, where Jerry 
 Ackerly will receive you at the best hotel in Delaware 
 
county. Thence, Jack Scudder will speed you over the hills 
 to the Beaverkill, where, at Tripps, Jones, Brothers, Leals 
 or Weaver s, you will find as good accommodation as any 
 true angler need desire, and fair sport. 
 
 Whenever I am in, the starry flag of freedom flies from 
 the staff at Tripp s. That has been my headquarters for 
 years, but either of the other places named are good. Be 
 low, Mrs. Murdock keeps a splendid house, and there are 
 many others whose names I forget, who will "take a stran 
 ger in" if they get a chance. 
 
 Philadelphians will yet find trout and rattlesnakes up the 
 Lycoming Valley especially about Trout Run, Red Run, 
 and at Ralston. And on the Erie Railroad, at Narrows- 
 burg, Sullivan county, New York, at the famous Murray 
 hostelry, you will have fine trout and black bass fishing, 
 pointed out close at hand. You will live well and do well. 
 Ask Rockwell. If you wish to fish to music, where rattlers 
 are almost as plenty as pretty girls, stop off at Mast Hope, 
 just below, for a day or two. 
 
 This is a brief mention of places with which I am fami 
 liar, that are easily reached. I will, in another number, 
 point out some more, not so handy, but yet accessible and 
 good when you get there. 
 
 NED BUNTLINE. 
 
 (NOTE. It should be borne in mind that the foregoing graphic 
 lines were cast from "Ned Buntline s" prolific pen nearly thirty 
 years ago, and other conditions prevail at the present time. The 
 old-time guides have gone to their final rest, and the famous hos- 
 telries of other days have, for the most part, given way to larger 
 if not more congenial summer resort hotels. Palatial "camps" 
 are now to be found in the once remote places of the Adirondacks, 
 and angling de luxe is the order of the day with the millionaire 
 fly-casters. F. E. P.) 
 
 NOTES FROM THE NORTH WOODS 
 
 Your old correspondent and good old-time angler, "A. 
 N. C.," who fishes with an Orvis rod, as doth yours truly, 
 carries me back to very happy memories in his "Then and 
 
Now." We have fished in the same waters and I know every 
 guide and some rather slimpsy ones that were there from 
 1856 to 1861, when I left the North Woods for harder 
 game to deal with than wolves or panthers. 
 
 Yes, I knew Dick Birch a better guide, hunter and fish 
 erman did not roam the woods or paddle lake and stream. I 
 knew all the Bennett boys, the Woods almost all were in 
 my employment at one time or another. 
 
 I was right about "Tallow Lake." I changed the name 
 to Eagle Lake. I was the first settler in there and ought to 
 know. Ordway and Phelps had a small clearing, with a log 
 hut and a log hay barn on it, that I bought. No one ever 
 wintered there before me. 
 
 As to Alvah Dunning God help the poor old fellow 
 I would not hurt a grey hair on his head, if there are any 
 hairs left. He used to annoy me, as he had annoyed others, 
 and I quietly let him know that there was a law of self- 
 defense, that ruled even in the wilderness. 
 
 A. N. C. is probably aware that I named Eagle and Uta- 
 wanna Lakes. Utawanna, in the Indian tongue, means "Sunny 
 Water." 
 
 I hope to go there this summer to see Chauncey Hathorn, 
 Edward and Charlie Bennett, the Woods , good old Sabatis, 
 and all the rest of the boys, and girls, too. And I ll fish for 
 trout, and I ll get them in Minnie Pond or somewhere else, 
 you bet. If not I ll go hungry. 
 
 I don t sing bass. 
 
 The largest salmon I ever caught, I got on a trolling line 
 off the mouth of Minnie Brook in the upper part of Blue 
 Mountain Lake, west side just inside the end of Long 
 Island, as we called it then. It weighed twenty-four pounds 
 nine ounces. S. Bennett, from the Fourteenth township, 
 rowed my boat. This was in 1858; I think in July. Poor 
 Si went down for the old flag, I heard. Well, a good many 
 more brave boys took the same chances and went the same 
 road. Brave Bill Wood was one of them. 
 
When I go in I shall take Glens Falls in my route, and 
 maybe A. N. C. will join me. We ll carry in to Alvah a 
 "drop o comfort" and tell him to take care of his own traps 
 and his own boats, and prepare for a final rest in the happy 
 hunting grounds. 
 
 NED BUNTLINE. 
 
 Eagles Nest, Del. Co., N. Y., March 28, 1882. 
 FISHING UP STREAM 
 
 My Watsontown friend, "J. R. H.," who likes falling 
 down up stream, and who remembers how I handled the rib 
 bons over a tamden team in 1856, keeps me in kindly re 
 membrance, I see. Well, it is all right, my dear boy there 
 is no accounting for taste, as the milk-maid said when she 
 saw a man kiss a cow. You fish up stream and I ll fish 
 down, and we ll both be contented with our catch. I am 
 getting old and lazy and carry all the lead I ever use in 
 fishing, in a game leg of mine, which I didn t have when 
 you saw me first, and I can get down stream easier than I 
 can go up. If possible I will try some of your streams next 
 summer, J. R. H., especially if you ll save one big, wild 
 trout for me to "come down stream" on. 
 
