Pvt. Thomas W. Stivers, 7th Cavalry, having completed almost five years of service, was discharged.
What's unusual about this?
Well, he's later be awarded the Medal of Honor for his service at Little Bighorn.
Voluntarily brought water to the wounded under fire.
And he was discharged in the field, at the mouth of the Rosebud. He was from Kentucky, and returned home, somehow.
And he was dead by the time he was awarded the medal.
He was from Kentucky, and went back there, where he died at age 26 the next year.
Oddly, he was almost the exact same age as William M. Harris who was also from Kentucky and also returned home, although I don't know when he was discharged.. He'd die at age 34 in 1885.
Harris also won the Medal of Honor for the battle.
Typical frontier soldiers life. Five years, still a private, discharged in the field to make his way home. HE seems to have never married, and was given a notable headstone. Harris' was basically lost.
Henry Mike Reeve Carroll, who went by Henry Reeve, died in combat against Spanish troops in Cuba at age 26, where he had gone from revolutionary volunteer in 1869 to the rank of general in a Cuban revolutionary army. He was a prior child soldier in the Civil War, in which he's served as a drummer.
The Ten Years War was the cause he died in, which lasted from 1868 to 1878. The Cuban revolutionaries would lose the war and Cuban independence would come about, instead, as a result of the later Spanish American War, which up until the current war with Iran stood as the war fought by the US on the least justifiable grounds.
The 5th Cavalry arrived at Goose Creek in Wyoming to reinforce a resting up Crook's command.
Congress approved a joint resolution prohibiting the supply of metallic cartridges to "hostile" Indians, appreciating already that the Battle of Little Bighorn had featured effective native use of cartridge arms.
Frankly, this is appalling. Native Americans were defending their home grounds and this is the very basis of the Second Amendment. Of course, natives were not citizens at the time.
We can't help but note, however, that freedom's brave sentinel, the National Rifle Association, has been fascism's craven lap dog since 2016. I'm confident that if Donald Trump asked us to surrender our arms, the NRA would demand it.
A funeral notice appeared in Deadwood.
Died in Deadwood, Black Hills, August 2, 1876, from the effects of a pistol shot, J. B. Hickock [sic] (Wild Bill) formerly of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Funeral services will be held at Charlie Utter's Camp, on Thursday afternoon, August 3, 1876, at 3 o'clock P. M. All are respectfully invited to attend.
Notice placed by Charlie Utter in the Black Hills Pioneer.
Almost the entire community attended the funeral.
Utter was a close, and even doting, companion of Hickock's. He was an unusual frontiersman, being a family man (he had married his wife when she was only 15 years old) and at 5'6" tall he was meticulous in his appearance, sporting long black hair, a moustache (as any real man would) and wearing hand-tailored, fringed buckskins, fine linen shirts, beaded moccasins, and a large, silver belt buckle. He carried a pair of gold, silver, and pearl ornamented pistols.
He would not allow anyone into his tent, under pain of death.
Most unusual, he bathed daily.
Steve [unknown] and Charlie Utter at the grave of Wild Bill Hickok.
He later lived contemporaneously in Leadville when my great grandfather and great grandmother lived there. Following that, he went to Durango, after having sadly divorced his wife. He ultimately moved to Panama, where he died blind, and remarried, in 1913.
It's really odd to think that my great grandparents, and hence my grandmother on my father's side, whom I knew and loved dearly, where part of all of this in some extended way.
James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok was murdered in Deadwood by Jack McCall in Saloon No. 10.
Hickock normally sat with his back to the wall so that he could observe the room, but had been unable to. He twice asked a person he was playing cards with to switch seats, but his fellow would not exchange.
McCall had been leant money by Hickock the day prior.
McCall would be tried twice for the murder and was executed by hanging in March, 1877.
I realized in posting this that my view of this matter has been heavily colored by the movie Little Big Man, which is an excellent movie, and an outstanding book, but it's very inaccurate as to this event, which features in it. For one thing, I had no idea that the murder was after the Battle of Little Bighorn, and indeed was close in time to it, which shows how rapidly Deadwood was growing as a town and have quickly white settlement was encroaching on the Black Hills. In the film, the murder occurs before Little Bighorn, which I had not previously given much thought to.
