. welcome everyone to the final event of what's been a terrific three days. you start to plan these things and you think we'll have this person and that person. there was this moment when we started to put the program on to paper and said they have 36 different speakers on this thing and it became -- exceeded our expectations certainly and so thank you to everyone for all the terrific presentations. so thanks, very much. and this won't be the last you will have heard from the gathered scholars. we are going to compile and edit a new volume in our william f cody series on the history and culture of the american press. so all of the presenters are invited as they know to submit their work for consideration for this volume and all the rest of you are invited to purchase and read that volume when it comes out. so stay tuned. it's a great pleasure to introduce tonight's key note speaker. paul andrew hutten is an american cultural historian. he's an award winning author. he's documentary writer and television personality. he serves as a distinguished professor of history at the university of new mexico and as we all know he's published quite widely in both scholarly, academic venues and popular magazines and he's reached a very large audience through that kind of work. his work has been recogs in -- recognized far and wide and a six-time winner of the western heritage award from the western heritage museum for his work in both print and film. it's his book that jeremy mentioned that received the billingten prize from the organization of american historians. the evans biography award and a spur award. but he's also the editor of several books we have on our shelves. western heritage, round up. the custer reader and soldiers west. as well as a 10-volume eye witness to the civil war series that he did in the '90s. he started in many ways reaching and shaping western historical scholarship when he was an associate editor at the historical quarterly and editor of the new mexico historical review. now he has written several short films, dozen of television documentaries and appeared upon, if this is to be believed, over 300 television programs on major networks, public television and cable networks as well. you may have known or seen the work that he did behind the scenes as a historical consultant on ron howard's film, "the missing." he also worked on john fabro's "cowboys and aliens." and most recently on gavin o'connor's "jane got a gun." he's been very active as a public historian making an imprint on programming at museums by guest cureating kpints, on everything from the alamo, the custer legend, davy crocket and billy the kid. the latest book was published by crown in may. and it was recognized with a 2017 western riders of america spur award for the best nonfiction. but coming up through western history, my academic career came up during the time we just saw reflekted in the various toasts that we had. the heady era of the new western history, old western history range wars. and you know, paul hutten served as the executive director of the western history association from 19 -- to 2006. so, you know, when we think of davy crocket, we have a popular image in our mind. but we think of the loan ranger, it's going to be played with more. when we think of james bond, it's got to be sean connery. when you think of the western historian, you think of paul hutten. so it's my great plesher to speak to tom to speak to us tonight. >> i know it's just so calm and to think of me and sean connery the same way. it's really my wife does. not. i want to thank the buffalo bills center of the west. i want to thank jeremy and his excellent staff. this really has been the marvelous three days. the only thing i've really learned as i've aged is how little i know and being round all these bright young scholars this week has certainly shown me just really how little i know about something i thought i knew everything about. it's this wonderful new work and exciting new work. as a historian, one of the things that makes you get up in the morning and after hearing the nintroduction, i understand why i'm so tired. but i certainly appreciate so much all that they are doing to bring about new insights but also to discover new material. we were shown all kinds of new material and his show this week that's absolutely astonishing to me. so, thank you all for educating me this week. i don't know if i'm going to educate you this night. the story i'm going to tell is a familiar one but i sort of thought that schematically i might be able to pull together here is the last speaker. some of the things we've been talking about this last week and put buffalo bill in perspective and let me start doing that by telling you a personal story because we've been getting calls this week as well. the -- of course you know we're here because it's the centennial of buffalo bill's death, william cody's death, in 1917, the year of my mother's birth. and then in 1968, 51 years later i first visited this wonderful institution in company with two of my high school chums, steve hor witz and we had just graduated from short ridge high school in indianapolis. and we had don's volkswagen bus and simon and garfunkel's america ringing in our ears. and we went out in search of america. i'm still looking. well, the boys were anxious to get to the clime ax of our trip, the final destination, the really golden dream at the end of the western rainbow for all young men. las vegas, nevada. but i would not be a party to the trip unless we visited first the black hills, then the little big horn battle field and then here to cody, wyoming to this museum. and they reluctantly agreed to that and they were perhaps not as delighted as i was by this institution in 1968 but they pretended to be charmed. well, it's now been 49 years since i made that journey. 