 I don t know until I see the water and have the day 
 what I ll fish with but I ll chuck something that the big 
 trout will like. Bet your corkscrew on that. And should 
 you incline to the lovely Beaverkill I will lead you a pleas 
 ant minuet along its wooded shores. A note to the Ameri 
 can Angler office will reach me wherever I may be wander 
 ing. And with a God bless you and all who love to go 
 a-fishing, au revolr! NED BUNTLINE. 
 
 BLUE MOUNTAIN LAKE AND NED BUNTLINE 
 
 My thanks to Ned Buntline for his reply to my query 
 about the size of trout in Blue Mountain Lake. I knew 
 that he named the lakes around his forest home. . . . 
 
Ned s christenings are still retained as well as vivid remem 
 brance of his skill with rifle and revolver. In fact, the tales 
 told are marvelous. 
 
 He used to ride one of his Indian ponies, on a run, to 
 ward a bottle, suspended from a limb of a tree by a string, 
 and firing from the saddle, break the bottle. Now you will 
 be told that he would cut the string every time with pistol 
 or rifle ball, while his pony was running and the bottle 
 swinging. More than once I have seen him, on his occa 
 sional visits to this place for supplies, making his purchases 
 from his horse s back, riding into the various stores, and dis 
 mounting only when he had ridden up the hotel steps and 
 day Ned entertained at dinner Commodore Gansevoort and 
 his brother, Lieut. Gansevoort, U. S. N. As they stood to 
 gether, about the same size, "bearded like the pard," they 
 formed a striking trio. An old fellow remarked, "There s 
 three of the handiest men with weapons that ever struck 
 Northern New York. Many and strange were the tales told 
 of Ned Buntline in the days before the war, and one always 
 causes me to smile. 
 
 When he bought "Eagle s Nest" there were two large 
 stacks of swamp hay on the place. Soon after came the news 
 that he had burned it because he did not want his shooting 
 box to look like a farmer s barnyard. Near where I sit 
 hangs a souvenir of Eagle s Lake. It is a single-bladed 
 paddle, presented to me by the whole-souled Mike McGuire, 
 one of the best of guides. It is made from a black ash cut 
 within sight of Ned s old home on the Eagle, and looks fit 
 only for fairy hands to wield, but Mike said I could feel 
 sure it would not fail, and so it proved when tested. 
 
 Glens Falls, N. Y. A. N. C. 
 
 NOTE Mr. A. Nelson Cheney, whose interesting sketches in the 
 various sportsmen s journals were usually signed "A. N. C.," was 
 one of the most practical writers of his time on angling and fish 
 culture. He is remembered and his memory cherished as a 
 thorough sportsman, and an able writer. F. E. p. 
 
CHAPTER^ TEN 
 
 NED BUNTLINE AS A WRITER OF VERSE 
 
 OLONEL JUDSON S love of the woods 
 and waters, his admiration for the ever- 
 varying charms of Nature, his impassioned 
 eloquence in speech and fervor in writing, 
 all denote the poetic cast of the eccentric 
 novelist. Few perhaps, even among his admirers, 
 are familiar with his glowing stanzas grave and 
 gay, serious and sentimental for it must be con 
 fessed that they were for the most part, merely the 
 "unconsidered trifles" in the avalanche of literary 
 work which he poured forth with amazing vigor and 
 versatility. With poetic gifts of a high order, he 
 chose, and no doubt wisely, to subordinate these and 
 give his wayward fancy free rein in a direction that 
 assured him greater fortune, though possibly less ex 
 alted fame. 
 
 Of his poems it may be said, "They have been too 
 ephemeral to stamp themselves deeply into the pub 
 lic attention; and thus, as so many feathers of fancy, 
 have been blown aloft only to be whistled down the 
 
wind." A few of these, however, have been treas 
 ured as charming gems of verse, notably his stirring 
 lines descriptive of "The Eagle s Nest," and the ex 
 quisite little poem, "The Hills of Delaware," pub 
 lished in former chapters of the present serial. 
 
 Ned Buntline was a man of strong passions, as 
 variable in mood as the aeolian harp in its tone, and 
 he embodied the very spirit of poetic sentiment. He 
 preferred the solitude of the wilderness to the social 
 forms of the cities, and, as he often said with en 
 thusiasm, found more peace, happiness and unal 
 loyed pleasure in the haunts of bird and beast than 
 in the midst of the surging tide of humanity. He 
 found inspiration, like the pastoral poets of olden 
 times, "in the twinkling of half-hidden brooks, in 
 the gleaming of silver rivers, in the blue distance of 
 mountains, in the repose of sequestered lakes; in the 
 song of birds, in the sighing of the night-wind, in 
 the fresh breath of the woods, in the perfume of the 
 hyacinth, in the suggestive odor that comes to him, 
 at eventide, from far distant undiscovered islands, 
 over dim oceans, illimitable and unexplored." 
 
 During the early years of Ned Buntline s stirring 
 career the stern realities of life occupied his atten 
 tion, to the exclusion of poetical fancies, but when 
 he finally found rest and peace at his home in the 
 Hudson highlands, his mercurial spirit often found 
 solace in spontaneous rhymes as varied as the lights 
 and shadows that surrounded him. The lines en- 
 
120 
 
 titled "March Born" may be given as characteris 
 tic of his serious moods: 
 
 Born when tempests wild were raging 
 
 O er the earth, athwart the sky, 
 When mad spirits seemed as waging 
 
 Battle fierce for mast ry ; 
 Born when thunder loudly booming 
 Shook the roof above my head 
 When red lightning lit the glooming 
 Which o er land and sea was spread. 
 