Additionally, the killing was somewhat random. McCall had only met Hickock the day prior.
Colorado was admitted into the union as a state. It was the 38th state.
My own family has a long association with Colorado. My father's grandfather moved to Leadville area to work as a miner right about this time. He switched to shopkeeping shortly thereafter. My grandmother and her siblings were born in Victor. My own father was born in Denver, which the family left shortly after he was of school age.
The Social Democratic Party and Socialist Labor Party merged to create the Socialist Party of America.
Donald Trump reacted with glea, giving him a phony baloney issue to campaign on (he was already 70 years old at least). Chuck Gray cried.
This Socialist Party, a real Socialist Party, lasted until 1972, at which time it became the Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA), which is sort of ironic in that one of the parties that merged to form it had been the Social Democratic Party.
The original US Social Democratic Party had been formed in 1898, basically at the dawn of socialism in the United States as a serious movement. It was not as old, however, as the Socialist Labor Party, which had formed in 1877.
Symbol of the Socialist Labor Party,
People like Der Fibber seem to have just discovered Socialism, with Trump himself being by far the most Socialist President the country has had since the Great Depression, but the US had a strong Socialist movement at one time. It no longer does, and the Social Democrats USA only have marginal influence on the country's politics at all at present by running as progressive Democrats. At one time, particularly following the collapse of the Progressive Party, which had evolved out of the Republican Party, Socialist seriously contended with the two main parties as a force in American elections, although they were always distinctly a minority third party.
Theodore Roosevelt was, of course, the most famous member of the Progressive Party, and that party advanced some ideas that would be regarded as Socialist by modern bed wetting Republicans. However, Roosevelt at the time noted that it was necessary to carve the best concept out of the progressive left so as to avoid true Socialism. That principal still applies. It was applied, of course, most broadly by the Democrats during the Great Depression, bringing in some socialist concepts such as Social Security. Franklin Roosevelt co opted quite a few socialistic ideas during the Depression, many of which retreated post World War Two, although even such diverse Presidents as Harry S. Truman and Richard Nixon attempted to bring in national health care, something every advanced economy brought in following World War Two save for the United States.
Outright socialism, in which the state owns the means of production, was advocated in a form by Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, but it took until Donald Trump until it was advocated for in the really crude socialist form. In that sense, Trump is outright the most socialist president the country has ever had. If socialism is a really bad idea, and for the most part it is, Trump is a socialist and is advocating for it.
Given that, the adoption of the Republican Party of the color red is really appropriate.
Continuing the dispossession of Native Americans from their land, Department of the Interior began the process of drawing for allotment of land applications in the former Kiowa and Comanche Indian nations in Oklahoma.
Some of the Sioux combatants had given their version of Little Bighorn to an Indian agent which passed them on to the Army post at Landing Rock in the Dakota Territory. It was quite accurate
Headquarters USA Military Station
Landing Rock Dakota Territory July 24, 1876
To the Assistant Adjutant General
Department of Dakota
Saint Paul Minnesota
Sir
I respectfully report the following as having been derived from seven Sioux Indians just returned from the hostile camp (July 21st), some of whom were engaged in the battle of June 25th with the Seventh cavalry.
The agent, of course, makes no distinction between them and the other Indians at the agency. He sent them word to keep quiet and say nothing. To the other Indians, he sent or delivered personally the instruction that they must not tell the military of the return of Indians from the hostile camp, nor circulate reports of the operations in the late fight.
The Indian account follows: The hostile were celebrating their greatest of religious festivals -- the Sun dance -- when rumors brought news of the approach of cavalry. The dance was suspended, and a general rush, mistaken by Custer, perhaps, for a retreat -- for horses' equipment and arrows followed. Major Reno first attacked the village at the south end and across the Little Bighorn.