51 years from the time of buffalo bill's death to the time i made the journey, 49 years now since i did that and my point to you is just how short our history as a nation is. and how an institution like this and what we're trying to convey is in fact a connection point, something that connects us to american's living past. and it is alive and dictates so much of our actions. what's the old joke? people who don't know the past are -- have to repeat it and of course the curse of historians is they do know the past and have to watch the country repeat it over and over. and over. and if you live long aenough, you get to see it repeated again. i used to watch "days of our lives." they just repeat the same plots over again. so sad. new people, same story. william f cody was a man seemingly trapped in a distant past. yet, he was one who cared desperately about an onrushing future for himself, for his family, his business. and for his nation. he was progressive in his politics. he favored votes for women long before woodrow wilson got along to supporting it and he was, for his time and place incredibly enlightened on questions of race and quality. he had lived the american dream. he had risen from abject poverty to incredible wealth. he had been fauned over by queens and kings, captains of industry. and at the time of his death, he was the living symbol of what it meant to be an american. president theodore roosevelt described him thusly, an american of americans. he embodied those traits of self reliant hardihood who arel for the well being of our nation. he was liking the nation he came to symbolize though, a bundle of contradictions. paradox has been the word used. contradictions works as well. he was a hunter who became a conservationist. he was a friend to the indian who was famous as an indian fighter. he was a rugged frun tear. a living art fact of a pioneer cast playing out his role in a world of telephones, motion pictures, automobiles, airplanes, sky scrapers and finally at the very end, world wars. now cody's life, 1846 to 1917 spanned a period of astonishing change and he participated in much of that change. his father was a fight to keep slavery out of kansas and as a teenager, he fought in the civil war. he road for the pony express. hunted buffalo for the railroad. where he earned his nickname. scouted for the army. won the congressional medal of honor. took the so-called first scout for custer. and celebrated dual war bonnet hat. as it was really known. creek in 1876 and took a final curtain call on his western adventures. at the time of the terrible tragedy at wounded knee. that fight though at war bonnet creek, which there is only one casualty, that fight is the defining episode of his life. and i want to talk about it for it was in many ways a moment, an incredible moment simply frozen in time. where western reality and the frontier myth, the topic i'm going to talk about tonight came together. but first a little context. just to set the stage of how we got to war bonnet creek. one of the my favorite movies is -- the custer legend, a western legend is proven to be entirely false and covered up and protected by army officers and the final line in that film, which is so powerful is correct in every detail about a famous painting of custer's last stand and let me just say this painting too is correct in every detail. nothing is correct in that painting. many serious scholars, who spent a considerable part of their lives debating points such as this have placed the birth of the western at 1823 with the publication of james cooper's novel, "the pioneers." now some grumbled the more enduring, last of the mohicans deserves that spot of honor. the point is well taken. but others argue that the tales of captain john smith and pol pocahontas are -- and the marvelous adventures written on daniel boone are the true origin point for the western story. which is ultimately the story of america. flow are those who give all credit to the talented harvard dude who came out here where we are and he captured the imagination of the world with his 1902 novel the virginiaen. it was him who turned the american cowboy and that was an epitaph. and it's still used that way sometimes. cowboy, foreign policy, cowboy diplomacy. but when you said cowboy, you meant a wild, rowdy, uncontrollable element in your society. while suddenly he makes the cowboy into an american centaur. i'm looking add you, professor warren. he is so -- he's always so riverive riveted by my comments. it's like the kid in class that pretends