 Life since then a constant battle, 
 
 Foes ahead and foes behind 
 Like a skirmish line, the rattle 
 
 Sweeping up on every wind 
 Clouds and shadows ever rapping 
 
 All the paths my feet before 
 Spent my soul with eager mapping 
 
 Plans that vanish evermore! 
 
 Age is coming swift upon me, 
 
 Comes no rest with all these years 
 Love, though truly it hath won me, 
 
 Lessens not my many cares 
 Only when my Maker calleth 
 
 Can I lay my burden down, 
 Then, as in the forest falleth 
 
 Stricken oak, my work is done! 
 
 In 1 88 1 Colonel Judson s home was darkened by 
 the death of little Irene, a bright and beautiful 
 child, the idol of her parents. The pathetic lines 
 published in the Stamford Mirror, under the title of 
 "Our Lost Irene," indicates the deep grief and deso 
 lation of the novelist: 
 
121 
 
 The long days come, the long days go, 
 
 The silent, dreary nights as well 
 They bring no solace for our woe, 
 
 No words of comfort to us tell. 
 The light which once upon us shone, 
 
 The music which so sweetly fell, 
 Is gone alas! forever gone 
 
 We only know her parting knell. 
 
 Oh, gloomy day! Oh, starless night! 
 
 If we could only, only dream ! 
 In fancy see one ray of light 
 
 Of faded joys feel but a gleam 
 Could hear the patter of the feet 
 
 That to and fro swift used to go, 
 We d bow our heads, the shadow greet, 
 
 And kiss the Hand that dealt the blow. 
 
 All, all is still but throbbing heart 
 
 Still, dark and oh how desolate! 
 Chide us not that the hot tears start, 
 
 And choking sobs our loss relate! 
 Alone! our worshipped angel gone 
 
 To kindred angels up above 
 Alone alone we weep and moan 
 
 For thee IRENE, our precious love ! 
 
 Eagle s Nest, March, 1881. 
 
 The naturally cheerful and convivial character of 
 the author finds expression in several entertaining 
 bits of verse, illustrating his love of out-door sports 
 and of hearty good-fellowship. The stanzas, "At 
 Home," are of this nature: 
 
When the crisp north wind is blowing 
 
 From the regions of the pole; 
 When the squirrels cute are stowing 
 
 Nuts within their nesting hole; 
 When the song birds have deserted 
 
 All the thickets on the hill; 
 When dead leaf from branch is parted, 
 
 And the ice-lock chains the rill : 
 
 Then it is, in sanctum seated, 
 
 With our rods and guns in sight; 
 Joys of Summer are repeated 
 
 By the voice of Mem ry bright : 
 Then it is, with comrades cheery, 
 
 Hours with pleasure s woof are wrought; 
 And true hearts, which else were weary, 
 
 Are to fond communion brought: 
 
 Then we tell our woodland stories: 
 
 How we fished and where we shot; 
 Revel in a sportsman s glories, 
 
 Which we know are ne er forgot ! 
 Catch again the speckled beauty, 
 
 Giant of his native stream; 
 Drink to man and manhood s duty, 
 
 And of loved ones think and dream. 
 
 On rare occasions Ned Buntline indulged in an 
 amusing burlesque or witticism, and his sense of 
 humor on festive occasions, his ready wit and the 
 ease with which he could prepare impromptu verse, 
 made him a most delightful companion at club gath 
 erings and banquets. An admirable little hit perpe 
 trated on the occasion of a feast upon an ancient 
 
- 123- 
 
 fowl is given herewith. It is entitled U A Washing 
 ton s Birthday Dinner": 
 
 They slew a gobbler, grim and old, 
 
 That never told a lie; 
 They used a hatchet; fierce and bold 
 
 They saw that gobbler die. 
 They boiled it long, they boiled it hard, 
 
 Then baked the "critter" down. 
 Four hours they cooked believe your bard 
 
 To do that turkey brown. 
 
 With oysters fresh from Dorlon s stand 
 
 They stuffed the ancient fowl; 
 With butter sweet from Elgin s land 
 
 They basted that old owl. 
 Twas garnished well with parsley shred, 
 
 And backed with viands rare; 
 But we who "chawed" some tear drops shed, 
 
 While others loud did swear. 
 
 They said on far-off Aarat 
 
 Old Noah dumped that bird, 
 And all this time it took to fat 
 
 Perhaps the grumblers erred ; 
 But this we know, the toughest course 
 
 We e er had tried to masticate 
 With jaws once used to mule or worse 
 
 Was left upon our dinner plate. 
 
