The first reinforcements from the Department of Texas for the Great Sioux War arrived on the Northern Plains.
The units were two companies under Captain Sanderson who assumed command at the Cheyenne River Agency, Dakota Territory (Fort Bennett).
Sanderson retired retired early on April 2, 1892, and died less than a year later in 1893. He's not a well known frontier Army officer, but he must have been in ill health.
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The Horsemeat March began as Gen. Crook left the Powder River for the Little Missouri with only fifteen days rations for his command of 1,500 cavalry, 450 infantry, and 300 Indian and white scouts.
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A border incident on the Korean DMZ occured in which North Korean soldiers rushed American and South Korean troops and killed two Americans with primitive weapons.
South Africa announced a multiracial government was be created for South West Africa as it moved towards independence as Namibia. South Africa had been holding on to the territory under the cover of a British League of Nations Mandate following World War One.
Catholic Priest the Reverend Roman Kotlarz was beaten to death by the Polish secret police.
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Oh geez, here we go again:
Special Operations Command wants a 10-pound 5.56mm machine gun
Just recently I wrote a piece here about how it's really time for major reform in the U.S. Military, including a major scaling back of its size. This is more evidence of that.
Military funding is so thick that we've reached the point where about every two weeks some branch or command of the military requests a new small arm. It's frankly absurd.
The Army just recently adopted the M7 rifle and now is already looking at a M8 carbine based on the rifle. At the same time, it adopted a new machine gun. The M250. Both are in a new cartridge. The M7 was supposed to replace every variant of the AR15 (the M4 Carbine and the M16). The M250 was supposed to replace the M249 and the M240, thereby also getting everyone on to a new 6.5 cartridge.
Special Operations was supposed to get the new SIG M338, which shoots a variant of the .338 Win Mag. They are using the Mk 46, their own lightweight version of the M249.
Now they want a lightweight 5.56 machine gun.
The Marine Corps, for its part, has been so/so with the M7, and is using the 5.56 M27, a piston variant of the AR. The M27 takes the place of both the M4/M16 and the M249 in the Marines. It looked at the M7 and has rejected it.
The USAF uses the M4. There are airmen who depend on a longarm, but they're relatively few in number so it really doesn't matter what the USAF uses.
Anyhow, this is nonsense.
The AR platform rifles have always been problematic. At this point the ARs share the same distinction occupied by the late 19th Century "trapdoor" Springfields in being a weapon that was never very good, got people killed early on, but which has lingered on forever. Replacing it was a good idea.
The Army uses more longarms than anyone else and anything suitable for a soldier is suitable for a Marine. The Marine Corps should be made to get with the program.
Nobody needs a carbine. That's just stupid.
Nobody needs a 5.56 caliber weapon anymore. That's just stupid.
It's also a stupid waste of money.
For that matter, there being a M17 and M18 pistol is as well.
US military pistols tend to give me heartburn to start with, as the post Vietnam War history of them has been dumb. The M1911 never needed to be replaced, new ones just needed to be ordered. Congress forced the 9mm and that's how we ended up with the M9.
Having said that, the oddly unloved M9 is a good 9mm pistol. It really doesn't need to be replaced at all. Just as the M16 was never able to replace the M14 fully, the M9 was never able to fully replace the M1911, which started a late in the day comeback even seeing the Marines re adopt it for special use as the M45.
Because everyone now loves striker fired pistols, we decided we needed one and adopted the SIG in the form of the M18 and M17. That was bound to make Glock heads upset even though the Glock isn't that great of pistol, frankly. The myth of the misfires started but apparently that is now over.
I guess I can tolerate there being a M18 compact variant of the full size M17, but frankly that's a little stupid for the most part. I can see some use for it, but only some. Still, the USAF handguns are all M18s. The Navy and Marine Corps also use the M18, rather than the M17.
Anyhow, during the Cold War, Congress at one time had enough and required the services to use uniform equipment. After the Vietnam War that started to erode away.
It needs to come back.
Related threads:
Before World War One the size of the Regular Army was 127,000 men, up from 100,000 in 1914. In 1939, before the start of World War Two, the Regular Army had 174,000 men.
It's time to go back to that.
Donald Trump this week:
We aren't being served well by a professional military class at all, and if most of the fighting strength of the nation was in the National Guard and Navy Reserve, we wouldn't be in a mess like Iran now. If we did that, having a fortress at the White House would be pointless.
And frankly, it's pointless anyhow...
The ballroom is completely pointless. There's another large Washington facility that can fit this purpose. In short, the next President needs to scrape this monstrosity and fill the bunker in with concrete.
But let's take a little deeper dive into this.
Trump's building a bunker.
Just like Hitler did.
The Mexican War was also fought largely with wartime volunteers and state militiamen. The Army branch that really shined with the artillery, which was made of troops in the Regular Army, again pointing out what I've noted above. Much of the early western soldiering was done by the Corps of Topographical Engineers, which again demonstrates it. For regular grunt fighting, volunteers and militiamen worked just fine.
This was all proven again during the Civil War. Almost all the troops on both sides were wartime servicemen. Lots of notable officer in the war came right out of peacetime civilian careers. And notably a really large and bloody war was fought for the long-haul by men who had only state service before the war.
The National Guard's contribution to World War One was so large that the US would not have been able to fight the war without it. For that matter, the Mexican Border War coming right before it completely relied on National Guardsmen defending the border when the Pershing's Regulars went into Mexico. And again, in World War Two, it was the Regular Army and the National Guard that really kept things going until mid 1943. A lot of early U.S. Army commitments relied on the Guard well into Operation Torch. Frankly, the Guard was sacrificed to some degree as they were available and trained. As late as the Korean War, and only two years into the new defense structure, the entire service relied upon Guardsmen and Reservists to a significant degree.