you're his favorite professor and of course he's always on his phone facebooking while he's in your class. i took professor warren's phone away from him before we began work. it was wister who turned the american cowboy into a national symbol. albeit with considerable help. william f cody and of course from the cowboy president himself theodore roosevelt. all cowboy presidents go to harvard. well, this debate has found expression among my class of people. in the endless but sometimes tiresome argument over fredric jackson turner's thesis. now turner saw the american national character and thus american exceptionalism. as an out growth of the frontier experience. his critics have been many. these days it's like the premier of star wars. just line them up around the block. his critics argue that frontier was but one of many forces that shaped our nation and of course you can't argue with that. the argument though is one between process and place. with the strongest modern interpreters sometimes referred to by people like me as the rebel. led by professor patricia nelson limerick. of the university of colorado, professor warren is just a fellow traveller with her. but when you go to yellow stone and you see the packs, she's the leader. the leader. well, this is exactly the same debate in historical circles that you have between cooper and owen wister. where does the story begin? well, it doesn't matter where the story begins, i would argue. it's this rich and varied literary history, this rich and varied historiography, central to our understanding of our schbls and you start when you're a kid. and you're always looking for your identity and of course many of us never get there but nations do that too and we're looking for our identity and we hope we're not like some of the other nations that we're familiar with. we want to be so special. and it's always been this way. in the 1820s americans were in search of an identity that might unite them as a people. who were we? 13 colonies? how do we get together? how do we become one of many? north and south accomplished that by looking to the west. frontier america suddenly became respectable in literary circles with the success of the leather stocking tales. the hunters of kentucky celebrating the prowess of kentucky and militia men at the 1815 battle of new orleans apologies. but we elect presidents because they shoot english people. i'm a historian. i can only speak the truth. i tell my students there's a beautiful thing about the british. they unite all people's everywhere around the world. india, africa, russia, germany, france, the united states, we've all shot at them. because they're always in somebody else's neighborhood telling folks how to behave. and then they get them svls in trouble and they get all shot up and build beautiful statues in london which we pay lot of money to go visit. it's a very clever technique. nevertheless, that song, the hunters of kentucky helped to sweep andrew jackson into the white house and border dramas as they were called in those days. stories such as nick the woods and the lithochb west which was a play based on the life of davy crocket became all the rage on eastern and european stages in the 1830s and 1840s and the rise of jackson, other western political figures including the legendary crocket himself symbolized the political and cultural shift from the east to the west. which i always cheer for. no offense to the eastern friends. but sinls we've already done in the british, why not just continue? timothy flint, the best selling biography, davy crocket at the alamo. and the romance surrounding the great migration to oregon which was immortalized by one of america's first great historians of course a western historian. frances parkman, harvard. by the way the professor limerick and professor warren, that is harvard, not yale but i went to indiana university, so what do i know? thank you, thank you all very much. good basketball. well, anyway, they all served to change the frontiers but sustained by the guardians of american culture as a dangerous symbol of anarchy into the very idealation of the evolving national character. where daniel boone or kit carson or pushing west on the oregon trail, that's the america. that's this new human that's come on to the planet from so many different places. well, a gastly civil war tore all this asunder. a great westerner, the grandson of one who followed daniel boone up the comberland gap and into kentucky and redeemed the dream, restored hope to the country. and abraham lincoln to the homestead act and the transcontinental railroad that he sponsored created a new transmississippi west and stet all in motion. and out of this story, out of the new west, a new epic arose. this story united the divided nation, north and south. forever cemented a national identity now for a richly diverse people. because folks were coming after the civil war from everywhere. you want to know who you were when you got to this country? read a buffalo bill novel. it's right there. doesn't matter that you're from poland. doesn't matter you're russian memory. no, dizzant matter that you're an italian. it's a buckskins, cowboy hat. and it helped