Ena of the Plains
- Matthew Kerns
- 3 hours ago
- 10 min read
In Savannah, Georgia, in the final days of 1868 and through the long summer of 1869, Ena Palmer’s life looked like something out of a Southern romance.
She was the adored daughter of a respected family, the beloved sister of protective brothers, and the newly engaged fiancée of a handsome young doctor—one of Savannah’s social elite. Her poetry had recently appeared in national magazines, and with her name in print and her future secured, it must have seemed as if the world was hers.
And then, without warning, everything fell apart.
On the night of August 24, 1869, Ena’s fiancé, Dr. Hilliard H. Harley, was murdered—shot in the neck while writing at his desk in a small building near the timber operation he managed, two miles outside of Brunswick, Georgia.
The assassin fired a full charge of buckshot through a crack in the wall—close range, brutal. Blood and brains spattered the boards behind him. Harley died within moments. The Governor of Georgia issued a $1,000 reward for the capture of the murderer.
There were others inside at the time—several men, including the sheriff of Glynn County. They heard the shot fired, but no one saw the gunman. But there was little doubt about who had pulled the trigger.
Dr. Harley had recently broken off his engagement with Ena Palmer. He had begun speaking ill of her, both privately and publicly—remarks that quickly reached her family. Ena’s oldest brother, William Herbert Palmer, confronted Harley directly. The encounter escalated into gunfire.
According to one Savannah newspaper, Palmer had fired several shots at Harley days earlier, wounding him in the confrontation. Harley survived and swore out a warrant for Palmer’s arrest.
But Palmer didn’t wait to be arrested. He watched and waited. And then, on the night of the 24th, as Harley sat writing at his desk, Palmer crept through the dark. He raised his weapon, aimed through the wall, and fired.
William Palmer was arrested soon after.
At trial, it became clear: he had killed Dr. Harley for slandering his sister. Palmer was convicted of murder, along with a named accomplice. But his lawyers filed an appeal, and he was released on $8,000 bond.
Then came the twist. Before the appeal could be heard, some of William’s clothing was found washed ashore along the Savannah River. Locals said he had jumped from a bridge—choosing death over a second trial. His body was never found.
Grief swallowed the Palmer family. So did shame. The scandal ruined any chance Ena had of a respectable marriage in Georgia. The family fled Savannah, hoping to begin again—somewhere far away, somewhere no one knew their name.
They weren’t the only ones starting over.
Weeks after the supposed suicide, a man calling himself William Herbert Miles stepped off a train in North Platte, Nebraska.
He spoke with a Southern drawl. He looked an awful lot like William Palmer. He took work where he could—hauling freight, tending stock—and became friends with men like Texas Jack Omohundro and Buffalo Bill Cody.
In the summer of 1872, the Palmer family arrived in Nebraska. When Ena stepped off the train, William Miles was waiting—with Texas Jack at his side.
That night, she wrote in her journal:
“I have been introduced to ‘Texas Jack,’ one of our ‘Western Heroes,’ and a fine picture of handsome, dashing, manly manhood he is. Certainly one of my beau-ideals of a hunter or a ‘Scout.’ Hope I shall see more of him and that I like his character as well as his face. But enough of this hero for the present, only that he now heads a party out on about as wild an adventure as even my wild brain could devise—viz.: lassoing buffalo, full-grown ones for the purpose of shipping them, alive on the train. Some say it is dangerous work; some prophesy not only broken arms and legs and crippled horses, but dead men as well as dead horses!”
On the Nebraska prairie, Southern belle Ena Palmer and her family tried their best to outrun the scandal that had driven them from Savannah. Her brother's murder of her fiancé, Dr. Harley, was not spoken of in polite company. Ena, for her part, filled her days with introductions to her brother's acquaintances on the Nebraska frontier and filling her journal with careful observations—especially of one man in particular.
She had quickly grown fond of the handsome cowboy turned scout, Texas Jack Omohundro. Every time they spent time together, she recorded the moment in ink, as if afraid that memory alone wouldn’t hold it.
They saw each other again soon after the buffalo-lassoing expedition. Jack had come to her brother’s home and, with a teasing grin, challenged her to a shooting match. He was known throughout the region as a crack shot, but whether it was a joke or not, Ena accepted with barely concealed enthusiasm—eager for any excuse to spend more time with him.
When he arrived to escort her to the contest, he presented her with a small embroidered bag—originally meant for trinkets or cosmetics, but repurposed to carry cartridges. In her journal, she wrote:
“He made a very graceful presentation in the way of a handsome toy-bag of China-work… I shall not have the courage to retain such a memento of my defeat, but give it back, with my pistol to boot!”
