Captain Jack Crawford: Buckskin Poet, Scout, and Showman

6. "The Campfire and The Trail"

6 "THE CAMPFIRE AND THE TRAIL" _Carl Sandburg once fr^^^^B rise above his or her origins, country itself. Early European settlers found such an abundance of resources in the New World that anything seemed possible.1 The American Dream, in fact, continued to serve as amagnet drawing tens of millions of immigrants across the seas in search of a better life. The tremendous nineteenth-century expansion in the United States helped to fuel the idea that anyone, no matter how poor, could achieve fame and fortune. During the second half of the century, the dream came to mean (more than anything else) material success, the accumulation of money. And for Captain Jack Crawford, The Poet Scout. (Photo by Ben Wittick, courtesy School of American ResearchCollections in the Museum of New Mexico, Neg.No. 15747.) w r o t e less first a ferring to the American idea he explain the tain Jack. was the the belief and through perseverance, c e s s Chapter 6 Crawford's generation, Andrew Carnegie's rise from poverty to wealth was the most striking evidence that the dream could become a reality. Crawford's brief stint with Carver's Wild West show would strengthen Jack's dream rather than diminish it. The thunderous applause that greeted him in the arena rang in his memory long after the company folded. The dream constantly ignited his energy and imagination, propelling him in several different directions at the same time. After the collapse of Carver's show, Jack traveled to New York City to arrange for a new edition of The Poet Scout and to raise money for his mining ventures. On Wall Street, he consulted with Samuel K. Schwenk and then met with the millionaire grocer H. K. Thurber, reportedly one of the owners of the Copper Queen Mine in Bisbee, Arizona. Thurber apparently agreed to help finance both projects. According to one account, he advanced five hundred dollars to Funk and Wagnalls to publish the poetry book, the author to reimburse his benefactor by taking subscriptions at two dollars a copy on delivery.2 Then, in August, the New York capitalist traveled to New Mexico to check on cattle interests in Lincoln County and to survey the San Andres copper mines.Although the local press announced that Thurber planned to erect a smelter in New Mexico if Jack's property "be as represented," records fail to disclose whether he invested more than a token amount in Crawford's mines.3 Before Jack returned to New Mexico, he attended the funeral of General U. S.Grant, serving as an aide on the staff of General Daniel E.Sickles, former commander of the Third Army Corps at the Battle of Gettysburg. Grant's body was brought to New York on a special train shrouded in black curtains. For two days the body lay in state at City Hall, while an endless stream of city residents filed past to pay their last respects. The day before the funeral , the New York Evening Telegram published Crawford's 116 "The Campflre and the Trail" touching poem "Mustered Out," in which Jack eulogized his dead commander. On August 8, 1885, Crawford joined hundreds of other veterans and celebrities in accompanying Grant's body to the tomb on Riverside Drive.4 During this time of national mourning, Crawford published a fourteen-page pamphlet, entitled "In Memoriam,The Hero's Departed ," featuring a photograph of Grant on the cover. Dedicated to comrades in the Grand Army of the Republic, the pamphlet contained a program of the Grant memorial services, several of Crawford's poems, and two articles about Crawford's career.5 Someone sent a copy to Bill Cody, then on tour in Canada, and Cody wasted little time in registering his complaints about its contents . The prickly nature of the Cody—Crawford friendship is evident in Cody's letter to the Poet Scout dated August 11. Two statements in the booklet had raised Buffalo Bill's hackles: that Crawford was "the only scout who can claim any merit as an actor," and that during the Sioux campaign Jack had "superseded Mr. Cody as chief of scouts." The second statement, Bill claimed, read as though Crawford had been placed in command over Cody while the latter was still in the field. In response to the first statement, Cody suggested a unique method for comparing their dramatic abilities—something like a...