people unite. a fresh generation of heroes emerged to be celebrated in the popular dime novels that horrified parents and literary critics alike. now we had the gun fighting lawman, wild bill hick, the scout, buffalo bill, the indian statesman, sitting bull. calamity jane and from them came a story rich in romance and boundless optimism, yet also burdened, even while i was being told with nostalgia for vanishing past because even as it played out t was over, over in an instant. buffalo bill cody who had lived the reality of the western story as a civil war soldier put it all into of course the grand extravaganza and he took it on the road. his wild west inthralled two generations of americans and people around the world. created the cliches and conventions followed by writers and film makers that were to follow him. now, cody was a true child of the american frontier. and he was a person who grew up in the very environment that he was now celebrating. it was the third born in scott county iowa on february 26th, 1846 and william fredric was the third child of isaac and mary cody. isaac moved the family to the fs where he became prominent advocate for free soil. he didn't want slavery extended into kansas for whatever reasons. when he was give thing a antislavery speech in september of 1854, he was pulled from the platform and stabbed by pro slavery men and although he recovered, one election to the free soil legislature, he was continually plagued by his wounds, finealally dying in mar 1857. with family in financial straights after his father's death, young billy cody went to work for the company of alexander majors and william rus russell. they contracted with our government. because he was trying to take spotlight off tensions by having a war against the mormons in utah who weren't obeying the government quite as well as they needed to. and so majors and russell supplied the supply wagon to keep that going. on this trip during the so-called mormon war of 1857 this young kid, cody struck up a friendship with james butler wild bill hick cog and when they initiated the short lived pony express in 1860, cody briefly served as a writer and hickock also worked for the express. cody quit the express company and joined the band of kansas jayhawkers praying on neighboring missouriens. he was anxious to get some free horses from missouri. they had good horses over there. they felt no pains of conscious, stealing from missouriens. i don't know what's the matter with me. i've been to missouri. it's very well. cody readily admitted these were not his best days. glbtered upon a dislute and reckless life to my shame be it said and drunkered and bad characters. that was my experience with western history for 15 years. after one rowdy night in 1864 he said he was under the influence of bad whiskey, as opposed to good whiskey. he woke up in the morning and enlist saed the seventh kansas came a soldier in the civil war. his service was not particularly distinguished but he certainly served in the war. when the war was over, he took himself a bride and he told them to settle done for the life of a hotel keeper at his salt creek rally home. could have been the marriotts, but instead he took a different tact. it was not to be because he was totally devoid and his later career would prove this of any kind of business skill whatsoever. and within a year he headed west to seek employment with his army. his buddy was a scout for the army out of kansas and he got his young friend a job and while there, cody became acquainted with armstrong custard, just beginning his western career and cody was asked by custer to scout for him. he declined that tuntd. wise career move. and insteads became a hunter for the kansas pacific railroad. they employed cody at principal sum to hunt buffalo to feed the workers. in eight months time until may of 1868, cody killed 4,280 buffalo for the kansas pacific railroad. now i know in a more environmentally sensitive time in which we live and under influence of the new western history and its creed, we do not celebrate that but they were afterall eating. this was for food. they weren't just being shot. that happened later and when he hunted buffalo, did it on horse back. and did it indian style, which is unbelievably dangerous of course. and he was incredibly success fwl his reach loading .50 caliber spring field rifle. and mounted on his fleet horse brigham, named for the mormon patriot. so you see he a sense of history from the very beginning. even as a young man. i'm amazed he knew who lucrucia borja was. speaks to the power of education in kansas. well, the workers for the railroad, he became a popular figure because he's bringing them dinner and they made up a little song about him. buffalo bill, buffalo bill, always aims and shoots to kill and the company pays his buffalo bill. that's your authentic american poetry right there. eat your heart out, europeans. and let me just point out that it's not bisen william. it is indeed buffalo bill. what is this going on? to make us stop calling buffalo, buffalo. and call them bison? bison? i mean, is that like greek and latin derivatives. i know it's scientifically incorrect. like i care. and