Their narrative of Reno’s operations coincide with the published accounts how his men were quickly confronted, surrounded, how he dismounted, rallied on the timber, remounted and cut his way back over the ford and up the bluffs, suffering considerable loss, and the continuation of the fight for some little time, when runners arrived from the north of the village, or camp with the news that the cavalry had attacked the north end of the river, three or four miles distance.
The Indians about Reno had not before this shown the slightest inclination of fighting at any other point. A force large enough to prevent Reno from assuming the offensive was left, and the remaining available force flew to the other end of the camp where finding the Indians there, successfully driving Custer before them; instead of uniting with them, they separated into 10 parties and moved around the flanks of his cavalry.
They report that he crossed the river but only succeeded in reaching the edge of the Indian camp. After he was driven to the bluffs, the fight lasted perhaps an hour. Indians have no hours of the day, and the time cannot be given approximately.
They report that a small number of cavalry broke through the line of Indians in their rear escaped, but was overtaken, within a distance of five or six miles and killed. I infer from this that this body of retreating cavalry was probably led by the missing officers and that they tried to escape only after Custer fell.
The last man that was killed by two sons of a Santee Indian "Red Top" whom was a leader in the Minnesota massacre of ’62 and ‘63.
After the battle, the squaws entered the field to plunder and mutilate the dead.
A general rejoicing was indulged in and a distribution of arms and ammunition hurriedly made. Then the attack on Maj. Reno was vigorously renewed.
Up to this attack, the Indians had lost comparatively few men, but now they say their most serious loss took place. They give no ideal of numbers but say there was a great, great many. Sitting Bull was neither killed nor personally engaged in the fight. He remained in the counsel tent, directing operations. Crazy Horse (with a large band) and Black Moon were the principal leaders on the 20th June.
Kill Eagle, chief of the Blackfeet at the head of some 20 lodges, left the agency about the last of May. He was prominently engaged in the battle of June 25 and afterward upbraided Sitting Bull for not taking an active personal part in the engagement. Kill Eagle has sent me word that he was forced into this fight, that he desires to return to the agency and that he will return to the agency if he is killed for it.
He is reported actually on the way back to get his father. The agent made confession to receive absolution for his defiant actions against the hand that has gratuitously fed him for three years. He is truly a shrewd chief, who must have discovered that he who fights and runs away may live to fight another day.
The Indians were not all engaged at one time; he says reserves were held to replace losses and renew attacks unsuccessfully. The fight continued until the end of day when runners, kept on the lookout for other units, reported a great body of troops (Gen. Terry’s column) advancing up the river.
Lodges having been previously prepared for a move retreated in a southerly direction followed toward and along the base of the mountains. They marched about 50 miles, went into camp and held a consultation where it was determined to send to all the agencies reports of this success and to call upon them to come out and share the glories that were expected in the future. Therefore we may expect an influx of overbearing and imprudent Indians to wage by force perhaps, a succession to Sitting Bull's demands.
There is a general gathering in the hostels camp from each of the agencies on the Missouri River, Red Cloud and Spotted Tails, as also a great many northern Cheyenne and Arapahos.
They report for the benefit of their relatives here that in the three (3) fights they have had with the whites, they have captured over 400 stand of arms, carbines and rifles (revolvers not counted) and ammunition without end, sugar, coffee, bacon. And hard bread. They claim to have captured from the whites this summer, over 900 horses and mules. I suppose this includes operations against soldiers, crow Indians and Black Hills miners.
The general outline of this Indian report coincides with the published reports. The first attack of Reno began well on the day, say the Indians. They report about 300 whites killed. They do not say how many Indians killed.
A report from another source says the Indians obtained from Custer’s command 592 carbines and revolvers.
I have since writing the above, heard the following from the returned hostile. They communicated as a secret to their friends here the information that a large party of Sioux and Cheyenne were to leave Rosebud reservation, or the hostile camp for this agency, to intimidate and compel the Indians here to join Sitting Bull, and if they refused, they are ordered [to] kill soldiers there and steal [their] ponies. Of course, any attempts by the military or whites will provoke an attack upon the post, although that secret, or so much of it has not been revealed to friends of the hostile.
I shall report any additional news received from reliable Indian sources as soon as obtained.