 Ned buntline s hours of relaxation at his country 
 home were characteristic of the man. As before 
 stated, the sports of the field claimed the greater 
 portion of his leisure days, but a careful supervi- 
 
124 
 
 sion of the grounds, the blooded stock, and all the 
 belongings of his beautiful home, the "Eagle s 
 Nest," formed a never ceasing source of pleasure 
 to him. At sunrise every morning it was his custom 
 to call his little son with the cheery words : "Come, 
 Eddie, it is time to raise the flag," and catching the 
 spirit of patriotism the lad would gleefully assist in 
 running up the stars and stripes to the top of the 
 tall flag-staff on the lawn, where it might be seen, 
 in fine weather, for a distance of fifty miles up and 
 down the Delaware valley. Then the old veteran 
 would usually give the lad a short drill in the manual 
 of arms, and, after a morning drive along the moun 
 tain roads, take up his round of literary work for 
 the day. 
 
CHAPTER^ ELEVEN 
 
 CLOSING YEARS OF A REMARKABLE 
 CAREER 
 
 OME and country were equally reverenced 
 by Colonel Judson. His early youth and 
 years of mature manhood were devoted 
 largely to his country s service, and as a 
 partial recompense for the sacrifice so 
 freely made upon the altar of patriotism, it was 
 fitting that a happy home should be his in later 
 years. He often expressed the desire that the even 
 ing of his life might be as peaceful as its early morn 
 ing and meridian had been tumultuous, and the wish 
 was well fulfilled. 
 
 A press reporter who visited the Eagle s Nest 
 in 1885, says of the home life of the novelist: "I 
 found him pleasantly surrounded, much as I had 
 been told. He is now sixty-three years old, and a 
 young son, four years old, is the light of the house. 
 He is probably destined for the army, for I had not 
 been in the library ten minutes when the Colonel was 
 putting him through the manual of arms, with wood- 
 
126 
 
 en sword and toy gun. The youngster has more 
 playthings than any other boy in the state, and 
 many of them are suggestive of mimic battle. I 
 mean that his childhood shall be happy, said the 
 Colonel, fondly regarding him, as mine was not. 
 I get for him all the toys any boy needs. During 
 my childhood I never had a kite or a ball, a trumpet 
 or a marble. I never knew how to play. He has a 
 trumpet and a tremenduous drum and a banjo, and 
 this house is musical, for besides these we have a 
 violin, and two guitars, a tambourine, organette, 
 xylophone and piano. And I mean to bring Eddy 
 up with an affection for the old flag. Every morn 
 ing he helps me raise a twenty-foot flag on that tall, 
 spruce pole on the lawn, and every night at sun 
 down he and I man the halyards and lower it. All 
 day every pleasant day it floats when I am at home, 
 and is visible for twenty miles up and down the 
 valley. " 
 
 Colonel Judson suffered acutely and almost con 
 stantly from his many wounds, yet with character 
 istic spirit he would not ask or receive a pension. 
 His iron constitution gradually gave way under the 
 physical strain endured through long years, and his 
 visits to New York City became less and less fre 
 quent. He was a terrible sufferer from sciatica, and 
 finally a serious affection of the heart came on, which 
 baffled the skill of his physicians. With unabated 
 zeal and spartan resolution he still plied his pen, 
 though suffering untold agony, which he strove to 
 
127 
 
 hide lest it should add to the grief of his wife and 
 child. 
 
 While in this condition "Ned Buntline" prepared 
 several thrilling bits of fiction, notably a serial en 
 titled "Incognita," written for the New York 
 Waverly. At his request an easy reclining easy 
 chair was sent him, for greater convenience in writ 
 ing, and in acknowledging receipt of this he wrote 
 his publishers as follows, under date of June 18, 
 1886: "The chair arrived last night, and I write my 
 first letter in it this morning. It is a great relief to 
 me, and I will soon get used to working in it. In 
 cognita will grow very fast now. It will be a grand 
 story, full of mystery, and the best I have ever writ 
 ten. It may be my last serial, and I want the Wa- 
 verly to have my last letter, which this may be . 
 . . . Thanking you sincerely in taking so much 
 care in selecting the chair, I will well repay you in 
 good work on Incognita. 
 
 Ned Buntline s last contribution to the sporting 
 journals was a brief sketch written April 30, 1886, 
 and published in the Turf, Field and Farm as fol 
 lows: 
 
 Propped up in my invalid chair by the window of my 
 sick-chamber, where I have battled for life for ten long 
 weary weeks, I look out on opening leaves, bright apple blos 
 soms, and the flashing waters of my private trout brook, 
 while for the first time at this date for years I see no sign 
 of snow on hillside or mountain. To-morrow a hundred 
 rods will bend over bright waters within a radius of four 
 or five miles of me, yet I must look sadly on my pet "Orv .-s" 
 in the corner, and let the split bamboo rest. 
 
128 
 
 It is hard when sympathizing visitors, and they are many, 
 tell me the streams never before gave better promise of sport 
 in this section. 
 
 Stocked liberally by John N. Bennett and John Griffin, 
 aided by myself, the west branch of the Delaware and the 
 many brooks near by are literally alive with speckled beauty. 
 The two first-named gentlemen have died within a year, and 
 here am I, on my "beams ends," looking sadly, yet not hope 
 lessly, on dark waters ahead. 
 
 Strange, is it not? We, who have done so much to fill 
 the waters, past the reward of labor and expenditure ! Telle 
 est vie. 
 
 I don t like to tell tales out of school, but some of the boys 
 hunting leeks for use in school have seen "millions of trout," 
 as they wandered along the brooksides. And I am afraid 
 encouraged by my physician they may have brought in one 
 or two for me to look at. Just to cheer me up, you know! 
 