i would like to tell you it's part of the american language but of course it was the frenchman who came up with the term and identified bison as buffalo, but just because a frenchman did it, doesn't mean it's not okay. goes to prove the french can occasionally get something rith. isn't that amazing? the bison nickel. bison wild wings. i mean, seriously. and evidently the associated press has joined with the government in trying to change the american language and i notice now anytime buffalo are mentioned, they must send out a style sheet. they're called bison and i just think this is truly the definition of fake news. culmination of bad weather and native hostility temporarily halted construction when it reached end of track and cody's contact with the railroad ended there, despite the thing he had had derived and he went to work at fortd -- for the army. and he carried dispatches. it was a dangerous job and he did such a superb job at it that he came to the attention of the new commander of the army. loved this kid and became his protector and sponsor and in a way his mentor. and shareden, after cody had made a couple of incredibly daring and dangerous rides where no one else would carry dispatches. he made him chief of scouts for the fifth cavalry. now, scouts are highered just for campaigns but he is hired to be a permanent scout for the fifth cavalry. and indeed he did a spectacular job and soon became the army's most famous scout. near the south fork of nebraska's loop river. he led a squad of soldiers with sioux raiders that won him a medal of honor. in 1872. and it cleaned up -- he wasn't really technically a soldier, so when they cleaned up the army rolls the time of the first world war. they managed to get back for him. god bless al simpson and he should have. captain charles mind holden, the letter of commonidation describing the indians. "cody's reputation is so well established that i need not say anything else but that he acted in his usual manner." sounds like medal of honor stuff to me and his words were typical of the praise that frontier soldiers gave to cody. emory par, leslie merit,ancen mills. and many other army officers all praise cody both before and after he became nationally famous. his exploits, although later exaggerated by show business height, are absolutely authentic. one of the things that drives me crazy and it's not a long drive, as you can tell. one of the things that drives me crazy is all the folks that want to present him as a sharlten and fraud. he just did it all before he was 25. so i wish i had. and indeed later writers attempt 25 ed to down play scouting activities. but he wasn't just like one of many comparable army scouts. he was truly head and shoulders above. ranks with luther kelly, frank north as one of the great scouts of the indian wars. and one 12-month period from october 1868 to 1869, he's chief of scouts for the fifth cavalry, participated in seven expeditions against the enemy, engaging in nine fights. during these campaigns. few soldiers experience that much action in a decade of service. all of cody's exploits including 16 battles with native americans occurred before his 32nd birthday. after 1876 he devoted his time exclusi exclusively to the show business. now grand maestro of cody's rise to international fame was an obscure writer of very limited talent. a man by the name of ned. his real name was edward zane parl jensen. he had been born in new york in 1823. a plump man master of the dime novel. he claimed to have written half a dozen in one week alone. writing and women were ned's great passions and he pursued both with vengeance. he went through seven courses and six wives. several of the wives he was married to simultaneously. not a problem for ned. july 24th, 1869, nebraska to deliver of all things temperance lecture. you got to make a buck anyway you can. learning that major william brown was leading after raiding indians. never in search of a good story volunteered to go along. they didn't find any natives but he road along with buffalo bill in the entire trip and they became pals and when the troops reach fort sed wk, promising cody he would keep in touch. on december the 23rd, 1869. they carried the first installment of buffalo bill, king of the border. story was a fictional reworking of the already well publicized adventures of wild bill hicock. it really irked wild bill who was not a guy you wanted to get on the bad side of. nevertheless was born the legend of buffalo bill. at fort mcfiercen, the real buffalo bill was highly flattered, even if none of it was true. when his son was born november 26th, 1870, he proposed to name him after blunt line. cooler heads prevaild and it was named after kit carson instead. now he was not a man to allow opportunity 2to slip away. buffalo bills heart of the spotted tail which began its run in the 1872 and on and on and on and on they went. at the same time ned beraujed bill with letters saying come on back here, kid. this is a gold mine. you are a gold mine. cody finally relented thanks to -- with the help of shareden and he recruited another fort mcfiercen scout to accompany him to shaug chicago and join in this novel