Frank Butler
Andersonville Prison), who had the organizational skill and business acumen he lacked. Cody pledged to avoid alcohol, once he’d had one or two to steady himself. In New Orleans, Frank approached Cody to extol Annie’s talents, hoping to join Wild West’s second year, but Cody thought he had no opening for another shooter. In addition to himself, he had the famed Adam Bogardus, the man probably more responsible than any other for the extinction of passenger pigeons. With prairie pigeons teetering on the brink, Bogardus patented a trap to throw glass balls or clay pigeons instead of live birds. For verisimilitude, the glass balls were filled with feathers.
gone on the road in a doomed show, partnered with national champion W. F. Carver. Cody and Carver competed as tipplers as well as marksmen. Carver got so ornery that one day when he missed a shot, he smashed his rifle down on his horse’s head, then took a poke at his assistant. He and Cody endured that one season together, flipped a coin to divide show equipment and parted. To regroup as Cody’s Wild West for 1884, the middleaged buffalo hunter approached Nate Salisbury, an entrepreneur and Civil War veteran (graduate of 102