 I can write no more. Hopeless of bending a rod this sea 
 son, if, indeed, I ever do again, I am faithfully yours, 
 
 NED BUNTLINE. 
 
 A subsequent letter to his friend Capt. L. A. 
 Beardslee ("Piseco"), written in the same vein, 
 gives evidence of the fraternal spirit of genuine 
 sportsmanship. The letter bears date of June 19: 
 
 DEAR OLD PISECO: Your flattering comparison of the 
 hulk propped up on shores to do this writing, and the gal 
 lant, yet at last used-up Pawhatan, was received and read 
 with a soul full of appreciation. The seamanship which 
 brought her safely through her last terrible battle with the 
 ocean s might and the tempest s will, can only be appreciated 
 by a sailor. If I live I will try to work it up. I am now 
 helpless so weak I can hardly keep up to write a few lines, 
 yet my brain, thank heaven, seems clear. If I were only 
 able to make a visit from you a pleasure, how glad I would 
 
129 
 
 be to see you here. My horses stand idle in their stalls, my 
 wife is by my bedside night and day, and I could do nothing 
 to give you joy but to put rod and flies in your hand and 
 tell you where to go. 
 
 Mrs. Judson s tender care and constant solicitude 
 for the sufferer soothed many of his hours of pain. 
 To a friend he wrote : "My wife attends me like an 
 angel of mercy. But for her gentle care and solici 
 tude I should have yielded to the grim messenger 
 ere this time." One weary, sleepless night he 
 penned the following lines, full of tender pathos : 
 
 Counting pulse-beats, faint and slow, 
 Counting seconds as they go 
 
 Oh! how weary and how dreary! 
 Throbbing heart full of pain 
 Eyesight dim and aching brain 
 
 Thus passes time to me. 
 
 Drifting on the ebbing tide, 
 Slow but sure, I onward glide 
 
 Dim the vista seen before, 
 Useless now to look behind 
 Drifting on before the wind, 
 
 Toward the unknown shore. 
 
 Counting time by ticking clock, 
 Waiting for the final shock 
 
 Waiting for the dark forever 
 Oh, how slow the moments go, 
 None but I, me seems, can know 
 
 How close the tideless river. 
 
 His death occurred on Friday afternoon, July 16, 
 1886. He was conscious to the last, and his last 
 
-130 
 
 words breathed a loving farewell to wife and child. 
 The funeral was held the following Sunday, in con 
 formity with his request, and was attended by a con 
 course of friends gathered from far and near. "The 
 remains were escorted from his late residence, called 
 by him Eagle s Nest, by delegations of Posts of 
 Hobart, Delhi, Oneonta, Jefferson, Grand Gorge, 
 Rondout, N. Y., and Philadelphia, Pa., under com 
 mand of Captain Clark. The old flag he loved so 
 well floated at half-mast in the clear atmosphere of 
 the day on the lawn fronting the residence, and the 
 spirited steed he had so often bestrode walked rider 
 less after the hearse. A large number of citizens 
 also followed the mourners in procession, and the 
 funeral is said to have been the largest ever seen in 
 that neighborhood. The body was taken into the 
 Methodist Church where brief ceremonies were 
 held by Rev. L. E. Richards, Presbyterian pastor. 
 Not half those in attendance could gain admittance. 
 The procession then reformed and proceeded to thje 
 cemetery, where the remains of the gallant hero 
 were fittingly consigned to their last resting-place, 
 consistent with the ceremonies incident to the burial 
 of a soldier and patriot, the sincere mourning of sor 
 rowing relatives and friends." 
 
 The sentiment of regret over the death of the gal 
 lant scout, sailor, sportsman and novelist, was sin 
 cere and widespread. (His many noble and daring 
 deeds were called to mind, and few sacreligious 
 hands were found to emblazon before the public the 
 
wayward deeds which, in his career, were the out 
 come of passionate impulse, not of premeditation. 
 The Turf, Field and Farm paid the following ju 
 dicious tribute to his memory: 
 
 Peacefully at his home, appropriately christened "Eagle s 
 Nest," among the mountains which overlook the historic 
 Hudson, this lion-hearted, generous and remarkable man 
 bowed his head and gave up the struggle for life. The brief 
 message which came to us over the wires from Stamford, 
 last Friday, announcing the death of Edward Z. C. Judson, 
 pained us deeply, though we had been prepared for his de 
 mise by the closing sentence in his last communication to us. 
 It is now over two years since the rugged old sportsman 
 ascended the stairs to our office, where he was always a wel 
 come visitor. That was his last visit, we believe, to the 
 metropolis. History will speak of "Ned Buntline" as a 
 dashing middy, a brave scout on the frontier, and as a fer 
 tile writer of fiction. It was as a sportsman and a brilliant 
 contributor to sporting literature that we knew him and ad 
 mired him most. The volumes of the Turf, Field and Farm 
 contain many graphic descriptions of the chase and spark 
 ling tales of the delights of angling, from his pen, and it was 
 to this journal that he sent his last greeting to fellow-sports 
 men. It appeared in our issue of May 7 of this year, and it 
 seems fitting that we should publish it again at this time. 
 Between the lines we read of the pain and disease which 
 was slowly but surely breaking the spirit and sapping the 
 strong life. The closing paragraph was sadly prophetic. 
 * * * * 
 