enterprise. they were met in chicago. they found bunt line had no script, even though they were to open nixon's amphitheater december the 18th. retreating to his hotel room, not problem for writers such as professor limerick, warren and myself. retreating to his hotel room, he pinned the scouts of the prairie in four hours. an unimpressed theater critic later asked him why it took so lo long. off the streets of chicago. to portray indians in his little drama and he acquired the services of the lovely italian actress to play the lovely indian heroin. and like the other members of the cast, he actually had stage experience. she was scandalously fames for having introduced the can can to america. that's right. a crowd estimated at 2,500 people crowd under to nixon's amphitheater for opening night. the play had no thought, which was fine because cody couldn't rer78 -- remember any of his lines. didn't matter the scouts were handsome. and the action was nonstop. the scouts of the prairie was the grand success. even the theater critics had to admit it might not be art but it was certainly entertainment of a unique sort wrote one critic. on the whole it is not probable that chicago will ever look on this again. such a combination of acting renowned performers, mixed audience, blood and thunder to a city a second time, even chicago. well, the western had had been born and ned buntline, buffalo bill were the midwives and it was never to be the same again. the play toured eastern cities greeted by enthusiastic audiences and over flowing box office tales. so let me point out that as the historical advisor fl the cowboys, i know a thing or two about drama. so i can speak to this subject with some substance, some credibility. because i know at least three of you have seen that movie. very good. and the aliens, absolutely historically accurate. everything about them was just perfect. correct in every detail. well, by the time the tour ended in june of 1873, cody was fully committed to a stage career. he didn't need buntline anymore and they parted company for the 1873/'74 season, he enlisted fred made thor to create a new -- the gypsy troupe as they were called and opened september the 8th. buffalo bill and texas jack played themselves of course. and another can-can indian maiden. but they have upped the ante because here's wild bill hick ochad had joined the trurp but by this time wild bill had added to his laurels as a civil war hero and scout for the army by being the town taming marshal and a notorious man killer and he couldn't quite take this acting business very seriously. cody kept trying to impress upon him how important this work was but bill couldn't quite get it and so after one particularly heated exchange, cody was left alone and he departed in a huff. they met again only once in 1876 when cody was scouting for the cavalry and hick cog was heading to the town of deadwood and a sad date with destiny. '76 was a tough year for western heroes. for a decade from 1873 until he left the board to organize the wild west show, cody toured in various frontier dramas and only played one role, one he perfected. buffalo bill played himself. that's what i do as a professor. supposedly based based on adventures from his own path. it's a connection between history and drama that provided a unique electricity to cody's stage presence. it made his blood and thunder drama no matter how silly they were, resonate. it's like if john wayne really had gone out instead of staying home during the war. cody's 1876 tour was a huge success as well. interrupted in 1876 in springfield massachusetts by a telegram informing bill that his little 5-year-old son, kit was desperately ill with scarlet fever. he rushed home to rochester new york where the little boy died in his arms. it's broken. and it gets a telegram. so bill, come on. come on west, we're going to have this big indian war. i know thdoesn't sound politicay correct and this is your last chance. that's it. wrong. and there's going to be another one. come join us. and cody decided to do just that. and i have to believe it was the death of his son that was the deciding impact. after a final show june 3rd, they split up the troupe and buffalo bill headed west to cheyenne, wyoming. there he was reunited with his old friends in the fifth cavalry on june 10th, 1876, he was immediately reappointed chief of staffs and the enlisted men as well as officers were all delighted to see him. and cries of here comes buffalo bill and hurrah, hurrah. everyone went. as cody greeted old friends in the cavalry camp, there must have been a strange mixture of déjà vu nostalgia. buffalo bill known by so many of the veterans of the fifth became buffalo bill. he wrote dime novels and stage shows. since departing in 1872, he'd become one of the most celebrated actors in america. but of course he was only playing a single character, himself. now he returned to his past life of adventure, one hawaii so cleverly exaggerated. within a few days both lives and both buffalo bills, the daring scout and the celebrated actor would give their greatest performance oen a gastly frontier stage in which western myth and reality would mort perfectly into each