As a result, he received a commission as a midshipman in the Navy from President Martin Van Buren on February 10, 1838, and he was assigned to the USS Levant.

During the Civil War, he enlisted in the First New York Mounted Rifles and rose to the rank of sergeant before he was dishonorably discharged for drunkenness.

Through this connection, William and George Allen, Rebecca's brothers, became friends with Buntline when he arrived in Pittsburgh in December 1843, ostensibly to study law with his father, but in reality to start a literary magazine.

In August 1844, Buntline and Escudero relocated to Cincinnati, where Ned partnered with Lucius Hine and Hudson Kidd in an effort to purchase the Western Literary Journal.

[5] Estranged from his family and in financial straits, Buntline borrowed money from the Allen brothers and pawned his wife's jewelry to meet living expenses.

In October, William Allen hired Buntline as a hand on his steamboat, where Ned accepted a counterfeit $10 note and lost a barrel of whiskey.

In October 1844, the Knickerbocker published an article of Ned's titled "Running the Blockade" in which the hero of the story was William Allen.

In January 1845 with the assistance of the Allen brothers, Buntline relocated to Nashville, where Hudson Kidd secured temporary living quarters for Escudero while her husband went off to St. Louis for a time.

George Allen's journal of January 25, 1846, said that upon his return to Smithland, he went to visit Escudero and learned that she had died there days earlier.

[4] In 1847, the Boston publisher and dime-novel author Maturin Murray Ballou paid Judson $100 to write The Black Avenger of the Spanish Main: or, The Fiend of Blood, a melodramatic and violent pirate novel.

[4][8][9] Through his columns and his association with New York City's notorious gangs of the early 19th century, Buntline was one of the instigators of the Astor Place Riot, which left 23 people dead.

[10] After his release, he devoted himself to writing sensational stories for weekly newspapers, and his income purportedly amounted to $20,000 a year.

Later in life, he embellished his military career, claiming to have been chief of scouts in the Indian Wars with the rank of colonel, and to have received 20 wounds in battle.

Female bandits Little Britches and Cattle Annie, for instance, read dime novels, which allegedly aroused their interest in the Bill Doolin gang and may have propelled them into a life of crime.

[16] Stuart N. Lake wrote in Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal (1931) that Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Bill Tilghman, Charlie Bassett, and Neal Brown each received a Colt Single Action Army revolver as a gift from Buntline in thanks for their help in contributing local color to his Western yarns.

[17] The revolvers were said to be chambered in .45 Colt with 12-inch barrels, removable shoulder stocks, standard sights, and wooden grips into which the name "Ned" was ornately carved.

Modern researchers have not found any evidence in secondary sources or primary documents of the guns' existence prior to the publication of Lake's book.

[5] Massad Ayoob stated in Greatest Handguns of the World that "historians debate whether Wyatt Earp owned a 'Buntline Special' (author is inclined to believe that he did), but Colt manufactured many in the latter half of the 20th century".

[19] Dick Elliott played "Major Ned Buntline" in the 1935 film Annie Oakley with Barbara Stanwyck in the title role.

[22] Burt Lancaster played him (referred to as "the Legend Maker") in Robert Altman's 1976 film Buffalo Bill and the Indians.