Editing Buffalo Bill (section)

== Medal of Honor ==
{{More citations needed section|date=April 2022}}
Cody was awarded the [[Medal of Honor]] in 1872 for documented gallantry above and beyond the call of duty as an Army scout in the Indian Wars.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.cmohs.org/recipients/william-frederick-buffalo-bill-cody| title=William "Buffalo Bill" Cody|publisher=Congressional Medal of Honor Society|accessdate=November 14, 2023}}</ref> It was revoked in 1917, along with medals of 910 other recipients dating back to the Revolutionary War, when Congress decided to create a hierarchy of medals, designating the "Medal of Honor" as the highest military honor it could bestow. Subsequent regulations authorized the [[United States Department of War|War Department]] to revoke prior Medal of Honor awards it considered not meeting requirements since the introduction of strict regulations promulgated under the 1917 law. Those regulations required the medal to be awarded for acts of bravery above and beyond the call of duty by officers or enlisted soldiers. The law was enacted days before Buffalo Bill died, so he never knew a law might rescind the medal awarded to him. 

All civilian scout medals were rescinded since they did not appear to meet the basic criterion of being officers or enlisted soldiers, which had been expressly listed in every authorizing statute ever enacted for the Medal of Honor. Cody was one of five scouts affected. Their medals were stripped shortly after Cody died in 1917.

Cody's relatives objected, and, for over 72 years, they wrote repeatedly to the [[US Congress]] seeking reconsideration. All efforts failed, until a 1988 letter to the [[United States Senate|Senate]] from Cody's grandson was received by the office of senator [[Alan K. Simpson]] of Wyoming,. There a newly assigned legislative assistant (K. Yale) took up the cause in 1989. The legal brief he drafted and submitted to the [[United States Department of Defense|Department of Defense]] on behalf of the relatives of Buffalo Bill argued that civilian scouts were technically officers, as their [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] counterparts were nominally scouts. However, the white civilian scouts were given the rank and pay of officers{{snd}}both for retention purposes. Also, scouts were the equivalent of "reconnaissance" for the military and thus provided highly valued services. In addition, a practical reason was to avoid mistaking them for opponents in skirmishes. 

Moreover, although civilian scouts might have normally been officers because of their highly valued skills, the military drawdown and related budget cuts after the Civil War left no billets available for the civilian scouts to fill, and thus they were relegated to a highly qualified status that treated them as valuable military assets without the designation or retirement benefits of officers. Nevertheless, they were treated as high-ranking military officials and had status of officers alongside their Native American brethren. The brief argued for retroactive restoration of the Medal of Honor to Buffalo Bill. The Department of Defense required the appeal to be adjudicated by the Army Board for Correction of Military Records. After months of deliberation, the Board agreed with the persuasive legal brief and made the decision to restore the Medal of Honor, not only to Buffalo Bill but also to several other civilian scouts whose medals had also been rescinded.

Long after the medal was restored, the decision was thought to be controversial for several reasons. Some people interpreted Simpson's submission as arguing that the law had never required Cody to be a soldier. However, this was not a key element of Simpson's brief. According to these interpretations, Simpson's submission cited a book, ''Above and Beyond'', to illustrate the lack of requirement to be a soldier. But, the legal brief acknowledged that Medal of Honor recipients had to be an officer or enlisted soldier. Another problem cited by some was the authority of the Board to contravene several federal statutes because the Medal of Honor revocation had been expressly authorized by Congress, meaning that the restoration went against the law in force in 1872, the law requiring the revocation in 1916, and the modern statute enacted in 1918 (it remains substantially unmodified today). However, the legal brief clearly did not suggest overturning of the law, but rather conforming the status of civilian scouts to that of other scouts similarly situated (source: copy of the actual legal brief, by the author).

Since the Board of Correction is merely a delegation of the [[Secretary of the Army]]'s authority, some suggest a separation of powers conflict, since even the president cannot contravene a clear statute and, although Cody's case was dealt with below the cabinet level, the legal brief was written in conformance with the statutes. Modern Medal of Honor cases originating from the board, such as the recent case of [[Garlin Conner]], required both executive action as well as a statutory waiver from Congress, which underscores the point that some cases might be in conflict with statutes.

In the Cody case, the board's governing assistant secretary recognized that it lacked the authority to reinstate the medal directly, and so decided to return the case to the board for reconsideration. As a result, the board amended Cody's record to make him an enlisted soldier{{snd}}aligning it with the legal argument that civilian scouts were the equivalent to officers or enlisted soldiers{{snd}}so that he would fall within the legal requirements, and did the same for four other civilian guides who had also had their medals rescinded. In doing so, the board overlooked the fact that Cody was a civilian guide with far greater employment flexibility than a soldier, including the ability to resign at will.<ref>{{cite book| first= Dwight |last= Mears| title= The Medal of Honor: The Evolution of America's Highest Military Decoration| year= 2018| place= Lawrence, Kansas| publisher= University Press of Kansas| pages= 174–180, 192 |isbn= 9780700626656}}</ref> Nevertheless the Board did recognize the value that all scouts provided, whether Native American or otherwise, and that they volunteered to put themselves in harm's way (e.g. Buffalo Bill saved the lives of several soldiers by rushing onto an active battlefield and pulling them to safety while under fire) instead of pursuing less demanding civilian jobs.