other. what's real? what's not? it's hard to tell. wrote one of the troopers who saw him. there is very little change in his appearance since i saw him last in 1969, except he look as little warn, probably caused by his vocation in the east not agreeing with him. all the boys were happy to see car and cody together again. well, the reg minute had just been transferred north. because there was a huge war brewing on the northern plains. gold had been discovered by custer in the black hills. the granted a ministration was determined to get the hills, open them up to mining. unfortunately the hills had been given to the sioux under the 1868 fort laramie treaty. a decent price the administration thought was offered and folks didn't want to sell. and so immediately mafia tactics were employed to convince them it was in their interest to do business. the granted a ministration of course blamed his so-called northern roamers, people who had never come into the agencies of pine ridge. blamed them for the problems. and commanding the western army was ord toord drive the indians in and out came three columns. one from the west, and one from the east with custer's seventh cavalry, the elite regimen of the plains. as his strike force and up from the south from fort laramie came general george crook with 15 companies of cavalry and five of infntry, thousands of troops out against the sioux. first in stage shows and maybe of all time. what he told was a romantic adventure, a guilded historical pageant, combination rodeo and circus. most importantly, a tale of progress. and of the birth of a nation. cody told americans and then people everywhere around the world all about how the united states came to be. he became the embodiment of the new american, the embodiment of the american spirit and presented to the world an image of the rugged american as important to the 19th century as dr. franklin had been to the previous century. he firmly enherd the frontier mantle of boone, crockett and carson, with an able assist with remington, federal jackson, turner, theodore roosevelt, he made the story of the american frontier into the nation's great creation myth. buffalo bill, astride his snow white stallion, presented an image that all the people of a rapidly changing nation could embrace, no matter where they had come from, when finally he died on -- in juanuary of 1917, his country, about to march into a new century, into a future of steam, steal, world wars and international power, that country paused and reflected on just how far they had come in so short a time. it had all been encompassed in the life of one man and with the passing of buffalo bill the first great epic of the american story came to a close. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> since we're -- since we're doing toast tonight, i did -- i had actually planned this. i thought a toast might be in order. when i was going through my personal history mentioning important dates i neglected to mention this week happens to be the 16th anniversary of my marriage to my lovely wife, tracy lee, which occurred just across the street in buffalo bill's poker church. i take this western stuff seriously. absolutely. [ applause ] talk about long-suffering women. if i might, ladies and gentlemen, as we bring this fabulous conference to a close, i would like to offer a toast to the -- i hate to drink it in water, bill would slap me, i would like to offer a toast to the founder of the feast. ladies and gentlemen, to william f. cody and to buffalo bill. all right. thank you! >> wednesday evening, american history tv in primetime continues. we'll look at the 60th anniversary of little roczen tral high integration. you can see it starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern, here on c-span3. >> c-span's "washington journal" live everyday with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up wednesday morning, we'll look at president trump's expected to decision to decertify the iran nuclear deal this week at the bipartisan policy center and georgia rob woddall and immigration and the daca program and the trump administration potential deal to protect dreamers. ted lieu will be on to tuck about that. be sure -- to talk about that. be sure to watch wednesday morning. join the discussion. the house increasing and commerce subcommittee on health hears from members of congress on battling the opioid epidemic as they share local and personal stories and highlight potential legislative solutions starting at 10:50 a.m. eastern here on c-span3. interested in american history tv, visit our website, c-span.org slash history. you can view our tv schedule, preview upcoming programs and watch college lectures, museum films, archival films and more. american history tv at c-span.org/history. next, historians discuss buffalo bill's early life before he began performing in his wild west shows. they look at his experience as a soldier in the civil war and indiana wars and his relationship with fellow marksman and showman captain jack crawford. the buffalo bill's center of the west in cody, wyoming, hosted this 90 minute talk. >> thank you, jeremy. thanks to the buffalo bill center of the west for h