Annie Oakley: The Little Sure Shot Who Never Missed

Before the spotlights found her, before the crowds roared her name, Annie Oakley was just a small girl standing in the snow outside a log cabin in Darke County, Ohio. The year was 1866. The woods were quiet. The family was hungry. Her father had died when she was five years old. Her mother worked as hard as any person could, but eight children need a great deal of food. So little Annie, who was not yet eight years old herself, did what she had to do. She climbed up on a stool, lifted her father's long rifle down from the wall, and decided she would feed her family. The gun was almost as tall as she was. It was heavy. It kicked like a mule when it fired. But Annie had watched her father. She had listened. She had paid attention in a way that very few people ever do. She pressed the stock against her shoulder, aimed carefully at a squirrel in the branches above the yard, and she did not miss. She did not miss that day. She did not miss the next day. She did not miss for years. Annie sold the game she shot to hotels and restaurants all across the county. She was so precise, so steady, that the cooks said her shots never ruined the meat. She always hit cleanly. Store owners began asking for her by name. By the time she was fifteen, she had paid off the mortgage on her family's farm — every last cent — with money she earned from a rifle and a sharp eye. But the real test came in Cincinnati, in the winter of 1875. A traveling show had come to town, and with it came Frank Butler, a professional marksman who had never lost a shooting match. Someone arranged a contest. On one side stood Frank, tall and confident, a man who had performed before thousands. On the other side stood Annie, small and quiet, in a plain dress, holding a borrowed gun. The crowd expected Frank to win easily. They laughed a little when they saw her. Annie heard the laughter. She straightened her spine. Target after target flew into the air. Frank hit every one. Annie hit every one. They kept going. Twenty targets. Twenty-five. The laughter had stopped. The crowd had gone very still. On the twenty-sixth target, Frank missed. Annie lifted her rifle, breathed slowly out, and shot it clean from the sky. The crowd exploded. Frank Butler did something remarkable then. He did not make excuses. He did not stomp away. He walked over to Annie, shook her hand, and smiled with his whole face. He had just met the person he would marry the following year and spend his life admiring. Annie joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West show in 1885, and she became the most famous woman in America, perhaps the most famous in the world. She shot targets thrown behind her back, using only a mirror to aim. She snuffed candle flames with a bullet at thirty paces. She split a playing card edge-on from across the arena. Sitting Bull, the great Lakota chief, adopted her into his family and gave her the name Watanya Cicilla — Little Sure Shot. But Annie never forgot where she came from. She gave generously to charities. She trained young women to shoot, believing that a woman who could defend herself was a woman who was truly free. She never lost her manners, and she never lost her aim. When children asked her secret, she always gave the same answer. Practice, she said. Pay attention. Do not give up because something is heavy or hard. The rifle was heavy once. Keep lifting it. The snow-covered Ohio woods were a long way from the bright arena lights. But one steady little girl with a borrowed gun had crossed that distance, one careful shot at a time.