So that establishment has worked.
After 1948, and more particularly after 1950, the US started to assume that it needed to be on a wartime footing all the time, and that lead to the massive Cold War military. The Cold War was the reason for that. The assumption was that if war broke out with the Soviet Union there wouldn't be time to mobilize, so the US had to be ready to go from day one.
The Cold War has been over since 1990. The current size of the Army is 453,000, down from 700,000 during the colder parts of the Cold War, but way up from what it was prior to the Second World War. The British Army, in comparison, is 109,410. The French Army, which has commitments all over the globe, is 264,000 men in size.
And I'm not including the Air Force, which didn't exist until 1947. Prior to that it was part of the Army. It has another 321,848 active duty personnel. Into that you have to add the Space Farce, the comical absurdity that has 14,000 personnel.
The Navy, before World War Two, had 160,000 personnel serving 790 active ships. It has 344,600 serving 480 ships now. That size is about right.
The active duty Army's and Air Force's is not. It's entirely too large.
And the structure is wrong. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, formed in 1942, cover every service including sub services of the services. It currently has eight members for what ought to be two services. Having a large body like that risks turning it into a sort of German General Staff.
It's the kind of body that thinks it should build bunkers. And its the kind of body that has the problem noted here:
The Second World War, which is now over 80 years ago, is the last really successful war the US fought. You can't say we've lost ever war since, although I've seen that claim made, but like a large colonial power, which aren't, or aren't fully, our professional military gets involved in a lot of smaller wars with dubious results. A lot of those bad results is that, at the end of the day, we look back upon the Second World War in Europe. We've been preparing to restage it ever since 1948.
Now, there was some real reason to prepare for that war, really, and it darned near actually occurred. There's still reason to prepare for it, even though Donald Trump has a titanic crush on Putin and loves him dearly, making him the least reliable ally of all time, but we're preparing for it like it's 1941 and not 2026, which also makes us unprepared for anything else. It also puts us in the mindset of a country that feels it needs to have a gigantic bunker at the White House.
Now, the contrary thread of thought here has been in place since the Militia Act of 1903, which formally committed the various state militias into being the official reserve of the Army. The Army hated that at the time, but after World War Two, and during the Cold War, it brought the National Guard up to speed. By the 80s the Guard was every bit as combat capable as the Regular Army is, and that's still the case. Today, the US really can't fight a big war without the Guard, and truth be known it can't even make its overextended foreign commitments without it.
It's time to take that one step further.
And by that, I mean back to the future.
The current size of the Army National Guard is 328,084. That ought to be brought up to an even 500,000, and the strength of the Army down to 175,000 active personnel. The Air National Guard has 106,000 personnel. The Air Force should be scaled down to about that size, and the Air National Guard up to about 400,000. Following that, the Army National Guard, the Air Force, and the Air National Guard ought to be folded into the Army establishment so there's no longer a seperate Air Force (or Space Force). The Marine Corps should fully go back into the Navy and the Coast Guard back to the Department of the Treasury.
The Air Force Academy ought to be closed and so should West Point. College ROTC programs can take care of training officers, and in an environment that doesn't lead to a military class. I'd leave the Naval Academy, and the Coast Guard Academy, there, as sea related stuff is unique. Being a soldier, frankly, isn't all that unique. I've been one.
With this, the Joint Chiefs should be scaled down to three, one Chief from the Army, one Chief from the Navy, and one Chief from the National Guard. The Chairman ought to always be a Guardsman.
Why all this?
Well, it's a lot harder to launch illegal foreign wars with a defense posture that's designed for actual defense, and not offensive warfare. We aren't going to attack another country if we have to call up a bunch of Guardsmen to do it. And we have less of a chance of becoming an imperial nation if we don't have an imperial military structure.
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.
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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.
Very respectfully
Your obedient servant
J. L. Poland
Captain 6th Infantry
Brevt. Lieut. Col. USA
Commanding
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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.
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The "Report of the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack" was released. The report absolved the administration from conspiring to bring about the Japanese attack and assigned blame to Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short.
U.S. Senators Homer Ferguson and Owen Brewster dissented, taking the position that President Roosevelt and his military advisors "were just as responsible for the nation's worst military disaster".
Red Chinese forces reached the region of Zhao Family's River (Zhao Jia Chuan, 赵家川) with little in the way of Nationalist forces to impede their further advance.
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Complying with a request from Congress, President Grant sent what information was known about the Battle of the Little Big Horn to Congress.
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Conservatives rebelled in Colombia over the Liberal government's attempts to secularize education.
This is a little hard to grasp in a modern context, but European Liberals at the time were deeply hostile to the Catholic Church and that attitude carried on into liberals in Latin America. Therefore, the liberals in charge in Colombia were hostile to the Church, and many Colombians were opposed to them.
Gen. Terry determined to coordinate his forces with Crooks and authored a letter to that effect. Three soldiers volunteered to carry the message, Irish born Pvt. James Bell, Irish born William Evans, and Benjamin F. Stewart. All three men would receive the Medal of Honor for their efforts, which were successful and which took three days.
They traveled mostly by night.
Bell was a carrier soldier, married in 1888, and spent his retirement in Chicago where he died in 1901. Stewart was remarkably suffering from injuries at the time and was discharged from the Army later that month for medical reasons. Evans was also a career soldier and apparently died while still in the service in 1881.
That two out of the three of the men were Irish was fairly typical for the Army at the time.
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