The commander of Camp Sheridan, Nebraska, Captain Henry M. Lazelle, wrote to his superiors stating:
While believing that there will be no trouble here with the Indians at this agency, two more companies should be sent to this post. The Indians are evidently much excited.
The post Little Big Horn blame game increased when the New York Herald published an article relating the supposed view of Custer, perhaps penned by him, that Reno had been cowardly in scouting the Tongue River and suggesting his court martial. The article stated:
Letter from a Prominent Officer
Killed in Custer's Last Charge
Reno's Contempt of Orders
Something for Sherman and Sheridan To Investigate
Bighorn Expedition, on Yellowstone River
At the mouth of the Rosebud,
June 22, 1876
Gen. George Armstrong Custer MY LAST LETTER was sent from the mouth of Powder River and described our march from the Little Missouri. I fear it may not have reached its destination, or if it did it was in such a condition as to be illegible owing to a sad accident which befell our mail party. The latter consisted of a sergeant of the Sixth Infantry, Hazen's regiment, and two men of the same command. This party was to take the mail of this expedition on a small boat from the mouth of the Powder to Fort Buford at the mouth of the former. Just as the sergeant [Fox] with the mail bag on his arm stepped aboard the small boat and was about to push off the boat overturned, throwing all hands into the water. The sergeant at once disappeared below the surface and was never afterward seen. The other members of the party, being experienced swimmers, were, with the assistance of bystanders, rescued from a watery grave. When the sergeant disappeared in the water the mail sack went with him, but fortunately floated between the steamer and the shore, before sinking below the surface. By means of boat hooks the bag and its contents were recovered, but not until they had been under water several minutes. When opened on shore many of the letters were found opened by the influence of the water, and all the stamps displaced. Captain Grant Marsh, of the steamer Far West, the most popular steamboat captain on the Upper Missouri, took the mail in charge, and, with the aid of his assistants, devoted almost an entire night to drying and sealing the contents of the mail bag, a task they completed in time to start the mail on its journey at four o'clock the following morning. The sergeant who lost his life had been twenty-two years in the army, and had but recently returned from Washington, where he had been to file his application for appointment as ordinance sergeant, that appointment being considered the crowning ambition of the most faithful old soldiers.
Major Reno, whose departure with six companies of the Seventh Cavalry to scout up the Powder River was mentioned in my last letter, moved under written orders, which in substance directed him to scout up the Powder River as far as the mouth of the Little Powder, then across to the headwaters of Mizpah Creek, down that creek to near its mouth, then across to Pumpkin Creek, down that stream to its junction with Tongue River, then down Tongue River to its mouth on the Yellowstone, where he was informed the main part of the expedition would be by the time of his arrival at that point.
In the opinion of the most experienced officers it was not believed that any considerable, if any, force of Indians would be found on the Powder River; still there were a few, including Major Reno, who were convinced that the main body of Sitting Bull's warriors would be encountered on Powder River. The general impression, however, is and has been, that on the headwaters of the Rosebud and Little Bighorn rivers the "hostiles" would be found.
It was under this impression that General Terry, in framing the orders which were to govern Major Reno's movements, explicitly and positively directed that officer to confine himself to his orders and instructions, and particularly not to move in the direction of Rosebud River, as it was feared that such a movement, if prematurely made, might "flush the covey," it being the intention to employ the entire cavalry force of the expedition, when the time arrived, to operate in the valleys of the Rosebud and Bighorn Rivers. Custer and most of his officers looked with little favor on the movement up the Powder River, as, among other objections, it required the entire remaining portion of the expedition to lie in idleness within two marches of the locality where it was generally believed the hostile villages would be discovered on the Rosebud, the danger being that the Indians, ever on the alert, would discover the presence of the troops as yet undiscovered-and take advantage of the opportunity to make their escape.