 Mr. Judson was born in Philadelphia about 1819, his 
 father being a practicing attorney in that city. Ned had no 
 taste for the dry tomes of Blackstone and Kent, and com 
 menced an adventurous career by shipping as a cabin boy on 
 a merchantman bound for the Pacific; thence to a man-of- 
 
132 
 
 war, where by bravery he earned a midshipman s commis 
 sion from the hand of President Van Buren. His service in 
 the Navy was brief but brilliant, and upon leaving the em 
 ploy of Uncle Sam, he dashed into sensational fiction, and 
 with his ready pen coined the dollars which his generous 
 hand was always ready to bestow upon the needy. One 
 weekly paper in this city was elevated to prosperity by pub 
 lication in its columns of "Ned Buntline s" serials, for which 
 the proprietors paid him enormous sums. The now famous 
 "Buffalo Bill" was brought before the public gaze through 
 "Ned Buntline s" stories of life on the plains, investing the 
 daring frontiersman with an air of romance which still clings 
 to him. A conspicuous figure, broad of shoulder and strong 
 of muscle, his countenance spoke of indomitable will and his 
 keen eyes flashed with the fire of genius. Of late years he 
 mingled but little with his fellow-men, but that the bonds 
 of friendship were not loosened by this was evinced upon 
 his funeral, when over eight hundred mourners followed the 
 remains to "Ned Buntline s" last resting-place. He was 
 buried at Stamford on Monday last with the honors of the 
 Grand Army of the Republic, many prominent members of 
 that order being present. 
 
 Dr. Alban S. Payne ("Nicholas Spiccr"), the 
 popular sporting writer, a devoted and almost life 
 long friend of "Ned Buntline," gave a spontaneous, 
 heart-felt tribute to his worth in the journal above 
 mentioned. His words echo the sentiments of nu 
 merous friends of the deceased sportsman: 
 
 Your last issue contains sad news to me. I find my dear 
 old friend, Col. E. Z. C. Judson, is no more. He was a 
 generous, brave, noble man a remarkable man. Our 
 acquaintance commenced in the office of the old Spirit of the 
 Times, and antedates forty years. In all that time our 
 friendship never paled. "Nick Spicer" always felt and be- 
 
-133 
 
 lieved that at least two noble hearts loved him, one was our 
 departed friend, Col. E. Z. C. Judson, the other the late 
 James Oakes, of Boston. At any rate Spicer knows that he 
 greatly admired them, for their ripe intellects and their true 
 manhood, yes, something more than that he loved them 
 dearly, deeply, tenderly. To the bereaved home folks the 
 homage of his sympathy goes out in such strength of feeling 
 that he cannot find words adequate for its expression. To 
 the dear Old Guard whom he loved so well, Col. Judson s 
 loss will be irreparable, for the noblest old Roman of them 
 all has fought his last battle, quietly folded his tent and gone 
 to rest. I send you the last letter that I ever received from 
 our dear old friend. I prize it highly: 
 
 Eagle s Nest, 
 
 Stamford, Delaware Co., N. Y. 
 
 DEAR DOCTOR: You had best read the Turf, Field and 
 Farm more carefully. I have little hope of ever using a rod 
 again. I have been eleven weeks in bed or in my invalid 
 chair, with a combination of heart disease, valvular obstruc 
 tion, etc., etc. ... I have been sick all winter, not out 
 of my chamber or able to walk even with crutches for eleven 
 weeks. My case is a bad one, and my physician with coun 
 sel finds it hard to baffle. I can write but little, but try my 
 best to keep up. God bless you and yours. My dear wife 
 nurses me like an angel and is my best hope. 
 
 Ever yours, JUDSON. 
 
 It is in answer to a letter of congratulation of mine to him 
 on the strange supposition that his health had improved so 
 much that he was "hoping to bend a rod." I should have 
 read it "hopeless of bending a rod," as it really occurs in 
 the Turf, Field and Farm of the 7th of May. But the 
 mistake was natural, the wish was father to the thought. 
 In conclusion, I can say no man ever visited Virginia who 
 made more or truer friends than Col. Judson. Many a 
 
134 
 
 manly eye will moisten when they learn of the death of their 
 generous, noble old friend, but none no, not one can feel 
 a deeper or a more sincere grief for the death of their friend, 
 or whose heart pulsates in a stronger rhythm of sympathy 
 for his bereaved family than does the heart of his and your 
 old friend. 
 
 NICHOLAS SPICER. 
 
 In the patriotic order, Sons of America, no mem 
 ber was more widely known or more highly appre 
 ciated than Colonel Judson. He had been one of 
 the founders of the order, and at different times 
 filled the position of National Vice-President and 
 National Master of Forms and Ceremonies. It is 
 natural, therefore, that his death should be deeply 
 deplored by the comrades of that organization, and 
 that a feeling eulogy should be given at the hands 
 of Mr. H. J. Stager, editor of the Camp News, the 
 official organ of the order, from which we quote : 
 
 We are deeply grieved to make this sad announcement to 
 our brethren. Since February last Brother Judson has been 
 troubled with heart disease for which no relief could be ob 
 tained. He was aware that he might pass off of the active 
 stage of life at any moment and himself arranged many of 
 the details and gave directions as to what should follow his 
 decease. He felt a willingness to be freed from the afflic 
 tions of this life, his only solicitude being the parting that 
 must follow with his dear wife and son upon whom the 
 fondest affections of a warm true heart were freely lavished. 
 He was conscious to the last and excepting a token of the 
 warmest love to the dear companion of his best years, who 
 was ever near and with him to minister to his every want, 
 he repeated the words so close to his heart and in full con- 
 
135 
 
 sistency with the object of his whole life, that "Americans 
 must rule America." 
 