Under Jack’s watchful eye, Ena’s skill with firearms grew. She earned a local reputation as a formidable markswoman. She shot against Jack's friend Buffalo Bill and held her own. Jack also taught her to ride in true prairie fashion—nothing like the sidesaddle strolls of Savannah society. They rode fast, across open plains, his horse Tall Bull and her pony Falcon kicking up dust behind them.
One night Ena was ill and stayed at the Cody residence. Buffalo Bill was out on a scout for the government, so Texas Jack was staying in a spare room, as he often did when Bill was away. Ena worried in her diary that in a fevered sleep she might have embarrassed herself—especially knowing Jack was nearby. She wrote:
“I was delirious all night—talked or rather raved in my usual crazy style. Hope I said nothing mal à propos, as Mr. Omohundro slept in the adjoining room.”
Days later, after a windstorm tore across the plains, Jack helped her round up Falcon with his lasso, demonstrating how he would have caught the horse back in Texas. She was charmed.
“My—our—Western Hero made himself just as pleasant as possible. Delicate, yet kind and manly in his attentions.”
Still, Ena’s attentions weren’t his alone. Other men in North Platte took notice, including Dr. William Frank Carver, a newly arrived dentist from Illinois. Carver was ambitious, upwardly mobile, and soon hired Ena to assist in his practice. She began to see more of him—and less of Jack.
But her diary never stopped returning to the cowboy.
One entry recounts how, while walking with Dr. Carver through town, she spotted Texas Jack. Without hesitation, she left the doctor’s side and rushed to greet her Western Hero. Later, she fretted that her eagerness had embarrassed her.
She tried to arrange another ride. Jack agreed—but when he arrived the next day, it wasn’t to saddle up. It was to say goodbye. He would be joining the Pawnee on their summer buffalo hunt and expected to be gone for weeks.
And then, just as suddenly as he had left, Jack returned.
“I, very unexpectedly, received a call from Texas Jack… He remained but a short time; had a few Pawnees with him. Mr. Omohundro said that the Indians were in fine spirits; plenty of buffalo, and the papooses all fat.”
She asked one of the Pawnees if he feared riding through Sioux country. The warrior, unimpressed by the question, responded only with a gesture—tracing a line across his throat and declaring the Sioux “heap squaws.”
After the hunt, Ena heard talk that Texas Jack and his friend Buffalo Bill were considering heading east to start a theatrical company and star in a show. She laughed it off. The idea of her Western Hero on stage, in costume, seemed absurd.
She continued to see Dr. Carver. He began building a home near Medicine Creek. Meanwhile, the Eastern papers began to fill with stories of a dashing frontier scout turned celebrity—her own Western Hero, now sharing top billing with the famous—and famously beautiful—Mlle. Giuseppina Morlacchi.
As Texas Jack and Buffalo Bill's theatrical tour extended and the one-year anniversary of her arrival in North Platte approached, Ena’s tone in her journals shifted. In July, she wrote:
“Every day now is an anniversary to my weary life… One year ago I fancied that I had found that which would make me count the hours of life jealously. Perhaps I had, but it has slipped from my grasp or has been thrown away in madness. God only knows which.”
And the next day, the anniversary of the day she first met Texas Jack:
“Who, besides myself, thinks of this day with strange memories tugging at their heartstrings? When just one year ago today comes back with visions of tearful sunshine, dewy plains, and shadowed hillsides? And yet the doubt that I feel is my work, I fear.”
After that, her journal falls quiet. Weeks pass. Then months.
And then, a single clipping—cut from a newspaper, pasted between pages:
“Texas Jack was married last Thursday, at Rochester, NY, to Mlle. Morlacchi, a lady actress, reported to be very wealthy and beautiful. Such is greatness.”
With that last clipped headline, Ena closed her journal. Whether from heartbreak, weariness, or something she couldn't yet name, for nearly a year the pages remained blank.
But what followed was no quiet ending. It was the beginning of a chapter as rich in beauty—and as steeped in tragedy—as any that came before.
She had once been the belle of Savannah—poet, socialite, fiancée to a rising young doctor. But when her brother shot and killed the man she was to marry, shame and scandal engulfed her family. Ena Palmer fled the South, following her brother to start over on the open Nebraska prairie.
There, among buffalo grass and wide skies, she met Texas Jack Omohundro: scout, cowboy, and the first man to stir her heart after the ruin of her old life.
He tamed her wild pony, Falcon, and taught her to shoot. She dreamed, briefly, of what might be. But dreams are fragile things on the frontier.