Reno, after an absence of ten days, returned, when it was found, to the disgust and disappointment of every member of the expedition, from the commanding general down to the lowest private, that Reno, instead of simply failing to accomplish any good results, had so misconducted his force as to embarrass, if not seriously and permanently mar, all hopes of future success of the expedition. [Note: it is not true that Reno returned from the Powder River expedition "to the disgust and disappointment of every member of the expedition, from the commanding general to the lowest private." Neither Sgt. Dan Kanipe or Private John McGuire's accounts of the Powder River foray indicate any "disgust" at all.] He had not only deliberately, and without a shadow of an excuse failed to obey his written instructions issued by General Terry's personal directions, but he had acted in positive disobedience to the strict injunctions of the department commander. [Note: in his eagerness to wrap himself in the mantle of his commanding officer, Custer (or his mouthpiece) neglects to mention that Custer was himself arrested by Terry twice before the expedition got to the Powder River for trying to advance too far ahead of the main column, according to John McGuire.]
Instead of conforming his line of march to the valleys and water courses laid down in his written orders he moved his command to the mouth of the Little Powder River, then across to Tongue River, and instead of following the latter stream down to its mouth, there to unite with the main command, he, for some unaccountable and thus far unexplained reason, switched off from his prescribed course and marched across the country to the Rosebud, the stream he had been particularly cautioned not to approach.
He struck the Rosebud about twenty-five miles above its mouth, and there -- as Custer had predicted from the first -- signs indicating the recent presence of a large force of Indians were discovered, an abandoned camp ground of the Indians was found, on which 380 lodges had been pitched. The trail led up the valley of the Rosebud. Reno took up the trail and followed it about twenty miles, but faint heart never won fair lady, neither did it ever pursue and overtake an Indian village. Had Reno, after first violating his orders, pursued and overtaken the Indians, his original disobedience of orders would have been overlooked, but his determination forsook him at this point, and instead of continuing the pursuit and at least bringing the Indians to bay, he gave the order to countermarch and faced his command to the rear, from which point he made his way back to the mouth of Tongue River and reported the details of his gross and inexcusable blunder to General Terry, his commanding officer, who informed Reno in unmistakable language that the latter's conduct amounted to positive disobedience of orders, the sad consequences of which could not yet be fully determined. The details of this affair will not bear investigation.
A court-martial is strongly hinted at, and if one is not ordered it will not be because it is not richly deserved. The guides who were with Reno report that the trail where the latter was abandoned indicates that the Indian village of 380 lodges was moving in such deliberate manner and left so recently that Reno's command could have overtaken it in a march of one day and a half. Few officers have ever had such a fine opportunity to make a successful and telling strike and few ever failed so completely to improve their opportunities.
Gen. Alfred Terry, who assigned a scout, George herendeen, to watch Gen. George A. Custer. Of course there was but one thing to do and that was to remedy as soon as possible the effects of Reno's blunder. Custer's entire command, consisting of twelve companies of the Seventh Cavalry and a detachment of Indian scouts arrived at this point yesterday evening, where the steamer Far West, with General Terry and staff on board had already preceded them, General Terry having transferred his headquarters to the Far West before her departure from the mouth of Powder River. Gibbon's command was encamped on the left bank of the Yellowstone, opposite the mouth of the Rosebud.
Yesterday, Terry, Gibbon and Custer got together, and, with unanimity of opinion, decided that Custer should start with his command up the Rosebud valley to the point where Reno abandoned the trail, take up the latter and follow the Indians as long and as far as horse flesh and human endurance could carry his command. Custer takes no wagons or tents with his command, but proposes to live and travel like Indians; in this manner the command will be able to go wherever the Indians can. Gibbon's command has started for the mouth of the Bighorn. Terry in the Far West starts for the same point today, when with Gibbons force, and the Far West loaded with thirty days' supplies, he will push up the Bighorn as far as the navigation of that stream will permit, probably as far as old Fort C. F. Smith, at which point Custer will reform [rejoin?] the expedition after completing his present scout. Custer's command takes with it, on pack animals, rations for fifteen days. Custer advised his subordinate officers, however, in regard to rations, that it would be well to carry an extra supply of salt, because, if at the end of fifteen days the command should be pursuing a trail, he did not propose to turn back for lack of rations, but would subsist his men on fresh meat-game, if the country provided it; pack mules if nothing better offered. The Herald correspondent will accompany Custer's column and in the event of a "fight or a foot race," will be on the ground to make due record thereof for the benefit of the Herald readers. Upon the march from Powder to Tongue River, Custer, who was riding at the head of the column as it marched through a deserted Indian village of last winter, came upon the skull and bones of a white man. Near these was found the uniform of a cavalry soldier, as shown by the letter "C" on the button of the overcoat and the yellow cord binding on the dress coat. Near by were the dead embers of a large fire; showing, with attendant circumstances, that the cavalryman had undoubtedly been a prisoner in the hands of the savages, and had been put to the torture usually inflicted by Indians upon all white men falling into their hands as captives. Who the unfortunate man was and the sad details of his tragic death will never be known.