 His end was as peaceful and gradual as the sleep of an 
 infant, and his spirit was wafted to the side of the great 
 patriots of our land who have gone before and whose deeds 
 and works while in the flesh will be remembered in the 
 brightest pages of our national history. For many years he 
 had resided at Stamford, surrounded by all the comforts that 
 man can enjoy, and ever ready to do his utmost to advance 
 the interests of society, and to do his part to benefit man 
 kind. His whole life was devoted to the service of his coun 
 try, and its flag, and honor his deepest solicitude and study, 
 and on many occasions his life was offered as a sacrifice in 
 his devotion to these principles, and his miraculous escapes 
 wonderful almost beyond belief. He excelled as an author 
 in fiction whose stories have amused millions of readers, and 
 "Ned Buntline" is known all over the world. 
 
 He took a highly active part in our Order, was present on 
 several occasions as a delegate in the State Camp of Pennsyl 
 vania. He held membership in Camp 7, Pa., Philadelphia, 
 since 1868, being proposed therein by the writer; Philadel 
 phia Commandery No. 4, and also belonged to the Sons of 
 America Post No. 77, Grand Army of the Republic, in Phila 
 delphia. He organized the Order in the States of Maine, 
 New Jersey, and Illinois, while traveling with his "Scouts 
 of the Plains" combination. He helped to organize the Na 
 tional Camp in 1872; was first National Vice-President and 
 then elected as National Master of Forms and Ceremonies 
 in 1872-73. He was ever earnest and practical and never 
 lost interest in the cause. The present Red Degree ritual 
 of our Order is the work of his pen and will stand as an ever 
 lasting monument reflecting his fidelity to our cause and de 
 votion to true American principles. He was liberal with his 
 means and made many presentations to struggling Camps and 
 members. In his decease we lose one of our ablest and best 
 
136 
 
 standard bearers, whose loss it will be impossible to fully re 
 place. 
 
 In 1871, he was married to Miss Anna Fuller, an Ameri 
 can lady of his native town, to whom he was most earnestly 
 devoted, and in the happy union of these years a daughter 
 and son were added to the family. The daughter died in 
 1881, and his grief in this loss was excessive. He now sleeps 
 by her side where he had erected an almost perfect image 
 of his lost child, in Italian marble,, to mark the spot of her 
 burial. His son is a bright promising youth of five years who 
 will not forget the patriotic teaching of the father who be 
 gan thus early to instruct him. 
 
 Mr. Charles J. Beattie, a prominent member of 
 the Sons of America, said in presenting appropriate 
 resolutions of regret and condolence : 
 
 Brother President, our brethren have deputed to me the 
 melancholy duty of preparing and presenting to this Camp 
 resolutions of regret at the death of our honored comrade 
 and brother, Colonel Edward Z. C. Judson, of Camp 7, 
 Pa.; it is a duty always sad and mournful, seldom pleasant 
 and never delightful to write an epitaph or pen an obituary 
 resolution, and in this case the notice of the hero s death 
 brings with it not alone the sorrow but the sigh and the tear, 
 and visits every heart with the pangs of grief, every bosom 
 with agonized feelings of loss and loneliness, and every mind 
 with recollections of his words and works now ceased for 
 ever. The fearless heart of the sterling patriot is now still 
 in death, it throbs no more with the holy emotions that 
 heretofore thrilled it for home and country, his immortal pen 
 that aroused sentiments of patriotism in every land is laid 
 aside forever: his eloquent tongue which always uttered 
 words of cheer for friend and brother, for flag and father 
 land, and thundered denunciations against our country s 
 foes, is now quieted in deathly silence; his sword that flashed 
 brightly in the line of battle against sedition and anarchy for 
 
137 
 
 a united nation and a free constitution, is now forever 
 sheathed ; no more shall he visit our Camps, below his earthly 
 career is closed, his mission of usefulness here is ended and 
 he has gone to join the brilliant throng of patriots, soldiers 
 and statesmen on the deathless side of time s swift flowing 
 river, and to-day he is an initiate in the Camp of the Su 
 preme President of the universe. . . . While all that 
 is mortal of cur brother rests in the quiet grave at Stamford 
 his immortality has now begun ; over him death had no con 
 quest, the grave no triumph. Brethren, let us imitate his 
 example,, and follow in his footsteps; let us devote our lives 
 to our country and like him be ever faithful through life and 
 unto death; revere his memory, remember his counsels, and 
 never forget his last words solemnly uttered on the bed of 
 death, "Americans must rule America." I request, Brother 
 President, that all arise and adopt these resolutions in silence 
 by a standing vote. 
 
