The Indian Wars

According to contemporary news reports, William F. Cody (Buffalo Bill) approached Secretary of War Lindley M. Garrison and Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane about the making of this film, which was shot at the sites of the original battles between September 26, 1913 and November 1, 1913. Garrison supplied Cody with the necessary troops from the 12th U.S. Cavalry and Lane authorized the participation of over 1,000 Sioux Indians. Lieutenant General Nelson Appleton Miles was hired as a technical consultant as well as a cast member and made sure that the re-enactments were as accurate as possible. Colonel H. G. Sickles and Charles King recreated their parts in the original battles of Wounded Knee and Warbonnet Creek, respectively. The production, which boasted over 30,000 feet of film shot from the Bad Lands of South Dakota to the Black Hills of Wyoming, was plagued by blizzards and increasing costs and later required over six months of editing. On February 27, 1914, the finished film was screened for Secretary Lane and other members of Woodrow Wilson's cabinet. The film was released theatrically in August 1914, but according to modern sources played only in Denver and New York because of pressure from government forces, which disapproved of its content because it showed the Indians in a somewhat favorable light. In early 1917, after Cody's death, substantial footage from this film was used in The Adventures of Buffalo Bill, an homage to the late Western figure. According to news items from 1917, the original film was titled Wars of Civilization and was eight reels long. Modern sources list alternate titles as The Indian Wars Refought, The Last Indian Battles or From the Warpath to the Peace Pipe, The Wars for Civilization in America, Buffalo Bill's Indian Wars, and Indian War Pictures. The production was co-owned by Cody's film company, by Essanay, and by the Denver Post. Another 1917 film, The Buffalo Bill Show, directed by John O'Brien and distributed by the Wild West Film Co., May have also used footage from this production. Modern sources credit Vernon Day as production manager and not co-director, Charles King as scenarist, and Conrad Luperti as co-cinematographer.