Court martials were nearly routine in the Frontier Army, with officers constantly leveling charges against each other. Custer himself had been court martialed in 1867 and found guilty of being absent without leave, having abandoned his post to visit his wife, and for his harsh treatment of deserters. He had been suspended from active duty for a year.
A courier from Crook's command arrived at Ft. Fetterman with details as to his actions.
With the primaries just a month away, I was visited at the front door by a politician for the first time. A local candidate who has run once before. He's been to the door before, and didn't recall it.
It's interesting in part because he doesn't remember me, pretty clearly, but I know him. He was in my high school graduating class and was one of those guys who was on the periphery of my circle of friends. Indeed, he was one of those odd very nice people you know that aren't quite within anyone's circle of friends, but almost are, so they're like satellites, sort of. Something that I recall about him from back then is that he was in amazingly good shape and was the only male gymnast I knew. He still appears to be in amazingly good shape.
What I also recall about him is that he was one of the very few far right Evangelical Christians that I knew in those days. Wyoming is the least religious state in the United States and Evangelicalism, as the time, was very rare. In my actual circle of friends everyone was either Catholic, Mormon, or Mainline Protestant, but I'd also note that the Mainline Protestants were not very observant, if you will. Or, more properly, they weren't very church going, with some exceptions, of course.
That was typical for Wyoming at the time.
Anyhow, I've had a belly full of the far right in this state and last time anyone campaign related showed up, young people paid, most likely, to distribute WFC propaganda, I gave one of them such a blistering that I could tell he was scared.
He deserved it, punk.
Anyhow, I was nice this time. Can't be harsh to an old classmate.
On the change here, at this point my old classmate has more company, really One of the things about the the last large oil boom is it brought in a flood of people. Usually, in the past, when oil booms ended those people went home, which was often home to Texas and Oklahoma. This time lots of them didn't, for a variety of reasons I suspect. One is that the landing of the economic crash was softer. Another was that winters have been much warmer. Winter used to drive a lot of people flat out away.
Anyhow, many of these people were Bible Belt protestants and they often appear not to realize that they're a tiny minority of the world's Christians. Indeed, not only are they are minority, but they often hold views that in early eras of Christianity would have been regarded as heretical. Heretics, we might note, were often extremely aggressive about spreading heresy, and often these folks are pretty aggressive about their views, which of course is their right.
One such example shows up in an editorial by Campbell County legislator John Bear. Bear is a member of the WFC and a member of a tiny Evangelical denomination. He's a carpetbagger from Missouri. He wrote an editorial to the Cowboy State Daily complaining that on the county's 4th of July parade his organization, whatever that was, had been precluded from handing out copies of the Constitution and the Bible. People from up there, in seeing his post, wrote back that 1) the parade was dedicated to the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution or Christianity, 2) that they in fact did pass out New Testaments and copies of the Constitution.
I don't know what actually happened but I'll admit that if I'd been there and somebody handed me out copies of either, and of course I am an Christian, I'd be uneasy. Partially I'd be uneasy as this group of people have a low regard for the real Constitution and have a view of Christianity that is minoritarian and aggressive. Their Bibles, additionally, omit part of the Canon of the Bible, and they tend not to even know that.