 In preparing the present series of fragmentary 
 memoirs, necessarily very imperfect and incomplete, 
 the writer has attempted merely to convey a passing 
 glimpse, a few random records, illustrating, yet by 
 no means giving a comprehensive view of the re 
 markable career of u Ned Buntline," as a sailor, a 
 soldier, a frontiersman, a sensational novelist, and, 
 above all, a devoted lover of out-door sports. A 
 careful critical resume of his life and writings would 
 require volumes in place of a few brief chapters. 
 

 -138 
 
 When a complete biography shall be written, if ever, 
 by any author competent to do justice to the work, it 
 will be found that the volume here presented, far 
 from exaggerating the personal courage and dar 
 ing, the heroic deeds and wild adventures of this 
 modern knight errant, one tithe has scarcely been 
 told. A detailed biography would resemble, in 
 thrilling interest, the adventures of the Arabian 
 Nights. His meteor-like career, however, closed as 
 calmly as the summer eve that lulled him to a final 
 rest. 
 
 After life s fitful fever he sleeps well. 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 It has been estimated that the literary work of Ned Bunt- 
 line his serial stories and miscellaneous writings if col 
 lected in book form would fill no less than two hundred 
 volumes of good size. The following is a partial list of his 
 published books as recorded by bibliographers: 
 
 1. The Captain s Pig. 
 
 2. Ella Adams; or, The Demon of Fire. 1863. 
 
 3. The Rattlesnake; or, The Rebel Privateer. 1863. 
 
 4. The Grosbeak Mansion; a Mystery of New York. 1864. 
 
 5. Sadia, a Heroine of the Rebellion. 1864. 
 
 6. Life in the Saddle; or, The Cavalry Scout. 1865. 
 
 7. The Parricides; or, The Doom of the Assassin. 1865. 
 
 8. The Volunteer; or, The Maid of Monterey. 1865. 
 
 9. The Beautiful Nun. 1866. 
 
 10. Magdalena, the Outcast 1866. 
 
 11. Clarence Rhett. 1866. 
 
 12. The Battle of Hate; or, Hearts Are Trumps. 1867. 
 
 13. Quaker Saul, the Idiot Spy. 1869. 
 
 14. Red Warrior. 1869. 
 
 15. Thanendenaga, the Scourge. 1869. 
 
 16. Red Ralph, the Ranger. 1870. 
 
 17. The Sea Bandit. 1870. 
 
 18. The Wronged Daughter. 1870. 
 
 19. Morgan; or, the Knight of the Black Flag. 
 
 20. Buffalo Bill. 1881. 
 
 21. Wrestling Joe. 1881. 
 
139 
 
 22. The B Hoys of New York. 
 
 23. The Buccaneer s Daughter. 
 
 24. The Conspirator s Victim. 
 
 25. The G Hals of New York. 
 
 26. The Jew s Daughter. 
 
 27. Mysteries and Miseries of New York. 
 
 28. Three Years After. 
 
 29. The White Cruiser. 
 
 30. The Black Avenger of the Spanish Main. 
 
 31. The Red Right Hand, a Tale of Indian Warfare. 
 
 32. Hilliare Henderson; or, The Secret Revealed. 
 
 33. The Convict; or, The Conspirator s Victim. 
 
 34. Mermet Ben; or, The Astrologer King. 
 
 35. The Queen of the Sea; or, Our Lady of the Ocean. 
 
 36. The King of the Sea; a Tale of the Fearless Free. 
 
 37. Luona Prescott; or, The Curse Fulfilled. 
 
 38. The Man o War Man s Grudge; A Romance of the Revo 
 
 lution. 
 
 39. English Tom; or, The Smuggler s Secret. 
 
 40. Saul Sabberday; or, The Idiot Spy. 
 
 41. The Wheel of Misfortune; or, The Victims of Lottery and 
 
 Policy Dealers. 
 
 42. Miriam; or, The Jew s Daughter. 
 
 43. The White Wizard; or, The Great Prophet of the Seminoles. 
 
 44. Stella Delorme; or, The Comanche s Dream. 
 
 45. Norwood ; or, Life on the Prairie. 
 
 46. Cruisings Afloat and Ashore; from the Private Log of Ned 
 
 Buntline. 
 
 47. Ned Buntline s Life Yarn. 
 
 48. The Last of the Buccaneers; a Yarn of the Eighteenth Cen 
 tury. 
 
 49. Elfrida, The Red Rover s Daughter. 
 
 50. Sea Waif; or, The Terror of the Coast. 
 
 51. The Shell Hunter; or, An Ocean Love Chase. 
 
 52. Bill Tredegar; A Tale of the Monongahela. 
 
 53. The Miner Detective. 
 
 54. Darrow, the Floating Detective. 
 
 55. Shadowed and Trapped. 
 
 56. Barnacle Backstay. 
 
 57. Mountain Tom. 
 
 58. Orthodox Jeems. 
 
 59. Hazel Eye. 
 
 60. Rover Wild. 
 
 61. Sensation Sate. 
 
 62. Rattlesnake Ned. 
 
 63. Guliette, th Waif. 
 
 64. Big Foot Wallace. 
 
 65. Harry Bluff, the Reefer. 
 
 66. Navigator Ned. 
 
 67. Wild Bill s Last Trail. 
 
. 
 
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