Jack Crawford (1847–1917) entertained a generation of Americans and introduced them to their frontier heritage. A master storyteller who presented the West as he experienced it, he was one of America’s most popular performers in the late nineteenth century. Dressed in buckskin with a wide-brimmed sombrero covering his flowing locks, Crawford delivered a “frontier monologue and medley” that, as one New York City journalist reported, “held his audience spell-bound for two hours by a simple narration of his life.” In this biography, Darlis Miller re-creates his experiences as a scout, rancher, miner, reformer, husband and father, and poet and entertainer to reinterpret the American Dream and the lure of getting rich pursued by many during the Gilded Age.

In 1875, a young man from Pennsylvania known as Captain Jack joined the Dodge Expedition into the Black Hills of Dakota Territory, penning letters to the Omaha Daily Bee during that time and for six months in 1876. John Wallace Crawford, aka Captain Jack, wrote a vibrant account of this fascinating time in the American West. His correspondence featured unusual and intriguing details about the relative merits of the gulches, the vagaries and difficulties of travel in the region, the art of survival in what was essentially wilderness, the hardships of inclement weather, trouble with outlaws, and interactions with American Indians. Award-winning historian Paul L. Hedren has compiled these almost unknown letters, writing an introduction and essays, which result in a treasure trove of hitherto hidden primary documents as well as a ripping yarn in the traditions of the old West. Book jacket.