I also am cautious here as frankly this group gives Christianity a bad name, in my view. One of their members, since voted out of office, but trying to get back in, asserted during a legislative session that we are not our brother's keeper. A pastor associated with the movement was one of the primary opponents of the bill to raise the marriage age to something rational, and you couldn't help but feel really uneasy about that. There's nothing in Christianity that says it's nifty for girls younger than 16 years of age to get married.
On that, I've recently been amused by some editorials, and I'll be vague on them, by the same protestant pastor heaping praise on somebody he probably doesn't know lost his family due to screwing his secretary and then trying to claim that his children understood in a public setting they were at.
They didn't.
Anyhow, the changing religious landscape here has had an impact on politics, and not in a good way, even if I'm glad that people are attending some church.
One regional politician who I'm sure attends not a church, but a stake center, is Deseret Mike Lee. Lee is a radical right wing populist. He posts constantly about the SAVE act and stuff like that, but I really wonder how much people really know about him.
John D. Lee.
Lee is a direct descendant of John D. Lee, one of the key figures of the Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857. Mike Lee even bears a pretty close resemblance to his ancestor facially.
John D. Lee was a Mormon zealot in the LDS's early days. He was also a central figure in the early LDS of that day. He was not just some LDS immigrant to Utah. We've discussed Mountain Meadows elsewhere, but it was a flat out murderous slaughter in the name of religion of a type that you very rarely actually see. People often claim that occurs, but reality, it's phenomenally rare. Here's an actual example.
Lee was eventually charged with murder in 1874. He was executed at Mountain Meadows for his crimes in 1877. The LDS have always maintained that they were not responsible for the murders in an organized way. I.e., they've always maintained that the church didn't sanction or commend the killings to occur. They may very well not have, and given the factors of time and distance of the 19th Century, they likely did not. Still, it took two decades for the cries of the murdered to be addressed and there's always been some lingering suspicion that Lee was a scapegoat. That's more or less the view taken by the Netflix series American Primeval, which while a historical drama doesn't pretend to be strict history. Brigham Young is portrayed as a really bad guy in it.
John D. Lee nineteen wives and fifty six children, which is flat out absurd. Eleven of Lee's wives left him during the course of their marriages.
One of those fifty six children was John Doyle Lee, born in 1851, before Mountain Meadows. His mother was Lovina Lee who had married John D. in 1847. That same year, John D. married Mary Lee, her sister. Both Lovina and Mary are buried in a the same plot in Arizona, where the John D. family ultimately located.
John Doyle Lee was one of eleven children by two wives. His first wife died at age 31. He was an Arizona rancher. One of those children was Rex Lee, who died in 1934 in a hunting accident, leaving his second wife (his first had died) pregnant. She would name their son Rex Lee. She would remarry and have three more children.
Rex Lee, the younger, became a prominent Republican politician, lawyer and BYU academic. He served as United States Solicitor under Ronald Reagan. Mike Lee, his son, has sort of followed his path in that he's also an academic, lawyer and Republican politician.
Mike Lee, while it's been nearly 150 years since his great, great grandfather's death, appears to have acquired not only his facial appearance, but a certain type of zealotry.
It's hard to say this without instantly being accused of being bigoted. The truth is, however, that the LDS are a much more diverse religion than people think they are. Many Mormon "beliefs" aren't canon at all, and are more in the nature of theological opinions. It's not really the case, for instance, that all Mormons are polytheists. Even regular common practices, like abstaining from caffeinated beverages, aren't really church law.As a result, you can have fairly devout Mormons who don't hold those views. You can also have those who very strictly hold the traditional views. The deeper you go into the Jello Belt the more common the really traditional views, save for Salt Lake City, ironically, which has a majority non Mormon population.
I don't know Mike Lee personally, but there's every sign that he holds the very traditional views, one of which is that there's a finite number of souls that were created at the bigging of the creation of our world, and that the sooner they all get on the Earth, the second coming will arrive.
Now, Mike Lee has only three children, so that cuts against this argument somewhat. But he also is a pro development zealot that is sort of explained by this. Lee would rape every square inch of the West if allowed to. Houses, mines, whatever, you name it, he's for it.
