Cody had documented serviceas a soldier during the Civil War and as Chief of Scouts for the Third Cavalry during the Plains Wars.
He claimed to have had many jobs, including as a trapper, bullwhacker, "Fifty-Niner" in Colorado, a Pony Express rider in 1860, wagon master, stagecoach driver, and a hotel manager, but historians have had difficulty documenting them, and he may have fabricated some for publicity.
He got his nickname after the American Civil War when he had a contract to supply Kansas Pacific Railroad workers with buffalo meat. Cody is purported to have killed 4,282 American bison in eighteen months.
Cody and William Comstock competed in a buffalo-shooting match over the exclusive right to use the name, which Cody won by killing 68 bison to Comstock's 48.