Maybe because of everything that had happened to her in Savannah, Ena was cautious. She wasn't ready to commit to a life with Texas Jack. He rode away with Buffalo Bill and became a star. Ena remained in Nebraska—wondering if her "Western Hero" would return home wanting the quiet domestic life she desired. Her journal fell silent the day she learned he’d married a famous and beautiful ballerina from Milan.
She consoled herself, not by writing in her journals, but by firing her rifle. She taught Doctor Carver to shoot.
After months under Texas Jack’s tutelage, Ena was among the finest marksmen on the frontier—man or woman. She passed those skills on to the ambitious young dentist who now lived with her on Medicine Creek while building his own home. But their friendship—which Carver frequently asked to turn romantic—was uneasy. One journal entry, written after Carver’s pistol discharged accidentally in the house, captures her tone:
“I trust it will be a lesson for him; he is too careless with firearms.”
Carver became obsessed with the fame that he saw Buffalo Bill and Texas Jack achieve, and he pursued marksmanship with growing obsession. It was an obsession that did not interest Ena.
Where she wanted a home filled with warmth and laughter, Carver sought medals, fame, and headlines. When he left for California to join a series of exhibition matches, he begged her to come with him. She refused. He wrote to her, begging her to follow. She would not.
Instead, Ena met a man named David Coulter Ballantine—a powerful rancher and respected businessman. Confident in business, but shy in love, Ballantine admired Ena from afar. So she arranged to be camped one evening by the river, knowing he would pass by.
They talked until dawn on a bluff overlooking the valley. When he rode away the next morning, they both knew that their futures would be built together. They married in October 1875.
When Dr. Carver learned of the marriage, he refused to believe it. He bought a fine gold locket, set with a jewel the color of Ena's eyes, and boarded a train back to Nebraska. But when he arrived, one look into her eyes told him what she had already chosen. He placed the locket on her desk—beside a pistol once gifted to her by Texas Jack—and left without a word.
The Ballantines thrived. David was elected state senator. They welcomed two children into the world. In the summer of 1880, Ena read of Texas Jack’s death in Leadville and gently unearthed a picture he had sent her years before, posed in his stage costume. She hadn’t expected grief—but it came, just the same.
“She had long ago put to rest the broken dreams of a life with the dashing scout,” wrote Ena's biographer D. Jean Smith, “but she would never forget the buoyancy of his spirit, his quick, easy laugh, and flashing dark eyes. And yes, she could still shut her eyes and remember the easy touch of strong hands on her waist as he lifted her from her fiery little pony, Falcon.”
In her chest she kept a clipping of Jack's obituary from the Leadville Daily Chronicle:
“He was noted as a cool, intrepid Indian fighter, government scout and ranchman, but was never a desperado or even a quarrelsome man... His most intimate acquaintances refer to his kindly disposition and his exceptional muscular strength.”
Two years later, tragedy struck again.
Returning from a legislative session, David Ballantine tried to board a moving train. He slipped beneath the wheels and was crushed. He died soon after. He was 39. Ena was 33, with a six-year-old son and a daughter not yet two.
Still, she wrote that she had no regrets. When Dr. Carver partnered with Buffalo Bill to launch their grand Wild West show in 1883, she reflected:
“How thankful that I am as I am. The quiet dignity of my home life is worth a world of such as that.”
She turned over management of the ranch to a trusted local man named Washington McClary—unaware that McClary had long been quietly in love with her. They grew close. They married in early July 1884. Ena was pregnant with their child.
They left for a short honeymoon. On the journey home, their wagon struck a rut and overturned. Ena’s neck was broken. She lingered for several days before passing away. Her unborn child died with her.
She was buried beside her parents near Medicine Creek in Frontier County, Nebraska.
Ena Palmer’s life—like Texas Jack’s—was cut tragically short. Jack died at 33. Ena at 34. And yet, what she left behind still speaks.
Her journals—full of storms and sunsets, gunfire and laughter, heartbreak and prairie wind—survive in the Ballantine Family Collection at History Nebraska. They offer one of the most intimate glimpses we have into life on the Nebraska frontier after the Civil War. Through them, we remember not just the woman she was, but the many names she bore:
She was born Annie Eliza Palmer. Her brother nicknamed her Einna, spelling Annie backwards. When she wrote poetry, she called herself Annie E. Raymonde. To the Pawnee friends of Texas Jack, she was Pa-He-Minny-Minnsh—Little Curly Hair. Too briefly, she was Mrs. Ena Ballantine, beloved wife and mother. Briefer still, she was Mrs. McClary. But to history and posterity, she became something more.
Ena of the Plains.