And he holds sort of a pan West view of this, which fits into his heritage. Originally the LDS hoped for their own state, the State of Deseret, which would have included a much greater expanse of the West than Utah.
Lee had a fit recently went the Pentagon didn't include the LDS as a Christian religion, which it isn't, in the list of Christian religions. It was pretty clear that Lee felt betrayed, which he wasn't. The Pentagon went back and fibbed for him, the GOP rewarding him for his loyalty, but changing that.
The views Lee holds about public lands and the West aren't really limited to the LDS by any means, we should note. James Watt, Reagan's Secretary of the Interior, believed that the Second Coming was going to come extremely soon so there should be no holding back on using every resource immediately. No need to conserve anything.
We're still here, of course, and Watt is dead.
Watt received a fair amount of portrayal as a weirdo. That must have pained other Evangelicals who didn't hold his views and I suspect there's a fair number of LDS who feel the same way about Lee. Likewise, there's probably a fair number of Christians up in Campbell County who feel that John Bear doesn't speak for them.
Indeed, this raises the interesting point of outliers defining a group to outsiders. Mitt Romney is probably more representative of the views of most Mormons than Mike Lee, but most Americans don't know anything about the LDS and by 2028 Mike Lee is going to seem like the definition of a Mormon to many people.
I get stuff like this in regard to being a Catholic, often by people who really hate Catholics. "You must be one of ten children". Nope, I'm of one. Just yesterday a colleague I've worked with for nearly 40 years, and who has asked me about grade school before, was in a conversation with another colleague who is moving their children out of the local Catholic school. She and her husband are not Catholic. My old colleague turned to me and said "you went to St. A's"
No, I didn't. Neither did any of my numerous Catholic cousins. I'm a practicing Catholics and, therefore, I guess it must be the case that I went to Catholic school.
A minor example.
I'm not going to vote for my old colleague. He doesn't appear to fit into the WFC, but I can't really tell what he's for. He's for jobs, which everyone says.
And I like our serving representative, who is definitely not a WFC member.
The candidate visiting got me to thinking about another person who sort of was in the orbit of my circle of friends back in those days. She was a quiet and mousy friend of the sister of one of my friends. I had a crush on the sister. Later she reappeared in the orbit in law school, as she was the friend of a girl I was dating and just somebody in the class behind me. I got to know here somewhat better then. The very definition of a preppy, people in her circle called her "muffy" as sort of derogative nickname.
After law school she came back to Casper and practiced here for awhile. Something happened, I don't know what, and she not only left the practice of law, but actually took the extraordinary step of contacting the bar and having her name removed from the list of those barred. I.e., she not only was a practicing lawyer who wanted on the inactive list, she wanted off the list entirely. She's the only person I've ever know to do that.
After she left, she went back to Kansas where she'd graduated as an undergrad and worked in basically a clerical job. I lost track of her, but looked her up sometime last year. Too late, she'd died of cancer at age 58. She'd never married. Her obituary states she "will be remembered for her commitment to 4-H and her love of rabbits." I actually hadn't known she was in 4-H, or that she loved rabbits.
Ab Saunders, Charlie Bowdre, Doc Scurlock, Frank Coe, and George Coe stormed the Lincoln County, New Mexico jail, removed horse thief Jesus Largo, and hanged him. All of those men would be later part of the Lincoln County Regulators that famously included Billy the Kid, who was already associated with them.
Today In Wyoming's History: July 17: 1876 The battle of Warbonnet Creek occured in which Col. Wesley Merritt and his 5th Cavalry, out of Fort Robinson, Nebraska, attack the Cheyenne in the vicinity of Fort Robinson. The battle launches Buffalo Bill Cody into fame.
Cody famously killed Chief Yellow Hair (not Hand), Heova'ehe, in what was a very small scale skirmish.
On board the U.S.S. Hartford, Philadelphia, Pa., 16 July 1876. Showing gallantry, Costello rescued from drowning a landsman of that vessel.
Born in 1850, Costello would live until 1887, dying at age 37, maybe. Or he may have remained in the Navy until 1902, have become a Warrant Officer, and died in 1908. I hope it's the latter.
